A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 1

Prologue

My life changed during my seventh Thanksgiving. As with other holidays, we celebrated it with Boarders.

My father, Edward Houseman, taught History at the Morton Academy, a very prestigious and very expensive school in Connecticut. He was also the author of several books including Our Father’s Lives, about the Founding Fathers in the decades before the Revolution, which became one of the most popular entry-level American History textbooks.

My mother, Marion Russell Houseman, was one of the Russells, one of the two original families that founded the Morton Academy in 1882. The family had lost a great deal in the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and was somewhat faded, but Mom had been a Morton Girl and Columbia graduate with Honors in History, where she met my father, a quietly intense student from New Hampshire.

Yes; it was all very preppy, very New England, very Old School.

I was born Benjamin Russell Houseman, after a difficult pregnancy. I was carried high, with a heart rate of 150, and the ultrasound never showed any genitalia. Everything indicated that I would be a girl, but then everything indicated that I would never be born at all–my mother developed symptoms that indicated an ectopic pregnancy. Fortunately, a visiting doctor from England had only recently had a similar case and realized it was not ectopic but was dangerous. I was small and frail and things were touch-and-go for a time, but both my mother and I recovered by my first birthday. My mother’s overall health had been affected and she quietly moved from being an active tennis player to a stay-at-home homemaker. She began working on a history of her family and the Morton Academy.

The Morton Academy had been a girl’s school until the 1960s and co-educational ever since, although it was strange to consider the addition of male students as ‘co-eds’. It was originally a beautiful brick mansion some miles outside of Hartford that grew and grew over the years, and had quietly produced the wives of senators and bank presidents, and once co-education and feminism hit in the Sixties, it produced senators and bank presidents of both sexes–also two movie stars and a few novelists and one particularly notorious hedge fund trader.

As with similar institutions, it had split into three parts; Lower, Middle, and Upper Schools, which would translate in public school terms as elementary, middle, and high school. My father taught American History to the Uppers. Our house was two miles from the school, last of the Russell legacy, a rambling eight-bedroom affair that was on the state’s historic homes preservation list. Most of the rooms were storage for family and Morton memorabilia. Our lives centered around Morton.

There were two divisions of students; Day and Boarders. There were very few Day students because the tuition was upwards of $25,000 per year. Boarders were the rule, with tuition and board starting at $46,000. The draw was the school’s quiet prestige, outstanding academics, and the student accommodations were much more comfortable than other private schools. In addition, one of the alumni had become a microchip billionaire and had given a huge endowment of technology to the school. Consequently, the century-old school was now absolutely cutting-edge in computer-related fields.

My father used the powerful internet capabilities available to him to research his last book, Changing Fortunes, about how wealthy families had guided America’s cultural direction until the influence of New Money and the 1929 Crash affected their stewardship–as the blurb on the book cover said. It was short-listed for a National Book Award for Non-Fiction, although it lost to that one about Jackie Onassis–who had been a Holton-Arms and Miss Porter’s Girl.

Actually, there were divisions within the divisions of students. There were the wealthy and the super-wealthy, of course, but also the ones who were driven and the ones who were slack, the ones who wanted to change the world and the ones who wanted the safe comfortable world of their families’ estates, and so on.

Among the Boarders were students who were rarely at school; they spent every possible moment with their family. Usually this was out of deep love and close-knit families, but often it was an excuse for other activities. Skiing at Aspen or Cortina, snorkeling in the Maldives, attending the Oscars or Wimbledon. And of course, they were gone at every holiday, returning tanned and full of stories.

But there were also Boarders who had quite clearly been tucked away at Morton and rarely left the campus. They were out of the way because of family problems–divorces among the wealthy were usually spectacularly vicious–or because they were embarrassments to the family in one way or another. The dorky boy that just didn’t fit the image of the heir to a sportswear empire, for instance. Or the inconvenient child that got in the way of a single parent’s sexual escapades.

I document all of this because of the influence of my parents, genetically and socially, and my observations.

Chapter 1: Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving on the campus with those Boarders who stayed. At the time I was a small but precocious seven-year-old with few friends. I loved my father but spent more time with my mother; I helped her cook and loved helping her in the Library. On this Thanksgiving, I was helping out in the kitchen, carrying things in as best I could to the students and the few faculty families. There were only two Lower School kids there; usually the Forgotten Ones–as my father called them at home–were older. Six more were Middle and four were Upper. The Uppers usually found ways to get invited to friend’s homes.

One of the Lowers was a skinny red-headed boy who was fighting to keep from crying. Mom whispered to me that his parents were divorcing and this was his first holiday away from home. There was also a chubby girl with glasses and stringy black hair.

She appeared at my side as I slipped. I was carrying a bowl of mashed potatoes; somebody had splashed something on the floor and I hit the wet patch with my heel. I started to go backward and there she was stabilizing me. I grinned and thanked her.

She grinned back. “You can do the same for me some time. I’m Shelly. You’re Jenny, right?”

I started to correct her that I was called Benny but my mother had seen my near-disaster and called out, “Honey, are you alright?”

“Yes, Mom,” I nodded. “Shelly saved me.”

“Then bring the potatoes over. Mr. Hanson is starving!” she teased the gangly Upper boy seated near her.

I promptly responded and only when I set the potatoes down did I realize that I hadn’t corrected Shelly’s misunderstanding. And then I was fetching and carrying; my family and the few other faculty people had a rule that the regular kitchen folks should have the day off. Most of them were home with their local families anyway, but we did the lion’s share of the cooking and serving and it was a nice tradition.

My father was probably the most loved of the teachers present, at least by the four Uppers who knew him, but everybody seemed to know of him. He wasn’t the most senior present, though; that was a mathematics teacher named Mr. Stoat. I thought it was a Wind in the Willows type of name, and he was a beefy, red-faced man that Mom had said ‘was going through a tough time’. I didn’t know what but, at seven, I was already learning about divorce and drinking as the two most common ailments of adults. Mr. Stoat sat at the head of the table and often mopped his sweaty face with his napkin, deferring to my father to be the principal coordinator of the festivities.

We sat around and prayed, a non-denominational prayer delivered by my mother. Ordinarily this would be the role of Mrs. Carey, the head of the school, but she was having hip surgery. Since my mother was part of the school’s history–although no longer active at the school–it was fitting that she perform the duty.

Afterward, we went around the table with the ritual of each of us telling one thing we were thankful for. With a glance at Mr. Stoat, my father allowed that we had to be truthful but could be lighthearted. He began by saying he was thankful that the Patriots quarterback was healthy. This was kind of funny because my father was definitely not a typical football fan; he was an academic with a build that I’d heard called ‘slight’. But the New England Patriots–and the Red Sox–were his sports passions.

It cleared the air; usually people are embarrassed to say things like, ‘I’m thankful for the love of my parents’–the sort of thing that would be expected to be said but was clearly awkward given that the students here were the Forgotten Ones. One-by-one we went around the table. One teacher said she was thankful that her back problem was easing up. One student said he was thankful that he finally understood quadratics–although we figured that was trying to butter up Mr. Stoat, who only nodded. He’d said he was thankful for ‘this excellent Pinot Noir’.

I was probably a goody-two-shoes; I said I was thankful that I got to be with my parents but that I also got to have a larger family–all of them. That earned me some ‘aws!’ and a ‘that’s so sweet!’ from Shelly and a thrown crouton from an Upper who joked about ‘Hallmark cards.’

After he was disciplined with a slight cuff on the head, it moved on to Shelly.

“I’m thankful my mom’s in rehab.”

There was silence and I realized that nobody was sure how she meant it.

She looked up and said, “No, this is a good thing. She …drinks. So when she realized how bad it was getting, she checked into that place in Malibu.”

People then nodded their understanding that this was a good thing, and the conversation moved on. I was close enough to hear her quietly add, ‘Just hope it works this time.’

It was a long and busy meal with little conversation; we were largely strangers or co-workers, and I was the only one with his whole family present. But the food was good and other than the Lower boy knocking over his milk, everything flowed nicely. The students were elected to clear the table and while we were doing that, I came up to Shelly and said softly, “I hope it works for your mom.”

She gave me a sad smile. “Thanks, Jenny. Hope so, too. You’re pretty cool for saying that.”

“It’s, uh, Benny, actually.”

“Benny? What’s that short for?”

“Benjamin.”

“Why do you have a boy’s …” Her eyes widened. “Omigod! I’m so sorry! I thought you were–”

I raised a hand. “It’s okay; I’m used to it. No problem.”

As we went back into the dining area, I evaluated the situation. Morton Academy was elite but not super-strict, in the sense that while students wore uniforms and faculty wore coats and ties, they allowed longer hair and even beards and mustaches on the senior boys that could grow them–but only with faculty approval. My light brown hair was parted in the middle and swept back behind my ears. It was entering what Mom called its ‘Winter Long’ stage, where it was at my collar in back. The students at the dinner were in casual clothes–which didn’t mean jeans or sweats; it meant slacks and skirts–but most wore variation of the uniform.

For boys and girls, shirts were either white or light blue. The girls’ blouses had Peter Pan collars, and both boys and girls wore polo shirts in white or light blue. Slacks for boys and girls were Navy blue or khaki and girls wore Navy blue skirts, although there was a push on for khaki skirts for Spring. The school blazer was Navy and boys wore the school tie, a yellow-and-blue Repp style, or girls could also wear blue ribbon ties. The athletics uniform was blue shorts and light blue t-shirts and there were heather gray sweats. There were two sweaters, heather gray or Navy V-necks, and of course almost everything bore the school’s crest.

Shelly wore Navy slacks and a light blue blouse with a ribbon tie. I wore Navy slacks with the white polo. We were about the same height but she looked like she weighed two of me. That wasn’t a comment on how fat she was as much as a comment on how skinny I was, combined with her stockiness. I was already familiar with how strangers perceived me–they’d often told Mom, ‘Your daughter is so pretty!’–so I knew that I had a face that Mrs. Carey had once called ‘angelic’.

The funny thing was …I didn’t squirm when these things happened. I didn’t freak out; I didn’t yell ‘I’m a boy, darn it!’ at them. I didn’t really feel like a boy; I mean, I could look at Peter Hanson the Upper and think it was like we were two different species. Even the kid that knocked over his milk seemed alien compared to me. I was a small, quiet child of small, quiet parents and quite content with that. But Shelly’s thinking that I was a girl rocked me. It wasn’t the casual passing thing of strangers complimenting Mom; it was right up-front and in my face and the strangest thing was that I felt a connection to her or with her. There was just something about her eyes when we looked at each other …

Students drifted off back to their rooms and faculty left for their homes but we were faced with the large lump that was the senior faculty member. Mr. Stoat had accounted for at least a bottle of Pinot, I overheard my father say. So he coaxed Mr. Stoat up from his chair and to his car and loaded him into the passenger seat. My father had already gotten Mr. Stoat’s keys to drive him home, with Mom and I following in our family car.

We were right behind them at a red stoplight. Mom pointed out that my father was looking at us in the rearview mirror. We waved to him and he waved to us. The light turned green. He pulled forward with us following and suddenly a black sports car flashed in from the left, running the red light at full speed. Mom started to shout just as the car hit Mr. Stoat’s car at the driver’s door.

Chapter 2: Four Years Later

“God, I was worried you wouldn’t be here!” Shelly squealed with glee as we hugged for the first time that fall.

“Where else would I be?” I chuckled. “You look great!”

She did, too; her mother’s routine was to dump her in a ‘fat farm’ each summer and each fall she returned to Morton tanned and maybe a little less chubby. But our last year of Lower had been hell; we eyed the Middle kids with envy. Shelly wanted desperately to be popular but so far her closest and only friend was me, and I was no great shakes in the popularity department.

Shelly and I were the smartest kids in class and universally disliked and distrusted because of that. As more than one kid angrily told us, we ‘blew the curve’ for them. With my background, I was best in English, History, Art and Drama, French and Journalism. Shelly was the Science, Math, Health, and Information Technology whiz. Yeah, we were the class nerds. So other than one or two kids in each class who were friendly, we spent our time together. And we were content.

We spent so much time together you’d think we’d get on each other’s nerves or at least bored with each other, but we didn’t. Shelly had kept me going in the year after my father’s terrible death, and this past Christmas Shelly’s father walked out. He’d always been a sort of mysterious figure; I’d never met him although I’d seen photos of her mother. Tanned, taut, leathery, dripping with gold jewelry and absolutely devastated that she had to waste a moment smiling at the camera. There had been a young guy in the photo with her, ‘her driver’, although they’d been sitting by a pool, so no driving was being done. So it looked like a divorce made sense. The father wasn’t Shelly’s biological dad; he was her mother’s third husband–the second that Shelly had known–but she’d known him the longest and it was the speed with which her mother had dumped him that hurt. And her mother was oblivious to Shelly’s hurt; she was already preoccupied with landing the next one. Shelly noted that her mother ‘had the knack’ of marrying rich and divorcing richer.

But that Christmas split had rocked her. She was staying at Morton over the holidays, of course, one of the Forgotten Ones, in my dear father’s words. That was okay with us because we got more time together. With permission from Mrs. Carey and Shelly’s mother, she came to stay with Mom and me–after all, we had eight bedrooms! It was a very sad time for Shelly but a very happy time for both of us.

The second morning, Mom had sat us down and told us that, unfortunately, we were getting older. It was no longer ‘proper’ for a young girl and a young boy to be together as we were.

Shelly looked at me–one of her laser-direct glances–and turned back to Mom and said, “What about two young girls? Is that proper?”

Mom made a small smile. “Shelly, you know what I mean.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Shelly nodded, her eyes wide. “And you know what I mean.”

Mom looked at me, saying nothing.

It was no secret that I should have been a girl. All of the old wives’ tales predicted a girl. Heck; all of the medical evidence had predicted a girl. I was small and thin; even with the most rigorous weight training program I might grow to be ‘slight’, as my father was. But I was delicate–really the best word for it. At ten, I was 4'3", thin-boned, with light brown hair pulled back in a school-acceptable ponytail now. Large blue eyes; clear, almost milky skin. A high voice. My testicles had not descended and my penis length was only two of my fingers’ width, although my mother did not know that Shelly knew that.

My mother did know that Shelly and I acted like two girls when we were home. Correct that–we didn’t act like girls; we simply were ourselves. And we were just two girls. It was getting increasingly difficult to separate how we acted when we were alone together, from how we acted at school. In other words, there was some bleed-through, as Shelly called it. We’d be at lunch and she’d say something and I’d giggle and a nearby boy would mumble ‘fag’. Once she’d been showing me some new earrings, holding her dark hair back, and I leaned close to see the tiny gold knots, and an Upper girl passed by and mumbled ‘lezzies’.

We had fun; we got each other, and we had each other’s backs. We competed one-and-two in every class but were both genuinely happy for the other.

We were best girlfriends; BFFs–except that I was male.

Mom sighed. “The two of you …you’ve been so happy together. But I’m afraid that as much joy as you’ve had, you’ll have as much or more heartache as you get older.”

There was a look of such sadness on her face; I knew her statement also applied to her life with and then without my father. I put my hand on hers. She smiled sadly.

“Oh, sweetie, you can always tell, can’t you?”

“I miss him, too,” I said, simply.

There was a long moment, and then Mom patted the back of my hand. “As I was saying, I think that you two had better realize the world will be changing for you.”

“We do,” I said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Shelly said. Then she said, “Mrs. Houseman …you know that …” She frowned. “You know about Jenny.”

Mom nodded.

Ever since that first meeting at Thanksgiving when Shelly had mistaken the name Benny for Jenny, we’d kept that as a special name between us. In the mourning period for my father, I’d somehow moved from being Benny to being Benjamin to the rest of the world. But Shelly still called me Jenny and I loved her for it. She loved that I called her Shelly …also because her mother only called her Michelle.

Mom said, “This is an extremely …delicate situation, a very complicated adult situation you’re talking about.”

Shelly shook her head. “With all due respect, ma’am, I disagree. Jenny is …” She turned and looked at me and smiled, then turned back to Mom. “Your child is a girl. Female. Always has been and always will be.”

Mom sighed. “I will acknowledge that Benjamin is somewhat …feminine.”

I felt Shelly close to exploding and headed her off. “Mom? I’m more than somewhat feminine. There’s a lot of things I haven’t told you because …well, you’ve been so sad for so long. Or so busy.”

To offset flare-ups of grief, my mother would go on binges of projects, usually involving intense research. One time it was about the regiment that a Russell had served in during the Civil War. Another time it was the development of the tea ceremony in Japan. Once it was the evolution of Victorian-era wallpaper patterns–really!

Mom simply said, “I …have to keep the wolves from the door.”

The ‘wolves from the door’ was an old pet phrase of my father’s, even when everything had been fine. We really needn’t fear ‘the wolves’ as far as I knew; a friend of my father’s had set her up as a consultant and researcher–by internet and phone–and she had an actual client list and worked from home. The wallpaper thing had grown out of one such consultancy, for a Yale professor’s book on Victorian England; she’d been paid for her research but then went off on her own tangent with the wallpaper. There was money from my father’s insurance and some other money, and the Morton Academy paid the founding families dividends in perpetuity. And as a founding family member, I attended absolutely free, as my mother had. It was the only way we could have afforded the school, and I was receiving a superior education.

Shelly looked at me and then squeezed my hand. It was her ‘trust me’ squeeze. “Mrs. Houseman, I said you know about Jenny. But you don’t …excuse me; you don’t really know her. She’s too worried to tell you herself.”

Mom was rocked by the female pronouns; she actually twitched.

Quickly I said, “Mom, it’s true. I don’t consider myself a boy. I never have. I consider myself a girl.” I felt Shelly’s disapproval and shook my head. “No, it’s more than that. I am a girl.” Shelly nodded.

Mom said slowly, “Well, you do spend a lot of time …” She faded out. “Oh, dear; I wish your father were here.”

I put my hand on hers and said, “So do I, Mom. Every minute of every day. And I know you’re hurting and that’s one reason I never said anything but …” I looked at Shelly and back to Mom. “You said it yourself. Feminine. Not effeminate. And …more than ‘somewhat’.”

I looked at Mom to see how she was taking it. I added, “And Mom, if my father were here, I would tell him all of this right now. In fact …I probably would have told both of you years ago.”

“When did you …how do you …know …” Mom said, looking at me neutrally.

“The first that I learned there were two kinds of people, boys and girls, when I was really little? I knew. I mean, I knew that there were boys …sort of over there …and there were girls. Like us. I was just like you. I was going to grow up just like you.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” Mom said, her lip trembling.

“I loved Daddy, but he was this …other, you know? And it was okay, because I saw how it was the two of you, together to–” I realized what I was saying would hurt. “Mom, I’m sorry; this is painful. But you have to understand. I saw that it was the two of you that made us all one. That’s why you’re hurting so much; it’s not just him that’s gone–it’s that part of you that he made up.”

Tears formed. Shelly produced a tissue from somewhere and handed it to her. Mom dabbed at her eyes and sniffed. “You’re only ten years old. How’d you get to be so wise?”

“She’s just like that,” Shelly said with a grin.

Mom gave an odd look at Shelly, who just shrugged.

I went on. “Mom, it was only when I started at Morton that I was forced to be put in the boy side of things. And in my head it’s always been forced.”

“You don’t say anything about it,” Mom pointed out. “You act as if everything’s normal.”

“That’s the acting,” I said. “Every day it’s rubbed in my face that I can’t be the girl that I am inside. And thank God for Shelly, because she knows the girl I am, and I can be myself with her. Otherwise I’d just …explode.”

Shelly said, “I knew it the first time I met her, back at that Thanksgiving. I know I misunderstood ‘Benny’ and said ‘Jenny’, but I could tell she was a girl. So it was kind of funny to see everybody treat her like a boy.” She chuckled. “Still is, kind of.” She grew serious. “But you said it, ma’am, we’re growing older and the world is changing and all that. And it’s time that she grows up!” Shelly pointed to me.

Mom looked at me and asked, “Are you dressing up like a girl?”

I blushed. “No, not really. I mean, I have tried on a skirt and …skimmers.”

“Skimmers? You mean the shoes?”

“Yes, Mom. Flats. But I haven’t worn anything outside or–”

Shelly jumped in. “Don’t blame her; I made her. I was going crazy because I could see how much it hurts her to be a boy every day. And I just thought I’d make her feel better about herself. So I had her put on the school skirt, you know?”

“How did she …he look?” Mom asked.

“She. Well, it backfired,” Shelly said, looking sadly at me. “I thought it would cheer her up, you know? But it made her miserable. It was like teasing. And I really didn’t mean that!”

“I know you didn’t, sweetie,” I said back to her. To Mom, I said, “It was like a peek at what could be–what should be–and it just …hurt.”

The three of us were silent for a time. Mom looked past us, thinking.

And at that moment, the phone rang. Mom answered automatically. “Houseman. Yes, it is. Oh, hello Mrs. Benton. Yes. I’ll put her–oh.” She listened. Her eyes darted to Shelly. “I see. Yes. An hour? I understand. She’s right here; should I–I see. Alright, then, Mrs. Benton.” She hung up and looked at the phone a moment.

Then she turned to us, frowning. “Shelly, your mother is sending a car to collect you in one hour. Please gather your things; she said she’ll be keeping you until school starts in January.”

“But I only just got here!” Shelly cried, and then shook herself. “Alright. Alright. I think I …I think I know what’s going on. I’ll pack.”

She turned to go to her room. I followed. “Shell? Can I help you?”

“Sure, Jen, it’s just …” She sighed and leaned against the wall. “I think she’s split from Tom. I thought he might be the keeper.”

“You liked him.” He was husband number four; now he was history.

She shrugged.“He was okay. Actually, more than okay; he was so okay that I wondered what he was doing with her.” She frowned. “What’s that thing they do, the settlers …come on, you’re the history buff–circle the wagons. That’s what she’s doing. Only it’s just protecting her investments, I guess. Or she wants me for sympathy. Or to have somebody else to yell at.”

“Aw, sweetie,” I said, going to hug her.

Mom came into the hallway. I turned to Mom. “It’s not fair. She’s only going to be hurt, and it’s Christmas time!”

Mom gave me another sad look. “I know, sweetheart. But I want to tell her mother when she gets here that Shelly is welcome here any time. Forget about what I was talking about earlier. You’re always welcome, Shelly.”

“Thank you, ma’am, only …well, two things. First thing, you were right. The times they are a changing, and please, please, please …let Jenny come out to live in the world. And the second thing is …you won’t talk to my mother. She’s sending a car; she’s probably in Manhattan or Malibu. Or in a bar.”

She’d said this last with such bitterness that Mom and I looked at each other, worried. Shelly went into her bedroom and began emptying the drawers that we’d filled only the night before. She did do one thing that shocked me. She’d brought a lovely Christmas dress for when we were all going to see The Nutcracker ballet in Hartford the following week. It was bright red with white faux fur trim. Actually, knowing how wealthy she was, it was probably real fur; some endangered white fur and outrageously expensive.

Shelly took the dress out of the closet, turned to her suitcase and then turned to me. Looking at my mother in the doorway, Shelly walked up to me and held the hanger up in front of me, in the way of girls everywhere holding up clothes to see how they’d look.

Mom gasped; her eyes went wide and her hand went to her mouth.

Shelly murmured, “She’d look so pretty …”

She looked at my mother with so much intensity, and only then took the dress, folded it and laid it in the suitcase. A few more items and she was done; she closed the suitcase. I ran up to grab it. And it wasn’t being macho–it certainly wasn’t–because when I dragged it off the bed it almost pulled me to the floor.

It broke the mood and we all cracked up.

Chapter 3: Middle School

Shelly had cried for the first time when we spoke on Christmas day. She’d always been strong, acting as if her mother’s continuing soap opera didn’t affect her. She said that it was different this time, though; she was very aware of my mother’s warning about things changing. And she missed me, and I suddenly realized that she had been looking forward to her time with us as a brief oasis of normalcy.

When she came back in January, she was subdued. And finishing up our Lower years was surprisingly tough. The reason was that with the three divisions–Lower-Middle-Upper–there were students that came for only one or two divisions as well as the few that went all the way, as I would because of the free tuition. Consequently, there was a last-ditch preparation for students that would be moving onto another prep school. Mrs. Carey, of course, wanted the other prestigious elite schools to be impressed with Morton Academy students. So we all paid for it with a heavy load of schoolwork.

That Christmas had been very flat and lonely, because of Shelly’s departure. She’d brought energy to our house and we’d planned to have so much fun together. And …we were going to try to get Mom to accept Jenny. With Shelly ripped from us so quickly, it wasn’t discussed any further. But several times I found Mom giving me long thoughtful looks.

And without discussing it, but by mutual subconscious connection, we did not go to The Nutcracker.

The school workload helped keep me distracted–even as I was increasingly distracted by the girls around me. Some of the girls, even at ten or eleven, were getting curvy or developing breasts. I felt a pang when Shelly showed me her budding nipples. She’d simply said, “Yours will, too, sweetie.”

But it seemed like it might be a childhood dream, never to be realized. Like some kids that wanted to be astronauts, or the next Donald Trump–aside from the few kids whose parents could buy Donald Trump–perhaps becoming a girl–actually living as a girl–would become a dream I set aside as I grew up.

There was a little transition ceremony, bridging from Lower to Middle–or ‘outta here’, as one boy snickered–and I felt a cold fire burning inside with envy and shame. Envy at the pretty white dresses of the girls, and shame for feeling that envy.

And then came summer, and Mom had managed a two-week arts camp for me in Vermont. The rest of the summer I read, I helped Mom at home and with her research, and I read. And in between, I read. The arts camp was full of genuinely arty kids and others, like me, that …well, weren’t athletic. There were nature hikes and such, but they’d usually wind up squatting on the ground and sketching wildflowers. I spent most of my time doing digital photography, uploading and fooling around in Photoshop. I had a small laptop at home but used the more powerful hardware and software to take several photos of me and ….selected campers. Well, they were selected because they were girls–but not for the usual pornographic reasons. I worked in secret, extra hours, with a file at the ready to drop into place if anybody came in. I did all sorts of things; I found some websites that sold girls’ clothing and was able to superimpose the outfits on the shots of my full body–sort of like high-tech paper dolls! The shots of the girl campers I would use to try superimposing my face in girl situations.

All of which was bordering on the perverse, I thought. But it was also painful. That cold fire of envy and shame never seemed to leave me.

Finally school started and I was waiting at the entrance as the limousines and SUVs pulled up with returning students. And then Shelly got out of a Town Car and I couldn’t help it; I squealed and ran to her and we hugged and giggled.

“God, I was worried you wouldn’t be here!” Shelly squealed with glee as we hugged.

“Where else would I be?” I chuckled. “Oh, Shell; you look fantastic!”

What had happened was not the results of the fat farm–in fact, she hadn’t even gone to one! As we walked to her room–the driver getting her bags behind us–she said that she’d been dragged from Manhattan to Paris to Rome to Aruba to Detroit–huh?–and some other places. She’d called me a couple of times and emailed a lot but they were pretty much ‘How’re you doing?’ because she wasn’t impressed with her own wealth and didn’t waste time going on about her lifestyle. The moving around was due to business, with her mother consolidating bits and pieces of the empire that she ignored the rest of the time, and also because she was just bored. And maybe there were eligible young men to be sought out.

But in all the dragging around, Shelly had been thinking about my mother’s statement that the world was changing, we were growing up …and Shelly realized that she couldn’t rely on her mother for, well, anything. Including her weight. So in Manhattan with lots of free time, she’d sought out a nutritionist, on her own. They’d put together a program of exercises specifically for her body and metabolism, and they put together menus that she could use for both hotel room service and restaurants, since they always stayed and ate at the most expensive places that were equipped to provide anything a guest desired.

Now, she was entering Middle as lean and as tight as any girl there. Her hair was very chic with a ragged cut–with all the wealth at Morton haircuts were fabulous! as girls often shrieked–and she kind of looked like the Twilight actress Kristen Stewart. But she didn’t look at all like the chubby little pre-teen of the past year. I suddenly worried that she was moving forward, away from me.

As soon as the driver deposited the bags and left, Shelly took my hands and sat me down on the bed.

“How are you, Jenny?”

I was so grateful that she’d called me Jenny right off the bat, like nothing had changed, that it brought a lump in my throat.

“Okay.” I smiled. “Better, now!”

She bounced on the bed. “And your mom?”

“Good. Doing a thing on Amazonian Indians right now.”

Shelly looked sad. “Still doing those projects?”

She meant the ones that Mom threw herself into to distract her from her grief over my father. But this wasn’t one of them. “No, it’s a contract project. She’s …well, she will never forget my father, but I think she’s more focused now.”

“Did she ever …” She frowned. “You never said anything about it, but did she ever talk about you being Jenny?”

I shook my head and studied my hands. “No. We never talked about it. Not once.”

“But she knows!”

“Yeah, but …” I sighed. “No progress.”

“And what about you?”

I knew what she meant. We still seemed on the same wavelength.

And suddenly I was crying. Sobbing.

We sat on her bed, her arm around me, shushing me and hugging me, handing me tissues from her purse. Finally I got myself together.

“Think I got my answer,” Shelly finally said.

I sighed deeply. “If I had one wish, one super genie-sized wish, it would be to have my father alive. If I had a second wish, I would have been born a girl. To be your best girlfriend.”

“Aw, sweetie! You are my best girlfriend!”

“Aw!” and we did another hug.

When we broke the hug, Shelly gave me a very strange grin.

“So …Jenny …” Shelly began, with the grin remaining. “What would you do to be a girl?”

“To be a girl? You mean, like, start living as one, all the time?”

“Yep.”

“Almost anything. I’d …” I sagged. “I want it so much. And I think Mom does, too.”

“Are you sure? Because I really like your mom and don’t want anything to hurt her, either.”

“Thank you for that, Shell. Um …I think that …well, you know how she was kind of resisting the idea, back at Christmas? Before you had to leave?”

“I didn’t think she was resisting as much as she was sort of stalling. Like she wanted to see what we’d say.”

“Yeah, I think so, too. Like maybe she knew more than she let on …And then your mother called.”

“And spoiled everything. Her trademark,” Shelly said with a disgusted look on her face. “I only survived my time being with her by not being with her, you know? I mean, there’s a part of me that really loves her, but that’s the old mom, before she got caught up in being rich and young.” She said that like it was a dirty word. “I even got the creepy thought that if she could find a gypsy witch that would allow her to switch places with me, she’d do it in a heartbeat, just to be younger.”

“Wow. That is creepy!” I giggled.

Shelly shrugged. “I just hope that one day she realizes that she doesn’t need to …to be the cartoon she is. God, she’s such a cliché!” She rolled her eyes and giggled. “So I stayed out of her way and …explored things.”

“Explored? Oh, like getting your own trainer,” I nodded.

“That and some other things,” she nodded in time with me, her odd grin returning. “Jenny, do you …do you trust me? Trust that I want you to be happy? And to be my friend?”

“Yes,” I nodded solemnly. “I was worried that you were outgrowing me. You’re so pretty now and …growing …” I sighed, looking at her.

Her breasts were no longer buds; she had creamy mounds at the top of her lacy camisole. With the chubbiness gone, she was curvy and seemed longer, if not taller. I was green with envy and also so happy for her.

Shelly took a very serious tone of voice. “Jenny, I have a plan for you. For us. For your mom, too, I think. But it’s secret, it’s liable to really complicate things before it makes everything wonderful, and you don’t have to do it. I just want you to know that I love you and think it’s the best thing for you.”

“Okay. What’s your plan? You want me to take up yoga or something?” I teased.

“No. I want you to become a girl.”

“Me, too!” I grinned. “So what’s your plan?”

Slowly and carefully, she repeated, “I want you …to become …a girl.”

To my surprise, she got up and went to one of her suitcases and dragged it onto the bed and unzipped it. She rooted around and took out two large white plastic bottles that rattled. She sat next to me, holding them.

“I know your height and weight–well, when school was over, anyway, and knowing you, you probably added a sixteenth of an inch and a quarter-pound!”

I laughed with her. “Maybe an eighth-inch and a half a pound!”

She sighed. “Oh, sweetie; I missed you so much! Okay, where was I–yeah. So I know your height and weight and pretty much your metabolism–I’ve been next to you for nearly every meal for years–and so I talked with …let’s just say a lot of specialists. You know I’m pretty sharp about science and health and stuff–”

“You’re the science whiz of the school and you know it!”

“Well, of Lower, yeah; Middle, well …we’ll see. But this became a project of mine, sort of like your mother’s projects, you know? To distract me from how crazy my mother was making life.”

I told her I understood and she handed me one plastic bottle.

Her voice had been alternating between joking and hesitant. Now it grew adult, almost business-like, as she pointed. “That is a bottle of androgen blockers. They will suppress any male characteristics and basically stop any male puberty dead in its tracks. In other words, you start taking them and you will not become any more masculine than you are now. Ever. No chunky muscles, no deep voice, no facial hair–none of the stuff that happens in Middle school.”

“Wow.” I stared at the bottle.

“Want to take them? If you do, it means you will not develop as a boy into a man.”

“Fine with me, but I don’t want to be a sixth-grade boy the rest of my life.”

“Medical science says that everybody produces the hormones of both sexes. Males produce mostly male hormones but some female hormones, too. Every man, from Marines to Brad Pitt; they all have a small percentage of female hormones within them.”

“I’ve read that somewhere.”

“These blockers will mean that your body won’t be producing …that’s not quite right. Your body might still produce male hormones–the ones that will give you chest hair and a deeper voice–but your body won’t accept the hormones. Basically, these pills tell your body to ignore the male hormones. They won’t have any affect and will just be peed out for the most part. But your body will be open to accepting the female hormones you already produce, so you’ll start sliding over to the female part of the scale.”

“Kind of in that general part of the scale already,” I joked.

She didn’t crack a smile but continued in her business voice as she hefted the other bottle and handed it to me. “But we need more than a slide. That’s where these come in. These are female hormones. Estrogen and some progestin. Basically the magic ingredients in birth control pills, but a bit more concentrated. Start taking these and your body will have the normal quantity of female hormones, the full complement, just like a regular girl. Combining them with the estrogen your body already produces–and the androgen blockers suppressing any male hormones–and voila! You will finally get your puberty–but it will be a girl’s puberty.”

I stared at the bottles and at her. “So you’re saying that if I take these, my body will turn into a girl’s body?”

“Pretty much,” she nodded. “You’ll still have a penis but it’ll get smaller and smaller. But your voice will stay high, you’ll get curvy, prettier, your skin will be even softer and smoother–your hair will probably be fuller and softer, too–and most importantly, your breasts will develop, and unless somebody literally looks into your panties, you will appear to everyone as a girl.”

“What about Mom?”

“She’s going to have to deal with the truth, the truth that you’re her daughter. It’s what we tried to do last Christmas until my mother blew it for us. Now, you’ve got a little bit of breathing room before really …confronting your mom. I mean, it’ll be gradual–all of these take months to really take effect–but be prepared that at some point you will have to appear before your mother as a girl and tell her it’s what you want for your life. That it is your life.”

“I hoped I already would have had that talk with her.”

“Yeah, but it didn’t happen and it’s questionable that it will happen, unless we force the issue. I mean that you have to be brave and know that there will come a time when you tell her that it’s too late to ever be a boy again, and that you never really were one to begin with. You’ll be taken to doctors who’ll run all sorts of tests and accuse you of stuff and yell at you for tampering with your body. And in the meantime, you’ll be taking all sorts of crap from Neanderthal boys about what a sissy you are. They’ll call you a fag and a lot worse.”

“But I’ll know that I’m not a sissy boy; I’m becoming a girl …” I was worried about the impending crap but dazzled by the possibility of living the life I wanted.

Shelly nodded. “All I can tell you, from everything I’ve read, is to keep your goal in mind, whatever it is.”

“I already know what it is. To live every day for the rest of my life as a girl, to grow up to be a woman. With my mother’s approval and support.”

“So …” She tapped each bottle. “These can make it happen. But you don’t have to go this route; you can tell your mom–I really think you should, anyway, and soon–and hope you guys can find a psychiatrist who won’t try to make you be a boy. You might have to go through three or four–with probably months and months of finding another one and waiting for an appointment–before you find one that will even accept that you should live as a girl. And then you’ll start probably at least a year–maybe years; I researched it–of therapy before they come to the conclusion that, yeah, you really are a girl. Because they’ll keep saying that you’re too young to know your own mind. Meanwhile you’ll be getting older and they’ll be waiting for you to say it was all a mistake and you want to be a boy. Which we both know you will never say. So they will finally agree that maybe you should try things as a girl. And only then would they maybe let you start dressing like a girl. Maybe get blockers, but you’ll have had those extra years of male development while you were waiting, before even starting to block.”

I was staggered by her bleak prediction. “That’ll take forever, and ruin my life, and …and Mom could never afford the cost of the therapy. Even though she’d want to, I couldn’t allow her to spend all that money. And it’s only delaying the inevitable! I will live as a girl!” I was breathing hard. “No, I know what to do.” I stood up, holding the bottles. “What’s the dosage?”

“Two of each to start and then one of each a day. Morning or night; your choice, but be consistent. Simple.”

I went into her small bathroom, took a small paper cup from her dispenser and filled it with water and set it down. I opened the bottles and threw the cotton batting into the wastebasket and shook out four pills into my hand. I turned and looked at Shelly, still on the bed. Her eyes were huge.

“Only if you want to, sweetie,” she said.

“I absolutely want to, sweetie!” I smiled.

I tossed the pills into my mouth and then added the water and swallowed all four at once.

End of Part 1

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 2

Chapter 4: Turning Twelve

Shelly’s mom left her with us at Thanksgiving again and we had another Morton “Forgotten Ones” dinner. There were some Upper boys that almost got into a fight about Packers or Steelers and the odd thing to me was that neither boy was from anywhere near Wisconsin or Pennsylvania. It was yet another example of how I just didn’t get boys.

I did get girls, though, and after nearly three full months of Shelly’s pills I was feeling some effects. I was mellower, as a whole, but was subject to higher highs and lower lows. Shelly had warned me that’s what they’d do so I handled it better than if I’d been blindsided. She said in another month or two I’d be able to plot the curve, so to speak, and know that I was coming into a monthly cycle just as if I was menstruating. That information alone gave me chills of excitement and happiness.

The pills themselves we nicknamed ‘Girl Pills’ and then shortened them to ‘GPs’ and then ‘jeeps’. It was a funny thing for us, a secret thing. Shelly would say, ‘Take your jeeps?’ and I’d nod, or I’d be bitchy and she’d tease me with ‘Jeep much?’ But the pills were working and that was the important thing–I knew I was on my way to becoming a girl.

As to getting girls, I was developing new friends–we both were. I had a regular group of girls that I hung with, sat with for meals, and Shelly sat with us but was also getting some other girlfriends as well. Our friendship was so strong we didn’t need to constantly cling to each other, and I was glad that she had more friends now, after having no one but me for years. Her new girlfriends were getting interested in boys, too, while the girls that I hung with–Amy Holden, Connie Montalba, and Chen Lu–were right on the cusp of boys. Well, Connie and Lu were interested–Lu was very shy and quiet but her eyes sparkled when boys were near–but Amy was still in the ‘Boys? Yuck!’ stage. I bridged the gap as a ‘safe’ boy in every sense.

And that was part of the weirdness. I walked and talked and giggled and was just like them, and on days when they wore the uniform slacks, we looked just alike. I was aware that their bodies were changing; Connie already wore a bra although the others just wore camisoles. But they could do cute things with their hair, and nail polish was acceptable for Middle girls–with restrictions–although only Connie wore any. And they all wore lipgloss while I took to chap stick. But in so many ways, we were just four girls.

Shelly scared them a little, I thought, and that was fine with her. They all got along but she would be the driving force if any of us were together, and the others didn’t seem to mind. I spent as much time with Shelly as I could, and her with me. There were two girls she was spending time with, due to classes, Monica Shelton and Brianna Jansen. They were nice girls in the sense that they weren’t bitches like Heather Maxwell or Jessica Randolph. But Monica was super-rich, as much or more than Shelly, so they could relate. And Brianna was some politician’s daughter and was boy-crazy. Shelly wasn’t quite there yet, but the incredible transformation she’d undergone during the summer had opened a new world to her. And, bless her, she was sticking to her customized meal plan and exercising–I joined her for running–and she was looking great.

Boys were noticing her and they were noticing me, too, for entirely different reasons. They were noticing Shelly because she was shapely now, with her face that had always been pretty, and she was smart and she was rich. Boys were noticing me because I looked like a girl, or at least a very young Lower boy. My hair was still long–I kept it in a ponytail and behind my shirt collar and nobody really knew how long it was getting–and had clear, creamy skin, big eyes, and by winter I was getting …soft. In every way. My voice was still high and light and I was fine with that. I was still pretty much the smartest kid in class so I was ostracized anyway. And the whispers of fag, or fairy, or queer, pretty much accompanied me daily. I didn’t mind because I knew they were so wrong, but I was oddly glad that my father wasn’t around to hear the taunts. I wouldn’t have wanted him to be embarrassed by his son, but I did hope that he would be proud of his daughter someday.

Somehow I’d still managed to not wear any girls’ clothing. The uniforms took care of that at school, of course. I didn’t wear the girls’ blouses but the boys’ shirts were the same light blue or white, and the polo shirts that I usually wore were identical to the girls’, as well as the slacks. I would have loved to wear the skirts, of course, but other than that one time with Shelly’s, I had not worn one. I had decided I would wait until the changes in me were inevitable.

The weekend before Thanksgiving was interesting for two reasons. On Sunday, Amy’s mother took her–she was a Day and so was already home for the weekend–and Con and Lu and I and took us to the mall. When our little group was first forming, Amy’s mom had been concerned when she’d heard about a boy joining her daughter, but on meeting me, I saw her eyes do that thing. I was already familiar with it; it was the mind registering me as a gay boy. I was okay with that because it was a temporary category and was truer than not. I rarely saw her, but she seemed to accept me as a ‘safe’ boy for her daughter–as long as Con and Lu were with us, I guessed.

The students at Morton usually avoided anything to do with the uniform when they weren’t in school. And, as I’ve noted, they were well-to-do all the way to super-rich. There were a few scholarship students that were middle class or even poor–Amy’s family had quite a bit of money, which was how they could afford the tuition for a Day student–but I was the only student whose life pretty much revolved around Morton Academy. So I had no problem with the uniform–in the sense that kids couldn’t wait to get out of it–and I usually wore bits and pieces of it because I wasn’t outgrowing it. And with Shelly’s blessed pills I wouldn’t, I thought with determination.

The four of us hit the mall, therefore, looking like four regular kids. Amy wore baggy khaki cargo pants, a green tank and a gray hoodie; Connie wore another gray hoodie over a blue plaid sundress over black leggings, and Lu wore tight jeans, a black tank and a black leather jacket. All three girls wore black flats. On the other hand, I wore trainers, dark blue slacks, a white polo and the school’s gray sweatshirt–meaning that I was fully dressed as if for school. The others were used to it and made no comment.

We drifted through the mall, window shopping mostly. We hit American Eagle and Abercrombie and the girls tried some things on; I always found something to occupy myself in the stores. I was always caught up in the fun but in Claire’s, as my eyes drank in all the wonderful earrings and jewelry, I had to play the part of a boy and appear bored even though I dearly wanted to get my ears pierced. I hated having to act that part; it was the only time when I was ‘a boy’. Fortunately the girls didn’t bother with Victoria’s Secret; I didn’t know if I could contain myself there! From Claire’s we moved on and hit Jamba Juice for smoothies and kept walking. One store had ball gowns in the windows and the girls stopped and sighed. We stood and sipped.

Connie said, “Definitely the red.”

“With your coloring? Absolutely,” I said.

“Her coloring?” Amy asked. She wasn’t really into fashion yet.

Lu explained, “Her skin tone, hair, eyes …her coloring.”

“Oh,” Amy nodded, clearly not getting it. “Which one do you like, Lu?”

“The icy blue, I think,” Lu answered, tilting her head to look at the gown dreamily. “I think the green would be perfect for you, Ames.”

“Or the red,” Amy said.

“Sorry. Dibs!” Connie laughed.

“Hey, it’s just what if,” Lu teased.

“Okay. She could try the red, too,” Connie allowed.

“Which one for you, Ben?” Amy asked.

It was perfectly innocent, coming from Amy, but I could feel the other two stiffen slightly but I ignored it. “Well, if you and Connie could share the red, then Lu and I could share the icy blue,” I grinned.

Lu looked at me with big eyes but Connie said, “What, not the black?”

“Too formal,” I said, keeping my eyes on Lu’s. We seemed to be on a wavelength.

“It’s supposed to be formal,” Amy protested. “That’s why they’re called formals! Geez!” She rolled her eyes.

Lu kept looking at me and said, “No, Ben’s right. It’s more like for cocktails than a school dance.”

We sensed something and turned and saw Heather Maxwell and two other girls standing and laughing at us.

“Isn’t that just the cutest thing?” Heather said to one of the others. “The little girls are having big girl dreams!”

“And then it’s back to their Barbies,” one of her cronies snickered.

Amy said hotly, “Hey, we’re not little girls!”

Heather said, “And you’re not even all girls!”

“Yes, we are!” Amy shot back, without thinking.

Heather smirked. “You ought to check with Benjamin first before speaking.”

Amy spun to me, her eyes wide with shock at realizing what she’d said. For my part, I’d never heard my name said with such disgust. It was just a knack of Heather’s.

Quietly and calmly, Lu said, “Heather, there is a beautiful dress in there that I thought would look really good on you …oh, sorry. It’s probably out of your price range.”

That did it. “What are you talking about?” Heather sniffed. “I can buy this store with lunch money! Which dress?”

“It’s a green …no, it’s pretty steep,” Lu shrugged.

“Ha!” Heather scoffed. “Come on,” she said to her friends as she headed into the store. “I’ll show you!” she called over her shoulder.

Amy said, “What dress? Can you see it?” She stood on tiptoes to look in the store.

“Ames, we were never in the store,” Connie said, laughing. “Lu just got rid of her.”

“Beautifully done, Lu,” I grinned.

“God, she’s so easy,” Lu said, rolling her eyes.

And the mood was light as we continued walking.

The other interesting thing happened towards the end of the day. We tried an odd little boutique that was decorated with all sorts of 1940s styles. There was an old-style brown leather bomber jacket.

Connie said, “Nice leather,” as she felt it, and then said, “I’d look silly in it, though.”

“What size? Oh,” Amy said, disappointed when she saw the tag.

Lu said, “Just the thing to look macho.” She was giving me an odd look.

“Yeah, Ben, try it on!” Amy said with enthusiasm.

I shrugged and took it off the hanger and put it on but it was too bulky with my school sweatshirt. Lu reached out to hold the jacket for me, her intentions for me clear. I shrugged again and stripped the sweatshirt over my head. Two things happened.

Amy reacted to my first with a gasp. “God, Ben! Your hair is way longer than I thought!”

Connie nodded, her eyebrows raised.

My hair was still back in a ponytail but I’d had it between my shirt and sweatshirt rather than just under the shirt collar; it was more comfortable that way. But now they could see that my hair reached the middle of my back. I knew this because I could reach behind and touch the bottom of my hair if I tilted my head back.

But the other thing was that Lu was staring at me, wide-eyed. I quickly grabbed the jacket from her and put it on.

“Naw,” Connie said. “Kind of clashes, somehow.”

“Yeah,” Lu said, matter-of-factly. “Looked better on the hanger. Oh, hey, look at the cute shoes!” She had looked past me to the far wall.

“Wow! I didn’t see those!” Amy grinned. “Come on, Con!”

The two of them walked away as I removed the jacket. Lu took it from me and I picked up my sweatshirt to put it on but Lu put her hand on my forearm.

Lu quietly asked, “Ben, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” I said with innocence, about to pull my sweatshirt over my head.

“This,” Lu said softly, pulling the front hem of my polo down and then pointing to my chest.

My nipples had budded a few weeks before, and were now hard little knots. With my polo pulled taut, it looked like I had grapes on my otherwise flat chest.

“Can I tell you later?” I said with some desperation; the other two were coming back.

“Sure. But, Ben …it’s okay, you know?” Lu tilted her head. “I mean, with me.”

“Nothing fits in this store!” Amy said with some petulance.

“Nice retro stuff, though,” Connie said.

“No,” Lu said, her eyes on mine. “But some things fit better than others.”

Chapter 5: Talking Turkey

As it was, I didn’t get a chance to talk to Lu at length; it was back in the van and back to school and she got a call from home and that took care of the rest of the evening. Then it was school until Wednesday; I had two classes with Lu but also with Shelly. We were all swept along by the other students and didn’t talk.

I told Shelly what had happened, of course, and she just nodded.

“I like Chen Lu. She’s a good counterbalance to Amy.”

Shelly considered Amy little more than a child, and it was sort of true. Without talking behind Amy’s back or being cruel, Middle School everywhere is a cauldron of kids at both end of the growth spectrum. Boys range from Dragonball Z and fart jokes to shaving, dating girls, and …fart jokes, I guess. Girls range from Barbies and Rainbow Brite to bras and dating boys. You just lump them all in and hope for the best. Amy was a good person and Shelly liked her, but had difficulty grasping the concept of actually shopping with her. But Shelly really liked Lu and that made me glad.

Shelly said, “You know, that was only the first. Or the first and second, whatever.”

“What do you mean?”

“First and second times that people are going to be not just taking you for a girl, but you’re going to actually show them. You can’t hide those much longer,” she said, pointing to my nipples.

“Yeah, I know,” I said, looking down at my nubbins. With pride!

We were in her room, flopped on the bed as usual. I reached over and took a pillow and put it on my chest and crossed my arms.

“I’ve been getting away with not taking showers because it’s sixth,” I said, meaning that I had Boys’ PE at the end of the school day and implied that I showered back in my room. I was pretty sure most of sixth PE didn’t shower in their rooms, though.

“And it’s getting colder and you’re wearing your sweats,” Shelly nodded. “But real soon, girlfriend, those ladies are gonna show, even through a sweatshirt.”

We were silent, in agreement.

Then she said, “You’ve got to talk with your mom.”

“We can do it this weekend,” I said.

“Yeah, if my mom doesn’t call,” Shelly grinned, referring to the Christmas call that ended our first attempts to talk with my mother about my impending girlhood.

So our Morton Thanksgiving dinner proceeded, with kids mostly unknown to us–although Shelly pronounced one Upper boy as ‘hot!’ and couldn’t take her eyes off him. She helped clear dishes near him and went to watch him watch TV for a little bit. I talked with two Lower girls that were feeling left out, ending with a group hug when they cheered up. Then we gathered Shelly’s things and Mom drove us home.

We were full of turkey and kind of lazy; Mom had a pumpkin pie and ice cream for us for later so we got all settled in and then were all three curled up on the couch, watching an NBC special, some variety thing, and chatting about this and that.

I felt Shelly nudge me and I looked at her and shook my head. She widened her eyes hugely and nodded once, decisively. I shook my head again. She narrowed her eyes at me, almost like a gunslinger, and when I didn't respond, she took the plunge.

“Miz Houseman?” Shelly said to Mom but looking at me. “Jenny has something she’d like to tell you.”

I stared at her.

Mom said calmly, “We’re back to that, are we?” She turned to look at the two of us and then at me. “Alright. What would you like to tell me, dear?”

I glared at Shelly and then sighed. “Well, we started talking about this almost a year ago, at Christmas …”

“Then my mom called and ruined it,” Shelly said.

“Now, Shelly, that wasn’t why she called,” Mom said gently. “Honey?” She wanted me to continue.

So, sitting there sandwiched between the two females I loved the most, I told my mother that I was a girl. I told her that I’d always felt that way and gave examples. I told her about my research on the internet and everything I’d learned. I told her that, quite simply, I wanted to live as her daughter. I wanted to do anything and everything, no matter how painful, so that I could live as the girl that I knew I was.

Shelly remained silent throughout; I thought she was deserting me but when I faltered and had come to repeating myself, she picked up my dropped flag and explained once again from her view, how I had always been a girl, from the first day we met.

Mom remained with a neutral face, nodding a little here and there. Then, completely oblique to our discussion, she said, “Pie, anyone?” And to our amazement, got up and went to the kitchen.

“She’s like totally denying!” I said forlornly.

“No. She’s processing,” Shelly said. “Let her be. It’s pretty heavy; she needs time.”

So we didn’t press or act as if anything out of the ordinary had been said. Mom came out with three plates with pie a la mode, and we sat and watched the variety acts on TV and ate and Mom was licking her spoon.

“I wish your father were here,” she said.

“God; me, too,” I said.

“Oh, I always wish your father were here,” Mom said with a sad smile. “But especially now, after what you’ve told me.”

I hung my head, all of my hopes circling the drain. “So he’d …straighten me out? Talk sense into me?”

To my utter shock, Mom laughed. “No, of course not! Because he was right!”

The word hung in the air, pregnant with meaning and unknowable. I looked at Shelly; her brow was furrowed and she shook her head–she had no idea, other.

Mom sat back and looked at me, the traces of the smile still there. “Your father said …oh, you must have been three or four. He said that you might be transgender. Actually, he said, ‘probably’. Possibly gay, but he thought transgender was the most likely.”

I was still staring. “My father …knew?”

“How?” Shelly said almost at the same time.

Mom looked at the ceiling. “Little things you said or did. The way you reacted to things. He’d …well, you know he’d had a twin brother and sister.”

I nodded. They’d been much younger than him and his brother had died in Iraq and his sister had been killed by a drunk driver; sad endings to bright beginnings. I’d never met them.

“He said it was a rare opportunity to see almost exactly the same person as a male and as a female, as close as possible. Fraternal twins, raised in the identical environment, and yet developing two distinct personalities. And most importantly for you, they developed as a normal boy and a normal girl although they certainly had every chance to be some sort of hybrid of both. And then your father spent time overseas, working disaster relief for three years, and saw groups of children.”

I’d only vaguely known something about that; it was before I’d been born. Earthquakes and a tsunami, that sort of thing; but I didn’t know in what capacity he’d gone. A prep school History teacher doing disaster relief? I realized that he was even more wonderful than I’d thought and was humbled.

Mom said, “So his point was that when he looked at you, going about your three-year-old, four-year-old way …you were so cute!” She drifted off in happy visions of the past. “Anyway, he said when he looked at you he saw a girl. Not an effeminate boy–a girl. And explained why he knew the difference. So I was just saying that I wish he was here to hear you tell me that you’re a girl. He’d just say, ‘Yep. Already knew it,’ with that nod of his.”

Shelly and I both stared at her. I swallowed and couldn’t speak. I knew that nod. My eyes were fighting tears.

Shelly cleared her throat and said, “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Hmm?” Mom said, as if in a daze. “Oh, I suppose …there’ll be a round of testing. Doctors and the like. Won’t be easy. Expensive. But regardless of how …sure you both are, procedures must be followed. And so they’ll require an evaluation before proceeding.” She sighed. “I’ll start researching; can’t really make calls until Monday.”

“Mrs. Houseman?” Shelly said. “You said, ‘expensive’. I want you to know that I will pay for it.”

“Oh, that’s sweet of you,” Mom smiled, “But no, there’s no reason why you should but thank you for offering. And it’s …going to be pricey.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Shelly shook her head. “And there is a reason why I should and that’s because Jenny is my best friend. She always will be, too. And, yeah, I know that we’re just Middle school girls and we’ll have a lot of friends and we already do, but we’re joined at the hip in some dimension or other, and we’re together for life.”

“Aw, sweetie,” I said, squeezing her hand.

Shelly held up our joined hands and said to Mom, “There, you see? Typical feminine response, if you needed any further evidence!”

Mom chuckled. “I don’t need evidence. I think it’s already …evident. But thank you for pointing that out.”

Shelly said, “And as for the expense, I mean …what are you talking?”

I knew, somehow, that Shelly already knew–she was always on top of things like this–but was sounding out Mom, so I kept quiet.

Mom waggled her head back and forth. “Oh, I have no idea how much the evaluations and initial exams are, but I read that treatment can run as high as ten thousand dollars. Not counting …surgery. If there is any.”

Shelly glanced at me. Yeah, she knew, but asked Mom innocently, “How much is the surgery?”

“Upwards of twenty, twenty-five thousand dollars, probably; maybe more,” Mom said sadly. “Just …much too much.”

“So you’re saying, what, about thirty-five grand, start to finish?” Shelly asked.

Mom nodded solemnly.

Shelly barked a laugh. “Heck! I’ll have that much by the end of seventh grade!”

Mom stared at her and I realized that Mom wasn’t aware of quite how rich Shelly was.

Shelly said, “I get five thousand allowance per month. Not counting what I’ll get for Christmas, that’s thirty thousand by June.” Mom stared and Shelly shrugged. “My last damn fat camp cost forty grand!”

Mom was rocked. “I had no …idea …but, no, you can’t …”

Shelly looked sad. “Please? Mrs. Houseman, I don’t …I don’t have anybody in the world I love as much as Jenny. And you.”

“And your mother,” Mom said.

Shelly shook her head. “I did love her, the version of her a few years ago. The original Mom. I don’t even know this lady anymore, and …I don’t think she does, either,” she finished up sadly.

“Dear Michelle,” Mom said with such sadness, as she put a hand on Shelly’s.

I put my arm around Shelly and leaned against her. “Love you, Shell,” I said.

“Love you, Jen,” she said back.

There was a stillness to the tableau. Then Mom broke it by saying, “That reminds me. Your name.”

“My name?” I asked, dumbly.

“Oh? Don’t I get any say in things?” Mom’s eyebrow was raised, comically.

I looked at Shelly and then at Mom. “Well, I’ve been …Jenny for so long …”

“Only to me,” Shelly pointed out.

“And to me,” I protested.

“Between us, I mean,” Shelly said. “She really should have a say in this.”

“Whose side are you on?” I teased.

“Yours, babe; but your mother should …” She trailed off, then said, “Your mother and father should name you. Did you?” she asked Mom. “Did he? Omigod! He did, didn’t he?”

Mom had a Mona Lisa smile as she looked at Shelly. “Oh, you are sharp!”

“Mom!” I complained.

“Want to guess?” Mom said, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you saying to guess what girl’s name you had for me when I was born?”

“You bet,” Mom said, clearly enjoying this. “Now, here’s a clue. Think about your father. Oh, and I heartily approved of the name, by the way. But he named you. So …guess.”

“Martha!” Shelly shouted.

“Martha?” I turned to her with some disgust.

“Washington, dummy! You’re the history nerd.”

“Jefferson, too,” I pointed out. “Well, if my father named me, there’s only one name I can come up with,” I said. To Mom, I said, “Was she the wife of a president?”

Mom nodded.

“And the mother of a president?”

Mom beamed.

Shelly was bouncing. “Tell me! Tell me!”

“Abigail Adams,” I said.

Mom smiled and nodded, “Abigail Elizabeth. Elizabeth was Abigail’s mother’s name. Also the wife of Samuel Adams.”

I was stunned.

My mother then gave me a look of deep sadness and also deep happiness. “You would have been Abigail Elizabeth Houseman.”

Shelly said, “She is Abigail Elizabeth Houseman. Only we call her Abby.”

Without thinking, I said, “What happened to Jenny? And who is ‘we’?”

“Jenny?” Shelly waved a hand. “Feh! A mispronunciation of Benny. A childish game. But you, young lady, are Abby. From now on.” She grinned. “Although I might slip now and then and call you Jenny. But everybody is going to call you Abby!”

“Um …Mom,” I started to say.

“Yes, Abby?” Mom grinned.

“See?” Shelly cried triumphantly.

Chapter 6: Baby Steps

It was the start of a new life for me. That Thanksgiving night, we were pretty tired and slept. But the next morning Shelly had a wicked grin when she woke me; she’d put some things in the bathroom and told me to take a shower and shave my legs and under my arms. I didn’t hesitate.

I came out smelling sweet and feeling slick and Shelly had clothes laid out for me; very simple–black flats, a denim skirt, and a peach top with creamy lace at the bodice. And there was a white bra and panty set.

I looked at her. “You planned this.”

“Of course,” she grinned. “I hoped that this time we’d get to finish the conversation with your mom. But now I realize that we’re really just beginning the conversation, so to speak.”

“The conversation, so to speak?” I rolled my eyes. “You mean like the vision that I see?”

“God, you can be annoying, Missy Perfect English Girl,” Shelly laughed. “How’d you like me to strip off that towel and push you out the door?”

The towel was up around my chest; I didn’t care if Mom saw me but figured she was still sleeping. Shelly had gotten us up early for my transformation.

And transform I did, putting on my first girls’ clothing, from the skin out. And they felt …right. There weren’t any trumpets blaring or mighty orchestral crescendos; I just felt like a girl getting dressed. As I was brushing my hair I realized that the feeling was good; I wasn’t dressing just for the clothes. They would allow me to be myself, and someday the world would see me as the girl that I’d always known I was.

Shelly got dressed similarly and we went to make a breakfast. Mom padded into the kitchen in her bathrobe, yawning, and looked at us for a shocked moment–we froze, waiting–and then grinned.

“Morning, girls,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

And in some ways, it was. I hugged her when I set her melon before her, and she said, “Thank you, Abby” and Shelly was looking like the cat that ate the canary.

Mom surprised us by announcing that today, the day after Thanksgiving, was the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season. Well, that we knew already, but she suggested we head up to Springfield, Mass, to the Eastfield Mall. It was only forty minutes away, but was in another state and the chances were we wouldn’t run into anybody that might know Benjamin Houseman.

“You mean …” I stared at my mother.

“Yes. I’m taking Shelly and Abby shopping!” Mom grinned.

“And I’m buying!” Shelly said and then quickly held a hand up to my mother. “No, I’m insisting. I’m the guest, right? And the guest gets her way?”

On the drive we talked about what I would need. Mom said I’d get ‘a few things to try’ but Shelly maintained that I needed a complete wardrobe. She allowed that it wouldn’t be possible to get it all today.

“But we can start,” Shelly nodded. “Lingerie, basics. Start on her shoe collection.”

Mom said, “But she’ll only be wearing these things at home.”

“Well, duh!” Shelly laughed. “We wear the uniforms at school. Oh, you mean after-hours. Well, yeah, but …” She looked at me. “You’ve got to decide, babe. How much of Abby are you going to reveal at school?”

It was a deceptively simple question, because we both knew that my body was changing but my mother had no idea yet.

I cleared my throat. “Mom, you’ve probably already figured this out, but I think you’re going to have to talk with Mrs. Carey about me.”

“Not until we get you to a doctor,” she said, glancing at me and back on the road. “It will have much more force if you’re already under medical supervision. If we can get a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, then we should have no problem.”

“Wow,” I said. “You’re up on your gender stuff.”

“Well, I told you that your father and I were already discussing it. And last night, after you went to bed, I jumped on the internet and learned a lot more. That’s why I was kind of groggy this morning; I was up late.”

“So you think I have gender dysphoria?”

Mom pursed her lips. “I think that’s the general term they’d classify you under, except that I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t find some physical …abnormalities, too. Abnormal in that you never developed as a male.”

Shelly whispered, “Abby-normal!”, causing me to snort and fake a cough. God, already she was teasing me about my name–and using Young Frankenstein to do it! Aloud Shelly covered my noises by saying innocently, “Never developed as a male, huh?” Meanwhile, she elbowed me, teasing me about now developing as a female.

“Right,” Mom said, either ignoring our giggles or not hearing them as she negotiated a roundabout. “The medical evidence will carry greater weight with the school.”

Shelly said, “Mrs. Houseman, I thought you could just …tell Mrs. Carey what to do? I mean, she’s headmistress but you’re a Russell, right? And don’t you kind of own the school?”

“Well, those are a yes and a no. Yes, I’m a Russell, and I do own a piece of the school, in the sense that a shareholder does. But I can’t tell the headmistress what to do. I can advise, I can strongly lobby, I can voice my approval or disapproval, but decisions are ultimately hers. And Mrs. Carey isn’t an outsider; she’s a descendant of the founding Mortons.”

“Still …can’t you walk in there and say, ‘Oops, sorry; little mistake. Slight change needed; Houseman, Benjamin T., male, is now Houseman, Abigail E., female. Love the blouse, by the way. Tah!’”

Mom and I cracked up at Shelly’s silly line.

Ah, but then the heart of the matter. Shelly said, “So why does she need to see a doctor, anyway?”

I realized that she was afraid that my dosing myself with hormones would be exposed. I gave her an understanding look but said, “No, Shell; I want to be under a doctor’s care. Like Mom says, it legitimizes me, and who knows what they might find out?”

She gave me a worried look.

At the mall we did exactly as Shelly described, getting lingerie and clothing basics. It took several trips to the car, and I was carried along with the thrill of being out in the open and being seen as just another girl. Before we’d left, Shelly had brushed my hair differently, across my forehead and clipped with a barrette. She’d done my makeup, Mom watching and critiquing. The only thing missing were earrings; Mom wouldn’t allow me to have my ears pierced but Shelly found some ‘heavy-earth’ magnetic earrings that pinched but looked like pierced earrings and were stylish as well. I loved seeing the reflection through my hair, although my hair was a sore spot. Shelly wanted me to get into a salon and Mom said no.

“Benjamin will have to be in stealth mode at school,” she said. “Or maybe it’s …Abby will have to be in stealth mode as Benjamin.”

So pierced ears were out, as were nail extensions. We messed up, though. We were looking at makeup in Macy’s and the next thing I knew I was in a chair getting a makeover. I don’t know if the lady knew I was a boy or not or didn’t care; she treated me like a pretty girl and I loved it and relaxed.

She was an old pro and as she bustled around my face, she had tweezers out and was ‘neatening my brows’ before Mom or I could react. There was this moment of ‘Oh-oh!’ tension with Mom and Shelly and I, but we relaxed. What was done was done, and maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. But the mirror showed delicately arched eyebrows that opened up my eyes. A girl’s eyes …

Great. Maybe Benjamin can start wearing sunglasses at school …

The remainder of the weekend we spent at home, except that it was full of a fashion show, so to speak, and putting things away, and a lot of talk. Late Sunday night, I had to strip off all of my pretties and become Benjamin again. Mom drove us to Morton.

I was flopped on Shelly’s bed as she unpacked when there was a knock at the door. It was Chen Lu.

“Somebody said that they thought Benjamin was here?” she asked.

Shelly looked at me and I nodded. “Come on in, Lu,” Shelly said.

“Hey, Lu; what’s up?” I asked as I sat up on the bed.

She looked very nervous. “Um …I don’t mean to interrupt. I just …um …wanted to talk with you about something. It can wait.” She turned to go.

Shelly gave me a look that I read and I nodded and said, “Lu? Whatever you want to talk about with me, you can talk about with Shelly.”

“Um …I don’t think so. I mean, don’t worry about it.” She started for the door again.

I said, “Lu? You want to talk about what happened at the mall last Sunday.”

“Um …yeah.” She was clearly embarrassed. For me or for her? Or just due to the situation?

“Please, Lu, you can say whatever you want to say. Ask whatever you want to ask. With Shelly here, I mean. I guarantee you, it’s not a problem.”

Lu glanced at Shelly and a little smile flitted across her face. Shelly leaned down and patted the edge of the bed and Lu sat. Shelly said, “I’m just putting things away. I spent the weekend with …Benjamin and his mom.”

That seemed to startle Lu, and then didn’t anymore, because she nodded. “Yeah, you guys are close. Okay,” she sighed. “I just didn’t want to embarrass anybody.”

“I know, Lu; it’s cool,” Shelly said. Then she turned to me. “All yours, sweetie.”

I said, “Lu, you want to ask about my choosing the blue gown. You want to ask about how I handled myself at the mall. You want to ask about my chest.”

Wide-eyed, Lu nodded slowly.

“So …ask,” I smiled.

“Um …are you a boy or a girl?”

I was smiling but Shelly snorted. “Sorry! Let me answer that one. The answers are, yes and no–and no and yes.”

Lu stood up. “I’m sorry; this was wrong …”

“Sit down, Lu, please,” Shelly said, softening. “I’m sorry. I’m truly not making fun of you.”

I said, “I think Shelly told the absolute truth, too, with the ‘yes and no’ thing. Lu, you asked if I was a boy or a girl. My birth certificate reads Benjamin Thomas Houseman, male. I’ve lived as a boy, gone to school as a boy. So Shelly’s first answer to you was correct–yes, I’m a boy and no, I’m not a girl. But ever since I can remember, I’ve felt like a girl. I mean, like I figure a girl feels like. I do know that I’ve never felt like a boy. I don’t think like them, act like them …and usually don’t even understand them. According to my mother, I was supposed to be a girl at birth.”

“She’s Abigail Elizabeth Houseman, female,” Shelly said with pride. “Or at least, that’s what her birth certificate should have said. But she’s Abby at home, now.”

Neither of us let on that it had only occurred three nights before.

Lu was staring.

I said, “So Shelly’s second answer was right, too. Do I feel like a boy? No. Like a girl? Yes.”

“You’re transgender,” Lu said, nodding. “I was trying to remember the word.”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m entering a doctor’s care this week. Finally! And we’ll see where it goes.”

Mom had said she’d try to make it happen this week so I was taking her at her word.

Shelly said, “There’s more to it than that.” She sat next to Lu, so she could look at me. “I knew Benjamin was really a girl the first time I met her. Him. Whatever.”

“Four years ago,” I said.

Shelly said, “And it was so obvious.”

Lu said, “You two have always been on some weird psychic connection thing.”

Shelly shrugged. “What can I say? We’re both mutants.” Then she looked at me. “And we’re both girls.”

“So what are you going to do? Besides the doctor, I mean,” Lu asked.

It was my turn to shrug. “What I’ve been doing. Being Benjamin Monday through Friday and being Abby on weekends. Until the doctor clears me and Mrs. Carey approves the next step, where I can be Abby all the time.”

“Are you going to get that surgery? You know …”

“Yeah, I know. And, yes I am. I have to wait to be eighteen, though.”

“Not necessarily,” Shelly said. Lu frowned and Shelly said, “I just said, ‘There’s more to it than that’?” Lu nodded. Shelly looked at me. “Her body’s changing. She’s heading into puberty–a girl’s puberty. This isn’t like on TV where some burly truck driver says he’s a woman trapped in a man’s body.” She pointed at me. “That’s a girl. But unfortunately there’s an ‘M’ on a piece of paper that screwed up her life.”

I said, “And a little piece of flesh between my legs that did that, too.” I shrugged. “But I’m really glad that my body seems to be getting it right. I’d rather it did it when I was in the womb instead of waiting twelve years to decide I’m a girl.”

Lu gasped. “You’re budding!” She’d obviously wondered but hadn’t fully grasped what she’d seen when I’d removed my sweatshirt, because her mind was still classifying me as a boy.

“Yep!” I said proudly.

“And, oh, boy, is that gonna screw things up!” Shelly chuckled.

Lu said, “Have you told anyone?”

“No. You found out because you’re smart,” I smiled at her. “And you’re a good friend.”

“And Shelly’s your BFF,” Lu smiled. “I get that, and I’m cool with it.”

Shelly said, “Good. I like you and you guys can go have fun together, but remember that Abby is my very best friend in the whole world and I will damage anybody that hurts her!” She was pretty fierce.

I said, “What she’s saying is, please don’t tell anybody what you know about me. Forget everything.”

“I will,” Lu said, solemnly.

“No, you won’t,” Shelly said. “Look, guys …she’s not gonna do a memory wipe. It can help things if she knows but doesn’t tell. But she could help run defense if you screw up and start flashing your boobs again,” she grinned at me.

I rewarded her with a thrown pillow. She let it hit her full in the face and stared at me, open-mouthed. “With my own pillow you give me such a smack?”

I stuck my tongue out at her and Lu giggled. “God, you two are such girlfriends. How can you keep this secret?”

I got serious. “We just have. You’ll see. I’m myself now but I’ll be Benjamin tomorrow. But Shelly’s right; I might screw up again. I got too comfortable with you all at the mall on Sunday.”

Lu nodded. “You really were just another girl with us. Okay. Shelly’s right, and I can help run defense for you, even if it’s only to tell you to butch things up.”

Shelly snorted. “Abby couldn’t be butch if her life depended on it!”

End of Part 2

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 3

Chapter 7: Revelations

Despite Shelly’s teasing about screwing up, I kept things together for the next month. Of course, everybody at Morton was distracted by the upcoming holidays and I stayed under everybody’s radar. I was still buds with Lu and Amy and Connie–although Connie had the hots for an eighth grader named Steve and didn’t spend as much time with us–and with Shelly. Weekends I was Abby from the time I got home and showered Friday evening until the drive back Sunday night. Mom was amazingly comfortable having a new daughter and I realized it was because, as she’d explained about my father, she’d always known.

And true to her word, Mom got me a doctor’s appointment after school on Wednesday. Apparently there had been a gender clinic in Hartford but it had closed for various reasons. Some of the doctors and psychologists affiliated with the clinic were still in the area, either in private practice or at Hartford Hospital. There was also a gender studies program at the University of Hartford.

So Mom picked me up and we spent two hours with Dr. Audrey Nielson, a psychologist who spoke with us individually and together. I debated about not telling her about Shelly’s ‘jeeps’ but I knew that the first time I had a medical checkup the cat would be out of the bag. And then they wouldn’t trust me ever again. When I was talking alone with the doctor–after I’d come to feel that she accepted me–I asked her point-blank if she’d reached a diagnosis.

Dr. Nielson tried to avoid that but with some prodding, finally said she had a tentative but fairly certain diagnosis of gender dysphoria, but that my stature and appearance called into question possible medical explanations as well.

I asked if at any point, did she foresee anybody trying to make me be a boy?

Again, she tried to dodge the question because I was a new patient but finally sighed and said it would be highly unlikely. The time seemed right, so I told her that I was taking some medication to become a girl. She was deeply concerned, of course, and did a lecture about doing myself biological harm. I waited patiently and said that I understood that, and it was part of the reason why I told her. I didn’t want my self-dosing to delay or prevent any continuation on the road to being a girl. I stressed the point that it was not pills that were making me want to be a girl; I wanted to be a girl so badly that I was taking the pills to make it happen.

Dr. Nielson nodded, deeply frowning. I told her that my mother didn’t know; I wasn’t ashamed of wanting to be a girl but I was a little ashamed of not telling her about the pills. We talked some more and she called Mom in.

I knew it had to come to this; I gathered courage by thinking of Shelly’s love and support and my father’s long-ago diagnosis. I turned to my mother.

“Mom, for four months now I’ve been taking pills to help me turn into a girl. I’ve been taking androgen blockers to prevent my body from any further development as a boy, and estrogen pills to develop as a girl. My, uh …my breasts are budding.”

And then, to her surprise as well as the doctor’s, I stood and took off my school sweater and lifted up my polo, exposing my chest. Mom gasped a little.

“Yes, I got them from Shelly,” I said, reading her mind. “We’re in this together. She got them from a doctor in Europe to fit my body mass and age and metabolism. Here’s the point that I told the doctor. I’m taking them to become a girl; they’re not making me want to be a girl. I will do anything I have to so that I can live as your daughter Abigail. I have the pills hidden, and I will keep taking them even if you tell me not to. Even though disobeying you hurts me. Because I’ve got to do this! I can’t live as Benjamin forever; it’s just not me!” I was starting to cry. “But I hope that you and the doctor can get me treatment so I don’t damage myself taking these pills. I mean, treatment to let me become a girl. Other blockers and hormones, I mean. But if not, I will continue taking these because I will be Abigail!” I finished, fiercely.

There was stunned silence at my outburst, and then Dr. Nielson said, “That’s one of the clearest declarations of intent I’ve ever heard of. Mrs. Houseman, do you understand the determination of your child to proceed as a girl?”

Mom was still looking at me. “Absolutely, doctor. And …Abby, you don’t have to be quite so dramatic. With the striptease, I mean,” she grinned, and then got serious. “But I am concerned about the two of you procuring illegal drugs.”

“Mom, I don’t believe they’re illegal, in the sense that they’re not banned or controlled substances. They’re just not prescribed for me by a doctor in this country. So, taking them without a prescription might be illegal, but the drugs themselves aren’t.”

“Your child may have a future as a lawyer,” Dr. Nielson said ruefully. “That is essentially correct.”

Mom said, “I understand, but do you understand that I just worry about you hurting your body? Even with the best of intentions?”

“I do, Mom, and that’s why I told you. I know that the next step is medical evaluation, and once I pee in a cup they’ll know.”

Dr. Nielson said, “Good that you told me ahead of time. Well, folks, I think it’s time to arrange for the next step, which is the medical evaluation. Pee-in-the-cup time. Let me call.”

She set it up for Friday at Hartford Hospital, so that weekend started with, yes, peeing in a cup, having blood drawn and cheek swabs taken for DNA. Then we went home and I was Abby all weekend. Blessedly, Mom completely accepted why I’d started the pills and wasn’t troubled by it. Worried, but accepting. Monday after school we were back at the hospital with Dr. Nielson and a white-coated, silver haired doctor named Dr. Randall. I was ‘of interest’ to the gender studies group within the hospital as well as the university, and by the time we left, I was officially diagnosed as ‘gender dysphoric with possible physical abnormalities’, and under the official supervision of both hospital and university.

Next came a very odd time. I continued my Benjamin-at-school/Abby-at-home routine, but it was now complicated by being both a patient and a case study. Since I was now under care, it was time that Mom and I met with Mrs. Carey.

It was a shock to discover that I wasn’t the first transgender student at Morton Academy; there wasn’t one now–besides me–unless Mrs. Carey was being cagey. She said that the board of directors had already been confronted with and discussed the issue and guidelines had been drawn up. I realized that Mom already knew this, as she was one of the directors, being a Russell.

Mrs. Carey smiled with warmth and some sadness. “I won’t say that I’m surprised, Marion …Abigail,” she nodded to each of us. “I’ve known Benjamin his entire life–please excuse the pronouns and proper names, but I think we need to keep things in a linear sense.”

“I agree, Barbara,” Mom said. “Benjamin has attended Morton Academy, but Abby will be attending.”

“Yes, but the question is, when?” Mrs. Carey pursed her lips. She looked at me, expecting some input.

I said, “Mrs. Carey, obviously I want to start living as Abby right now, from the moment I walk out of your office, but I know that’s impractical. And maybe not possible, legally. I can wait until the end of the school year.”

“You mean continue as Benjamin while at Morton until June?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mom frowned. “Honey, that …may not be possible.”

“I’ve been doing it for some time now,” I said.

Mom shared a look with Mrs. Carey and said, “Yes, but …you’re developing.”

“Oh,” I said in a small voice. Of course.

“You may have the best of intentions to continue in a stealth mode, but you are becoming more and more undeniably feminine. You won’t be able to keep up the masquerade of being male for much longer. No matter how deep you make your voice or strut like a stud, your boobs will kind of give things away!” Mom grinned.

I blushed and hung my head. “Yes. I hadn’t …thought of that. Sports bras, maybe? Really tight?”

Mrs. Carey said, “It’s brave of you to consider that, Abby, but you–” She broke off, startled. “Dear me! It’s so easy to slip and call you Abby.”

Mom smiled. “You should see her in a dress on the weekend sometime. There’s no way on earth you would think she was a boy.”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Mrs. Carey smiled in return. “But we’re still faced with the situation of being mid-year. Any dramatic change such as this would not be possible.”

“That’s why I said to wait until next year,” I said, and then sighed. “Although it’ll make me crazy.”

“Your life is already crazy!” Mom said with affection. Turning back to the headmistress, she said, “Barbara, I think we’ve done what we needed to do at this point. We have alerted the head of school and her file now contains the official documentation. I would suggest each of her–damn! Each of his teachers be quietly informed of the situation.”

I said, “What if they disapprove?”

Mrs. Carey said, “As a private institution with our …demographic, they are much more flexible than you would imagine. There have been significantly odd situations that would disrupt another school, that they have taken in stride. And, they’re aware of the prestige of their appointments and, quite frankly, the substantial paychecks they receive. I believe that should be sufficient to persuade them to be …tolerant.” She smiled but it was a little shark-like. I was glad she seemed to be on my side.

After discussing some ways to protect me if I got hassled by anyone, we left and Mom thought it had gone well. I asked why Mrs. Carey had been so quick to basically threaten her teaching staff if they messed with me.

Mom grinned. “She’s a Morton.”

That was all I got out of her, until I realized something that had never occurred to me before.

“Mom, are you and Mrs. Carey related somehow?”

Mom smiled at me and went back to driving. “I thought you knew. We’re cousins.”

“You said she was a descendant of the Mortons. But you’re saying ‘cousin’ now. Close cousins? Like I’m related to her?”

“Absolutely. She is your first cousin once removed.” She drove a bit, with her smile that I knew meant a happy memory. “We grew up together.”

“You did? You never told me.”

“You never asked!” she teased. “Besides, it might not be good to know that the headmistress was your cousin. It might have given you airs or something. But nobody could have known how sweet you’d turn out.”

“So she’s protecting the school, but she’s also protecting me?”

“Absolutely,” Mom said with conviction.

Chapter 8: Approvals

My body was responding beautifully to the new hormone regimen, according to Dr. Randall. Once I’d confessed about taking Shelly’s jeeps, I had to bring in samples of each. I didn’t want to lose them in case my gender care was discontinued, so I emptied the bottles of all but three and brought them in so they could inspect the containers and analyze the pills. Dr. Randall questioned me closely about the pills and I’d had to really tap dance around to not name Shelly, although it would have been obvious to anybody that knew us. Then I discovered he didn’t actually care who had provided the pills, in terms of legality. He told me that over the years he had seen some amazing determination on the part of patients to procure any method of changing their bodies.

Dr. Randall’s interest was in how they’d been prescribed for me without being prescribed for me, so to speak. They were certainly the genuine article and pharmaceutically pure–there were no worries there–but he said that within a tiny variation, they were just what he would have prescribed for me! I told him that ‘the procurer’–Shelly, of course–had given detailed information about me and my body and ‘the source’–whatever doctor she’d bribed–had guessed right, based on the data provided.

This was actually vitally important, because if they’d been the wrong type of pill, I’d have to discontinue them immediately and it would be possibly months before the stuff was out of my system. Only then would the gender studies team start cautiously start me on blockers–and Dr. Randall said it would be at least a year of blockers before they’d even think about adding estrogen! They would have had to test and test and withhold and test and start again and test and so on. He said it could often take two years or more for a teenager’s system to stabilize.

I’d had nearly four months of what had turned out to be the proper dosage and pill type, and had no adverse reactions. Of course, since Shelly never did anything halfway, I was taking both blockers and estrogen, and my body was already responding–as Chen Lu could now testify. Dr. Randall speculated that although he’d have loved an opportunity to examine my body the week before I started the pills, it was like my body had been ‘hovering’ around a female puberty and had needed the slightest nudge to start developing femininely. Only instead of a gentle nudge, I’d slugged it with a baseball bat with the estrogen on top of the blockers!

The week before Winter Break was very worrisome, as their committee debated what to do, but the Thursday before break they told Mom and I that they were going to continue my blockers and estrogen without stopping. The only thing they asked was that I use their brand, so to speak. I guess they had to for liability reasons, and I only agreed once I knew they were identical to the pills I’d been taking, since my body had accepted them.

Mom was thrilled almost as much as I was. On the way home, she was radiant.

“Oh, sweetheart, I was so worried that they’d make you stop!”

“Me, too, Mom, but …you’ve still got to be mad at me–and Shelly–for taking them behind your back.”

“Well, in a …parental-handbook sort of way,” she said. “But Dr. Nielson told me something that kind of changed that. She was telling me about the absolute hell that her patients live through, and I wouldn’t want that for you. And she told me about the determination of them to change their bodies to match themselves. Their selves.”

“Dr. Randall said almost the exact same thing. I was thinking that …well, I have it easy. I’m young and I’m tiny and I was already very girly. Come on, Mom, you know it’s true! I did what I could to ignore it over the years, but now in Middle school, it’s starting to be noticed.”

Mom nodded. “That’s one of the things that frightened me; wondering about you being bullied or attacked.” She frowned and her jaw tightened. “Just because people have money or come from First Families doesn’t mean they can’t be bigoted brutes.”

“Yeah. Shelly said something once, about a girl in our class that’s …a bitch?”

“I do know the term, Abby,” Mom chuckled. “But try not to throw it around too much.”

“Yes, Mom. But Shelly said the only difference between a private school and a public school is that the kid who beats up your kid has more money.”

Mom threw her head back and laughed. “God, I love Shelly! So wise, so …full of life! And she’s right. It’s a wonder …” She trailed off.

I didn’t pursue that thought; I was still brooding over my original thought.

Mom noticed and said, “You were saying …”

“Right. I was saying that I’m kind of blessed, because of my size and age and …nature. But I was thinking about poor transgender girls that are like two-hundred-pound truck drivers or 6'5" or something. There’s no way on earth they’ll ever blend in, be taken as regular girls. Not all the pills or surgeries or anything. But still they’re determined to make their body be female, even when it’s just them looking in a mirror.”

“It’s the psychological hell Dr. Nielson talked about,” Mom nodded. “It’s a wonder they survive.”

“I was …kinda mean, or I feel kinda mean, talking that way about those women. The ones that are masculine-looking, I mean. Because …” I sighed and looked out the window. “Mom, I’m delighted to be able to dress as a girl–ecstatic–but not because of the clothes. Not because of the mirror that I just mentioned. Because I know that being female is way more than just clothes. Or mirrors. It’s …”

“It’s who you are,” Mom said quietly.

“Exactly. Exactly! And that’s my point. Because when I was just saying that about looking in the mirror, I thought of lying in bed in the dark. No clothes–I mean, not that I can see, but whether it’s a nightie or pajamas don’t matter. But no clothes, nobody else there, and certainly no mirror. And I know that I’m a female. So even if they are big truck drivers, they’re still women and they know it and …oh, my God!”

“What, honey?” Mom asked, taking a concerned look at me and then back to the road. “What is it?”

“Mom, I’ve been thinking about something, and I want to say upfront that I am not and never have thought about suicide, okay? So don’t freak out on me?”

“Okay. One free pass but I reserve the right to freak out some other time.”

“Deal,” I grinned, and then got serious. “I was thinking about some …” I stopped. “Let’s call that ‘Thought B’. I think I have to tell you about ‘Thought A’ first.”

“Wait until I fire up the cocoa,” Mom chuckled.

It was a tradition that we have deep, heavy discussions over cocoa, and we were nearly home. I was very, very happy, because I only had one more day of Benjamin and then three weeks of non-stop Abby–Morton Academy took very long Winter Breaks. And I was happy because the gender program had allowed me to continue with the pills that I knew were making my new life possible.

Curled up with steaming mugs, Mom chatted until I was ready to start.

“Mom, you know how we’ve talked about Middle school being so weird, with the boys and girls at both ends of the growth spectrum, so to speak?”

“I believe you said once, Barbies or bras, something like that.”

“Right. In the last month–really the last few weeks–that’s kind of clarified for me. And something else has clarified.”

“Thought C?” she grinned.

“No, maybe a subset of Thought A. Or …let’s just forget the sequence?” She nodded and sipped. I sipped, too, swallowed and frowned. “I know that friendships change quickly in Middle school. At least, I’d heard that, and other than Shelly, I’ve never had a friend. And, upfront, let me say there is no change in my friendship with Shelly; that’s forever.”

“I know, dear. I had a friend that way.”

“Um …I’m confused. First, I don’t want to be rude, but …I don’t know anybody that you’re that close with. And how would it be forever, then?”

“Oh, Abby,” Mom said with such sadness. She reached out and stroked my hair once. “Because sometimes life gets in the way.” Her face clouded, her eyes far away.

I stared and found my voice. “I’m sorry,” I said, upset that I’d hurt her.

Mom sighed deeply. “Sweetie, you couldn’t know. I met Maggie–Margaret Chamberlin–when I was …my goodness, just about the same time you met Shelly! We were nearly ten, I think. At a summer camp in Vermont. And we clicked. From the first look at each other. Just like you and Shelly. That’s why I made such allowances for the two of you, by the way.”

“Allowances?”

She chuckled. “What mother in her right mind would allow sleepovers with a boy and girl at your age? Before Abby showed up, I mean?”

“I never thought about it. Because she was Shelly, you know?”

Mom nodded. “I do, indeed. And because you were Abby, deep down.” She sighed. “Maggie and I were at Morton together–I’d told her all about it and she got her parents to start her there the next year. And we spent so much time together. Summers I usually spent with her family; they had a big old place outside of Boston. They made auto parts, did very well.” Mom sighed. “We were at Bennington together, and then she got an offer to work with a guy in Greece. A fellowship. She was an archaeologist, and don’t be thinking it was the stuff of romance novels. He was ancient himself, world-respected, and it was a tremendous opportunity for her.”

“So that was the first time you were really apart since, like, ten?”

“Yes. But we were young women and feeling the world …” She took a deep breath. “So with Maggie out of the picture I went to do grad work at Columbia.”

I gasped. “Where you met Dad! If Maggie hadn’t taken that fellowship …”

Mom was smiling and nodding. “We might not be having this conversation.”

“So …what happened? Why don’t I know about her? She sounds great!”

“Oh, Maggie was more than great. She was …such a life force. So positive.”

She was silent then, and I knew not to press.

Finally, Mom said, “She was my maid of honor. And had already met a wonderful man in Peru. Eduardo. But her love was in the Middle East–Mesopotamia, mostly–and …they’d been married about a year and she’d just found out she was pregnant. She was absolutely over the moon, and I was so happy for her, and had my own little infant that I cherished and wanted that happiness for her.”

“Me!” I’d blurted out, like a five-year-old, so caught up in the story.

“Yes, dear, you. So Maggie decided the dig in Turkey would be the last in the field; for the pregnancy and motherhood she’d move into researching and teaching. And then …” She shrugged. “An earthquake. They have them in Turkey quite often. Nearly ten thousand were killed, but …also Eduardo, Maggie …and their child.”

I gasped and tears burst. “Oh, God, Mom!” I was weeping, not just for the sadness of the story, but for the absolute loss on my mother’s face. I hugged her. “I’m so sorry! I’m so sorry! I never meant to bring up that sadness!”

“Oh, sweetheart,” she hugged me back. “I carry Maggie with me every day of my life. I mean, the memories we shared, not just the hurt of losing her. There are times when I’ll think about something she said, or just a look she gave me, and I’ll smile. She still makes me happy. But it’s not just my loss; the whole world lost a wonderful, bright soul the day she died.”

We were silent, hugging and I was weeping. Mom got me together with some tissue and went to refill the mugs. Then she grinned.

“If you had any doubt you’re female, that waterworks demonstration should have proved it!”

“What can I say? I’m hormonal!” I laughed, but also with the sadness of my mother’s story. We’d already talked with the doctors about me having mood swings and ‘a period’, a monthly cycle just as if I were menstruating.

Mom laughed with me, and then said, “Okay. So you and Shelly are on firm ground. So these deep, heavy thoughts you were teasing me with …?” She tilted her head.

I took a breath. “You know I’ve been hanging with Amy and Connie and Lu, right? Well, it’s like that Middle spectrum thing. Connie’s kind of boy-crazy at one end and Amy just doesn’t get it at the other. She doesn’t go so far as to say that boys have cooties or anything, but she’s pretty close.”

Mom nodded. “Amy’s …young.”

“Uh …yeah. And Lu’s just …Lu’s great.”

“I’m glad that you and she have hit it off.”

“Why?”

“Well, Shelly needs a life, too, you know!” she teased. “But however your friendship with Lu had started, she knows about your transition to Abby and I suspect that she’s actually friends with Abby. I mean that she sensed the girl within and so in a way, she’s your first friend as girl-to-girl. And she’s got a good head and a good heart.”

I frowned, thinking. “Well, I think it’s fair to say that Shelly also sensed the girl within me, but she could have sensed the wildebeest within me and we’d still be friends.”

Mom chuckled at that. “I daresay you’re right. But I think Lu is good for you.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that because this kind of involves her, too. You see, Connie’s always going on about boys but Lu isn’t. And, you know that …well, we’re all at the age where kids are interested in sex and different sex things and start being worried about being gay.”

“And the name-calling,” Mom said. “And suspicions.”

“Yes. Although the name-calling …I’ve had that for years. I’m used to it.”

“It still goes on, doesn’t it? You never talk about it.”

“I keep Dr. Nielson updated; it’s what she wanted. I don’t have to talk about it, I mean …Mom, you’re pretty. Yeah, every kid thinks their mom is pretty, but you are, and I’ve seen pictures when you were young and you were gorgeous.”

Mom actually laughed. “I’d never say gorgeous! But …I was pretty, I must admit without false modesty.”

I bounced. “Mom, do you have pictures of you and Maggie? Now that I know about her, I really want to see the two of you!”

“Yes, of course I do. I’ll dig them out at some point. So, you were saying I’m pretty …” She teased me by theatrically posing.

I laughed. “My point is that you must have walked through a day and guys hit on you. Or just wolf-whistle or something.”

“Well …yes. Occasionally.”

“So did you come home and say, ‘Mom! Dad! A man in the store said I was pretty!”

“Of course not. That would be bragging, and silly, and …”

“And it happened so often it was no big deal, right?” She shrugged and nodded. I shrugged in return. “Same thing with me. I get called ‘fag’ or ‘queer’ so often it’s no big deal. So I don’t tell you about it, not that I’m embarrassed. It’s just part of my daily life. But Dr. Nielson said she wants to ‘monitor it’, to see if it changes over time–the things they say, I mean–and if I change how I feel about it.”

“Smart woman. I like her.”

“Me, too; I’m glad we found her.”

“Goodness me, we’ve gotten sidetracked. What are we talking about?”

“You know, I’ve sidetracked myself so many times I’m going to get right to the heart of things. Amy said something and somebody overheard and misinterpreted and thought Lu was a lesbian. With Amy, of all people! Who probably puts ‘sex’ after ‘root canal’ for her least favorite subjects!”

Mom had to laugh at that.

“Anyway, Lu’s not gay. We got to talking because, well, she thought I was. Benjamin was, I mean. This is confusing, but I think you get it. Before Lu knew about me being Abby, she just assumed that Benjamin was gay, because, well, let’s face it!”

“A reasonable assumption,” Mom said.

“And she likes boys, but not gay boys, like some girls do, because they’re ‘safe’? I don’t mean she doesn’t like gay boys, I just mean that–”

“You’re tying yourself in knots. I understand. Lu is heterosexual and likes boys. She’s open-minded enough to accept gay boys as friends.”

“Thank you. Yes. Okay. Connie thought I was gay, too–Benjamin, I mean–and that was okay with her. And gayness just isn’t on Amy’s radar. Anyway, Lu likes boys. And Lu knows about Abby. So Lu and Abby were talking …”

A smile started on Mom’s face. “And Abby discovered she likes boys, too?”

I blushed. “Um …yeah. I think if I’d had to work it out on my own, there’d be all these hang-ups. I’ve talked about it with Dr. Nielson.”

“That’s what she’s there for,” Mom nodded.

“And talking with Lu, about a guy she thought was cute and who else she thought was cute …it just kind of morphed into what boys we thought were cute and it was like a truck hit me. I was thinking about cute boys!”

Mom nodded again. “Never doubted it for an instant. I’ve had a small worry that because of the roundabout way that you’ve become a girl, you might sort of talk yourself into things that weren’t your natural inclination. I wouldn’t have a problem with you being a lesbian, or even celibate, but my money was on you being a heterosexual girl. And it sounds like you are.”

“I think so,” I grinned, blushing again. “And, Mom, once I realized that …”

“It was like the dam burst?” Mom raised an eyebrow and then laughed at my sheepish nod. “Oh, my goodness–there are boys everywhere!” she teased, waving her hands in mock-fright.

“Just about! Just walking the halls is so different now. Suddenly they’re–”

“The opposite sex,” Mom said confidently. “And really interesting!”

We giggled–there’s no other word for it. My mom and I giggled together.

After sips of cocoa, I said, “God, we’ve talked about so much tonight! But I never really got to what I was thinking in the car that started this whole thing.”

“Thought A? Or was it B?”

“I think it was B, when I realized I had to tell you about me and boys, which was Thought A. Okay, the original, original thought, isn’t cheerful. I was saying that I’m lucky that I was already pretty close to a girl, and how sad for really tall or really masculine girls that are transgender. It just makes their life more difficult.”

“I’m assuming you mean ‘girls’ as what they truly are, but not their birth sex.”

“Exactly. Because I can certainly testify to the …reality of their sex, in their minds, I mean. So I was thinking about the high rate of teen suicides. Articles and brochures and things talk about the pressure to succeed, to meet impossible goals set by parents, things like that. All the pressures they mentioned seemed to be the external world pressuring the kid. But what about internal pressure? Sure, they’d feel like failures to their parents and maybe couldn’t live with that, but I bet …” I took a breath. “We always hear in the news about teens that kill themselves because they were bullied. And, yeah, probably some of them do, just because of the bullying. But I think the super-high rate of teen suicides is also partly due to a percentage of them being transgender. Boys and girls. And they don’t have the support of their family or the ability to get help or the strength to endure and all they see is their body …as a boy, I mean …all they see is their body getting bigger and hairier and less and less like the girl they know they are, and year after year of having to pretend to be something they’re not, and no end in sight. And …so they end it.”

Mom stared at me and shuddered. She hugged me tight. “I’m so glad you told me that you’re not suicidal, and I thank God you told me about Abby–thank you, God, for Shelly, too!–and that you’re being treated and you’re so strong. You’re right. You’re absolutely right. Have you mentioned this to Dr. Nielson?”

“Sort of. She stared at me, and I thought that maybe she thought I was suicidal, so I kind of backed off.”

“The medical and psychiatric communities may already be aware of it, but I think you should mention it to her again, and I can, too, if you want.”

“Thanks, Mom. I just …my heart breaks for those poor kids. It was never their fault.”

“No, and you’re right.” She took a deep, sad sigh. Then a sip of cocoa.

Then she clasped her fingers and grinned at me.

“So …what boys do you think are cute?”

Chapter 9: Changes of Plans

The next day, the last Friday before Winter Break, was scattered as usual, with things all over the place. Amy got her period! Her first! Later, Connie made an offhand remark that ‘Maybe now she’ll be interested in boys!’ and my talk with Mom the night before was very much on my mind. I didn’t say anything about boys to Amy, who’d run to tell me, all full of excitement and happiness, and then had done a blushing back-down when she realized what she’d just confessed to a boy. I smiled warmly and hugged her and said I was so happy for her and it brought her smile back. She said thanks, and started to run off and came back to me.

“Benjamin, I want you to know that …you’re really special to me. You’re a boy, but you know, you’re like …one of my best girlfriends. I hope that doesn’t hurt you.”

I grinned. “No, Amy, it doesn’t hurt at all! It makes me happy–I want to be one of your best girlfriends!”

We hugged again. She scampered off four or five steps, and turned with another confused look on her face, and then she truly scampered off. With her size and nature, ‘scamper’ was really the only word for how she moved.

She’d told Lu and the two of us were walking to our classes and Lu frowned at me.

“You’d better butch it up, babe,” she said.

“How so? And why start now?” I grinned.

“You’re holding your books like a girl.”

“I am a girl, silly,” I said softly. My books were held against my chest, as hers were.

“I know that, silly,” she retorted. “But I overheard some of the boys …”

“Call me a fag? Kinda old news, Lu!” I grinned.

She stopped and put her hand on my arm. “No, this is serious. Steve Duncan was talking to some guys and I overheard. They sounded like they wanted to jump you today.”

I frowned and thanked Lu and we parted; she turned down a corridor and I continued down two more doors and walked into class. I was thinking hard. I hadn’t offended anybody that I knew of. I rarely spoke to any of the boys. I had only one class with Steve, although I didn’t know who the other boys were.

But I did have another class with Lu. When I got there, Lu was at her desk writing furiously and handed me a note just as the teacher called the class to order. I read the note and felt chilled. Lu had written:

‘More info: SD&guys talkin bout getting YOU.’ She’d underlined heavily. ‘SD says warning to all fags at MA. Today bcuz cant be suspended–winterbreak. STAY WITH PEEPS!! ’

It made dreadful sense. There were a few gay boys that were out in the Upper school, and that had encouraged some Middle boys to come out. I had never made any motions one way or another but was obviously swishy and fit all the criteria. I was supposedly untouchable by being connected to the school–and was assumed to be rich because everybody else was–and I’d ignored the taunts for years, so I’d never experienced any actual intimidation. But for whatever demons drove Steve Duncan and homophobes, they planned to make an example of me to all the gays at Morton Academy–if a Russell descendant could suffer, anybody could. And by assaulting me on the last day before the long break, they figured that the school wouldn’t press charges–if it even would–and they wouldn’t be reprimanded. Maybe a stern letter would be sent home to be ignored while I had three weeks to recover. That way, when we returned in January, it would all seem like ancient history to the adults–but in the minds of the students, the point would have been made. And finally, Lu warned me to stay in a group with people friendly to me.

She glanced at me to see if I’d read it. I quickly flashed the sign language gestures for ‘Thank you’ with a solemn nod. Then I added ‘Love you!’ Her mouth tightened and she quickly nodded back and then class really got going.

So we walked out of class and discussed where and when I might be attacked. We didn’t have the next class together but she had a class with Shelly and would relay the information.

God bless my girlfriends; they kept me safe. Lu rallied Amy and Connie and two other girls I was friendly with, and since Shelly knew my schedule, she was with me but also got Monica and another girl that was huge–the star on the field hockey team–to join us. So I had two to five other girls with me at all times. I was gratified and humbled by their friendship and more than a little humiliated. But then I thought, what if Lu had overheard Steve say they were going to rape a girl? The girls would have rallied as well and the intended victim could count herself lucky for her friends.

Finally, back in the dorms, it was Lu and Shelly and I. We all hugged and Shelly said she loved Lu forever for ‘watching out for Abby’ and Lu’s face went funny.

“It’s so weird how casual you are with that,” Lu said. “I mean, I get it, but it’s still weird.”

“Imagine how it looks from my side,” I grinned.

Shelly pointed to me and said, “Lu, do you have any doubt that this is a girl named Abby?”

Lu looked at me seriously. “No. Not really. Yeah, between her legs!” she grinned and then sobered. “But the person? The soul within? Absolutely no doubt.”

Shelly nodded, smiling. “It just makes sense. It gets hard to remember to say ‘Benjamin’. And I like your thing about calling her ‘babe’ in the halls.”

Lu had come up with calling me ‘babe’ for several reasons. It was a term that boys and girls both used and wouldn’t be noticed as odd, and she said it was also the B from Benjamin and the AB from Abby and even joked about the E from Elizabeth–once she’d learned my full, true name–and was always a fun thing between us.

When I’d told Shelly, she’d just shrugged and said, “I call you ‘babe’ because you’re a babe’.”

Either way, I liked it!

We hugged again and Lu left. “Come to my room,” Shelly said.

I flopped on her bed as usual. Shelly was frowning, stalling as she thought. I knew to let her have her time when she was like this; then she sighed deeply and faced me.

“Got a call from my mom.”

I rolled my eyes. “Ah, crap. Shelly! She’s taking you away for the holidays again?”

She nodded. “More to it, though. She wants to meet you.”

“Meet me? Why? And why now?”

“She wants to …oh, crap,” she sighed. “She’s coming here. I don’t know what she’s up to. Just that she said she wants to meet you.”

“Um …”

“Yeah …um,” she said, nodding. “She said she wants to meet my best friend.”

“Shelly …what have you told her? Or not told her?”

“That’s just it,” she said, flopping on the bed next to me. “I don’t know! Or I’m not sure …”

“Okay. Let’s take it this way. Does she know about Benjamin?”

“Of course. God, I’ve known you–him–for like five years, now. I mean, we don’t talk but she knew I was at your house last year when she sent the car …” She trailed off and then sat up. “No, she doesn’t! I’m pretty sure of it!” She was starting to smile, remembering.

“What? What?” I sat up with her.

“She was really kinda pissy last year. I thought I was going to at least be in Manhattan or something, but she made no plans. I remember what she called you–she called you ‘my little friend’. I was thinking about how boys love that Scarface movie?”

I nodded. You would not be a boy growing up without some guy pretending to shoulder a machine gun and doing a bad Al Pacino impersonation: ‘Say heh-lo to my leetle fren!’

“When she called last year, she asked if I was still staying with my little friend, and to give the address to her for her driver. And although we jumped around a lot she hardly spoke to me. I think once she said something like, ‘Everything okay with you and your little friend?’ so I don’t think she knew it was a boy named Benjamin. So it could have been a girl named Abby!” she said with a grin.

“But she wants to meet me now? Why?”

“Don’t know. Big doings on the Mom horizon; I don’t know. Maybe she read something about bonding with your daughter, being involved. But it’s not like her. But she …” She gave me a guilty look. “She’s actually coming here. I mean, in person. Not just sending a driver. And she wants to meet my best friend and also her family. Oh! That proves she doesn’t know about Benjamin–she specifically said, ‘I want to meet your best friend and her family.’ That means you and your mom.”

“Uh …okay. When?”

She really looked guilty now. “Tonight.”

“What?” I stared at her.

“Abby! I only just found out an hour ago! She sent the urgent text thing to call her right away. You know, for medical emergencies. She was landing at Hartford! She was going to get freshened up, she said–God, I hope that doesn’t mean she’s drinking again!–and then come here!”

Shelly seemed more confused than excited. And a bit frightened, too, I thought.

“So what do we do?”

“I stay here. You go home and get into your best Abby duds. If I know Mom, she’ll look around my room with disgust, go see you at your house, try to hide her disgust, and then be bored with the whole thing and drive off.”

“Mom’s coming to get me in an hour and a half.”

“Might not be enough time. Plus, there’s the chance Steve and the guys will jump you. Crap! Okay, I’m calling you a cab.”

“What?”

I say that a lot around Shelly.

“No time, and your safety might depend on it. God, I sound like a bad detective movie.” She was already dialing and ordered a cab and was told ten minutes. “Okay. I can see the road in from here. We go to your room, grab whatever you were going to bring home, and we come back here. Steve and the guys might try your room.” She was texting furiously. “Mon’s coming, too. Okay, we hang here until the cab pulls up, go down in a cluster and off you go.”

I called Mom to tell her the crazy plan–not mentioning Steve and the boys but only Shelly’s mom’s arrival–but she approved instantly, trusting Shelly’s instincts. Shelly and I went to my room and I threw the last of my things into my bag and then locked the door behind me. Shelly had taken a little piece of scotch tape from my desk and stuck it high up on the door and the jamb.

“Can tell if anybody’s been in your room!” she grinned. “Got that from a good detective movie!”

Monica met us in the hall and we went to Shelly’s room and not two minutes later we saw the cab coming up the drive, yellow against the dark trees and white snow. We left and were one floor from the main door when we saw Steve Duncan and three big guys coming down above us. Duncan shouted ‘There he is! Get him!’ and we heard them stomping downstairs.

Shelly and Monica and I crunched through the snow and icy path as fast as we dared. Shelly shoved money in my hand as shee hustled me into the cab. She barked, “Leave! Now!” to the startled cabbie, slammed the door and banged twice on the roof and the driver sped off. Looking out the back window I saw Shelly and Monica standing shoulder-to-shoulder as the boys ran out, steam bursting from their mouths in the chill air. They yelled at the girls, did the disappointed kicking the ground thing, yelled at the girls some more, and stormed off.

I texted back to Shelly: RU OK? Tell Monica I owe her big time!

She texted back: We cool. Just get pretty!!

When we got to my house, the driver turned to me, read the amount on the meter, and said, “Why those boys want to chase a pretty girl like you?”

“They’re …mad at me.” I was momentarily stunned that, even in my boy’s uniform, he thought I was a girl.

“What you do to them?”

I couldn’t say ‘I threaten their sense of masculinity’ so I improvised a lie. “They’re mad at me because I did well on a test. They wanted everybody in the class to do badly on the test so they’d have an excuse.”

He nodded. “Ah. You blew the curve.”

I grinned. “Yes. You know the term?”

He laughed. “In Romania I teach engineering. I know grading on curves.” He nodded, smiling.

“You’re an engineer?”

“Romanian engineer,” he grinned, wagging a finger. “In America, that means I drive a cab.”

“That’s not fair!”

“Life is not fair, pretty girl. But you do what you can. You …roll with punches, you say.”

I suddenly realized that he was certain I was a girl–and a pretty one. He seemed to have picked up on that.

“Why you dress down? You should let your hair go, wear pretty dresses–I am sorry; I go too far. Excuse me.”

“No, it’s okay. I thought that, well, we all wear uniforms and kind of look alike and …” I shrugged.

He nodded. “I have two daughters. They too had a time at …what are you, twelve, thirteen?”

“Yes. Thirteen.”

“My oldest girl …she was the best. She was smartest in school, fastest in sports, better than the boys …and then suddenly she …” He burst out a Romanian phrase and then gestured downward with his hands. “She dimmed her light?”

I nodded. “Sometimes we say, ‘hid her light under a bushel’. A basket.”

“Yes, yes; so many farm phrases still in big city America!” he grinned. “She dimmed her light. To not challenge the boys. So sad.”

“Is she okay?” I really wanted to know.

“She married a butcher, got fat, made babies. Five grandchildren,” he shrugged. “But that smart, fast little girl of twelve …gone.”

I felt a lump in my throat even as I wondered what I was doing spending time talking with this guy. But I knew that somehow it was important, and I was already home. On an impulse, I reached behind and pulled out my ponytail and took off the small elastic holding it in place and fanned my hair out. I was rewarded with a smile.

“It is like the sun coming out after storm!” he nodded. “Wait; I bet you are smartest in class?”

I shrugged and then nodded.

“Those boys …soon they will be chasing you for a different reason! But you must promise yourself to not do as my Anna did. Do not play down. Play up. Always up. And that is how you do not drive cab in America.”

It felt like a final benediction but I had to ask one more thing. “Your other daughter …did she play down?”

“No. She is not smart like Anna. She is loving and kind and works hard, though. She is going to Connecticut College and will be a teacher, like her father. Only employed!” he grinned. “Oh, one thing I should tell you …”

“Abby,” I said automatically, realizing it was the first time I’d given my name to a stranger.

“Abigail?” he asked and I nodded. “A great name. I read history; you know Abigail Adams?”

I smiled. “That’s who I was named for.”

“Be like her. If that woman could have lived now, she’d be a CEO! Or President!” He wagged his finger in the air again. “But I was saying about Ramona, my youngest. She was threatened. By students. She is small and dark and had a hard time learning English. So they tease her, they knock her books down …”

He looked out the windshield, remembering some pain. Then he said, “She learned Aikido. Martial art. But not for offense, not for hitting and kicking. For dodging, for using opponent’s force against him. To …step aside and let him go past, like a bull.” He nodded. “Just the thing for a pretty girl like you to learn, who is so smart she blows the curve for the boys.” He grinned.

I asked for his card and gave him a huge tip and told him that I almost never took the cab but anytime I did or my mother did, I wanted it to be him. He grinned and wagged his finger again and drove off.

End of Part 3

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 4

Chapter 10: Travel Possibilities

I took a fast shower and came out feeling human. In other words, not Benjamin! I powdered and scented myself with some things Mom had found for me, and dressed in light blue bra and panty set, a burgundy camisole, gray-and-burgundy plaid pleated skirt and black flats. I did my makeup, put on my jewelry including the magnetic earrings, and then did my nails. God, I’d been wanting to do that! They were a nice plum and Mom had found one of those blue light gadgets so I was nearly dry just as Mom walked in.

And looked really, really pissed.

“Hi …?” I said tentatively.

“We have to talk, young lady,” Mom said, leaning against the door jamb.

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, cowed and confused.

“You didn’t tell me you’d been threatened.”

“But nothing happened; it was just threats–wait a minute; how do you know?”

“Shelly told me. She called me right after she got you in the cab.”

“I’ll kill her,” I said. “I didn’t want you to be worried. And it’s over now.”

“No, it’s not over, not with those kinds of boys. It’s never over to them until they hurt you.”

“Well, they’ve got three weeks to forget about me.”

“They’ve got three weeks to plan how to hurt you and not get caught. I can’t believe you’re this naíve. You were a boy, for God’s sake; you know how they think–the bad ones, I mean.”

I hung my head. “Mom? I really don’t. I never …got them. I didn’t understand half the things they talked about, or that meant something to them, and …it was kind of like being in a foreign country.”

“But you …” Mom trailed off, staring at me. She sagged against the door. “You really don’t know, do you? You truly are a naíve little girl …”

“Mom …” I said, on the edge of tears. That had hurt.

She rushed to me. “Oh, sweetheart, I didn’t mean it to hurt you. I meant that you were a little girl, growing up in her own world, not understanding the world of boys around her.”

She was hugging me now and I sniffed and nodded. “I just didn’t get it,” I said again.

“How strange for you; I never …I don’t think until this moment I really comprehended, truly grasped how …how alien being a boy has been for you for thirteen years. Oh, my poor baby.”

“I just …tried to be invisible. If I hadn’t found Shelly, I don’t know what I would have done.”

“She’s a Godsend. And probably on her way here. Okay, game plan.”

“Game plan?”

She nodded. “I talked with Shelly and here’s how we play it for her mom. Very simple. You’re a girl; you’ve always been a girl. You knew the boy Benjamin that Shelly was friendly with when she was little but ‘he’s gone’. That’s all we say, ‘he’s gone’.”

“Well, for the next three weeks, he is!” I grinned.

She squeezed my shoulder. “Yes, I think that was our plan anyway.”

There was something in her voice. I narrowed my eyes at her. “Did Shelly say anything? She just told me she’d gotten the call from her mother and I guess her mom is taking her away but wants to meet ‘her little friend’.”

Mom laughed. “Yes, she said the same thing. No, I think that all we have to do is be the Housemans, mother and daughter, long-time friends of Michelle and her refuge from Morton.”

“Which we are, basically.”

At that point the doorbell rang. Mom motioned to stay in place. She went to answer it and I heard her say hello to Shelly so I went out.

Shelly stood there, looking nervous. “You okay, babe?”

I said, “Thanks to you. Are you okay?”

“Babe?” Mom said.

“I’ll explain later,” I chuckled. “So what’s up, Shell?”

She rolled her eyes. “My mother’s in the car, won’t even get out until she knew you both were home.”

“How is she?” I asked.

“Okay, actually. Dry. Tanned. Getting leathery,” she shrugged.

Mom and I looked at each other. Mom said, “Shelly, what would you like me to do? Go out and invite her in?”

“Normally, sure; but I don’t want it to look like you’re a servant preparing the way or anything.”

I said, “How about I go, and Mom stay here like the lady of the manor?”

Shelly said, “Um …yeah. That’s exactly right. Sorry to put you guys through this. She’s just …weird.”

“And so are we, each in our own way,” Mom smiled. “Oh, and Shelly? Abby is your best friend, has always been a girl; she knew Benjamin but he’s gone and we don’t know where.”

That brought the first smile from Shelly. “Works for me!”

“Here, honey,” Mom said, tossing me a white sweater.

I put it on and wrapped my arms around me when I stepped out and the cold hit me; the two of us walked carefully to the black Town Car. Through the windshield I could see the a driver in a black tie and suit. The side windows were blacked as well. As we got to the car the side window slid down.

Yow! Tanned and ‘getting leathery’ was right! Maybe a face lift or two as well; she looked artificially youthful–almost painfully so. Dripping in gold and in diamonds. One or the other, I thought. Her hair was coppery and lush and I realized she looked a bit like recent photos of Sophia Loren.

Shelly said, “Hey, Mom, you wanna come in?”

“Now, Michelle …” her mother said with some disapproval.

“Hello, Mrs. Benton,” I said in my ‘best’ voice. “I’m Abigail, Shelly’s friend–”

“Best friend!” Shelly blurted.

“–best friend,” I grinned at her, and then looked back at her mother. “Would you like to come in for a moment and meet my mother?”

“We really don’t have the time,” Mrs. Benton said.

Shelly said, “Mom, the whole point of this was so you could meet Abby and her mom, right? So if we’re running short on time, don’t spend any more of it sitting in the car. Come on. It’s cold out here.”

I glanced up and saw Mom smiling and nodding graciously at the open door.

“Thomas?” Mrs. Benton said.

Shelly blew out some air. “Oh, for Pete’s sake–Thomas, stay there. I can open her door.” She reached for the door handle.

Mrs. Benton barked, “Michelle!”

Shelly stopped and kind of sagged. “Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Benton said, “Thomas?”

The chauffeur got out and buttoned his coat and came around. Shelly and I stood back as he opened the door and extended a hand. A leathery hand with long magenta nails–like talons, I thought–took his and she stepped from the car. She was in black boots, a black silky dress with a white fur that draped down to her knees. She released the hand and sort of straightened herself. Part of me hoped she never saw pictures of Cruella deVille from 101 Dalmatians. The other part wondered if she had.

“Michelle,” she said. There was some disdain, something hidden, in her tone.

“Yes, ma’am,” Shelly said. That tone obviously meant something between them.

It was painful seeing my friend treated this way, and reacting this way. To see Shelly like a beaten puppy was almost more than I could bear. This was so alien compared to life with my mother; my heart went out to poor Shelly as we accompanied her mother in a stately entourage to the steps and up to our door. Mom kept her smile on the whole way as if this was all perfectly normal.

A little part of me was glad that even though it was just Mom and me, we lived in a large, stately home. Not a mansion by any means, but as we walked slowly, careful not to slip, I realized how different this would go if I’d lived in a small tract home. Or, God forbid, an apartment! I bet Shelly’s mother wouldn’t even leave the car. I was pretty sure it was only the size of our house that made us at least borderline acceptable. Maybe I was wrong.

I wasn’t.

Mom was gracious and welcoming, smiling and saying, “Welcome, Mrs. Benton; it’s a pleasure to meet Michelle’s mother.”

“Yes, thank you,” was the response, like of course meeting her was a pleasure.

We got in and I shivered from the cold. There was the awkward ‘won’t you have a seat?’ thing and tea was offered and Mrs. Benton did something that meant nothing to me but Mom seemed to interpret.

“Abby? The tea is nearly ready if you would do the honors,” Mom smiled at me.

Confused but knowing enough to just say ‘Sure, Mom’, I went into the kitchen. She’d pulled out a family heirloom China tea set, exquisite porcelain that made me instantly terrified of dropping the tray. Everything was prepared so I brought it out slowly and carefully and set it on the coffee table. I guessed it was a tea table, now!

Mom also had me pour, because there was some ritual going on, I realized. Not the Japanese tea ceremony kind of ritual, but a High Society thing. Mom had grown up in a very genteel social structure, and also had dealt with The Rich all of her life. I could learn so much from her.

I also realized that if we were in Mrs. Benton’s house, a servant would be pouring the tea–she would never pour her own. So it was a status thing; if Mom had poured, it lowered her status to Mrs. Benton.

Tricky.

Shelly looked like a deer in headlights. I smiled at her and she rolled her eyes and looked a little better, but not much. I could tell she was worried on many levels.

After the obligatory sip–or fake sip, I noticed–Mrs. Benton put her cup and saucer down and complimented the tea and tea set. Mom did the thank you thing with a gracious head tilt and then there was silence.

“The tea is lovely, and this is a lovely home,” Mrs. Benton said, in a tone that indicated she didn’t really believe it.

“Thank you,” Mom smiled, riding on top of the disdain.

“It seems …uniquely located. Close to the school, but not isolated.”

What the heck did that mean? It felt like it was another hidden dis of some sort.

Mom said, “It’s been in my family for generations, as well as the school.”

“Yes, Michelle said something about you being distantly related …” She let it hang.

“We founded the school,” Mom said complacently but with force of pride.

I thought to myself, ‘Ha! Chew on that!’

“Ah,” was the only response. Then, needing to regain some superiority, the school was the next target. “It’s a small school but I’ve been told has some prestige,” she nodded. “Please understand it wasn’t my first choice for Michelle, but …she seems to be doing well there.”

Not ‘she likes it’ or anything like that.

Mom said, “Shelly is very smart. We think the world of her.” She beamed at Shelly, who looked so grateful.

“Mom,” Shelly said, “It’s a good school. I like it there.”

“Yes,” her mother said, neutrally.

There was silence again. I noticed that her tea was untouched since that first non-sip.

Mrs. Benton said, “And I understand that your daughter is a friend of Michelle?”

I wanted to answer but knew that the question had been directed to Mom. She gave me a look and said, “The girls have been best friends from the day they met. Years ago.”

“Almost five years,” Shelly said. “Abby’s my best friend ever.” She said it almost as a challenge.

I said, “I think Shelly’s the best person ever.” I got a surprised and warm smile from her.

“I see,” Mrs. Benton said, in that way that wasn’t clear if she did or did not see.

Mom said, “We are always happy to have Michelle stay with us. We love to have her. And that certainly includes this holiday.” She had left things open, I saw. The plan had been that Shelly would stay here, since she hadn’t heard from her mother until a little over an hour ago. Now …who knew?

Mrs. Benton gave a small frown. “It is my intention to have Michelle with me for the holidays.”

“Mom!” Shelly blurted. “Sorry. Okay.” She seemed to sag.

Mrs. Benton eyed her. Then she said, “I was wondering if your daughter would like to accompany us.”

I startled and looked at Shelly, who was just as shocked.

Mom seemed unperturbed. “I’m interested in what that would involve.”

Mrs. Benton said, “My plans are flexible. She has a passport, of course?” It wasn’t a question, though.

“No,” Mom said. “We’d planned to get one in the spring for summer travel.”

This was news to me–or made up on the spot. I suddenly flashed that I couldn’t have a passport because it would say Benjamin!

Mrs. Benton waved a hand. “No matter. I have no real interest in Europe this season. Does she ski? I was thinking Game Creek or Tallus.”

I didn’t know what Tallus was but there had been something on the news about Game Creek that was supposed to be the most expensive ski resort in America. It was in Vail or Aspen; I didn’t remember which.

“Abby has never skied,” Mom said. “Perhaps it’s time for her to learn.”

“It can be enjoyable,” Mrs. Benton said.

I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew somehow that she’d never skied. I’d have to check with Shelly.

“We can take lessons; it’ll be fun!” Shelly said.

Her mother looked at her, blink-blink, and then said, “Perhaps another year.”

Mom said, “Mrs. Benton, what are you proposing, what length of time?”

“Oh, a few weeks, I would think,” Mrs. Benton replied casually.

“You mean past Christmas?” I sort of blurted out. I looked around. “I can’t leave Mom at Christmas!”

Mrs. Benton gave a sigh, sort of like she had to shoulder the world’s burdens, and completely ignored my outburst. “If we forego Vail, perhaps sun is the answer. One of the islands, perhaps.”

I had no idea what Mom was thinking about, but I’d realized that I couldn’t really fly anywhere–no passport or ID proved Abigail Houseman existed, so Shelly’s mom would know about me, and might say we couldn’t be friends, or might even take Shelly out of Morton! I knew in that instant that I had to speak up.

“Mrs. Benton,” I said politely, trying to mirror my mother’s even tone. “I thank you very much for your interest in my accompanying you and Michelle this holiday season. It’s very kind of you, and there’s almost nothing I’d like more than to spend time with your daughter. But there is something more important to me, and that is spending time with my mother. I don’t see her for more than eight days a month, so Winter Break is a special time for us. I thank you for your very kind offer but must respectfully decline.”

Shelly stared at me and then gave me a burning glare–how could I do this to her?

Mom looked at me with a mixture of sadness and pride. She said, “Although I know how much it means to Abby to spend more time with Michelle, and as much as I would love for her to have new experiences, I treasure our Christmas times together as well. And I must add my thanks to hers, Mrs. Benton, and I respect my daughter’s wishes to decline your most gracious offer.”

“I understand,” Mrs. Benton said.

Again, it was unclear whether she did or didn’t–or maybe just didn’t care. I think there was also an undercurrent of …relief?

“Abby!” Shelly whispered furiously, sounding betrayed.

“Michelle,” her mother said in that tone.

“Yes, ma’am.” Shelly sagged.

God, is that the extent of their conversations? I caught a glance from Mom; she seemed to be thinking the same thing.

Mom said, “As I mentioned before, Michelle is more than welcome to spend the holidays with us.”

Mrs. Benton inhaled and looked at the ceiling for a moment. “That might perhaps be arranged.”

“I’ve got my stuff in the car!” Shelly said with enthusiasm.

“Oh, no-no-no,” her mother shook her head once. “I was thinking …perhaps this. I wish Michelle to accompany me but she needn’t spend her entire holiday with me.”

“It’s okay, Mom,” Shelly said, trying to be helpful. “Maybe we can video conference on Christmas Day or something.”

I thought she would be disciplined for that as impertinent, but her mother wasn’t troubled in the least; apparently in their world that was very real and practical and probably done a lot. But not doable, this time, for some reason.

“We have some business to conduct first, but perhaps next week sometime you might return …”

Mom said, “Michelle is most welcome at any time. Might I suggest something that may or may not fit in with your plans? Abby and I will be spending some time in Manhattan for various events, ballet, some shows, perhaps. We could perhaps rendezvous and then return here with Michelle for Christmas Day or the day after?”

Mrs. Benton did the inhale-ceiling-look thing again that I realized was her way of organizing her thoughts. “Yes, that might be possible. I rather like the idea of Manhattan during Christmas week. Yes, that is possible. We will arrive in Manhattan on the twenty-second or twenty-third.” She waved a hand at how trivial dates were to her.

Mom said, “We will stay flexible, then. Until we hear from you or Michelle. At some point we will rendezvous, see the sights, and then return with Michelle to Hartford. And, if I understand correctly, Michelle will remain with us until school commences in January? And that is perfectly fine with us, by the way.”

Mrs. Benton nodded slowly. “Excellent. Yes. A plan. Well.” She stood. “Your home is quite lovely. And thank you for the lovely tea.”

She’s reversing, I realized; she’s saying the same entry lines as her exit lines.

There was that fingertip handshake thing society ladies do.

“Come, Michelle,” Mrs. Benton said.

Shelly was frowning.

I quickly said, “Mrs. Benton? I have a little present I want to give Shelly–Michelle–that will just take a moment. And I’ll send her right out.”

Mrs. Benton nodded. “Don’t be long, Michelle.” Turning to me. “A pleasure finally meeting you, Abigail.” Turning to Mom. “And you, Mrs. Houseman.” There was no pleasure in her eyes; only the desire to leave.

“And you as well, Mrs. Benton,” Mom said, still smiling graciously. How does she do that?

Mom led Mrs. Benton to the door and they went out. As soon as the door was closed, Shelly whirled on me.

“How could you do that, Abby? We had three whole weeks together!” She looked hurt.

“Shelly, there’s nothing more I’d love than three weeks hanging out with you, but geez, girl–think about it! Everything she mentioned was traveling. She asked about the passport. Then Vail, and ‘the islands’ …”

“The islands! Yes! Cute bikinis! We’d get tanned!” she nearly wailed. “And you didn’t want to?”

“I did want to–I do want to!” I cried in response. “But the Department of Homeland Security would want to know why a boy named Benjamin was wearing a bikini!”

It was like I’d hit her. She froze, stunned, her eyes wide–and then she burst out laughing. “Omigod! I never thought …oh, God! That would be so …” She shook her head, laughing. “Good thing you were thinking!”

“It’s not just the weirdness or the embarrassment,” I said. “I could take that. But your mom would be told and–”

Shelly’s hand flew to her mouth. “Omigod–you’re right! She’d never let me speak to you again! She might even–”

“Yank you out of the school,” I nodded solemnly.

Shelly glanced at the door. “I gotta get out there. But you did give me a present! I was sitting there wondering why my best friend didn’t want to spend time with me. But you were thinking of me all the time!”

“And you were thinking of me and saved me from Steve and the guys today. I love you, Shell!”

“Love you, Abby!” She headed to the door. “God, I can’t wait until Manhattan!”

Chapter 11: Car Talk

Mom came back in and we looked at each other. “Interesting woman,” Mom said.

“Interesting?” I was surprised at the word. “She’s like a character in a bad movie or something. A caricature.”

“Yes, I agree,” Mom nodded, smiling. “Very perceptive, honey. An excellent word …caricature. And that makes her interesting.”

“I don’t agree,” I said. “As much as I want to spend time with Shelly, the thought of time with her …” I shuddered theatrically. “But …come on; interesting?”

“Did you have any sense of the woman? I mean, an actual person?” Mom asked. “You said ‘a character in a movie’ and even Shelly herself said ‘cartoon’.”

I thought for a moment and then nodded. “No, you’re right. Unless I missed something. It was all …surface. Like there was a box of costumes and pieces and she wanted to put together the costume for a Rich Bi–” I checked myself.

Mom laughed. “I know what you meant to say, don’t worry! And you’re right. It’s a character type. It’s all surface. I think there’s a deeply …missing person somewhere. I think she’s trapped in some image that she thinks is essential to maintain. I wonder …” She looked thoughtful.

I asked her ‘What?’ but she brushed it off and said for me to grab my coat and purse. I did automatically, still feeling the happy buzz at hearing her say that–and being able to do it. My coat was a long dark herringbone with black collar and cuffs, and I decided I’d better switch to boots because of the snow. My new boots were my newest pride and joy; we’d only gotten them the previous weekend because snow had been predicted.

In the car my phone rang; it was Shelly.

“Look, I only have a little bit of time before she comes back. We’re at the airport and she’s hassling somebody about something. As usual.”

“Do you know where you’re going?”

“LA, I think. She seemed to like you and I’ve been talking up you and your mom like crazy. You guys were great and is she there?”

“Hold on,” I said, and handed the phone to Mom who drove one-handed, despite the law.

“Hi, Shelly. Tell your mother it was a pleasure to meet her–” She paused. “Doesn’t matter if it was or not, just tell her, alright? Specifically, it was a pleasure to meet her. Okay. Is there anything I can do for you? Or both of us can do?”

She listened and nodded. Then she said, “I suspected something like that. Again, can I help you?”

She listened again for longer, and then said, “Alright. And I actually agree whole-heartedly. Think wonderful thoughts and know that we love you. Here’s Abby.”

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“Your mom can tell you. Listen, I think you’ve got to really, really consider dropping the whole Benjamin thing. Not just so you can fly–crap, here she comes. But Benjamin’s not you, babe! Start the new year as yourself, as Abby. Oh, hi, Mom,” she said louder. “Just saying ‘bye’ to Abby and her mom. You want to say hello?” There was silence and then Shelly said, “She’s going back to yell at somebody. Man. Okay, just …think about it. Talk with your mom, your doctors, Mrs. Carey …you’ve got to factor in Steve Duncan, too. He’s just the tip of the iceberg.”

“Iceberg?”

“As long as you’re a gay Benjamin, you’re a target.”

“If I’m a trans girl, I’m one, too.”

“Not if you handle it right! Geez, Abby, lie your pretty little butt off! It’s a medical thing; you’ve always been a girl, just had a weird clitoris that looked like a penis, but hey, anybody taking a look at you over the last ten years would say you’re a girl, and now you’re developing breasts–wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles. Doesn’t that prove you’re a girl? Always were a girl?”

“But that’s because of the pills–”

“God, you’re too honest for your own good, Abby! Think about it–gotta go; she’s waving me to the gate. Love you-love you-love you!” The phone went dead.

Mom drove us to a mall in West Hartford, parked and then turned to me. “I’m figuring that most Morton students won’t be heading to this mall the afternoon they’re let out of Winter Break. So the chances are slim that you’ll run into anybody you know. What are your thoughts?”

“Well, I’m nervous, but I think it’s more excitement than fear of running into anybody.” Steve Duncan was first and foremost in my mind.

“So will you come in and shop with me?”

“Yes, of course, Mom,” I said, giving her a look. Why had she phrased it that way?

Mom didn’t move to get out of the car. Instead, she tucked her chin onto her chest, deep in thought. I sat back and let her think. Actually, it was the first bit of downtime I’d had all day. Then Mom took a deep breath.

“I want to discuss something with you; it will be something we talk about at length but I want to …put it out there, as they say.”

“So …put away, Mom,” I grinned.

“What did Shelly tell you at the end of her call?”

“Um …that I should drop Benjamin. She meant now. Like …now.”

Mom nodded.

I waited for her to say something. “That’s it,” I said.

She nodded again.

“Mom?”

She looked around the parking lot and then turned and faced me. “Sweetheart, this isn’t the best place for this but it is the time. I loved Benjamin but I’ll be perfectly honest. There always seemed to be something missing in him; your father had thought it was because there was girl within you that was suppressed.”

“Yes, you told me that.”

“By suppressing that part of you, Benjamin could never be a whole person. Do you see that?”

“Yes.”

She gave me a look and said forcefully, “Don’t just agree. It’s vitally important that you understand that fundamental truth. Benjamin could never become a whole person. We didn’t know why, but we do now.”

“Because I’m Abigail. I mean, even though I didn’t have the name, it was like …” I looked out the window, gathering my thoughts. “It’s like Abby had to be asleep for Benjamin to function. And, yeah, I think that …she peeked out every so often. Shelly saw her peeking out the first time we met.”

“Yes. And others have commented on it.”

“Who?”

“Just people, strangers, others …” She frowned. “Even Barbara Carey told me I had a daughter, years ago.”

“She knew?” I was truly shocked.

“Like you said, Abby peeked out through the Benjamin mask every so often. And people noticed.”

I sighed. “Thought I’d had it under control. Trying to be a boy.”

“And, quite honestly, failing miserably at it, don’t you think?”

I nodded. “Not equipped for the job …” Then I laughed. “Actually, I was given the tool but no instruction manual!”

She stared for a moment before she understood and then laughed heartily. “That’s borderline naughty, but maybe that makes it all the more accurate! Oh, sometimes you’re too smart for your age!” She sighed. “Right. The reason I’m bringing all this up now is that things are coming to a head. Your life is changing faster and beyond things you can control. Just today makes that very apparent. From not having proper ID to fly, to being seriously threatened by boys who won’t go away. To the fact that …you just aren’t a boy anymore. You’re not a boy at school and a girl at home. At school, you’re a neuter, a cipher. A mask. Would you agree?”

I nodded. “Sorry. I tried my best. So I kept my head down and …you know. Tried to be invisible.”

“And invisible is no way to go through life,” she said firmly. “So. What I’m proposing to you, Abigail Elizabeth Houseman, is that we put an end to Benjamin Thomas Houseman. Tonight.”

I actually gasped. “But …Dr. Nielson said …and school …”

“We’ve actually discussed this, your doctors and I. Last night and this afternoon, and when Shelly called me and told me about the Duncan boy and the gang, I called them again. The issue of identification that prevented you from some fun with Shelly was the final straw. We’re all in agreement, your doctors and I–but ultimately it’s your decision.”

“But school …”

“You sound like you don’t want to become Abby.”

“I do. I do! But …are you saying that it’s okay with Mrs. Carey if I …” I could feel my eyes widen. “You mean I could be Abby in January?”

Mom nodded. “It may be unavoidable now.” Her smile was tight. “Young Mr. Duncan and his cronies may have done you a favor. How you handle January …we’ll have to work on that.”

“Shelly says to lie,” I said, frowning.

“Lie? She surprises me.”

“She said to tell anybody that it’s a …it’s always been a medical condition. That I was female at birth and that …she was kind of graphic. She said I should say that my clitoris was mistaken for a penis and they said I was a boy. But that I’ve always been a girl, and that when I started developing breasts, it was obvious. But not to mention that I’d taken pills or anything.”

Mom was nodding. “There’s actually a lot more truth than lie in that. I can see where it would …check off a lot of boxes. My goodness, that Shelly is a smart girl! We’ll keep that idea around; it may be your best bet, eventually. And while you don’t want to go around talking about your clitoris, you could say something like …‘a birth defect that made something look like a boy’s’. You know, a general sort of nudge-nudge.” She nodded again. “She’s a smart girl.”

“Yeah, if she’s so smart, why ain’t she rich? Oh, wait a minute–she is!” I joked.

Mom chuckled. “Come on. Time to jump in the deep end.”

Chapter 12: The Deep End

I still wasn’t sure what she meant until we almost headed into Claire’s, the teen-girl Mecca. I froze and grabbed Mom’s arm.

“Wait a minute, Mom!” I tugged her to the side and leaned close. “Are you thinking about me getting my ears pierced?”

She gave me a blank look. “Do you want that?”

“More than anything! But …doesn’t it cause problems with school? I can’t hide them.”

Mom said, “I think the time for hiding is over, don’t you? That’s what we were talking about in the car. Putting an end to Benjamin? Tonight? Well, this is the first step.”

I started to say, “If you think I won’t get into trouble, I–”

My phone rang. I frowned and Mom nodded; since I wasn’t one of those kids who was constantly getting called, it was unusual and should be checked. I was surprised; it was Chen Lu.

“Hello?” I asked, tentatively.

“Um …hello?” her voice came through. “Um …who am I speaking to?”

“Lu? It’s Abby,” I said.

I heard the relief in her voice. “Oh, thank goodness! Listen, Abby, are you okay? I heard about Steve Duncan.”

I frowned and looked at Mom and said, “Where are you? I thought you were heading home?”

“Oh, I am already; I left Thursday right after school. I’m back in San Francisco.”

Mom guided us to a bench and we sat as I continued the call. “That’s why you weren’t in–hey, if you’re in San Francisco, how do you know about Steve? That was just a few hours ago.”

“News travels fast. I think Monica Shelton was there?”

“Yes. She helped me get away, her and Shelly.”

“Monica’s brother called me. He’s got a crush on me,” she giggled. “And I got his take on it, from a boy’s angle, and then called Mon and she told me exactly what happened. You got away okay, right?”

“Yes. Thanks to Mon and Shelly. Shell called a cab and they hustled me right into it. Steve and the guys came stomping out just as the cab pulled away.”

“God, you’re lucky,” she breathed.

“Yeah. But thank you for caring, and calling me, Lu. I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, babe!” She kind of cleared her throat–it was hard to tell with the long distance. “Listen, Abby, I’ve got to say something or I’m going to go crazy. Don’t be mad at me, okay? I’m probably butting my nose in where it’s not wanted.”

“Lu, you’re my friend. You can say anything, okay?”

“Okay. And you’re mine, too. Um …okay.”

“You said okay already,” I teased.

“Yeah,” she giggled, and then took a breath to start. “Okay–God, I can’t stop!”

“It’s because you don’t want to start. Just jump in,” I said, thinking of Mom’s comment about ‘the deep end’.

Lu said, “This is the thing. I’ve been thinking about this for …ever since you told me about Abby. And now this thing with Duncan …Well, I think you should seriously consider being Abby. All the time. Get it straightened out with the school–”

“Wait a second, Lu. Bad reception on my cell phone,” I lied, looking at Mom. “Go ahead and tell me again. Lu, what did you say about being Abby?”

I had pushed the ‘speaker’ button and held the phone between Mom and I and we leaned close.

Lu said, “I said I think you should seriously consider being Abby all the time. Talk with the school and see if they’ll let you do it right away. I mean, like January, you know?”

“You think I should stop being Benjamin?” I asked, looking at Mom. She had a small smile.

“Babe, you stopped being Benjamin about, oh …forever,” she giggled. “Seriously, I love you, and I know you’re trying to be a boy, but you’re no darned good at it. And you give the gay boys a hard time of it, sort of, because you’re not like them. They’re effeminate and flaunt it, but you’re feminine and spend your time hiding it. Stop hiding! You’re a girl, silly, so start being one!”

“Actually, Lu, my mom and I were thinking along the same lines.”

“Good. I bet Shelly thinks that way, too.”

“Absolutely,” I grinned. “God, I love you, Lu. Thank you for saying this! And you’re such a good friend, and I miss you even more, now!”

“I’m getting dirty looks from my mother–she just walked in. I’ve gotta wrap this up. I’ll call you in a few days. Just …think about it, okay? I think you’ll be happier–no, I know you’ll be happier, because you’ll be you! Bye, Abby, gotta go!”

And Mom and I stared at each other over the phone. She raised an eyebrow.

“Well?”

I looked at Claire’s. I said, “Maybe I need a couple of holes in my head …”

She laughed as we stood and entered.

I couldn’t get over the timing of everything, from Shelly’s mom to Lu’s phone call, and how the almost-attack by Steve Duncan seemed to have catalyzed things. Certainly my mother was convinced, and my reluctance was fear about the next semester, but I asked myself which was more important: Laying low as miserable Benjamin or finally living my life as Abby? And after the Duncan business, laying low might not even be an option anymore. These thoughts occupied my mind as I followed Mom into Claire’s and right up to the point where I suddenly had the pop-pop and realized that I had pierced ears! I looked in the mirror and, yeah, they were only gold studs, but they were my gold studs in my ears!

Mom beamed. “I can tell how happy you are! Okay, let’s pick up some goodies!”

And we picked several sets of earrings, and some necklaces and some rings and a lot of bracelets and some scarves and I was just buzzing with happiness.

Walking back into the mall, I hugged Mom. “Thank you, Mom, for allowing me to …” I couldn’t think how to finish.

She did, though. “For allowing you. That’s all you need to say. I’m allowing you to be you.”

“I’m not even going to think about my first day back at school until maybe the night before.”

She nodded. “Good idea, because you don’t know what to expect, and things may change, so why spend time and effort agonizing over something too soon?”

That made sense and I could actually feel some relief. But then Mom steered me into Diventaré , a high-end salon. I turned to Mom. “Are you getting something done?”

She grinned. “Tempting, but no. But one of us is, I hope!”

Before I could speak, she led me to the hostess of sorts, a tall silver-haired woman who looked more like a manager. Mom spoke in a different voice than I’d heard her use before.

“Yes, I’ve finally convinced my daughter to drop the whole tomboy routine.” She rolled her eyes theatrically. “I’m hoping you can squeeze her in quickly, before she changes her mind.”

The woman smiled. “My niece went through a tomboy phase. Drove my sister crazy for years! Let me see what we can do.” She flipped through the book.

I thought ‘why not just turn around and look at the empty chairs?’ but I guess proprieties must be observed. The woman looked at her watch and said, “Miko can take her in ten minutes. Would you care for a glass of wine while you’re waiting?”

“Yes, please, that would be lovely,” Mom said in that different voice.

She accepted the wine which seemed to appear out of nowhere, and we sat. I leaned over and spoke quietly.

“You’re drinking wine?”

“I’ve been known to enjoy a glass of wine now and then. But who said anything about drinking?”

“But she …” I realized she’d accepted an offer of a glass. “You’re splitting hairs semantically?”

She grinned. “You’re thirteen and throwing around words like ‘semantically’?” She laughed slightly. “You are your father’s daughter.”

That sentence made my heart leap for joy; warmth spread throughout me. But I also felt humbled, and all I could say was, “I love you, Mom.” And I so wished my father was there with us.

“I love you, Abigail-girl-of-my-heart, and yes, I wish he were here, too.”

Freaky how she could read my mind.

We sat with her not drinking her wine but occasionally lifting the glass; I guess it was courtesy on both sides between Mom and the hostess. Then a round-faced Japanese woman walked up, smiling. Her hair was long and straight and had bangs straight across over her eyebrows, and she was dressed entirely in black.

“Abby?” Miko asked.

“Miko?” I smiled, and she nodded.

Mom stood with me and I remembered the last words she’d said before Miko’s arrival–‘Let them do their job’. I’d said ‘Huh?’ and Mom explained that it was all going to be new to me but not to feel embarrassed because she’d used the ‘tomboy phase’ excuse to explain why a pretty girl like me didn’t know salon procedure.

That had startled me; aside from the brilliance of the little white lie. I’d asked Mom, “You really think I’m pretty?”

“I’m your mother so I’d have to say that, sweetie!” she grinned. “But in your case it’s true. Benjamin was a …questionable young boy, but Abigail is definitely a pretty girl. And as such, she would have had close to ten years of having her hair and nails done and wouldn’t be just wearing a pair of starter earrings at thirteen. So the tomboy thing explains why a genuinely pretty girl has never set foot in a salon.”

This was on my mind as I realized that the hostess and Miko both treated me as if I were, as Mom had said, a genuinely pretty girl.

Huh!

I was led to a changing robe where I partially undressed and wore a black robe. Then I was shampooed and massaged–that alone almost made me purr!–and then Miko began working on me. And after what seemed like a lot of cutting, she began wrapping bits of hair in foil and painting them. I asked her what was going on. I was worried but trying to ‘let her do her job’ as Mom had said.

Miko told me she was ‘brightening’ my hair. I had no more information than when I’d asked the question, so I just nodded. Then Miko supplied the missing piece of the puzzle.

“Your mother ask for this,” Miko said, never letting up on the brushing.

But then an older woman came up to with a rolling cart and took my right hand and began doing something to it. I slowly glanced down–to not disturb Miko’s work–and the woman was stripping my nail polish! Gee, I’d only had it on about two hours, and I liked that shade! But I lay back.

Miko seemed to be done with my hair but then began putting goop on my eyebrows. Ah, to match the brightening, whatever that is, I thought? Then she put a hand on me, said something, and rip and yow! I’d twitched and was just settling back for a second rip and Miko smiled and bent to work again on my brows. Okay, they can grow back, I thought. But in three weeks?

The nail lady had moved to my left hand; all the poking and prodding and funny feelings were blurring together and it had been a school day and the run from Steve Duncan and I just drifted off a bit, I guess. The next thing I knew I was being brushed by Miko. I shook myself, feeling a little fuzzy, and yawned slightly. I could see my feet, and was surprised that my shoes were off and my toenails had plum nail polish! I hadn’t done that at home; I’d only been thinking about my fingers and didn’t have that much time to get ready before Shelly’s mom would arrive.

I looked up and saw Mom standing a few feet away, smiling at me. Actually, smiling didn’t do her justice. She was radiating happiness, broadcasting it, with a huge smile, her eyes sparkling.

“Oh, sweetie!” was all she said.

Miko appeared next to her. “Good?” she asked.

“Great!” Mom nodded.

Miko smiled and then turned to me. “Okay, you look.” She spun the chair around.

I remember once seeing a novelty snow-globe, but not like the typical snow-globe that had a city or mountain scene–a winter scene. The novelty one I’d seen was a beach, with a beach umbrella and beach ball and those folding chairs and on the little backdrop you could see the ocean in the distance. And when you shook it up, it snowed. It was just kind of slamming the two seasons together.

For some reason that silly snow-globe came to mind when I looked in the mirror.

It took a moment but then I knew it was me. My eyes looked at my eyes and there I was in a chair and there was Mom and Miko in the reflection. But it wasn’t Benjamin, and it wasn’t Abby as I’d gotten used to seeing in the mirror over the last month.

This was a really pretty girl.

I was glad that I had that moment of not knowing it was me, because it gave me a chance to give an honest, objective assessment. Modesty didn’t enter into it, or embarrassment, or vanity, or anything else. It was just my reaction observing a girl …who was really pretty.

And she was me, and instantly I felt more confident. ‘So that’s what Mom meant,’ I thought. Then I realized that Mom hadn’t seen this girl. So …

My hair was still past my shoulders but flowed. It swept down with feminine grace, framing my face. And especially complementing my eyebrows, which were now delicate arches. They and my hair were, yes, brighter than I remembered, but not colored. Not streaky highlights, either. Just …brighter.

I reached up to my hair and saw the plum nail polish and suddenly realized that my nails were longer! She’d put some fake nails or extensions or wraps or whatever they’re called–I had so much to learn!–but they were just a bit longer than my old nails and were feminine ovals.

And I had some makeup …how long had I been asleep?

It wasn’t movie-star stuff, just mascara, eye shadow, subtle liner, some blush and lipstick, but omigod it looked wonderful!

Mom said, “Do you like it?”

“I love it! Everything!” I said. I spun the chair to smile at Miko. “Thank you, Miko! And the other lady that helped–thank you both!”

The hostess had walked up and shook her head. “How in the world did that beautiful girl ever think she was a boy?”

Her remark freaked me out. I glanced at Mom who seemed unperturbed. Did the woman guess about me, somehow? But her next remark relieved me.

“The whole tomboy thing …” She shook her head. “I acknowledge it, but I just don’t get it. I can never understand why such a pretty girl wouldn’t want to be pretty!”

I didn’t have an answer for that, so I said, “It’s not me; it’s really good work from Miko and the other lady. Thank you.”

The hostess smiled. “And she’s polite and gracious, too,” she smiled at Mom. “But now you’re going to have your hands full! The boys will be chasing her!”

Inside, a little voice screamed at the reality that a few hours ago, that was exactly what had happened–but not the way she meant!

And, of course, it meant that Mom and I would be talking about boys …

End of Part 4

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 5

Chapter 13: Shocking Tea

I came home a very different person than I’d been when I woke up that morning. I was exhausted, deliriously happy, and looking forward to life–and absolutely terrified. But Mom had a basic rule.

“This might be self-evident, but it’s important that it be acknowledged between us. From now on, Benjamin is no more. Alright? Don’t feel that you have to hold back with anything. Don’t censor yourself or your actions because they might seem too girlish. You are a girl. Benjamin is over. If you try to somehow keep Benjamin alive, all you’ll do is cause problems for yourself. You are Abigail from now on.”

“What about school?”

“Is that going to be your new mantra?” Mom looked disapproving. “How about, ‘What else can I do?’, huh? Benjamin is the past and you’re living in the now and moving into the future.”

“Mom …”

She rolled her eyes. “I know, I know; ‘what about school?’ Okay. I’ll call Barbara Carey tomorrow. So you can’t do anything about anything until then, right? So go to sleep, my darling girl, and dream sweetly.”

I did, in my nightgown and trying not to think about anything, as ordered. No dreams, though, which was probably a blessing.

In the morning I got up, showered, powdered and wrapped myself in my robe and had breakfast and Mom said she wanted me to put on my school uniform. There was something about the way she said, “It’s hanging in the back of your closet.”

I wondered if she was curious how girly I would look dressed as Benjamin so I approached it as just something to humor her–and find out for myself–and went to my closet. To my complete and utter amazement a complete Morton uniform hung there, brand new–a girl’s uniform! Light blue and white blouses with the familiar Peter Pan collars with a plastic bag holding the ribbon ties around the hanger. The blazer was the same–until I looked closer and saw that it was a girl’s, with a different cut and the buttons reversed, of course. Slacks appeared the same but were cut differently, too. And best of all …best of all …was the skirt! Three of them, actually. And hanging against the wall was the girls’ PE outfit.

“Mom!” I shouted.

“Abby, I’m not deaf,” Mom said, so close she startled me.

I turned to her grin. “What’s all this?”

“This is what a well-dressed Morton Academy girl wears to school. Why? What did you think it was?”

“When did …how did …”

“I’m guessing that the answers are ‘About three weeks ago’, and ‘While you were having breakfast’. So …try them on.”

I was so excited that I disrobed and pulled on panties and a bra. I noted with happiness that my nipples on my little breasts hardened in the sudden chill when the robe came off. I knew they’d embarrass me in the future but the doctors were pleased and I was overjoyed with how my breasts were developing.

I put on the blouse and then pulled on the skirt and tucked in the blouse, then opened the bag to the ribbon ties and tied it properly, then the blazer. Finally, I quickly stepped into black flats, added my jewelry and took a deep sigh at myself in the mirror. Miko’s hairstyle was brilliant; it looked cute when it was sleep-tousled, and brushed out it looked great!

And I looked great–and I looked ordinary. I looked like any pretty girl at Morton. My breath caught in my throat. I think Mom had the same reaction.

“Oh, sweetheart! You’re a Morton Girl!”

I turned to her and hugged her. “I hope so. God, I hope so! But thank you for letting me see what I’d look like. I was kind of worried.”

Mom smiled at me and surprised me by telling me to grab my coat and purse. And then we went right to the school! I was super nervous, but I was carried along by how wonderful–and yet again, how ordinary–it felt to be there dressed like I belonged. To my further surprise, we went to Mrs. Carey’s living quarters at the back of the school. It was actually the original house that the school had grown from; her daughters were grown and married and she’d been widowed when I was little.

And Mrs. Carey was expecting us.

“Come in, come in, Marion, Abigail,” she smiled.

Whew, I thought! At least I didn’t have to go through an explanation.

We got settled and she had tea already made–I guess when Mom alerted her–and we sat, all very domestic. Mrs. Carey looked at me, smiling.

“I must say that I was wrong. I always thought that Benjamin would make a pretty girl. I had no idea that she would be so lovely. You really are remarkably pretty, Abigail.”

“Um, thank you, Mrs. Carey,” I blushed. “Do you mean that? About always thinking that about Benjamin?”

“Oh, yes,” she said, as if it were the most natural, trivial thing. “Your father and I talked about it, as well as talks I’ve had with your mother. The question wasn’t so much ‘if’ as ‘when’.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“We were fairly certain, from your very first few years, that you were transgendered, although I have my suspicions that there is a medical cause underlying that. But there was little doubt that you always were female in your soul. Quite frankly, we worried about your safety.” She sipped her tea. “Amazing that it was only yesterday that the danger finally manifested.”

Mom said, “From what I understand, Benjamin had mastered the art of being invisible.”

Mrs. Carey nodded. “A good description. But by Middle it’s impossible to be invisible on matters of sex and sexuality. It’s all they think about, once they start thinking about it.” She made a small smile. “I wouldn’t teach Middle schoolers for all the tea in China.”

“Well, as you said, the danger has manifested,” Mom said.

Mrs. Carey put her cup and saucer down, folded her hands and addressed me. “Strictly off the record, could you tell me what happened?”

I told her everything, especially praising Shelly and Monica, but also the other girls that had run defense for me all day once Lu reported what she’d overheard.

Mrs. Carey nodded, with a pleased smile. “If there was any doubt as to your acceptance as a girl by the girls, yesterday dispelled that. They see you as one of their own. I don’t foresee too much difficulty in January. There are a few potential problem children, but I’ve reviewed the files and feel that we can weather any difficulties they present.”

“Ma’am?” I asked, unsure of her meaning.

Mrs. Carey looked a little embarrassed. “When we pre-screen applicants, one of the areas that has caused some concern in recent years has been religious extremism. We and other schools have found that the …demographics for schools such as ours generally enjoy a very low percentage of …zealots, shall we say. But some may be in any school and their presence becomes known only when a situation arises that …inflames their zealotry.”

I said, “We’re not talking suicide bombers, but ….”

Mrs. Carey’s mouth pursed in a small smile. “No, I believe not. But religious zealotry and bigotry still rear up from time to time. Greenwood school was blindsided with a lawsuit–particularly tricky to fight, the way it was constructed–over three gay students, brought by two so-called Christian families. They were demanding the sin of homosexuality be cleansed from the school. And, in a dazzling display of hypocrisy altogether consistent with religious extremists, they completely ignored four lesbians, all of whom were quite open.”

“Did the gay students win?”

“Eventually. And yet not at all. Two of them left the school and the one remaining family toughed it out but suffered business losses engineered by the extremists.”

I looked at Mom. “Suddenly I’m scared.”

Mom smiled. “I’m not.”

I said, “Mrs. Carey, I don’t want to bring any dishonor or notoriety on Morton Academy. I love it here and it’s my home, but rather than cause problems, maybe I should just transfer to a public school.”

“That’s gracious and courageous of you, Abby,” Mrs. Carey smiled, “and just what I would expect from a Russell woman–and a Morton Girl!”

I felt wonderful–but still scared.

“Seriously, Mrs. Carey,” I said. “I would dearly love to attend but it will cause too many problems.”

Mrs. Carey pursed her lips again. “Among the many points of pride here at Morton Academy is our inclusive nature. We tend towards a very liberal student body. Now, there will always be homophobes such as Steve Duncan, no matter where you go. Our student body is multiethnic and multicultural. Steve’s behavior was reprehensible and utterly unacceptable in any civilized society. If we were to sweep the problem under the rug, so to speak, or have you remove yourself to another school, then Steve Duncan–and any who would agree with him–will not learn the barbarism of his actions. Even if punished, to his way of thinking, the punishment would be either due to getting caught–and not the action itself–or would be perceived by him merely as a way of protecting the victim. In either case, he does not learn the error of his ways–to put it mildly.”

Mom said, “The only true way to let bigots or racists learn that their beliefs are out of step with society is through exposure to peer pressure. When they learn that almost nobody else thinks and believes as they do, when they learn that they are ostracized or even ridiculed for their beliefs, then they can examine their wrong-headed ideas and begin to change.”

“Take a family of Klan members in Alabama or Mississippi,” Mrs. Carey said casually. “To children growing up in that family, racism is taught as a matter of course. They think everybody knows that blacks are inferior to whites. They think everybody knows the Catholic Church is secretly trying to enslave them. And any of the other silly ideas they have. It’s only when they get out of that family, that community, that racist environment, that they discover that hardly anybody believes the same things. And that they suffer a social stigma if they continue to cling to their racist beliefs.”

I nodded. “That all makes sense, but …to the black man they’re lynching, he might hope for a speedier, less violent learning process.”

Both Mom and Mrs. Carey laughed at how I’d put it, as I’d intended.

Mrs. Carey was still chuckling. “You are your father’s daughter, the way you phrased that. Well done!”

I said, “If you’re sure the school can …handle the uproar …” Inside I was glowing from her comment about my father.

Mrs. Carey picked up her cup and took a sip of tea. “Are you sure you can handle the silence when you show up as Abby and everybody shrugs and says, ‘So you’re a girl? We knew it all along. What’s for lunch?’”

Mom chuckled. “Terrible blow to a girl’s ego!”

I looked from one to the other. “You’re kidding, right?”

Mrs. Cary put her cup down again, laced her fingers and smiled at me. “Unless you present me with a serious objection, I am ‘handling the uproar’ by expecting Abigail Elizabeth Houseman to be in all of her classes the first school day of the new year.”

Chapter 14: Rearranging Things

Actually, I had a serious objection. But I forgot about it, carried along with the euphoria of walking back to the car. Mom gave me her Cheshire Cat smile and was quiet for the short drive home. Back in my room, I carefully and lovingly removed the uniform and put on a denim skirt over gray leggings, and a fisherman’s knit sweater over a white camisole. I thought I was just going to lay around the house, but Mom told me once again to grab my coat and purse–frowning at my flats–and then we were off to Hartford.

I loved my black boots and Mom took us to two shoe stores where I acquired a lovely brown pair and some black low boots that were perfect for snowy winter walking and also fit my outfit. I wore those new boots, but was still careful in the snowy parking lots. Next, we went to a huge furniture store and found a white vanity and bureau set, and arranged for it to be delivered the next day. Only then did we hit the clothing stores proper. Mom told me that we were looking for more ‘everyday’ clothing.

“After all, you’re going to be dressing as a girl every day!” she teased in a ‘golly-gee-whiz’ kind of voice. Then in her regular voice, she added, “Because what else would a girl wear?”

We debated a movie but decided on dinner in town and then an early night. The restaurant host said, “Right this way, ladies” and I was thrilled and wondered if it would ever sound ordinary to me.

A slow dark drive back and once home, I didn’t so much put my things away as stack them; everything would be moved around and placed differently once the furniture arrived.

We watched an old Julia Roberts movie with cocoa, our legs curled up under us, enjoying things. Then something a character said made me remember my ‘serious objection’ that Mrs. Carey had asked about.

“Mom, it’s not all about me,” I said. “I mean, going to Morton as Abby …it’s not about will Steve hurt me or won’t he.”

“Good, because I vote for ‘won’t he’,” Mom grinned.

“Seriously, Mom; it’s about the other kids. To be really graphic, what restroom am I going to use? Or showers, in Upper?”

“How is that graphic? The girls’, of course.”

“I mean, don’t you think somebody might object–and not just religious extremists–to the presence of a boy in the girls’ restroom or showers?”

“But you’re not a boy, are you? We’re pretty clear on that.”

“That’s the graphic part. I have a penis. Regardless of how I feel about it, don’t you think some girls or some parents will object to …the presence of a penis in the girls’ restroom?”

“An interesting way to put it, like it’s disconnected and somehow walking around by itself!” she chuckled.

“Yeah, and I wish it was disconnected,” I grumbled.

She turned to really look at me.“You really do, don’t you? You really don’t want your penis.”

“No. I’ve never had a connection to it. It’s funny; since my breasts have started developing, it’s become really obvious to me that I love them as an extension of myself, of my femininity. Oh, I know that little girls before they develop–or women after breast surgery–are every bit as feminine even without breasts, but they’ve had a life as females since birth. My breasts are so new that I have to look at them differently. They’re like an expression of my gender. And I …don’t love my penis as an expression of my gender, and never did.”

“You were going to say that you love your breasts and you hate your penis?”

I sighed. “I go around and around this with Dr. Nielson. I don’t actively hate it. It just doesn’t belong there! I told Dr. Nielson it’s like having a sixth finger on a hand. Or a little third leg sticking out of my hip. It doesn’t belong there and should be removed.” I shrugged. “It’s as simple as that. But I know that the law says I have to wait until I’m eighteen.” I groaned. “Five years stuck with it!”

Mom didn’t say anything further that night, but I thought I saw a touch of the Cheshire Cat about her, but I was sleepy and that was it for the night.

Sunday snowed and I worried about the truck but the guys made it, crunching through the new drift to bring boxes to the porch. They stamped their feet and put on booties and carried the boxes into my room. I’d spent the morning taking things out of my old boy’s dresser and putting them on the bed.

The guys came in and asked, “Where do you want the items, miss?” and I loved being called ‘miss’ and pointed where each one went and then was pulled out by Mom, who whispered to leave them alone ‘with their big boy stuff’.

They left with every scrap of box and packing material and with my old dresser to donate. Then Mom and I rearranged everything else in the room and began the sorting and folding and hanging and that took the better part of the day–she insisted that I have an ironing lesson along the way–and then ordered a delivery pizza for fun. I pointed out that it wasn’t fun for the delivery guy, and Mom laughed and said if New England stopped doing things when the snow fell, nothing would get done half the year.

I had a doctor’s appointment Monday morning so it was an early night. In the morning I put on my cold-weather boots, tights, skirt, and sweater, and went to see Dr. Nielson, followed by a meeting with Dr. Randall.

And then I met Dr. Kramer …

Apparently Mom’s Cheshire grin on Saturday night was because she knew all about this, of course. It was a three-step process. First, we told Dr. Nielson my determination to start the new year as Abby full-time. She smiled and nodded. We talked about genitals and I told her my concerns about the protests of others. She asked if I could wave a magic wand, what would I do? I grinned and said, “Make all traces of Benjamin vanish. All documents and all physical traces.” She nodded and smiled and wrote in her file, handed it to Mom and I was off to see Dr. Randall.

Paper gown time; I was gently probed and felt up and told to remain where I was, in the stirrup chair. Mom was smiling at me but not coming up with any explanation. Dr. Randall left and returned with Dr. Kramer, a blonde woman that looked Scandinavian. We were introduced and then an explanation came–and a good thing I was in the stirrup chair or I would have fallen to the floor.

Everybody was in agreement that the time was right for ‘the procedure’. I’m sure it had a fancy name with a lot of syllables, but among them it was only called ‘the procedure’. Dr. Randall promised that he and Dr. Kramer could basically tuck all of my Benjamin genitalia and make it look like Abby’s genitalia. My testicles were still inside me, otherwise they’d be placed back in my abdomen. But I would be catheterized and my penis folded back on itself and up. There was some discussion about my perineum, the part of the body that boys called ‘the taint’ that was between the anus and the scrotal sacs. The length is apparently one of the skeletal factors used to determine the sex of the individual–boys’ are longer. And mine was shorter, much more like a girl’s, and was just one more checkbox in my favor for life as a girl. The empty scrotal sacs would be pulled down and everything surgically glued into place. The final result would look like a girl’s external genitalia; even six inches away it would look pretty authentic.

Wow.

I wanted it, absolutely, but I raised my last objection. “Couldn’t it still be said–I’m thinking of the lawyers for parents that complain about a penis in the girls’ restroom–couldn’t it still be said that it’s super-glued but it’s still there? As in, still present?”

“A very smart question to ask, and you might have a career in law,” Dr. Kramer nodded. “And let me answer by speaking in generalities. In legal terms, the presence of a penis determines sexual categorization, but it’s the potential activity of a penis that determines threat. This has all been ruled on, many times, so there is a large body of legal precedent.”

Dr. Randall said, “The androgen blockers and hormones you receive have eliminated any chance of an erection.”

“But I’ve never even had an erection,” I pointed out.

He countered. “That’s in your favor as a patient, but as a potential defendant, it’s meaningless. If a man let a pit bull run loose on the grounds that ‘he’s never bitten anyone’, would you feel safe that the dog never will?”

“Uh, no …”

“So your personal history has no bearing, legally,” Dr. Randall nodded. “But medically, we can prove that you are incapable of …activity with your penis.”

“Sexual assault,” Dr. Kramer said. “He’s pussyfooting around what he means. But I do want to warn you to avoid a physical fight with another girl at all costs. A sharp lawyer would say it was sexual aggression.”

“But I’ve never done anything like that!”

“And not likely to, young lady,” Mom said, keeping her hand in.

Dr. Kramer soberly said, “But the dog hasn’t bitten anyone …” and her point was made.

Dr. Randall said, “It’s part of your file that you are …well, the common term is ‘chemically castrated’, which means–”

“I know what it means, Dr. Randall,” I smiled. “And don’t worry; it’s fine with me. Castration is something I want. Okay?”

He grinned. “I know you do, Abby. And you’re there already. Actually, you may have been even before you took the blockers, but we’ll never know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said contritely. “But I had to do something.”

“Understood,” he nodded. “But now we can conclusively prove, medically, that your penis is not a threat. And then, with the procedure, it renders the whole issue moot.”

“Um …I’m pretty sure what that means, but I’m not sure if we’re there yet,” I said. “I have a scenario. Two scenarios. Nightmares, actually. Tell me how the procedure works in these cases. First, I’m in the girls’ restroom with my girlfriends, touching up our makeup, and a girl walks in and screams ‘There’s a boy in the girls’ room!’ and a big brouhaha and her parents come with a lawyer and say, ‘Our daughter knows that just last month, that was a boy named Benjamin and now you expect us to believe he’s a girl all of a sudden?’

The adults looked at each other. Dr. Randall started to speak but Mom quickly said, “And what’s the second scenario, honey?”

“The second scenario is I’m jumped by Ste–by some boys. They’re screaming ‘Get the sissy!’ and that sort of thing. They flip up my skirt and pull down my panties. What then?”

Dr. Kramer said with some force, “You’re being raped. They should be arrested and prosecuted. But you’re wondering about them knowing that you’re a boy but then seeing what appears to be a vagina. So they retaliate.” Suddenly she gasped. “Or they try to really rape you, and discover …”

I nodded. “Nightmares.”

There was silence. Then Mom said, “Lie.”

The doctors looked at her with confusion.

The lightbulb went on. “Shelly,” I said, and Mom nodded.

We explained Shelly’s advice to me to lie that I’d been born female but with a birth defect that had looked like a penis. Dr. Kramer was nodding and murmured, ‘Enlarged clitoris’ and I knew we were on the same track. I finished up and they all began speaking in rapid-fire medical talk. Mom and I shrugged and left them to it. Dr. Randall called Dr. Nielson and then told us she’d be there in five minutes.

“Can Abby get dressed now, or can we at least get a blanket for her?” Mom asked, and a blanket was draped over me and I was grateful. But why couldn’t I just get dressed?

The doctors seemed to be throwing ideas against the wall when Dr. Nielson walked in, concerned. Dr. Randall spoke quickly and they did the multi-syllable thing back and forth and even what sounded like some legal cases. Finally they finished and faced Mom and me.

Dr. Randall said, “Your friend had a remarkably astute idea, especially since I assume she’s another thirteen-year-old?”

I nodded. “Where I’m smart in English and History, she’s the Science whiz.”

Dr. Kramer said, “I would encourage her in that direction. I’d like to meet her. Doctor?”

She deferred to Dr. Randall, who said, “It’s a bit of a stretch and yet not much, so ethics are observed. Your detailed medical records are completely confidential, of course; I want to assure you of that right from the start. Now, you’re in need of what we could call ‘a cover story’. One that would explain Benjamin in December and Abigail in January.”

Mom and I nodded.

“And do I understand correctly that you have the approval of the headmistress for the …transition?”

“Absolutely,” Mom said. “We met with Barbara Carey yesterday; Abby was in her girl’s uniform and was welcomed.”

“Alright then,” Dr. Randall grinned. “This is almost too easy! We can craft a public document–in the sense that it’s in your personal file at school or for legal situations but is not your complete medical file. The document will state essentially what your young Science whiz surmised. The baby that had been expected to be female was, in fact, born female but was subject to a late-term hormonal event that spurred penile development of the clitoris. At birth you presented as a small male–they don’t look too closely sometimes–and your parents hurriedly came up with the name Benjamin, after months of being assured they would have a daughter, Abigail.”

Dr. Nielson said, “We’ve covered your childhood thoroughly; there’s nothing inconsistent with a gender-variant or misdiagnosed female. In other words, your childhood was not a boy’s.”

Dr. Randall resumed. “With the onset of puberty your true female nature was discovered; medical evaluation determined that you are a female misdiagnosed at birth. A minor surgical procedure over the holidays and you can begin your life properly, as Abby.”

I was amazed but had to ask, “But what about the operation at eighteen?”

“Oh, you’ll still have that,” he nodded. “But you’ll have five years of completely establishing yourself as a girl. And then maybe some …abdominal problems, perhaps, to explain your need for surgery then?”

Dr. Nielson grinned. “One of those ‘women’s problems’ perhaps?”

Dr. Randall laughed. “Exactly! Nobody will know. But the important thing is that you will have those precious five years. And can start your new life in a few weeks.”

Mom said, “Any boys that you saw naked will be creeped out, probably, but that’s not legally actionable. The vitally important thing is that both of your scenarios are answered. The girl in the restroom scenario is handled by the information that you’re not a boy and never were. If you were feeling frisky you could even pull your panties down and show her–that should shut her up!”

There was some laughter at that. Mom went on. “And the far more dangerous gang-rape scenario–and we will do everything possible to protect you–could be defused by proving to St …” She broke off as I had, reluctant to say his name, and looked around.

I said, “Mom, I did the same thing. I was almost attacked; I was certainly chased. We’ll just call him Steve.”

Mom grinned. “Alright. Steve objects to a sissy. Steve has no objections to girls. I’ll talk with Barbara Carey; perhaps over the holidays we can contact his family and tell them that you’re a girl and not a boy and hopefully eliminate that threat.”

“From your lips to God’s ears,” I murmured.

Dr. Nielson said, “I’ll get started on a draft of the document, and I can run it by your legal department?”

Dr. Randall nodded. “Absolutely. I was going to suggest that.”

I said, “I probably shouldn’t bring this up but …aren’t you …um …lying? I mean, Mom and I can say whatever we want for …my protection, I guess.”

“Honey?” Mom said, worried.

I looked at her to acknowledge her concern but turned back to the doctors.“But, I have to ask …you are all bound by your oaths to tell the truth, right? So you can’t tell the story about me being born female.”

There was a very odd look shared between the doctors.

Dr. Kramer spoke first. “Actually, I think you’re referring to the Hippocratic Oath?”

“Yes,” I said.

“It’s …it’s about doing our utmost to heal, basically. And to respect your privacy. In fact, one sentence goes like this: ‘I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.’ But there’s nothing in there about being bound to tell only the truth.”

Dr. Nielson said, “It’s an elective oath, too, by the way; a lot of medical schools no longer require it, sad to say.”

“I agree,” Dr. Randall nodded. “It was one of the proudest moments of my life. But …” He looked at Mom and said, “Mrs. Houseman?”

There was the strangest smile on Mom’s face. “I think it’s time to tell her.”

“Tell me what?” I demanded. “You guys are freaking me out!”

“I don’t think the oath says we can’t freak out our patients, does it?” Dr. Randall said.

“I’ve never heard of it,” Dr. Kramer grinned.

“Sometimes a good freak out is just what they need!” Dr. Nielson chuckled.

“You guys!” I almost shouted.

“It’s not a lie,” Dr. Randall said, grinning at me.

“Huh? What? What’s not a lie?”

“That you were born female,” Dr. Nielson said.

“Wait …you’re …I don’t ...Mom?” I turned to my only certainty.

Mom spoke calmly, although her smile was twitching with glee. “Doctors, could you please tell my daughter why she’s my daughter?”

Dr. Randall said, “I’d be honored. Abby, when you were born the doctors looked at your penis and declared you a boy.”

“Well, they generally do go together …” I joked. “But …”

He held up a hand. “Had they done genetic testing you would have posed a puzzle to them.”

Dr. Kramer said, “Still only two places when she was born.”

“Huh?” I said again. “I’m sorry; you’re talking like I have some information I don’t.”

Dr. Kramer said, “I’m sorry; my remark was to Dr. Randall but he’ll explain what ‘two places’ means.”

Dr. Randall said, “Abby, you said your friend is the Science whiz, but I know you’re an extremely intelligent girl yourself. Do you know about DNA, about the determination of sex by chromosomes?”

“You mean, XX girl, XY boy?” He nodded and I did, too. “The basics. That’s about it.”

Dr. Kramer said, “Abby, those letters, XX or XY? That’s two places. One place for each letter, each chromosome.”

“Okay,” I said. “So you were saying that if I’d been tested for DNA at birth, I’d have been …what?”

“Well, XY,” Dr. Randall said.

For some reason, that totally deflated me. I felt terrible. “Yeah, I’m a boy,” I said all grumpy.

“No, you’re not,” Mom said emphatically.

“No, you’re not,” Dr. Randall nodded with her.

“Excuse me?” I frowned.

Dr. Randall said, “We now factor the sex determination chromosomes to several places, if the individual has them. Mind you, the majority of people are XX or XY and stop there. But there are individuals who have a genetic makeup that includes additional markers. You are one of those people.”

“This is a good thing?” I said.

“For you, it explains so much. Basically you are …well, I’ll make it simple. You are XY …XXX and that’s as far as we’ve gotten–so far.”

Mom said, “You hear that, sweetheart? You are female–four out of five!”

“Maybe even nine out of ten, if we can factor that far,” Dr. Kramer grinned. “All of her indicators point towards that.”

I was numb. “So that …explains why I’m like me …but …what about legally and all that?”

Dr. Nielson frowned. “That’s the sticky part. The law in this state has only recently accepted DNA evidence in criminal cases, and they’re still woefully behind on other matters.”

“They would only read the first two markers, the first two places, unfortunately,” Dr. Kramer said.

“At least in criminal cases of evidence,” Dr. Nielson pointed out.

I said, “You mean, they’d only look at the XY and not the other Xes?”

“If the evidentiary rules of criminal cases apply to other areas,” Dr. Nielson said. “If that’s the case, legally–and you are sharp to zero in on that–legally you would be a genetic male under the law and as such, not eligible for sexual reassignment surgery until eighteen.”

“So we’re right where we started,” I said sadly.

“Not at all,” Dr. Randall said. “Two points: First, our legal department will check whether additional genetic markers are allowable in cases of identity. They’ll be looking to other states’ determinations to establish legal precedents. That’s a key point–identity. Not just your sexual identity, but your identity as certified by your state-issued birth certificate. And second, our oath doesn’t require it, but we’re not lying when we testify that you were female at birth. The overwhelming preponderance of X markers determines that.”

I stared at him. “So the letter …isn’t a lie?”

“No,” Dr. Nielson grinned. “You are a girl. You were born a girl. A ‘misdiagnosis at birth’ is not quite accurate, because the genetic testing for multiple markers didn’t exist when you were born, and if a DNA test had been performed at the time of your birth, it would have come up male.”

“Oh! The ‘two places’ Dr. Kramer said!” I sat up.

“Yes. But as far as today’s science is concerned, the truth is that you were born female but were told you were a boy. The story your friend suggested is the exact truth–and she came up with it at thirteen!–and we will provide the documentation to support it. And that should satisfy the state and federal governments as to your identity. Your true identity, as Abigail Elizabeth Houseman.”

Mom said, “Do you understand, honey? We might be able to get a revised birth certificate, and you’ll be female on your driver’s license when you’re old enough–and best of all, your passport could say female! So that should take a load off your mind!”

I did; I felt so odd, kind of floating ...like I was weightless, and I realized that it was like I’d been cut loose from Benjamin, truly severed, and was ‘up in the air’. And when I finally came to earth, I would be Abigail, forever.

Mom had this happy, happy smile and I returned it.

Then, Dr. Kramer said, “So, boy and girls …” It took me a second to realize that the ‘boy’ was Dr. Randall.

“Ah!” Dr. Randall said. “The procedure.”

They were all turned and looked at me. Mom smiled.

“Honey, I’m asking this formally in front of these witnesses. Do you understand the nature of the procedure they’re talking about?”

“Folding the boy genitalia back into something resembling a girl’s genitalia? Yes.”

“Do you understand the pros and cons?”

Dr. Randall said, “We’ll make sure you can urinate normally. You’ll have to sit as all girls do, but Dr. Nielson assures me that you already do.”

I said, “Yes, I always have. My only question is, will this procedure screw up things for the operation at eighteen?”

“An excellent question, and the answer is no, not at all,” Dr. Randall smiled. “Anything else?”

I shook my head. Mom grinned and said, “So, now, Abby, in the presence of these witnesses, do you want this procedure?”

“I want the whole operation,” I grinned, “but right now I’ll settle for the procedure. Yes, absolutely!”

Ah, but then came a shot …

End of Part 5

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 6

Chapter 15: Show and Tell

Tuesday was a hoot. I was stoned from the shot, semi-delirious through the procedure and the drive home, and bundled into bed. It was all one big fuzzy dream full of tugging and pressure and weirdness. And then I slept straight through, almost to noon.

When I woke up I felt a little groggy like I’d slept too long, but at least I wasn’t stoned anymore. I swung my legs out of bed and whoa everything felt different and I pulled up my nightie and pulled down my panties and there it was! Or I should say, there it wasn’t! And I giggled and cried at the same time. Mom heard me and came in with a worried, ‘Honey?’ and I reached out my arms and we hugged and I sobbed–but with happiness.

Oddly enough in that day of oddness, the first thought I had was, ‘Let Steve Duncan pull my panties down now!’

Next came a shower, recommended by Mom to ‘sweep the last of the cobwebs away’. It felt wonderful and then amped up several levels of wonderful when I began soaping my breasts, tummy, and moved down and there was nothing there! I was careful and a little sore but oh, God! It felt like it should have always felt!

It was hard to see anything, really, so after drying I got a hand mirror from my vanity, lay on my bed and looked at myself.

It was so pretty!

I hadn’t been prepared for it to be pretty; I was concerned first with its existence, and second with its functionality, in the sense that it would prove that I was a girl.

But suddenly I realized why some girls called it their ‘little flower’. I was pleased and proud. And I wondered how over-the-moon I would be when I got my actual vagina!

I started dressing with new, ivory panties, and it was exquisite to pull them on and there was my smooth mound! I called out, ‘Mom!’ and she startled me by being right there, leaning on the doorjamb.

“Yes, dear,” she smiled. “Bikinis.”

“God! How did you read my mind?”

“It’s the first thought I had, too,” she chuckled. “And leotards. And maybe we can find you something today to celebrate your new status.” Then she almost giggled. “Time to warn you about camel toes, too!”

I blushed. “Already know about ‘em, Mom,” I giggled with her. “And I won’t lie–I’d be a little bit proud to have one!”

“After your journey so far, I understand. But still, now that you’re a young lady, propriety must be observed. Oh, I have some news for you. But finished getting dressed and get some breakfast in you.” She left.

I put on my bra, then a ribbed, rust-colored top, pulled on a denim skirt and did my hair and put on flats and went to eat.

Mom was being mean, not telling me my news until I got everything finished and put away, went back to put on makeup and jewelry, and, yes, grabbed my coat and purse.

In the car, once we were out of the driveway, I turned and said, “So …news?”

“Oh, it’s nothing …Abigail Elizabeth Houseman.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why the full name?”

“How much of our discussion yesterday do you remember? Before the procedure, I mean?”

“Um …most of it, I think, until the shot, and then everything kind of melted.”

Mom chuckled. “Interesting way to put it. Alright; I’ll do a slight recap and fold it into the calls I’ve had this morning.”

She paused as she negotiated a turn at a busy intersection. Once we were in the traffic flow, she began.

“As you may or may not remember–and please, ladies and gentlemen, save your questions for the end of our presentation–you are genetically female when all of the genetic markers are added up. At the time of your birth, your birth certificate was based on the …”

“Dangly boy bit?” I said, like an old Monty Python line. “Sorry.”

“That was your one free interruption,” Mom teased. “But it was exactly right, but let’s add one word. Your birth certificate was based on your dangly alleged boy bit. And they did no routine DNA testing at the time. So ...”

Another turn.

“So, the hospital’s legal department has been buzzing since yesterday afternoon and had some news for me earlier today and then called again just when you were in the shower.”

She paused as she pulled into the mall–our mall.

“We’re going here?” I said, worried, and then said, “Sorry. Not for the interruption; for the …little freak out. Of course I shop here now. I’m a girl now. No going back, right?”

“No, sweetheart; no going back.” She parked, turned and looked at me. “You’re ready?”

“For the mall, yes, but not until you tell me about the phone calls!”

She acted innocent. “Oh! Did I say anything about any phone calls?”

“Mom!”

She laughed. “Alright. What I’m going to tell you is a work in progress, okay? They gave me an update but …you know the saying ‘daylight at the end of the tunnel?’ Well, that’s where they are, where we are. We’re still in the tunnel, moving forward.”

“So how is that any different than last night?”

“Ah! To keep my metaphor going, we’re in the tunnel but we’ve established there is, in fact, light at the end of it–guaranteed light, so to speak. And we know we’re heading in the right direction, and the way is straight and clear. And it just takes time to traverse the last remaining bit of straight tunnel into the light.” She tilted her head and looked surprised. “Whew! That metaphor worked better than I thought!”

“Okay. Now, if you could un-metaphor it for me. Or de-metaphor.”

“What did Shelly call you sometimes? Little Miss English?”

“Missy Perfect English Girl,” I smiled, remembering. “God, I miss her! I hope she’s okay!”

Mom nodded but didn’t comment. “To translate the metaphor into concrete terms, then. The hospital legal department, pushed by Dr. Randall, determined this morning that with changes in medical science and medical law, you are, in fact, female and they’ve mounted the case to petition the state for a change of name and change of birth certificate. It’s a one-two process usually, for medical reasons. But in your situation, they’re approaching it differently. They’re taking the angle that your original birth certificate is fraudulent, which is very different than petitioning to alter an existing, true document.”

“Mom, are they …stretching things? Calling it fraudulent?”

“The doctors are confident and, honey, they’re certainly mindful of their reputations. They wouldn’t be doing any of this if it wasn’t true and justified. You’re just reluctant to accept the whole truth, and I don’t blame you. You’re cautious, and that’s very wise. But I’ve got to tell you, I was floored when they told me! I just kept saying, ‘Wait, wait; go back. What?’ and they kept taking me over the details. I’m convinced, and they’re convinced. And the lawyers are convinced; they’re working on convincing the state. So …are you convinced?”

“Um, kinda,” I said, sheepishly. “Sorry I questioned. Go on. I’m in a tunnel …”

Mom chuckled at that. “Okay. So the lawyers say it’s only a matter of time–and I gather they mean in the next month, maybe sooner–and you will be legally declared a female at birth and a new birth certificate will be ordered. I know that ‘fraudulent’ bothers you, so how’s this? ‘Corrected’. Your birth certificate will be corrected. I filled out papers last night while the doctors worked on you, so while we may have to make a court appearance, it’s in the hands of the lawyers and courts now.”

I was actually getting excited about the possibilities; so much so that I forgot my anxiety about going into ‘our’ mall. “So the upshot is …”

“The upshot is that very soon–I’ll tease you and say ‘as soon as an hour from now and as long as six months from now’–you will be declared completely and utterly female at birth. All of your legal and school documentation will change to reflect that; and we’ll apply for a passport for you as well.”

She looked at me strangely. I couldn’t read it; usually I could but not right now. Plus, I was antsy about shopping. “That’s fantastic news! I can’t wait to call Shelly and Lu. Um …can we go in now?”

Mom grinned. “Sure, honey.”

I couldn’t figure out that look but forgot about it while we shopped. On Mom’s whim, I got some leotards, white lower and royal blue upper, and some more tights, and of course some more odds and ends at Claire’s.

Coming out of Claire’s, we came face-to-face with Amy and her mother, Mrs. Holden, coming in.

There was a moment of polite smile and then Amy gasped. “Benjamin?”

“Abby,” I said with some force. “Excuse me,” I said to her mother. Amy was frozen, staring, and I plucked the sleeve of her coat to pull her out of the store entrance and over to a bench.

Mom stepped in quickly. “I’ll talk with Mrs. Holden for a moment. I’m Marion Houseman …” she began, as I stepped out of earshot.

Amy found her voice. “I can’t believe it! You look great! What’s going on? Do you do this often? Do you–omigod, your hair is so cute! And …”

“Amy, Amy; calm down and listen. You want to listen?” I said patiently.

She’d actually stopped speaking but her mouth still hung open. She closed it and nodded.

Okay, I thought, first field-test of the new story line.

“I’ll tell you everything if you promise to not interrupt.”

“I promise! And I won’t tell a soul! I promise that, too!” She crossed her heart.

I laughed. “No, Amy; I’m not swearing you to secrecy! This isn’t a secret, not anymore. So don’t worry about telling anybody, okay? There’s nothing to hide, okay?” If I said ‘okay’ enough times, maybe she’d get it, okay?`

She frowned. “But you’re dressing up like a girl in secret, at home, right?”

“No, I’m not ‘dressing up’ like a costume. I’m dressed like a girl because I am a girl,” I shrugged.

“But …”

I held up a hand. “Mom?” I called.

“Yes, honey?” she said, looking at me from a frowning Mrs. Holden.

I said, “Should we all go somewhere and tell this?”

Mom looked at Mrs. Holden who nodded. I noticed her frown had changed from sort-of disapproval to sort-of confused.

The mothers conferred for a moment. Amy said, “But you’re a boy–”

I shushed her, saying, “Please? Amy? Hold off on saying anything?”

The mothers walked up. Mom said, “Under the circumstances, nowhere is truly private enough here at the mall, so Mrs. Holden suggested her van.”

“It’s right out that entrance,” Mrs. Holden pointed. “We were just leaving but checking Claire’s before we left.”

In a matter of minutes we were in their van. The only weird thing was that as we walked, Amy gasped, “God! The way you walk!” and even her mother shushed her.

There was a little back-and-forth and it was decided Holdens up front, Housemans on the back bench. I slid in first, mindful of my skirt.

I looked at all of them and said, “I’ll go first. Mrs. Holden, I want to tell you first that at no time has there been any fraud or any hanky-panky or any weird stuff of any kind. You’ve always been very nice to me and I appreciate that.”

“Thank you, Benja …” She trailed off, realizing the name was all wrong.

“It’s alright, Mrs. Holden; I realize this is a freaky situation. And to explain it, I’m going to have to be a little …graphic in …”

Mom stepped in to relieve me. “She means she needs to discuss anatomy. With all due respect, of course.”

“Yes, exactly,” I nodded, glanced at Mom and began. “When I was born, I was supposed to be a girl. The way Mom carried me, all of the doctor’s visits, ultrasounds, everything. My name was picked out, Abigail Elizabeth. So when I was born, the doctors themselves were surprised that there was something that looked like a penis so they said that I was a boy. Apparently it was a shock to everybody. Since we were told that I was a boy, for thirteen years I’ve been trying to be a boy named Benjamin. But I never felt like a boy, I never thought like a boy. They’re the opposite sex to me. I always felt closer to girls, like I was one of them, except that I was supposed to be a boy, because that’s what they told me I was.”

I let that sink in.

Then I tried a new tack. “Mrs. Holden, Amy …you know boys and you know girls. Did you ever think I was a boy?”

Amy frowned and then shook her head. Mrs. Holden said, “Well, I don’t want to …”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Holden,” I said. “You can say anything. You won’t hurt my feelings.”

Mom said, “It will truly be best for everyone to say what they truly feel and truly mean. I think that you’ll find that …” She looked at me and smiled. “You’ll find that we’ve got pretty thick skins.”

Mrs. Holden nodded. “Fair enough. I always thought Benjamin was a gay boy. Extremely pretty and effeminate, and …” She frowned, looking at me. “You know, you’re right. You said that I know boys and I know girls. And I’ve met a few gay boys, too. You seemed …On the surface of things, you seemed like a gay boy. Small, delicate, pretty, long hair, the way you talk and walk and giggle and you were like just one of the girls …”

She stared. “Oh, my God! That’s it! You were like one of the girls because you were a girl! Are a girl!”

I nodded. “Mrs. Holden, some …medical things with me led us to get me checked out and …”

I noticed Mom frowning slightly at me and I realized that I needed to be clearer than ‘some medical things’.

“I’m sorry that sounded vague, and after I’d said I’d speak in graphic anatomical terms! Okay. Mrs. Holden, Amy …I started puberty. A female puberty. My breasts budded and are growing. That kind of made it evident I needed to see the doctors! Once they examined and examined again, the doctors found to their surprise that I’m female. Genetically, I mean, not just wishin’ and hopin’. They discovered that when I was born, what my birth doctors thought was my penis was an enlarged clitoris.”

Amy gasped, staring wide-eyed, while her mother nodded. “I’ve heard of this before.”

I said, “I’ve got more doctor things to do, but the lawyers are already changing things. Very soon a proper new birth certificate, a corrected birth certificate, will be issued stating that I was female at birth.” Mom was right; I liked ‘corrected’ much better.

Mrs. Holden said, “I understand. And it is true, isn’t it?”

Mom said, “Absolutely. And it explained so much …I can’t tell you how relieved I was. I’ve been so worried about her safety.”

Mrs. Holden said, “Honestly, it’s a wonder he hasn’t been–she hasn’t been attacked by now.”

“Amy? You okay?” I asked, noticing she was still staring.

“You’re really pretty and all, but …I don’t …” She was frowning. “I don’t want to be mean or anything, but I just don’t get it.”

Mrs. Holden said, “I can explain when we get home.”

Amy said, “But he’s a boy! Boys don’t change into girls!”

We all knew that Amy was still immature and pretty innocent, but I realized that her entire worldview was shaken. I came to a quick decision.

“Mrs. Holden; you said you were on your way home. Do you have an extra ten-fifteen minutes?”

“Certainly. We were done shopping and dinner won’t be started for another hour or so.”

“Could you both come with Mom and me? Back into the mall, I mean?”

So we shuffled out of the van and back through the crunchy snow to Macy’s. Amy did the gasp thing at how I put my purse over my shoulder, fluffed my hair, and so on. I noticed her mother’s smile twitching; she’d figured what I was up to and didn’t bother shushing Amy. Mom and I led them to the Ladies’ Room and we went in, earning another small shocked gasp from Amy. There was one woman finishing touching up her makeup and just leaving, and for a moment, anyway, it was just the four of us.

Mom said, “I’ll see if I can keep anybody else out for a moment.” She left us.

I said, “Mrs. Holden? Amy? This is going to be so weird for all of us so let’s just get it over.”

I quickly peeled off my top and heard an intake of breath at my bra. Mrs. Holden automatically reached out to hold my top for me. I reached behind and unclasped my bra.

Amy gasped. “You’ve got boobs!”

Her mother said, “Hush, honey. Yes, she does.” Her smiled twitched again. “She told us she does!”

Amy took two steps towards me, staring and frowning.

I sighed. “You could touch them if you want–if you need to.”

A hand started to raise, but she shook herself. “No, it’s okay. They’re boobs. Breasts, I mean.”

“Yes,” I said, quickly redoing my bra and taking my top from Mrs. Holden I pulled it on.

“Oh, God! The medical thing you said!” Amy said with surprise.

I nodded. Mrs. Holden said, “You must admit, Amy, that when Benjamin began developing breasts they had to see a doctor.”

Amy nodded automatically, still awed. Meanwhile, I unzipped my skirt and stepped out of it, standing in my ivory panties. Mrs. Holden again held my skirt. I hooked my thumbs in my panties and pulled them down all the way, stepped out of them and stood with my legs apart. Thank you, doctors, I thought fervently.

That got a gasp from both of them! Amy’s hand flew to her mouth, staring, but Mrs. Holden smiled and nodded. “You may get dressed, dear,” she said, just as Mom knocked on the door.

Mom’s head poked through. “Almost done?”

“Let them in,” I said, taking my skirt and stepping into it. I quickly stepped in a stall and closed the door. I could hear Mrs. Holden say, “Hush!” softly to Amy.

I flushed and came out and said, “Sorry!” but didn’t explain further to the two older women who entered as I washed up. I brushed my hair and touched up my lipgloss and saw Amy staring at me in the reflection. I hooked my arm through hers and whispered, “Now do you believe me?”

She nodded, still in shock, and we joined Mom outside. We escorted them back to their van. As Amy got in, she turned to me. “You’re a girl!” she said with surprise.

“Yes, Amy. And you’re a girl!” I teased. “Now that we’ve established that, are you still my friend?”

She startled and then grinned. “More than ever!” We hugged, and Amy leaned us from side to side in the joy of her hug.

I thanked her mother, who smiled. “You are most welcome, Abby, and I wish you all the best. Bless you, my dear!”

As they drove off, Mom said, “You know she’s going to blab, don’t you?”

“Counting on it!” I grinned, to Mom’s laughter.

Then we hit the stores determined to find a bathing suit. I tried on maillots and two-pieces and got one of each. Between the two I liked the maillot better; there was something about pulling on the single sheer piece of stretchy fabric from my shoulders, past the mounds of my breasts, and smoothly between my legs …

And I demanded to at least be allowed to try a tiny bikini, and Mom laughed and agreed and found a pink and white one with string ties. We were in the fitting room together and I was adjusting the bottom and thinking how fantastic it was that yesterday at this time, I would have had a little bulge from a penis but now I was smooth and sleek and–

–The realization hit me like a ton of bricks. I swallowed. “Mom?”

“Yes, honey?” Then she gave me an odd little smile. “Did you just …think of something?”

I tied off the bikini quickly and went right up to her. Keeping my voice down as much as I could with my growing excitement, I said, “You said my …birth certificate,” I whispered, “would be new?”

“Yes,” she nodded. “Corrected.”

“And …about waiting until I’m eighteen …” My mouth was dry and I stared at her.

She took a deep breath. “Don’t count chickens, but the lawyers think the eighteen requirement may be waived.”

“You mean …”

“We’ll talk about it later, sweetie,” she said, her eyes traveling.

I wanted to pin her against the wall and talk about it now but I didn’t trust myself to keep my voice down.. So I nodded.

Mom said, “And you are absolutely delicious in that pink bikini. And against my better judgment, we’ll get it, too.”

Chapter 16: Hints from Eloise

Back home I texted Lu and Shelly, telling them to call me anytime. Lu called immediately. I asked how she was; the weather was warm in San Francisco so she actually went bike-riding in Golden Gate Park. California was so alien to me! Lu said she met two cute boys but got dragged away by her mom. Laughing, she asked how I was.

I told her I was better than I’d ever been and would be even better. I told her my condensed story and unlike the shocked Amy, Lu just said, “Always figured it had to be something like that.” I could visualize her shrugging; it was no big deal. I was girl? No biggie; she’d always known.

I loved this girl!

She did recommend that we not trust ‘logic and reason’ with Steve Duncan when school started in January, and that we try to coordinate classes with Mrs. Carey so I was not alone–so I’d have at least one or more of my close friends around me at all times. And that my room get changed to the girls’ wing. How could I have forgotten that?

When I told Mom; she actually slapped her head–she’d forgotten, too! She went to call Mrs. Carey and I went to put my new things away. I especially liked knowing that I had a cute bikini–as if I’d ever get a chance to wear it!

Mom and I were sitting down to a baked chicken that I’d learned how to make when Shelly called. Mom said we could put it on speakerphone; Shelly didn’t mind.

“Hi, kids!” she shouted enthusiastically.

“Shelly? Modern technology–you don’t need to yell!” I teased.

“Sorry. Got carried away. Where are you?”

“Sitting down to dinner. We’ll save you some if you’ll be over later!”

“Yeah, I wish!” she laughed. “Actually, it’s not too bad. You still want to get together?”

“Um, gee, sorry, I have to wash my hair,” I joked. “You dummy! Of course I do! More than ever! When? And where are you?”

“Miami. Manhattan tomorrow. You wanna hang?”

“Absolutely! What’s your schedule?”

We talked about planes and transfers and hotels; Mom let me know that it was about three hours by train to Penn Station and then only a cab ride to The Plaza Hotel, where Shelly would be staying.

“I told Mom I refused to stay at the Trump place anymore. I think he’s a jerk. But I had to compromise and stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel in LA.”

“Poor baby!” I teased. “You’re really roughing it!”

“Yeah, I know it’s a big name and all, but I feel like I’m sixty years old there! And it’s not near anything. Not like the Beverly Wilshire. At least there, I can just walk around, but …Sorry.”

I knew Shelly wasn’t bragging about her wealth; she’d already told me about the hotels ‘just being rooms’ to her, so she was always more interested in the areas around them. I guess the Beverly Hills Hotel was isolated; I knew she’d told me the Wilshire is by the famous Rodeo Drive. But among the reasons that I loved Shelly was that she was so unlike the pretentious rich girls at our school, like Heather Maxwell.

Shelly went on. “Anyway, we’ll be at The Plaza tomorrow and remember my mother’s promise that we can get together and you …” She trailed off. “You still want me to come over?”

“Absolutely! I can’t wait!”

It was hard to not tell her about the revelations of the last 24 hours; my news could wait until we were together. After we hung up–first getting our schedules together–Mom and I began getting our house ready. Of course, I kept thinking that compared to The Plaza, we were pretty much small potatoes, but Shelly had never said anything about it and always seemed to have a great time here. The one funny thing she said for me to do was tell her mother that I loved Eloise. I had no idea who that was. I wondered if it was a Morton girl I didn't know.

“You know, from the books! The Plaza!” Shelly had sounded exasperated.

“Um …the books?”

“Sorry. I sometimes forget that you didn’t grow up a girl.”

If she only knew my news, I thought!

Shelly said. “There’s like half a dozen books or so about a little girl that lives at the top of The Plaza. Some people say she was based on Liza Minnelli. Anyway, the little girl lives at the top of The Plaza. She’s pretty famous. They’ve got a big portrait of her in the lobby. Or they did, last time I was there.”

“And Eloise is important because …”

“Because you loved the Eloise books when you were a little girl, and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for my best girlfriend to let her stay at her favorite hotel?”

“Aw, I’m your best girlfriend?”

“Geez, you know you are!”

“I like how you said ‘when I was a little girl’.”

“Well, it could have been true.”

I almost bit my tongue to keep from telling her my news.

“Wait a second–stay at the hotel?”

“Well, sure. Overnight at least, right?”

“Where are you guys doing Christmas? I mean, Christmas Day?”

“Um …” She seemed oddly embarrassed.

I jumped. “Do you want to spend it with us?”

“Um …I’m not sure. I’ve asked Mom three or four times and she’s kind of vague.”

“Shelly, is she …um …”

“Oh, not that kind of vague. She’s been amazingly dry and it’s been pretty much okay. She’s been leaving me alone a lot.”

“Shelly …why does she drag you around, then? I’m sorry; that’s rude.”

“No, it’s cool. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked that myself. But it was for appearances. There’s a …” She sighed. “There’s a power struggle going on in one of the companies she owns. And they got the bright idea of challenging her fitness as a mother, sort of. Some weird thing in their articles of incorporation with board members having to have high moral standards. Mom’s drinking and flings with pool boys wouldn’t really meet their standards. They had private eyes after her, checking up on her. So she’s gotten dry but I hope it’s for more than just this corporate thing.”

“Wow. It sounds like some best-selling thriller!”

“Yeah. So she’s showing that she’s a loving mother, doing lovely things with her beloved daughter during the holidays. And I kind of leveraged that into letting her beloved daughter’s best friend stay with her at The Plaza. So, you see, you’ve got to come to The Plaza, just for the corporate intrigue!”

“Cool! Uh, I’ve got to ask Mom, though.”

“Geez, Abby! I mean her, too! We’ve already got a room for you!”

Thus it was that Mom and I were on the train to Manhattan early the next morning. We had overnight bags and I loved that there was not a single item of Benjamin’s in my bag. Mom suggested I doze on the way in but I was too keyed up. I realized that Benjamin had pretty much been a drag, not feeling up to doing a lot of adventuresome things. I’d been to New York exactly twice and the first time I was too young to even remember.

We taxied from the craziness of Penn Station to the bustle of The Plaza with the timeless doormen. I was in awe of Central Park–it was right there! And the next thing was remarkable: A change came over Mom that I couldn’t figure out until I saw her with the Concierge. We had them check our bags for us and suddenly I realized that Mom was quite comfortable in this moneyed environment. She was just Mom to me, but I had forgotten that she came from a moneyed family, and Mom had been schooled in how to conduct herself. I asked that she teach me and she smiled.

“Watch me and if anything doesn’t make sense, ask. Some things are kind of odd and I’ll tell you why. I remember that some of the things I learned seemed silly to me.” She grinned. “Wait until we have tea!”

We planted ourselves in the lobby near the huge 25' tree and I asked Mom about Eloise. She pointed out where the painting was, and advised me to go study the pose. I did and two different people passed me and said something about ‘Isn’t she darling?’ and I realized they meant me, not the painting! I was wearing a black skirt and white tights into my black boots. I wore a pink sweater over a lilac camisole and a white puffy coat. My hair was brushed straight back and I had a white stretchy headband.

I guess I was sort of cute.

I was sitting with Mom for ten more minutes and then this entourage entered, almost like a mob of people circling around one woman; some huge movie star that I couldn’t name. I was thinking that I really needed to learn more about popular entertainment; I’d been isolated, insulated, in my own little world for too long. But then right behind the entourage was Shelly! I got up and quickly walked towards her only to have two of the entourage break away and come towards me, their hands shooing me away. They kept saying, ‘Sorry’ and I just looked at them.

“I’m going to see my friend,” I said, pointing at Shelly. They followed my point and Shelly was already waving.

The entourage people lost interest and turned back to their group, but the woman said ‘Sorry’ again but this time she meant it.

I walked quickly to Shelly and we hugged.

“God, you look fantastic!” Shelly gushed. “Your hair! Wow! And …you got your eyebrows …” She shook her head. “I don’t even want to think about what you’re going to do back at school!”

I ignored that, savoring the truth. “And you!” I responded. “You’re so tan it makes me sick! With envy, I mean!”

“You like it?” She pirouetted, giggling. She was tanned–well, she should be, having been in LA and Miami with time on her hands.

Mom joined us and Shelly hugged her. Then Shelly’s mother arrived, yelling at some poor bellhop with a golden cart heaped with matching luggage.

“Oh, hello again,” Mrs. Benton said with distraction. She turned away and turned back and gave a fingertip-handshake to Mom and waved at me and then turned back. “Louis, I’m warning you!” she threatened the hapless bellhop. “I told you it would require at least two!”

Knowing her ways as I did now, I realized that one bellhop wasn’t as prestigious as two, whether they were needed or not. I’m guessing Louis was the only one available after the star’s entourage arrived. He was managing the cart, but Mrs. Benton’s sense of importance was diminished by only having one cart.

Shelly looked like she was counting to ten and softly said, “Sorry.”

“Not at all,” Mom said and called out, “Mrs. Benton? I can keep an eye on the girls.”

Mrs. Benton waved a distracted hand and accompanied the luggage cart to the front desk. We joined her, with Shelly saying, “Same thing at every hotel!” to us. So I wasn’t bothered by her mother’s actions; it was just something she did.

Mom was waved over to join Shelly’s mom at the front desk and I realized we were being checked in. Shelly said softly, “Did you do any kind of research? On Eloise, I mean?”

I grinned at her and went to her mother. “Oh, Mrs. Benton! Thank you, thank you, thank you for choosing The Plaza. Have you seen her portrait? Eloise’s, I mean?”

I struck the same pose as the portrait and then giggled. “And there’s a whole Eloise shop on the Concourse!”

Mom was staring at me, then a smile twitched. She knew I’d read the brochure.

Mrs. Benton looked annoyed but it passed. “It’s my pleasure, uh, Abby. I knew how much it means to you.” She turned back the desk clerk.

Shelly was fighting a laugh. She gave me two quick thumbs up.

Maybe I’ll actually read an Eloise book someday …

Chapter 17: I’ll Take Manhattan

And our suite was huge. Mom was a little bothered by the expense but I pointed out the old diamond ads. They used to say ‘three months’ paycheck is the right amount to spend for an engagement ring’. Mom said that was preposterous.

“Yeah,” I responded, “but I’m thinking about percentages. I don’t really know how rich Mrs. Benton is; Shelly doesn’t talk about it and I don’t care, but she has a lot of money. The price of a room at The Plaza–even one as big as this one–is probably a smaller percentage of her bank account than us putting up friends in a room at the Motel 6.”

Mom laughed at that. “You’re right. It’s hard not to feel beholden to the wealthy.” Something passed over her face and I realized it was unpleasant memories. Then she changed the subject. “When did you get to be so wise?”

I grinned. “When I became a woman!”

Mom really laughed at that one. “Not yet; you’re still a young girl and I want you to revel in it!” She sobered. “But I think you will make a most formidable woman.” Her eyes shone with pride.

We went to their suite–which dwarfed ours, not that it mattered–and Shelly let us in, rolling her eyes.

“On the phone again. Can I get you anything, Mrs. Houseman?”

“So formal, Shelly!” Mom laughed. “I can help myself.” She nodded to the fully stocked buffet.

“In that case, can I borrow your daughter?”

Mom nodded and Shelly grabbed my hand and dragged me into her bedroom. She closed the door and whirled around.

“Okay, spill it! When I left you, you were a scared boy just discovering he was a girl. And being chased by thugs. And now, you come waltzing across the lobby of The Plaza looking like a million bucks. The most feminine girl I’ve seen in a long time! You’re like …radiating girl-ness! What the hell?”

I laughed and we flopped onto the bed and I told her everything. And I took down my panties and I thought she was going to shriek with laughter.

“This is fantastic! Absolutely fan-effing-tastic! Wow, you look great!”

“Thanks,” I grinned, pulling up my panties and setting my skirt in place. I’d been a little freaked when she had laughed, but I understood it was joy.

There was a knock at the door and Mom said for us to join ‘them’ in the main room. She grinned at that.

Shelly’s mom was pacing, still on the phone. We came and sat on the couch next to each other.

Once Shelly’s mom got off the phone, she announced that she was much too busy to enjoy things right now. Some lawyer had thrown a monkey wrench into things, she said, and she had to stamp out a brush fire; I rather enjoyed the mixed metaphor. The upshot was that we were on our own and she’d try to join us but ‘no rest for the weary’. I truly had never heard anybody throw around so many clichés before.

I remembered the discussion that Mom and I had when we’d first met Shelly’s mom; Shelly’s comment about her being like a cartoon and Mom sensing there wasn’t a person there. Hearing the clichés now, it dawned on me that everything about her was surface. Clichés were a way to speak without thinking deeply, or being concerned about the person listening, whether it was Mom and me or even her own daughter. It was like an impersonal multiple-choice way of talking: Open mouth, insert phrase from list, repeat.

Once again, my heart went out to Shelly. I’d never really grasped how truly alone she was, even with her own mother.

Mom spoke with her for awhile and then announced she was taking command. I went with Shelly for her to get her things–I thought of Mom always saying ‘Grab your coat and purse’–and we headed out into the city.

And it was incredible! A cab took us to Rockefeller Center and we saw the huge Christmas tree and then began walking around. I knew that Mom hadn’t been to Manhattan for years but she guided us around like a pro. We talked about things to do and decided we could pass on the Rockettes but if we could do Nutcracker it would be great. Shelly said she’d take care of it; she used her phone to call the Concierge at The Plaza and said we’d have three choice tickets waiting. Even if her mother was free, she hated ballet and would have some excuse to miss it, so there was no reason for a fourth ticket.

We went to Fifth Avenue and shopped and oh my God it was incredible! We stopped in some famous place for lunch and shopped some more. The fun thing was not having to carry bags; Shelly would tell the clerks to send them to The Plaza and it was all perfectly normal in that environment.

I remembered another old quote: ‘I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Rich is better.’

Ain’t it the truth!

When we got back to The Plaza, Mom’s phone went off and we stopped in the lobby while she talked. I motioned that we’d go to the Eloise place and she nodded. And for never having read the books, I was amazed at how elaborate the Eloise store was–and how pink!–and I bought a keyring.

Shelly raised an eyebrow at that.

I said, “You know I’m not into her, but I figured I can hold up the keyring and thank your mother and tell her I got lots more stuff, did she want to see?”

Shelly was laughing at that. “Oh, God! She’d run in the opposite direction! And you only spent, what, five bucks? Brilliant!”

Then there was a strange moment, suspended in time, and the humor left her eyes and was replaced by a deep warmth.

“This is what I knew it would be like, when I first met that scared little girl Benjamin.”

I knew what she meant, as mixed-up as it was. I hugged her fiercely.

Back in our suite, the bellhops brought up our bags. We’d bought one extra rolling suitcase to handle our loot, and it was still questionable if it would all fit.

Among the things we’d bought was something proper for the New York City Ballet, and was my first ever official Christmas dress. It was a deep purple, or velvet, but was made of velvet, so would it be velvet-velvet, I wondered? White lace stockings and the highest heels I’d ever worn–enough to make me worried about walking in them, so I practiced in the suite. Mom said I was a natural!

Shelly’s mom had gotten us four appointments at the hotel’s salon, and I got the lovely pampered treatment and my hair was styled and makeup done by professionals. And although it was a small thing, it meant a lot to me when Mom said that just for the evening I could take out my studs and wear actual dangling earrings!

We were told that Mrs. Benton had already had her salon appointment and I realized that if we weren’t here, Shelly would totally be on her own, and that she was used to it, and that it explained some of her personality. I could understand the pudgy girl she’d once been finally deciding that she was going to get fit, and taking action. It made me love her all the more.

The ballet was fantastic, and we felt like proper Manhattan girls-of-the-world. Yes, rich is definitely better!

But back in our suite, with Shelly and I having strawberries and cream, Mom told us about the phone call. The lawyers had a breakthrough or brainstorm or something. There was a particular judge that they wanted to get, and his calendar had an opening at 2pm tomorrow and then at 3:00 he was gone for the holidays. We’d have to leave early and not spend another wonderful day in NYC, but we could always come back later.

Shelly nodded and went to her suite. Mom told me that she was sorry we couldn’t spend more time in the city, but the lawyers were confident we could save weeks or even months by landing this judge before his holiday. We began packing and Shelly came back, bummed. She couldn’t go with us the next day–her mom needed her to ‘parade’ in front of the lawyers or shareholders or somebody–but she’d join us as soon as she could. She knew how important it was for us to make our meeting on time and said that she was using ‘executive privilege–no objections’ and had arranged a car for us–a sort of limo, actually–to take us directly home.

Mom protested once and accepted and Shelly said it was okay to go thank her mom, which we did. It was awkward, only relieved by my little happy act with my keyring, which went over exactly as planned. Her mother looked cornered and ‘suddenly remembered’ a call she had to make; Shelly was doing her best to keep from laughing out loud. We did the social niceties, and then Shelly and I hugged extra hard and then my mother and I went back to sleep like princesses in our suite at The Plaza.

End of Part 6

A snow globe, of sorts, of an insulated world where dreams can come true over several holidays.

Academic, by Karin Bishop

Part 7

Chapter 18: The Judge

When we got back home, it was like we’d just lived a magical twenty-four hours. After the black limo rolled away, we had only the extra bags to prove that our stay in New York hadn’t been a dream. It had been heavenly, and having the limo take us allowed us to have a leisurely hotel breakfast before leaving for home. Shelly was eating with us; her mother made what Mom called ‘a cameo appearance’, with phone in hand, distracted, and a very awkward hug. Poor Shelly looked like she was being penalized by staying behind! But I came up with the neat idea of having almost all of her bags carried by our limo; that way they’d be waiting for her at our house and it also meant she could travel lightly when she arrived.

It also might force her mother to let her come to our house since her things were there, if she had any second thoughts.

As soon as we arrived home I took a shower and then dressed in a sort of hybrid outfit–half school uniform and half banker. Blue skirt and a white satin blouse with a floppy white bow; you could see my lacy white camisole and bra under the blouse. Mom gave me a very light pink angora wrap sweater and we brushed my hair straight back with a white satin ribbon at the crown. When I looked in the mirror, I said it was ‘Alice in Wall Street’ and she cracked up.

We met our attorneys for the first time in the foyer at the courthouse; they introduced themselves so quickly that all I knew was that they were Mr. Dunn and Mr. Lambert, but five minutes later I couldn’t tell which was which. I wasn’t clear whether they were hospital lawyers or an outside firm retained by the hospital, but they were working on the hospital’s behalf perhaps a bit more than mine. Mom had explained this; the gender program was excited to be working with me but if I was a traditional thirteen-year-old transgender male–if there is anything traditional about that!–then there was a lot they couldn’t do; in any event, all legal procedures would be scrutinized closely. If I was truly oddball, as I seemed to be, getting everything declared ‘female’ by the judge freed them of worry. So it really was in the best interests of the hospital–and my best interests!–that I be declared ‘female’ as quickly as possible.

So we filed in and sat back in the gallery, watching, along with about a dozen people. There were two cases before us; a guy getting out of a contract, and a divorce. Mom had made me worried by a comment that the divorce might sour the judge’s disposition, but we were very fortunate that this divorce wasn’t at all like the movies. These were two people, both present in the courtroom and both friendly to each other–even sitting together until they had to sit with their attorneys–who said that they realized that they were friends and not spouses and neither one contested the divorce. Everything was already divided and signed off on by both sides, and the judge gave them a little lecture about not marrying in haste, but commended them for the mature, reasonable approach they took. He could see why they were friends and agreed that sometimes that just wasn’t enough.

I studied the judge; he was lean and tanned but not from a booth. The attorney for the husband was very friendly with the judge and congratulated him on winning a 10K, so he was probably a runner himself. He seemed cheerful, but very practical and very real.

Our attorneys were up and presented their papers; since it was just them and the judge, they spoke in rapid-fire legalese.

Until …the judge said that he would have to carry over until January; all of the documents were in order but he wouldn’t feel comfortable ruling until he could meet ‘the petitioner’ and since ‘the young man’ was not in court and could not be there for the 3pm deadline, he’d have no choice but to–

“Your honor,” Mr. Dunn or Lambert said quickly, “the petitioner is in the court.”

“Well, bring him in,” the judge said.

Mr. Lambert or Dunn turned and smiled. “Abby? Would you come forward, please?”

Mom squeezed my hand once for good luck and I stood and went forward. The judge’s face was priceless; I was sure he thought it was some sort of trick.

He looked at me and then looked at the documents and said, “Am I to understand that you are Benjamin Thomas Houseman?”

I cleared my throat and without thinking, did a tiny curtsey. “Yes, your honor, at least according to my birth certificate.”

He frowned. “What is your name?”

“I am …that is, I hope to become Abigail Elizabeth Houseman, your honor.”

He looked at the papers and as if he were talking to them, he explained, “You will understand that while in the petition process I am required to refer to you as a young man named Benjamin, and to use male pronouns?”

“Yes, your honor, I do. And may I ask, do you want my mother to come forward, too? Because I’m a minor?”

He smiled. “Certainly. I can tell she’s your mother; you look very much alike. Mrs. Houseman?” Mom got up and started walking forward and the judge said, “It’s a pleasure to have such a thoughtful and polite young lady–darn!–young man in my court.”

Then he chuckled. “This is going to be harder than I thought!”

I worried for a second that he meant my case but realized he meant looking at a pretty girl and having to say ‘young man’.

Mom said, “I am Marion Houseman, mother to Benjamin Thomas …and Abigail Elizabeth, here.”

He smiled quickly and turned to the documents again. “Mr. Dunn, do you have the …oh, here it is. That’s what was missing. Everybody please stand by; you obviously know how complex this is.”

As he read, I looked around at the few spectators left; four people not counting us and the court staff. The spectators obviously weren’t entirely sure what was going on; once the judge buried himself in the papers they seemed to have lost interest. I turned back and smiled at Mom and then kept my eyes forward.

The judge said, “Mr. Dunn, you realize how unusual this is.”

The attorney stood up. “Yes, your honor, and we appreciate you taking the time for this extraordinary case.”

“Extraordinary?”

“Yes, your honor. The medical staff has estimated Miss Houseman’s condition as approximately one in …”

He turned to Lambert, who was already handing him a piece of paper. Mr. Dunn read, “They noted, ‘Based on global reports of similar cases, factoring in unknown cases in undeveloped nations, we estimate patient to be approximately one in 27.3 million live births.” He handed the paper back.

The judge said, “One in 27.3 million? Not 27.4?”

“No, your honor,” Mr. Dunn said earnestly.

“Just messing with you, Mr. Dunn,” the judge grinned. He looked at me. “Well, then, you are an unusual young man, aren’t you?”

“If it please the court,” I said, “I have been informed by my doctors that according to current medical science, I am not a young man. But at the time of my birth, according to the procedures available at that time, I was diagnosed as male.”

The judge stared at me.

Oh, crap, I thought! I said too much. Missy Perfect English Girl, damn it! Why didn’t I keep my mouth shut? Stupid-stupid-stupid!

But then the judge smiled. “Two firsts in my career. I have never thought of the determination of a baby’s sex at birth as being a ‘diagnosis’, but of course it is, in a way. And I have never had this much medical and legal mumbo-jumbo,” he held up the thick sheaf of my documents, “reduced into two simple, declarative, and absolutely clear statements. By any lawyer. And now, by a thirteen-year-old …girl!” He smiled at the last word.

He looked at Mom and smiled, and then held up a finger to us all and then quickly read through several papers and then shuffled them together. He announced in legalese that I could decipher, that it was his court’s ruling that I had been improperly declared male at birth, that I was female then and now, and agreed to grant the legal change of name, change of gender, and ordered that all documentation conform to his ruling and that a new original birth certificate be issued for Abigail Elizabeth Houseman, female.

Bang of gavel, done!

I was almost trembling from nerves and relief. But I was almost frightened when he crooked his finger to Mom and I to approach the bench. He crossed his arms and leaned forward and looked at me.

“Miss Houseman–and let me be the first to legally call you that!–you are an impressive young lady. Where are you attending school?”

“Morton Academy, your honor,” I said.

His eyes did a thing, I didn’t know what. “Keeping your grades up? It’s a tough school.”

“Yes, sir. Your honor, I mean.”

Mom said, “Her last report card was 3.92, and that was …” She looked at me and said plainly to the judge, “She maintained better than 3.9 while coming to terms with her body changing and discovering that she was not a boy named Benjamin. Your honor,” she added.

He nodded. “A heavy burden for anybody, but especially one so young. And you’re right, Mrs. Houseman; it makes her all the more extraordinary. And you reside in Hartford?”

It was all in our file and I wondered if he was trying to trip us up.

Mom said, “Yes, your honor. Just outside the city, actually.”

Then I realized that it was Morton that had raised his interest, because it was so expensive.

I said, “We’re not rich, if that’s what you were wondering, your honor. I can only go to Morton because I’m a legacy, I guess you could say.”

“Ah, you were a Morton Girl, too?” the judge said to Mom, who nodded.

I said proudly, “More than that, your honor. She’s a Russell!”

Mom made a small, embarrassed shush to me, but my statement had had the desired effect on the judge.

“Founders, right?” Mom nodded. The judge smiled. “My wife was a Morton Girl. In fact, it was her fond memories of Hartford that brought me here, after we were married. It’s a tremendous school.”

He turned serious and said to Mom, “Legacy or not, a 3.92 at Morton is highly commendable. But the proof was her conduct and statements in my court today.” He smiled at Mom and then at me. “I asked you two for this conference because I would like to urge Miss Houseman here to consider law as a career. You may think that’s years in the future, but it’s never too late to …” He shook his head as if correcting himself. “Houseman …are you by any chance related to Edward Houseman, the historian?”

“My late husband,” Mom said, and I reached out and squeezed her hand.

“My father!” I said with fierce pride.

He was smiling widely. “I’ve read several of his books. I was particularly impressed with Fortune’s Gamble. That …turmoil with Aaron Burr …remarkable.” He nodded. “It is a pleasure and privilege for me to meet his wife and daughter. And now I can certainly appreciate your performance in my court today. Please, Mrs. Houseman, I strongly urge you to both to consider a career in law for this young lady.”

Then he grinned and said loudly, “And I strongly urge everybody in the courtroom to have a wonderful, safe, and happy holiday! See you next year!”

He actually winked at me and then stood. The bailiff called ‘All rise’ but we were already standing, and the judge, black robes flapping with his speed, flowed out of the courtroom.

Chapter 19: Christmas

Mom and I were in kind of a daze when we sat with the lawyers, back outside. They handed some documents to Mom, told her all sorts of things but my mind was going in every direction. Pride at my father being recognized, amazement that I was now a girl with one bang of the gavel, fear at what the Steve Duncan types at school might have in store for me, and so many other things.

Finally we were driving in happy–and still stunned–silence, and she pulled into a nice restaurant. She said we were going to celebrate. And halfway through my salad, I sat back in amazement.

“Did that really happen?” I asked. “I’m only thirteen and I kind of zoned out a little this afternoon while I was thinking about …things.”

Mom chuckled. “You did have more than a few things to think about!” She sighed deeply. “But, yes, it did really happen. And by the time we left the courtroom, you were completely, legally female. Still are!” she grinned. “It’ll take some time for the paperwork to all get caught up, of course. Oh; speaking of which …”

She took her cell phone out and dialed. To me, she said, “Excuse my rudeness but I think you’ll understand the reason for the call.” She paused, then smiled. “Hello, Barbara? Marion. This is just a quick call to let you know that our lawyers managed the incredible today. We got before a judge and it’s official, now: I have a daughter named Abigail. They’re issuing an original birth certificate identifying her as female.” She paused, smiling. “I know you did. And, yes, she is; over the moon!” She listened and nodded. “Just as soon as the wheels start turning again after the weekend. But, yes, it simplifies things. Oh, and she needs to change her room–ah, you’re so fast! Then we’ll see you Tuesday and she can move.” She listened. “Yes, it is, and I’ll tell her, and thank you for everything, and Merry Christmas, Barbara!” She hung up.

I said, “Isn’t it weird the way we nod when we’re talking on the phone? They can’t see us nod.”

Mom grinned. “Always thinking, aren’t you? That was Barbara Carey, of course, who says that she always knew you were a female, she says it must be a tremendous load off your shoulders, and that it simplifies dealing with Steve Duncan and anybody else. And she’s already arranged for you to move to the girls’ rooms. We’ll see her next week and she’ll give you the speech she gives to all the girls and then you can move your things.”

“Where is it?”

“She didn’t say, but the move alone will put you beyond the immediate reach of Steve Duncan.”

That was true; there wasn’t an easy way that boys could wander through the girls’ rooms. My girlfriends had already volunteered to accompany me around during classes, and I would be safe in my room. Up until now, since my room had been in the boys’ rooms, Steve or anybody could attack me.

But hopefully it wouldn’t come to attacks. Hopefully the announcement of my change of status would freak and disgust some people but nowhere the way it would if it were announced that I was a boy changing to a girl. It would be harder to generate any outrage and should defuse Steve.

Mom reminded me that we had an appointment Monday for what my doctors called ‘a complete internal workup’. The only thing I recognized on their ‘to-do list’ was an MRI.

Something struck me as odd for the first time. “Mom, why are they only getting around to an MRI now? Is there something …do they think there’s something wrong with me that they’re not telling us? Or they told you and they haven’t told me?”

Mom toyed with her salad, frowning. “There were several things I want to point out. First, they’re not ‘only getting around to it now’. I know you’ve lived inside the whirlwind but remember, it’s only been a short time that we’ve even been seeing the doctors!”

That startled me and I realized it was only a matter of …weeks, really, since I’d first officially met with Dr. Nielson. “Wow! You’re right! But we’ve come so far so fast …haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have, but think about the sequence of events this way. Dr. Nielson led to Dr. Randall and got you entered in the program. In the early, initial stages of that, they did the whole blood and DNA workup. That’s the easy part that takes little time and expense, unlike an MRI, which costs an arm and a leg. Or so the insurance guys tell us.”

“That makes sense; sure. It’s really all just in the first few weeks of our relationship. I just forgot it’s so new, because of the hearing.”

She nodded. “That’s understandable. But, you see, your DNA triggered alarms, so to speak, and they realized that they’d have to start getting the legal ball rolling, for documentation and everything. They alerted the legal department, and there things might have stayed for a month or two. Meanwhile, the doctors would move on to the next stage, which is the internal exam.”

“But Christmas hurried things instead of slowing them down?”

“Exactly. The legal department discovered that the folks they dealt with were trying to clean their desks before the holidays, so to speak. So they approved the first step, which triggered the second, and so on, so the whole process took less than a week. And they knew the judge they wanted and they knew his schedule and took a chance and it paid off.”

I frowned. “I liked the judge and everything–well, once he explained why he had to call me ‘Benjamin’–but was he truly the only judge that could rule like he did? I mean, was my case so shaky or something?”

“Not at all,” Mom shook her head. “Your case was sound and the lawyers were confident of approval, no matter who they drew as a judge. But judges are people, too, and although they try to remove any personal bias, it creeps in now and then. Most judges would have ruled exactly as the lawyers planned, but they told me there were a few that might disapprove on moral or religious grounds. And while they couldn’t say it that way, they could refuse and then the case would be prepared again for another judge. Worst case scenario would be that we’d have to go through it two or three times before approval. Depending on scheduling the judge’s calendars, it might have taken months.”

“That’s right; somebody brilliant had said it could take ‘an hour from now to six months’ or something,” I winked.

She smiled at her words coming back to her, but continued.“So it was the happy combination of the holiday rush and a lucky opening on a judge’s calendar.”

“And now I’ve got this MRI hanging over my head.”

“It’s not ‘hanging over your head’, Abby. Don’t be such a drama queen!” Mom teased. “Actually, you would have had it this week except the holiday and the judge’s schedule bumped it back to Monday. So you’ve had Dr. Nielson peering inside your head for awhile; time for Dr. Randall to peer inside your …insides!”

We had a pleasant, tired night that felt so normal that it was hard to believe we’d spent the previous night in a luxurious Manhattan suite, but we had the new purchases as proof. The next day was Christmas Eve and Mom declared that we’d bake, just to have a mother and daughter activity. The funny thing was that I broke down and cried a couple of times. The whole emotional turmoil was catching up with me. One minute I was using a Christmas tree cookie-cutter on some dough and the next I was collapsed in a kitchen chair, sobbing my eyes out. Mom said it was the hormone mix catching up with me, too–the mix of my doctors, not Shelly’s girl pills, the jeeps. Everybody was amazed that Shelly had gauged my dosage so well that I hadn’t had any side-effects; just a slow, steady physical change.

But there was another theory that Dr. Kramer believed, and had been suggested before by Dr. Randall. That was that my body had been heading towards a female puberty anyway, and that this was the year the timer went off. If I hadn’t had the jeeps, my body and emotions might have gone seriously wonky due to the lack of estrogen. I wouldn’t have developed more as a male because there was only a minute amount of testosterone produced, even before the androgen blockers. But the jeeps had blocked that and provided my body with the estrogen it needed so it went on its own merry way, smoothing my skin and starting my breasts and curves. And it had kept me mellow but docile, which also explained why I’d been so weak and indecisive. Let’s face it; not all women are fragile blossoms. I had only to look at Shelly and Monica standing up to Steve’s gang as an example.

Now the doctors were tinkering, adjusting the mix, and maybe that was the reason for my Christmas Eve meltdown. But I was also just so relieved and not scared except for what was in store for me with Steve and his gang. And besides, crying is what women get to do!

Mom and I had a lovely Christmas morning. I’d managed to get her Christmas presents during my shopping trips with Amy, Connie, and Lu, and Shelly had run interference for me in Manhattan, distracting Mom while I got a few things for her then, too.

All of my presents were girl presents, of course, and yet I think the best present that Mom and I gave each other was when I turned to her after we’d cleaned up all the wrappings.

“Mom, I’m a girl now, and that makes me a Morton Girl, and also, doesn’t it make me one of the Russell women?”

“Yes, it does, sweetheart,” Mom smiled warmly.

“Then I’d really like it if I could learn about us, the women of the family, I mean. Old photo albums, stories, all of that; I want to learn about us. I never really paid much attention to our family history, and Daddy was always busy with the Revolutionary–” I broke off, staring.

Mom stared, too, and then her smile returned and she nodded. “First time, huh?”

I nodded, slowly. It had been the first time I’d referred to my father as ‘Daddy’ and it had come out so naturally and easily.

Mom hugged me. “Oh, my darling; every day I miss him and wish he was here, but never more than now, so he could meet his daughter!”

“Do you …” Tears were coming and I sniffed. “Do you think he’d like me?”

“Sweetheart, he’d love his pretty daughter!”

Chapter 20: The Next Christmas

Wow.

I’ve read over everything I wrote last year and it’s all just as I remember it. There are a few things that I left out, and a few things that I didn’t need to go on and on about. It was all so compressed, though. There are the milestones of meeting Shelly, and discovering Abby, so to speak. And then the crazy flurry of the holidays, from our hitting The Plaza to the judge ruling that I was a girl to Shelly coming to stay with us until school and the moving in and to top it all off, the total craziness of the internal exams.

After Christmas, I had the MRI. And another. And a CT, and a bunch of other initials for tests with gleaming white machines. The more the doctors found out about me, the more they were confused. In a nutshell, I was a mess inside. I was a mix of mostly developed female parts with some rudimentary male parts. The doctors speculated that in the womb I was a girl all along until something triggered a last-minute burst of testosterone that only started altering me to a male. If Mom’s pregnancy could have lasted twelve months, for example–half again as long after the testosterone triggered–I might have turned out a more-or-less normal male. But there wasn’t enough time to become male; just enough time to be a scrambled female. Dr. Randall suggested that the Y chromosome had been overwhelmed by the multiple X chromosomes. It hadn’t been blocked completely but delayed just enough that it had what he called ‘insignificant effect.’

I pointed out that giving me a sort-of penis and declaring me ‘male’ was not insignificant!

The return to school was fantastic and very quickly became last week’s news, which was fine with me. All of my girlfriends accepted me without question and any girls that might have objected were taken care of by my friends. The boys were a different matter; the very first day before classes started, Steve Duncan sought me out and his face was priceless! I was walking down the hall with my girlies and it happened that I was partially blocked from Steve’s view. He recognized me from a distance, and from my group of friends, and called out ‘Houseman! Your ass is mine!’

It was a wonderful moment. He probably had never thought of what he’d say, and if I truly were a sissy boy, the gay implications of his statement never occurred to him. He’d expected terror from a trembling sissy. Instead, he and his buddies stared as we girls turned to face him. He’d expected dweeby Benjamin Houseman in the boys’ uniform like his own. Instead, he was faced with Abby in a blue skirt, light blue blouse with ribbon tie and blazer. I had barrettes in my hair, dangly earrings, and makeup. And I stood proudly, the mounds of my breasts visible and my legs quite shapely.

My girlfriends and I looked haughtily at the stunned Steve, and then turned to leave. We flipped our hair and our skirts, noses in the air, and kept moving and Lu said something as we passed about ‘sexist comments’ to Steve and we knew that whether it was ‘his’ or not, he was watching my ass as we walked away and I put a little extra girlish wiggle to it.

During first period there was an announcement that Mom and Mrs. Carey had crafted. One of the things that was typical of posh private schools was how students came and went, as their parents’ lives changed. Kids might be pulled out of school to go to a movie shoot in Asia, or parents might divorce and suddenly there’s no money, or one takes the kid to another continent. Or the kid couldn’t handle the academics or had personal problems and moved to another school. Families that had been trying to get into Morton could take advantage of the ebb and flow and we’d have new kids join, but often between semesters as well as at the start of each year.

So the announcement was the standard that hoped everybody had a great holiday, welcome back to Morton, time to get back to work, blah-blah-blah. And they announced the names of kids who had left–there were three–and kids who’d been added–there were four. But really, it was two and three …

“As some of you may know, some students have departed Morton. We say goodbye to Anthony Battaglia, Cheryl Hendricks, and Benjamin Houseman. We are happy to announce the addition of new students Marie De La Fontaine, Thomas Baumann, Abigail Houseman, and Han Sung Jee. You are all most welcome at Morton Academy and we wish you well.”

I’d like to think that everybody got it; that Benjamin had left and Abigail had arrived. If they thought it was two people, fine. It was only my immediate bunch of Middles that knew the reality. We didn’t broadcast anything like ‘Benjamin the boy is now a girl named Abby’ or anything. There was no need for it. If anybody had any problems with me, they didn’t say anything to my face. I had been invisible as Benjamin and was well-liked as Abby. But any complaints–especially parental freak outs–would go to Mrs. Carey, who handled anything with ease.

And the second week of school, we had a little event. One of the Upper boys was the son of two huge movie stars and they both arrived with lawyers and paparazzi in tow and were publicly fighting over custodial rights. Mrs. Carey and her staff ruthlessly clamped down on the public exposure of the school and all that we knew was that the kid was there one week and gone the next and then back again.

So in that first month, the overlooked dweeb Benjamin was forgotten. The new girl Abby giggled along with her girlfriends–as did all the other kids–over the spectacle of the quite-visibly drunk World Class Movie Star who’d tripped over the school’s stairs and splayed, dress up over her crotch and crying, demanding to be picked up.

The kid was pulled out of school in February, by the way.

Spring was wonderful and I fit in and was so happy. Shelly and Lu and I were a new trio. Amy was still in the little girl mode, and Connie found another boy-crazy group to start hanging with. I was also friends with Monica and discovering other girls were nice, too.

And I could now, quite freely and without hesitation–thanks to working with Dr. Nielson–discover that boys were nice, too. Yes, some not so nice, but by and large it was a more supportive environment than the boys’ world, where they were always competing with each other. Plus, there was the simple fact that I understood the girls’ world as I never had understood the boys’.

And the strangest thing was that by May, Steve Duncan quite obviously had the hots for me. Lu said, quite clinically, that ‘homosexual panic’ was at the root of his hatred of me last year; that he’d been turned on by the pretty boy Benjamin and reacted with aggression. Certainly the first time he saw me in the school’s swimsuit, his eyes fell out of his head. I’d joined the swim team after it was discovered that despite never really swimming before, somehow I was quite fast. Our school suits were ultra-thin one-piece racing Speedos in royal blue with a white vertical stripe over the heart. There was no mistaking the natural swell of my breasts or the slight mound at my crotch, and, yes, like most of the girls, I had the unmistakable Speedo ‘camel-toe’. When Steve saw me, he was fully convinced I was a girl.

But it wasn’t all smooth sailing; I had to deal with Heather Maxwell, who was also on the swim team. She made a point of loudly protesting that she was shocked that Morton Academy would allow a boy in the girls’ locker room! And to think that they even gave him a girl’s swimsuit and expected him to be treated like a girl! Shocking! And so on.

Shelly came to my rescue with something so simple it was funny. She told me, ‘Let her beat you’. We knew from the posted times that I was faster than Heather. But since the races against other schools were based on cumulative times, it really didn’t matter who was first and who was second if they were on the same team. I had a talk with Ms. Chambers, our coach. She was getting so annoyed by Heather that she was going to cut Heather from the team or me, and I told her of Shelly’s idea. Since she was always going on about sports psychology, she liked the concept, and had a day of mock time-trials. She posted the new times, with Heather in first place, and just to make sure, Shelly recommended–through me to Ms. Chambers–an actual race. Which I threw and Heather won by half a length. I did my best to appear completely winded and had to endure her smug smile of triumph. If Ms. Chambers had not been in on the deal, she would have flayed me alive for throwing the race. But it did the trick; Heather never said another word about me being a boy. I was just another girl that she beat.

Our team won the Middle championship between five other prep schools, and Ms. Chambers was really excited about me swimming as an Upper for the school. I’ll do it, of course, because I love swimming and it’s great exercise and I feel a devotion to the team and the school, but I’m not going to fully pursue it. I can’t, for two reasons. The first is that I don’t want the larger arms and shoulders typical of the hard-core girl swimmers.

The second–and most important reason–is that competitive swimming at the college level, and some high schools, involves routine drug testing. After all the Olympic scandals, the idea is to test everybody beforehand. And what they do in the Olympics, they do in colleges–to prepare for Olympic and professional athletic careers–and what they do in colleges, they do in high schools, to prepare for collegiate competitive life. The chances are that any routine gender testing would reveal me as XY, noting only the ‘two places’ my doctors had talked about, without the additional X markers that made me legally female. It was a can of worms that I would deliberately avoid.

I had a meeting with Mrs. Carey, Ms. Chambers, and Mom, and told them that I’d give 110% to the school’s swim team right up to the point, in the possible future, where they began testing for gender, and then I’d quit, reluctantly. And I would not seek a college scholarship that involved swimming. Everybody agreed and Mrs. Carey praised my forethought, and Ms. Chambers was happy to know she could continue to win prep races with me for a few years.

Lu and I double-dated with two boys from St. Andrews, another prep school. It was funny; it had been set up by her family. The boy she was paired with, Wen, was from another wealthy Chinese family and the parents had hopes of a dynastic marriage. Alas, it was not to be; the boy was gay and told Lu right up front, even before we went on the date–although his parents didn’t know. He had a friend named Paul Broderick that knew he was gay and was okay with it, so the decision was that the four of us would go out to satisfy the parents; they’d report back ‘no chemistry’ and life would go on.

For the first time I experienced the thrill and giddiness of getting the right outfit and getting ready with Lu. The parents had rented a chauffeur for the night so we piled in and went to a fancy dinner in Hartford, just like we were little adults. It kind of bothered me that this useless fling–useless in the sense that they weren’t going to make a dynastic marriage–cost so much, but as with Shelly’s mom, money had a different scale with these folks. What nobody expected was Paul to be absolutely fascinated with Lu–and Lu was fascinated right back! They were so into each other that I grabbed Wen and left the others for awhile. He was nice and funny and fully accepted being gay; it wasn’t any more important to him than being left-handed.

It was a fascinating experience for me, because I had never really talked with a gay boy before. There were some at Morton but I literally had never spoken to them; not out of choice but simply because of class scheduling. And maybe because, until the very end, Benjamin was invisible–so much so that he was even under the gay radar. Wen only knew me as a pretty girl, so we could talk freely in that way that boys and girls can if they’re comfortable with their sexuality. The end result was that I felt another of those weights off my shoulders, the ones that I never knew I had until they were gone. This particular weight was the question, should Benjamin just have gone through life as an effeminate gay boy? And it was obvious that Wen still thought like a boy in the way that Benjamin could never even grasp. I was so much more convinced I was female after spending time with a gay male!

The next interesting thing in my Spring of surprises was Spring Break. Mom and the lawyers had continued to press for documentation after the judge’s gavel in December, and by March I had a gorgeous passport that stated Abigail Elizabeth Houseman, Female! So Shelly worked out something with her mother–busy again with something or somebody–and Shelly, Mom, and I went to Aruba! It was prance around in the sun time, in the skimpiest of bikinis, and I was deliriously happy! And we were deliciously golden brown–with wonderful bikini tan lines!–when we returned, as were most of the wealthy students.

And then Lu and I doubled again; this time Paul brought a friend named Derek, who also happened to be a swimmer. And while we didn’t high-roll it like the Chinese match-making date, we might have had an even better time. We ate at T.G.I.Friday’s and laughed and Derek was really sweet with brown curly hair and green eyes and these dimples when he smiled–which I tried to make him do as much as possible! We decided to forego a movie and went bowling, instead, which I’d never done. I was terrible and everybody was patient but the best, the absolute best, was when I bowled and knocked down nine of the pins! After all the gutters and onesies and twosies, I was ecstatic! And without thinking I threw myself into Derek’s arms–he’d come out from the scoring thing to congratulate me–and his hug and suddenly we kissed and oh God it was heaven! We pulled back and Lu made a joke about ‘Can we bowl now?’ and I blushed but it was absolutely the best way for me to have My First Kiss.

I knew that if my first kiss was one of those where it’s at the end of the night, the good-bye thing, I’d be so nervous I’d probably blow it. And always wonder if he really wanted to kiss me or whether it was just obligatory. But I’d definitely kissed Derek, and he’d definitely kissed back, and that was it! We spent the rest of the evening as two couples, kissing and nuzzling and I felt so alive!

Derek and I made a point of calling each other once a week. Then he met some girl and things kind of tapered off. Mom told me it was best that my first was fantastic and brief. I had learned about myself, and about boys, and another weight had been lifted.

Shelly and I doubled a couple of times but she never met a guy who could keep up with her, although she did have her eyes set on one of the Morton Uppers …

And then the school year was over and Lu went to San Francisco and Shelly went to join her mother hopping around–and I went into the hospital.

That December revelation about my true nature chopped five years off my surgery schedule, as Mom had predicted. Dr. Randall had mentioned in passing that we could have put me in the hospital the afternoon the judge ruled, but because the recovery could take time, barring complications, we waited until the first week of summer vacation. So while other Morton kids were surfing or skiing or doing whatever, this Morton Girl was getting sliced open!

It was a long and complicated surgery, not the typical sexual reassignment kind. The reason for this was that I had those mostly-female organs the MRI had discovered. Depending on the organ itself, it was unclear if they were active, dormant, or non-functional. The Holy Grail, of course, was to be able to hook everything up and have my body completely function as a female, with menstruation and the ability to become pregnant. My girlfriends had opted for their choice–no periods or pregnancy chances, so I could have sex freely. And they’re only Middle school girls!

It was decided that I would have what turned out to be two more surgeries over summer. I fully agreed; as long as I could tan–even artificially in tanning salons–while I recuperated, and as soon as I was cleared each time, I swam furiously to keep in shape. But the first surgery was the most important to me, because it gave me my vagina! Then I had to learn to use these dilator things to keep it open, and then the next surgery came with its recovery period, and by the third I was pretty much done. It was too soon to tell what, if any, results we’d have. In theory everything was hooked up; in some cases it was easy and others difficult.

For instance, the doctors discovered that my testicles had never descended because they had never become testicles; they were still tiny ovaries. The doctors were pretty sure they’d function correctly, and hooking them up was ‘easy’, according to Dr. Randall. On the other hand, they’d had to add some tissue to my uterus–yes, I had been a boy with a uterus!–and it was unknown what functions would result.

I know that the doctors said I was a genetic anomaly from birth, but I like to think that it really came down to the Thanksgiving that Shelly and I met. She saw her best girlfriend under the shy boy exterior, and later she got the bottles of pills to let her girlfriend come out. The fact that I had the weird genetics was secondary, in my mind.

But I was a very happy–and very complete–girl that returned to Morton in the fall. We were big Middle girls now, and already full of distractions that Uppers had, like thinking about colleges and thinking about boys. I dated two boys during the fall, including some heavy necking after the Harvest Ball, when I did, in fact, wear an icy blue gown! Not too ‘Harvest-y’ a color, but I really stood out, and it was worth it to see my date basically melt. But I didn’t get serious about boys, despite the boy-crazy madness of some of the girls swirling around me, because I wanted to focus on my studies. I was still thinking about the judge’s recommendation that I go into law.

Thanksgiving was traditional, in that Mom and I participated in hosting the school’s Forgotten Ones, and I felt the first stirrings of what I guess I’d call maternal feelings. There I was dishing peas for a lonely Lower girl, and then wiping the nose of a Lower boy, and I felt such warmth and happiness. Weird; all along I’d never thought about being a mother. It was so far beyond the beyond that I simply never thought about it. But it was on my mind heading into December.

Shelly had been at the Thanksgiving break, staying with us, and probably would for Christmas, too. Her mother had a financial setback in August and things looked dicey for a time. Dicey, that is, if you consider going from $300 million to ‘only’ $60 million dicey. But sometime in November the coin flipped or shoe dropped or whatever–knowing her mother’s use of clichés–and Shelly said in passing that her mom was breathing easier and was back up to $280 million. I couldn’t really comprehend it but was glad that Shelly would still be at Morton.

And then I got the very best, most amazing Christmas present. The day after Christmas …I woke up with cramps and bloody sheets. I had my first period! It was a trip to ER with Dr. Randall and two days of observation and then released as healthy–a healthy female. Shelly joked that I was pronounced ‘cured of boyhood’!

And she was right.

There was no longer the tiniest scrap of doubt–I was 100%, completely through and through, once and forever, a Morton Girl.

The End