by Katherine Day
Orphaned at age 14, Angelo is a delicate boy who may be the lovely daughter that his new foster mother always wanted. Their mother-daughter relationship runs into obstacles that challenges him becoming the girl he really is.
The Foster Mom’s New Daughter — Part One
By Katherine Day
(Copyright 2007 by Katherine Anne Day)
(Dedicated to and inspired by Angelo, of Rome, Italy)
Chapter One: A New Home
Mary Elizabeth Dayton was surprised to see her foster home placement worker on Monday afternoon.
“You weren’t supposed to be here until tomorrow, Anna. What’s up?”
“Oh, Mrs. Dayton, this isn’t a home inspection visit. We’ve completed that and your home is immaculate. We’re pleased to have you on board with us.”
Mary breathed a sigh of relief; she had indeed felt she had passed the inspection with flying colors, but with state bureaucracies you never knew. While her worker, Anna Simms, an eager, young African-American with a round face, and sparkling smile, had been encouraging, the home inspector who studied her ranch home in the urban working class neighborhood had been dour and grumpy.
“Oh that’s fine. Come in.” Mary said, opening the door, still puzzled for the visit.
Anna declined the invitation for coffee, and said: “I’ve got bad news, and good news. At least, I hope you’ll find it’s good news.”
Mary was shocked, wondering what was happening.
“I know you were ready to accept Julia into your home tomorrow,” Anna began. “But something has happened that’ll make that impossible.”
“Oh?” Mary asked, puzzled, and saddened, since she had prepared a lovely girl’s room for her new foster child, a 15 year old girl named Julia. The two had met, and Mary had found Julia to be a delightful, but terribly shy young girl, one who would benefit from the kind of nurturing that Mary had practiced with her three boys, now grown, gone, married and successes in the world.
“Julia’s mom has successfully completed her rehab, and now wants her child back,” Anna continued.
“Is she going back to her mom now, immediately?”
“No. We can’t risk that now,” Anna explained. “But we felt it wouldn’t be fair to Julia to move her again, if she could only stay here for a few months and then be returned to her mom. She’ll be better off staying where she is while we check out to see if Julia’s mom can take her.”
Mary sighed. “I guess that’s for the best. But I had my heart set on Julia. She was so sweet.”
“I know, Mrs. Dayton, but I have no other teen girls ready for care now.”
“Oh. I’m so ready for a child,” Mary said.
“I do have a boy, also 15, who needs your kind of care, Mrs. Dayton.”
“A boy. I’m not set up for a boy. The room is designed for a girl.”
“I know you wanted a girl, Mary,” Anna said, switching to calling the prospective foster mom by her first name. “This is a very special boy. His name is Angelo, and he’s the sweetest, shyest little boy. I’m sure you’ll take to him.”
Mary’s interest was peaked, as Anna explained Angelo was orphaned a year ago and was placed with an aunt where his boy cousins constantly harassed and beat up on him. “He needs a nurturing loving household, Mary, and I know you could provide that.”
“Oh, boys can be so rough and tumble. I raised three of them, you know?” Mary said.
“Oh not this boy. Angelo is a very smart boy, but he’s small for his age, so he has trouble with other boys. He likes to read a lot, and he seems to like to do the quiet things.”
Mary was interested, but really wasn’t sure. She really wanted a girl, but she agreed that Anna could bring Angelo for a visit the next day so the two could get acquainted.
Of all the child welfare workers that had handled his case, Angelo found Anna Simms to be the kindest and most concerned. She was young, just out of college, and she took her cases seriously; in truth, she was not sure of herself yet, and often wondered how she could even be trusted with the job of trying to save children.
Angelo thought Anna was very pretty, and always liked how she dressed. Anna, of course, being a self-conscious young woman, thought she was too fat, her face too round and her hips too big. She was careful to dress in simple styles, usually flowing skirts, flats and loose blouses of single colors.
At her third visit with Angelo, Anna wore a floral, taffeta skirt of a mixture of violets, greens and browns and a plain violet peasant blouse. The boy smiled broadly at her, saying, “You’re dressed pretty today, Miss Simms.”
“Why, thank you, Angelo. It’s nice of you to notice. But this is just a plain outfit.”
“It’s such a bright, cheerful skirt and you look nice in it.”
“It’s so nice you notice things like that. You’ll find your girl friends will enjoy compliments like.”
Angelo blushed. He, of course, had no girl friends, but he did enjoy the company of girls. While at the current foster home, he befriended a neighbor girl his own age, and the two of them usually did things together, going to the movies, taking trips to the mall and watching her shop for clothes. He never liked doing things with boys; he felt awkward with boys, feeling unable to compete.
On the day of the visit, Anna was dressed in a brown plain pencil skirt, a pink camisole under a gold jacket and short heels. Angelo, of course, complimented her as he usually did, as the two walked to her car for the trip to Mrs. Dayton’s home.
“Are there going to be other boys at her house?” Angelo asked during the drive.
“No, honey, you’ll be the only child there. She’s a widow and had three sons, all of whom live elsewhere. She’s very nice.”
Angelo was silent, looking at the small houses that lined the street, all with lawns neatly mowed. He had never before lived in any kind of an orderly household, having been raised by a mentally unstable single mother, so that by the age of eight he often had assumed the household chores like cooking, washing clothes and keeping house clean.
“Oh, if she’s used to boys, she won’t want me,” he said to Anna.
“Why do you say that?” She was stopped at a red light, and looked over to see this diminutive boy. He looked so tiny and scared. She couldn’t help thinking he looked very much like a young teen girl, with his slender arms, narrow shoulders and long dark hair that flowed to his neckline.
Angelo reddened. “Well I’m not big or strong. I bet her boys were. She’ll hate me for being so weak.”
“Oh no, honey, Mrs. Dayton is very kind. You’ll like her.”
Angelo hung back as they rang the doorbell at Mrs. Dayton’s home; in what seemed just an flick of a second, the door opened and Mrs. Dayton stood there, tall, commanding and seemingly filling the whole door.
“Come on in you two. I’m so anxious to see you Angelo,” she said with a pleasing lilt to her rather husky voice.
Anna introduced Angelo who held out his slender hand, finding it lost in the grip of the older woman’s hand.
“Anna has told me so much about you, Angelo. I can see why she wants you to be in a good home. You look like such a sweet boy.”
“Thank you,” Angelo said, knowing he wasn’t always “sweet,” and had shown his times of temper or stubbornness, particularly with people who didn’t treat him nicely. In times of frustration, he was known to cry, often loudly. “Quit crying like a girl,” his uncle had told him roughly.
Mrs. Dayton had prepared punch and cookies for the visit, which they enjoyed at her kitchen table, a modest room, but sparklingly clean. Angelo was impressed when he saw no unwashed dishes in the sink; at his current foster home, the floor was sticky with spilled Kool-Aid or table scraps and dishes were piled high in the kitchen.
Mrs. Dayton had a warm smile and a pleasant laugh, coupled with her husky voice. As Angelo feared, her boys were big and strong; framed pictures displayed all three of them in football uniforms from their days in high school.
Anna said Angelo would be free to move in within a week, if Mrs. Dayton was ready for him.
“Well, that may be a problem,” the older woman replied. “The room I planned for a foster child is set up for a girl. I thought I was getting a girl.”
Angelo felt crushed. He liked this lady, and could see she’d be a marvelous foster parent, perhaps the kindest he’d ever lived with.
“How soon could you get it changed over?” Anna asked.
“I’m not sure. I had it painted all pink and white, with some pretty flower designs; even the bedspreads and curtains and other furniture are for a girl. I can’t afford now to change it.”
Angelo felt tears well up, as he considered the possibility that he wouldn’t be staying in this house.
“Anna, Mrs. Dayton,” he said, tentatively. “I won’t care how it’s painted. I like it here.”
“Let’s look at it,” Anna suggested.
Angelo had to admit when he saw the room; it was clearly set up for a girl. There was a canopy bed, with pink, yellow and blue lace trimming the top, with matching bedspread. There was a vanity draped with similar cloth and lovely drapes. There was a fluffy stuffed rabbit in the middle of the bed and two white stuffed cats sitting in the reading chair, also with cushions and back rests of the same design. The room even had a sweet perfumed smell.
“Well, now you know what I meant,” Mrs. Dayton said.
Angelo entered the room, walking in front of the two women, and ran his hands over the cover of the bed. It was obviously a brand new bed, and he was pleased that he would be its first occupant.
Anna said. “Yes, it’s too bad. This is really for a girl.”
Angelo felt a pang of fear: Were they not going to let him stay in this house, just because of the way the room was decorated?
“Can’t I stay with Mrs. Dayton?” Angelo asked. “This house is so nice.”
“Well, it’s up to her,” Anna said. “She wanted a girl.”
Angelo couldn’t help it now; he started to cry, just a soft sniffle, but definitely he was crying. In his own mind, he was telling himself: “I can be a girl for her.”
Anna quickly came to him, hugging him, and brushing his face with a tissue. Mrs. Dayton came over to him as well, holding his hand.
“You’re such a darling,” Mrs. Dayton said. “If he doesn’t mind the room, I’d be glad to have him.”
“Oh Mrs. Dayton,” Angelo said, looking up with his tear-stained face. “I like the room. I can stay here, then?”
“Oh yes, you can, once we get all the details taken care of,” Anna said. “Would it be OK, Mary, if we let Angelo stay in here to get acquainted, while we talk in the kitchen?”
“Yes, Angelo, make yourself at home here. Don’t worry about all the girl clothes in the closet and dresser. We’ll take those out before you return.”
“Oh I don’t have much. You can keep them in there if you want,” Angelo said.
He’d never slept in a room by himself before. This would be heaven. The room felt comfortable to him, even though it was fitted for a girl. He pictured himself sleeping in the bed, his hair flowing prettily on the pillow, looking very much like a girl.
Yes, he felt now, this room would be perfect for him. As he sat in the chair, holding both fluffy stuffed cats, he felt so much at home. When Anna and Mrs. Dayton returned, Angelo had curled himself up in the chair, his legs tucked under him, gently petting the stuffed animals. The two stopped at the door, momentarily looking at this very pretty boy so at peace in this room meant for a girl. Mary Elizabeth Dayton now realized she had found just exactly the sweet child she had been looking for. He looked so fragile and delicate and, she realized, so much like a girl.
Chapter Two: The Dress
It was all arranged: Anna Simms would bring Angelo over Friday morning to begin his stay with Mary Elizabeth Dayton. His prospective foster mother had already instructed Angelo to call her “mother” or “mummy” from now on.
“I finally have a daughter,” Mary mused to herself as she and the social worker had found Angelo cuddling the stuffed animals, looking so much like a girl.
“So you’ve got a foster child now, Mrs. Dayton?” Anna Simms said. “He looks so happy to be here, I can see.”
The boy had been day-dreaming when the two entered the room, realizing how comfortable it would be with Mrs. Dayton. In truth, he felt he’d be so happy not to be facing those nasty boys in his current home-setting; now, he would be able to follow his own inclinations, which often led to reading, writing poetry, doing rough drawings of women’s fashions, and fantasizing about being a girl. Angelo also loved to paint flowers and floral settings, prompting his 9th grade art teacher to praise him for his sense of color. “You’re pictures have an airy, sweetness to them,” she had told him.
When he woke to the realization that the two women were watching him, and heard them say “it’s all arranged,” he leaped from the chair, still holding the fluffy stuffed cats, and skipped across he room.
“Really? Really? I can live here. This is just the best room I could ever have.”
“Oh you like it this way?” Mrs. Dayton said.
“Oh yes,” Angelo said excitedly. Suddenly he stopped himself, realizing he told the two women he liked the room as it was, all frilly and girly. “Oh, it’s nice, but I suppose it’s not too much like a boy’s room. But, I don’t mind. I don’t want to put you to any trouble, Mrs. Dayton . . . I mean, mother.”
Mrs. Dayton drew him tightly to her body, hugging him firmly, but gently. “I think you and I’ll do just fine together.”
After they were gone, Mary Elizabeth Dayton was truly excited. Her disappointment at not having been given a girl to raise as a foster child was quickly overcome by watching Angelo during the visit. This pretty child would easily become the daughter she always wanted, she was sure. The best part of it, too, was that she felt certain he would love being her “daughter” just as if he’d been born a girl.
Ten minutes later, Mary Elizabeth Dayton was on the phone to Sharon Caldwell, her dearest friend.
“Well, I met my new foster child. She’s a 15-year-old sweetheart. I think I’ll love her so much.”
“Oh Mary, that’s so nice. What’s her name?”
“Angelo. She’s got light brown hair and is cute as a button.”
“Angelo?” Her friend asked. “That’s a boy’s name, isn’t it?”
“Oh my, yes. Actually, he is a boy, but he’s so pretty and he looks so fragile. Not at all like a boy.”
“Mary. Watch out. You don’t want to be calling him a girl to his face.”
“Sharon. I think he likes it. I think he’s a girl at heart. I’ll bet you I’ll have him in dresses in a week.”
Her friend didn’t reply right away.
“Sharon, Angelo could be a nice friend for your Tanya.”
“I suppose, Mary. But do be careful. Child welfare won’t want you monkeying around with his gender.”
“Really, Sharon. You and Tanya should come visit us next weekend. You can see for yourself how pretty my little child is.”
Mary Elizabeth hung up the phone, now busy plotting as to how to turn lovely Angelo into a girl. She was smiling, thinking of how the child would look in the pink baby doll she purchased for Julia, the girl she was originally expecting.
****
Angelo had returned to his aunt’s house, retreating to the tiny bedroom in which he shared a bunk bed with Tony, his 13-year-old cousin. Angelo had grown to despise the younger boy, who was already taller than Angelo’s five-foot three-inches, and demonstrably stronger with a developing muscular frame. The younger boy seemed to take great pride in grabbing Angelo by his skinny, weak arm, and doubling it back. Much as he tried to resist crying, Angelo eventually would cry, “Stop It,” with tears coming down his face.
“Say pretty please, little girl,” he loved to taunt Angelo.
It was obvious Tony had seen the girliness in his cousin’s mannerisms, the way he flicked his hair and tucked his feet under his butt while studying or drawing pictures. Angelo tried to hide his gentle nature while in this family, which thrived on meanness and macho activity. Even Maria, Tony’s sister, had pinned Angelo down in a wrestling match in the living room.
Angelo felt shame at his weakness, at being unable to defend himself physically, even against girls. Instead, he took great comfort in those moments he could picture himself as a girl, retreating into a girl’s world of beauty, gentleness and love.
He laid in his upper bunk, wishing tomorrow would be Friday and he could leave this nasty house and move in with his new mummy where she was ready to treat him with gentleness and love. He found himself, for the first time in his life, looking ahead to when he could be as girlish as he wanted; perhaps, he even wondered, he could be a girl. He dosed off finally, nurturing the thought, believing it possible since he was so feminine in nature.
The next morning he awoke with even greater anticipation. His new mummy wanted a girl, he knew. Perhaps, he felt, I can be that girl. In the privacy of the bathroom, he posed in front of the mirror, his body naked. “Oh yes,” he mused. “I can be a girl.” He posed coquettishly, flicking his hair with a limp hand and now admiring his slender, pretty body. It was a smooth body, unmarked with muscular bulges; narrow shoulders and thin arms added to the illusion. Yes, he felt, he could be a sweet girl.
*****
It was a beautiful, warm summer day when Anna Simms picked Angelo in the early afternoon Friday; there were no tearful good-byes from his aunt or Tony and Maria, although Maria did whisper into Angelo’s ear that she would miss him. “I’ll miss you too, Maria,” he said. “We had some fun playing.”
Maria laughed: “I remember how you and I used to run to the park and play hide and seek. Remember when you couldn’t find me and got scared and went home for Tony.”
Angelo reddened. When he couldn’t find her, he got afraid. He thought maybe somebody had kidnapped her, and had run excitedly in the park, his arms flailing about like a girl, getting the whole family looking for Maria, who was perched in the crotch of a tree all the time, hidden by leaves.
Yet, he liked Maria, though she was only 12 and he about 15. Their fun was innocent and easy going, with Angelo seemingly fitting into the world of 12-year-old girls.
Anna Simms was quiet in the trip over, saying only: “I hope this works for you, Angelo. If you’re not comfortable, I want to know right away, OK?”
“Oh Miss Anna, I think this will be OK. Mrs. Dayton seems to want me, even though I’m not the girl she wanted. And, I think I’ll like her.”
Anna placed her right hand gently on Angelo’s arm as she drove on, saying: “Well, you’re really a nice boy. I want you to be happy there.”
Angelo smiled. He was convinced he’d be happy there, particularly in the girlish atmosphere of his new room.
“You can take you’re stuff right to the bedroom, Angelo,” Mary Elizabeth Dayton said after Anna Simms had completed the details of the placement and left.
“Ok, Mummy,” he said, picking up his one suitcase and a plastic bag of his few art materials and books.
“I’m afraid I haven’t cleaned out all the girl stuff yet.”
“Oh that’s OK. The room is fine.”
“We can take down all the frilly decorations and put up a few soccer posters or something that’s better for a boy once you settle in.”
‘Oh, mummy,” Angelo said, stopping in his walk to the room. “That’s fine. I like the room the way it is.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled to herself. She was going to have no trouble making him into a lovely girl.
“Mummy,” Angelo yelled from the room. “Come here please.”
“Yes, honey,” she said, hurrying into the room, knowing full well what was causing Angelo’s yell.
“You have a pink dress laid out on the bed. Should I put it back in the closet?”
“No honey, I thought you might like to wear it later for me.”
“Me? Why? I’m a boy.”
“Well, I think you’d look lovely in it.”
‘Oh but mummy? Do I have to?”
“Only if you want to. I won’t force you, but when you here the other day I noticed you had taken it out of the closet. You held it up to yourself in front of the mirror. I saw you from the kitchen in the mirror reflection. You looked so pretty in it.”
“Oh but mummy. Is that right for me to wear girl’s stuff? What if somebody sees me?”
“There’s no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in that,” Mary Elizabeth said. “If you like wearing girl’s clothes, do it. We’ll just do it here in the house. No one else will know.”
“Mummy. I might like to try it one time. Just for you. I want you to be happy you’re letting me live with you.”
“Honey, I’m happy having you however you dress.”
She gave Angelo a tender hug, and the boy responded by hugging her back even more firmly. She felt his delicate, dainty body within her sturdy hug, suddenly realizing how ill-prepared this boy would ever fit into the tough, hard world of men.
Mary Elizabeth then went into the dresser, finding pink satin panties and a lacy matching bra, both still in their packaging.
“I bought these expecting another girl, named Julia, but she’s going back to her mother, so I’m pleased for her.”
“Were all these clothes for her then?”
“Yes, and I can take them back, but they look pretty much to be your size. If you like them, we’ll keep them.”
Angelo blushed. He liked the clothes very much; he’d examined them the other day and day-dreamed about wearing them.
“I’ve never seen so many nice clothes for a girl,” Angelo said. “Most of the girls in school all dress so ratty these days.”
Mary Elizabeth began opening the bra and panty package, explaining: “I want you to totally undress and then put on the panties.”
Angelo hesitated. “Now?”
“Yes, silly, now. You’re so cute. I raised three boys so I know what your plumbing looks like,” she laughed.
Nonetheless, Angelo turned his back to Mary Elizabeth, totally disrobing, leaving his pants, shirt and underwear in a clump on the floor, and quickly stepping into the panty.
“Now, my darling,” Mary Elizabeth said firmly. “Girls keep their rooms neat and don’t drop their clothes any place on the floor. Pick those clothes up, and fold them neatly on the chair.”
“I’m sorry mummy,” he said, now stooping over to do as ordered.
The new foster mother smiled to herself, as she saw this 15-year-old boy, wearing only panties before her. He was so tender-looking; his narrow shoulders, slender arms, smooth back and cute behind made him look completely girlish. She knew he’d soon love being the girl she always wanted; in fact, he’d be perhaps sweeter than any other girl in the foster care system.
She helped him on with the bra, stuffing some tissues into the cups, realizing that she’d have to get breast forms soon.
Mary Elizabeth took a new pair of knee-highs out of a package, and ordered Angelo to sit in the chair, sticking out one leg at a time while she slowly put on each stocking. She marveled at Angelo’s slender feet and ankles and soft thighs. This child was too beautiful, too feminine to waste in boy clothes, she mused.
“Watch me how I do this,” she demanded. “Soon you’ll have to do this on your own.”
“Yes, mummy,” he answered, slowly beginning to realize that his new mummy was aiming at making him into a girl. His brain told him he should tell her to stop, but his mouth said nothing.
She placed the feet into the stocking she had rolled up, filling out the feet, then ankles, calves and finally the thighs. She smooth out the coffee-colored sheer hose as she did it.
“Could you do this on your own?”
“Yes, mummy. I watched my own mother do that.”
They put the baby doll dress on over his head, and tied the cloth belt that created a high waist, with the flowing skirt ending in mid thigh. The dress had a square bodice, and fluffy lace trim. His skinny arms poked out of puffed-up short sleeves, and the dress flowed generously below the waist, accentuating the breadth of his hips.
Sadly the shoes, black patent leather pumps, without a heel, were tight on his feet, but still wearable.
“We’ll have to return these tomorrow and get you some that fit,” she told the boy.
“Let me see how I look,” he said.
But, she held him back. “No. Let’s finish you up first.”
She brushed his hair, a fine light brown hair. It went to his neck and could be fashioned either as a boy or girl style. She brushed it back, letting it flow naturally, then wrapping a pink ribbon over the back.
She then applied lipstick, a light pink color that brightened and made his full lips glow. She following with eyeliner and darkened his eyebrows a bit, trimming them slightly with a scissors.
“Now stand up, my dear,” she ordered. “And look at yourself in the mirror.”
“Oh mummy,” he squealed. “I’m pretty.”
Angelo saw only a teen girl staring back. He did a little twirl, daintily flicking his hand, posing as a model, although in an awkward manner.
“No darling, you’re beautiful,” she responded, hugging him tightly as the two looked in the mirror together.
“And mummy,” the boy said. “You’re beautiful, too. I love the dress you wore today.”
“Why thank you honey. I wore this just for you. Mummy doesn’t get much chance to dress up these days, and I thought I would. This is such a special occasion.”
Mary Elizabeth was a tall women, still slim, but with a little tummy developing. On this day, she wore a blue chiffon dress over a light blue slip. Even in her mid-fifties, she still had lovely, slender legs and a pretty neck. She let her hair flow freely, and had modest lipstick on.
“Mummy, I think we’re both beautiful,” Angelo said, adding after a hesitation. “Just like mother and daughter.”
Mary Elizabeth and Angelo smiled into the mirror. Yes, indeed, she thought, mother and daughter.
“But Angelo is no name for a girl,” she said. “What shall your name be?”
The boy thought for a minute. “Why not Angela?”
“Why not?” she said. And they both hugged again.
Orphaned at 14, Angelo is a shy, sensitive boy who is helped to become the girl he always felt he was by a caring new foster mother. He becomes a prettily dressed teenaged girl who finds new friends and enjoyment. At the same time, a dark cloud is overhead, threatening his future.
The Foster Mom’s New Daughter — Part Two
By Katherine Day
(Copyright 2007 by Katherine Anne Day)
(Dedicated to and inspired by Angelo, of Rome, Italy)
Synopsis: Orphaned at 14, Angelo is a sensitive, shy boy, and is placed with a foster mother who had wanted a girl. She accepts the boy into her household, quickly finding out that he feels comfortable sleeping in a girl’s bedroom and wearing lovely, frilly outfits. Before coming to live with his new foster mother, Angelo lived for a year in the mean household of his aunt and her family (where his cousins teased him and beat him up regularly because of his delicate body). Now he finds comfort with his new foster mom who has found the daughter she always wanted. In his first weekend at the foster home, Angelo finds great joy in dressing as a girl and, when he does, he becomes Angela.
Chapter Three: Learning to be a Girl
Mary Elizabeth left her new charge alone in the lovely bedroom, giving him a little space to feel more comfortable in his new surroundings. She was convinced he loved the room and also the idea of dressing and acting like a girl. She told him to occupy himself because she had phone calls to make for her real estate work. Most importantly, she felt Angelo was happy with his new situation.
In the late afternoon, Angelo entered a back extra bedroom, which she had converted to an office. She was going over house listings on her computer, when she was interrupted, with a soft, tentative voice: “Mummy? Have you a minute?”
“Oh yes, darling,” she said automatically, before turning around to face Angelo.
“I’m afraid I’m not the girl you wanted,” the boy said. It was said in a weak, tentative voice.
“Why? What do you mean?” she said, turning around to see him, now dressed in the lovely green gown she had bought for Julia, who was originally to be her foster child. “Oh darling, you’re lovely. I see you’ve found the prom dress. Isn’t it divine?”
Angelo did a little twirl, smiling in a most pleased manner. “It’s so pretty, mummy. I love it.”
“And you look so sweet in it. Any boy would be pleased to have you on his arm. Now what are you saying about not being the girl I wanted?”
“Mummy,” he said, tears again flowing down his face, messing up his mascara.
“Yes, dear. What’s the matter? Come hug mummy.”
Angelo set on her lap, his delicate body easily comforted by Mary Elizabeth as she hugged him.
“Mummy, my voice. I still talk like a boy. And, I walk like a boy. I don’t know how to sit as a girl.”
“Oh, and you wanna make sure you do those things as a girl would, right.”
“Yes, mummy.”
“Well after supper, we’ll work on some of those things. Tomorrow, we’re taking you to buy girl shoes, and I want you to dress as Angela when we go shopping. OK?”
“But, they’ll think I’m a boy,” he said.
“Hardly,” Mary Elizabeth responded. “Right now, you look all girl. The other things we’ll take care of. That’s if you want to.”
“Oh mummy, I do. I do feel like a girl.” He leaped off her lap, skipping about in happiness. “I love you so much, mummy.”
“Now take off that dress, before you ruin it, and put on something more comfortable for supper. Choose from among the mini-skirts and blouses in the closet.”
“Yes, mummy,” he said, skipping off to his pretty room.
Mary Elizabeth herself changed to a pair of shorts and a tee shirt for supper, tying her hair up for the chore of making dinner. Before she started, however, she had to call Sharon, her girl friend.
“Sharon,” she said excitedly, as her friend answered. “Honey, she’s a lovely girl. You and Tanya want to join us tomorrow? We’re going to the mall tomorrow. I need to get shoes for Angela.”
“Angela?” her friend asked. “You’ve renamed her?”
“Sharon, she loves it. She’s so natural as a girl. You’ll simply adore her, I know it. And I’d like her to meet your daughter. Tanya is a so nice, and she knows other girls.”
“You’re going to take her . . .” Sharon stopped. “I mean him . . . to the mall to shop. Will he be dressed as a girl?”
“Oh my, yes. She’s truly very feminine. No one will know.”
“Lizzie,” Sharon said, using the name she’d used for years with her friend. “Aren’t you going too far with this?”
“No Sharon. And please call her Angela and she’s a she, not a he. Remember that.”
It was decided they’d meet at 1 p.m. at the food court for shopping the next day. But tonight, Mary Elizabeth realized she had work to do to turn this lovely boy into a girl.
*****
Angelo had decided against wearing the mini-dress for supper, as Mary Elizabeth had suggested, and had put on a pair of denim shorts, which hardly went to mid-thigh, topped off with a girl’s light blue tee shirt containing the words in glitter, “Hot Number 15.” He wore pink tennis shoes and short white socks.
“My, aren’t you the cutie!” Mary Elizabeth proclaimed.
“Are you mad I didn’t wear the dress?”
“No, honey. You look fine. Just the spitting image of a teen age girl.”
Angelo truly did look cute with his slender legs and arms, so smooth and pretty.
“I wanted to help you out in the kitchen, mummy,” he said by way of explanation for wearing the more informal outfit.
“You can set the table for now, and for this special occasion, our first supper together, I think we should have candles and flowers. You can get them from the pantry.”
Mary Elizabeth was impressed with how gracefully and daintily Angelo moved about. He showed a true artistic bent in setting up the table. For the supper, Mary Elizabeth had bought a nonalcoholic champagne to share, and told Angelo where the wine goblets were.
“Oh these goblets are lovely,” the boy said.
“You seem to know what you’re doing in the kitchen, Angela,” she said, using the boy’s girl’s name.
“When mum was alive, I did most of the cooking and cleaning. Even the clothes washing. I had to clean the house. She was always too sick.”
“Well, you were a good son. I’m so sorry about your mum.”
Angelo wanted to cry. He did miss his mum, but she had been dead for over a year now. She was a very talented, lovely person, but suffered terribly with her mental illness. It had been Angelo who after the age of eight had maintained the household.
“But, you’re my mummy now,” he said. “I hope you’ll like me, too.”
“Oh darling I do.”
After supper was done and the two shared the chores of cleaning up and doing the dishes, to the background music of light classics, they went into the living room to begin training Angelo in the subtleties involved in appearing to be a girl. Mary Elizabeth sat Angelo down on one of the two dining room chairs they brought in, and she sat before him in the other.
“First of all, from now on, whenever you’re being my foster daughter, I will address you as Angela. OK?”
Angelo smiled. “Yes mummy.”
“Angela. Look at how you’re sitting. Just like a crude, dirty boy. Is that who you are?”
“No mummy. I’m a girl.”
“Yes, and you’re a pretty, sweet, dignified girl. Don’t forget that!”
She told the boy to look at how she was sitting, with her knees together, back straight and hands folded neatly on her lap. He, in turn was laying back in his chair, his legs apart in a slouch position. He quickly adjusted to assume her position.
“Now, that’s better.”
“Do I look OK this way, mummy?”
“Yes, honey. And also, when at a table eating, don’t put your forearms on the table; keep you hand in your lap when you’re not using a knife, fork or spoon.”
She smiled, and continued. “At dinner tonight, honey, you were still eating like that crude boy. Taking big bites and wolfing everything down without much chewing.”
“I’m sorry, mummy.”
“We have to get rid of all those nasty boy habits, right?”
“Yes, mummy. I want to be your sweet girl.”
Mary Elizabeth was overcome with the joy and excitement she felt with this lovely child.
“You are my sweet girl, honey. But we need to refine just a few things. When you eat, take smaller portions on your fork or spoon. Then, chew your food, with your mouth closed, quietly and with small chews.”
Angelo nodded, and smiled back, a sweet smile that Mary Elizabeth couldn’t resist. She took the boy’s hands in hers, squeezed them and leaned forward giving him a light kiss on the cheek. He smelled so clean and fresh.
Angelo’s own heart jumped as she did that, and he felt he wanted to be in her arms, hugged and caressed. He wanted so badly to please his new mummy, to be her true girl child.
“Now, when it comes to getting up and down from a chair,” Mary Elizabeth began. “Let me show you.”
She demonstrated slowly, rising from the chair with her legs still together and then sitting down, smoothing her dress from behind as she sat. “You must always smooth the dress,” she said. “Otherwise, the dress with bunch up in back and get mussed.”
“Sit with your legs together, even if you move them to one side or the other. It’s not good to cross your legs, but if you do, let me show you how women do it.”
She crossed her legs below the knees, and the reached across where he had been sitting with his knees crossed. “See. You look like that nasty boy again,” she told him.
Angelo assumed the prescribed position, but it didn’t feel natural to him, he told her. She responded: “That’s OK, practice it, and you’ll soon be doing it like a girl always.
“Now, let me see you walk,” she commanded.
Angelo walked across the room and back a couple of times, trying to take small steps.
“How’s that, mummy?”
“Not bad, honey. There’s a bit of girl in that walk now.”
It was true Angelo had been picking up some girlish movements in the last year; his cousins often teased him, telling him he walked like a girl. In fact, when he sat on the couch, he usually tucked his feet under his butt, also looking very feminine.
“But, Angela,” she said. “You must walk more erect. Keep your back straight and walk with your toes pointing almost directly forward. That will create a natural sway to your hips.”
“Ok mummy.” He followed her instructions and walked back and forth several times.
“That’s very girlish,” she said.
“It feels so natural, mummy.”
“Now sweetie, I want you to bend your arms at the elbow while you walk, but not too much, just a little. And, let your wrist be a bit limp.”
“Like this mummy.” He demonstrated.
“No. No. No.” she protested. “That’s too extreme. Now all you look like is a faggot.”
“Oh mummy, but you said. . . “
“Now do it again, but don’t bend your elbows that much, and let your hands and wrists hang naturally.”
He walked back and forth several times, each time feeling more comfortable with the motion. She ordered him to sit down and he did so, trying to do it slowly and with grace.
“No, Angela. You forgot to smooth your dress.”
“Oh, I’m sorry mummy. I forgot, and I didn’t have a dress on anyway.”
“I want you to get in the habit of doing the motion. OK?”
They paused in the teaching and Mary Elizabeth suggested they get some ice cream as a reward. “You’re such a good little girl, and you learn so fast,” she said.
“Thank you mummy. I think I like being a girl.”
While they ate their ice cream, Angelo realized he had never in his life felt more at home, more comfortable than he was in his new home. He also realized that his quick transformation into girlhood might indeed have been a trek into his true feminine nature. He had always been afraid of being a boy, fearful of the need to be aggressive and to talk rough and to be strong, ready to fight physically if he had to. As a boy, he knew he would somehow have to develop a masculinity that just didn’t seem to be in his nature.
“Now, you’ll have to work on your voice, Angela,” Mary Elizabeth said when they were finished with the ice cream. She smiled at the child before her, now with his lips covered with cream.
“Wipe you mouth off, honey,” she said.
Angelo used a paper napkin and swiped it across his mouth.
“No. Not that way. Do it more daintily. Just dab it this way.” Mary Elizabeth demonstrated, and the boy copied her perfectly.
“You’re such a good girl,” she said.
“Now, we must deal with the toughest part of making you a girl. Your voice.”
“Yes mummy,” Angelo replied, trying to soften his voice and placing it in a higher register.
“You already have a gentle, sweet voice, dear, but it’s still more boylike.”
Mary Elizabeth suddenly had an idea. “If you were talking to a little baby, how would you do it? Talk like you would to an infant about six months old.”
“You mean like this, mummy,” he said, raising his voice to a higher level, adding a few “Coo, coos.”
“That’s better, yes. Try to talk to me like I’m a baby, now.”
“You mean like this mummy,” he said, finding his voice wavering a bit, and not being constant.
“Yes. Practice that,” she said. “Don’t force your voice. Try to talk natural, and you can be a bit softer, too.”
Angelo began talking, trying out his new voice, still not satisfied with it. Mary Elizabeth grew frustrated, as it appeared the child could not present a constant, steady girlish voice.
“Not yet, honey. You’ll need more practice. I’m afraid tomorrow at the mall, when you’ll be my daughter, you’ll have to talk very little. Just act shy.”
Angelo smiled. He had no trouble acting shy. It was in his nature.
“No, Angela, honey,” Mary Elizabeth continued. “Here’s another hint. Listen closely how women and girls talk. Listen to how we accentuate certain words. Once you master ‘girl-talk’ you’ll be able to even talk in a lower, almost male voice, because the way you handle the words will mark you as a girl.”
“Oh kayyyyy mummy,” he said, mimicking how she said “OK.”
“Darling, you’ve got it. You understand the concept, I think.”
Angelo smiled. He continued to talk and walk and act as girly as he could. Mary Elizabeth went to her room to finish up some computer work, asking Angelo if he’d like to watch a DVD movie later. She had rented several that were aimed at a teenaged girl population.
“Oh mummy. I love that idea.”
*****
Later that night, after Angelo had dressed in a light blue nightie and put on fluffy matching slippers, Mary Elizabeth put his hair in curlers. “We’ll have to let this grow longer, honey, but this’ll work for now.”
Together they sat on the couch, Angelo in his nightie, his legs tucked up under him, nestling next to Mary Elizabeth. The movie they watch was “Election,” the story about a high school class president election starring Reese Witherspoon. Angelo had never seen it and began identifying with the heroine, wishing he could go to school as a girl. Halfway through the movie, he said: “Aren’t those girls so pretty?”
“Yes, honey, but I have a very pretty girl right here.”
Angelo blushed, but reached up and kissed his foster mother gently on her cheek. They both smiled.
It was a lovely sight: the older woman in her long pink nightie and a slender, cute teen aged girl in her light blue nightie, snuggled together on the davenport. For Angelo, this night was the beginning of a new life, a life that may be closer to his real self, that of a girl. For Mary Elizabeth, this night was the sweetest, warmest night since the death of her husband many years earlier. She now had the daughter she always wanted.
Chapter Four: The Shopping Trip
“Now Angela, you must make up your mind, honey. It’s getting late.”
“Oh mommy, I can’t decide what to wear.”
Mary Elizabeth smiled as her 15-year-old foster son fussed about in the closet, trying to find just the right outfit to wear to the mall to meet Sharon and her daughter, Tanya, for a day of shopping. It would be Angelo’s first time out of the house, dressed as a girl.
“Mummy, I am undecided. Should I wear this dress? It looks too formal for shopping, I think. Or, should I wear these shorts and the tank top, like most girls wear when they shop? What do you think, mummy?”
He was acting just like a girl in puzzling over his outfit, and Mary Elizabeth was feeling pleased as she watched this girl-to-be act so totally feminine. It seemed to come natural to him.
“Honey, I think you could go informal. Wear the shorts and tank top, and also take a top along, in case the air conditioning in the mall is too cold.”
Angelo agreed. He wanted to go dressed just like other girls would be at the mall. With his slender legs and arms, he knew he could easily look like a girl in the shorts and tank top. Besides, the only shoes he could wear comfortably were the girl’s tennis shoes, which wouldn’t go well with the dress.
“Oh mummy, I hope I remember everything you taught me about being girly,” Angelo said when they reached the mall.
“Angela, honey, don’t worry. You look very sweet today. No one will think of you as anything but a girl, believe me.”
“Oh, mummy, I hope so,” he replied, then added: “I like it better than being a boy.”
“Let’s go, honey, Sharon and Tanya must already be there.”
They hurried into the mall and up the escalator to the food court, Angelo trying hard to remember to take shorter steps, and to keep his body erect. As far as he could tell, no one gave them a second glance; he reasoned the two must have looked like any mother and teenaged daughter, and Angelo felt so warm with the thought.
Mary Elizabeth wore light green full-length shorts and a darker green-blue sleeveless blouse; Angelo wore denim mini shorts, a pink G.U.E.S.S. sleeveless tee shirt, a light blue jacket and the pink tennis shoes with short, white sock.
Mary Elizabeth spotted Sharon and her daughter, seated at a table at the edge of the food court; both had soft drinks in their hands and were chatting. Tanya, the daughter, seemed to be complaining to her mother about something, and their demeanor changed as Marry Elizabeth and Angelo approached the table.
“Sharon, Tanya, sorry we were late, but here’s Angela.”
Angelo came forward, and Sharon and her daughter rose up to meet them. Angelo gave a slight curtsey and smiled, not speaking, still worried his voice would give him away.
“Why, you’re very pretty, Angela,” Sharon said as they sat down, strategically placing Angelo next to Tanya.
“Thank you,” he said in a hard-to-hear whisper.
“Speak up darling,” Mary Elizabeth said, then explained: “She’s really very shy.”
“Thank you,” he said in a voice that sounded weak and unconvincing.
Tanya seemed to be the same height and have the same body size as Angelo; she was slender with a dishwater long blonde hair reaching down past her shoulders. She wore a tank top and grey mini-shorts with sandals. She wore modest pink lipstick with matching colors on her toenails and fingernails.
Mary Elizabeth had suggested that Sharon tell her daughter that Angelo was a boy, but a boy who felt more like a girl. The two older women began talking and Angelo and Tanya sat there, not saying anything, not even looking at each other, although Angelo felt that Tanya must be glancing at him.
Finally, Tanya said, in a gudging tone: “Well, I must say. You at least look like a girl.”
Angelo didn’t reply. He could tell Tanya was not pleased with this meeting; she must have thought it was weird that a boy should come dressed as a girl, and argued with her mother about coming. Only for her mother’s final plea that she was doing it for Mary Elizabeth’s sake did Tanya relent. The girl had always liked Mary Elizabeth who had cared for her when her mother was hospitalized for a month several years ago.
“You going to always be a girl?” Tanya pressed on.
“I think so,” Angelo answered softly, trying so hard to sound girlish.
The two sat there for a while, then agreed they’d go up together to get some drinks and pizza slices. There was a long line at the Pizza Pete stand, and two teenage boys were right in front of them in line. They were laughing and making fun of everything around them, just being typical of teenage boys. Angelo was glad he didn’t have to take part in their banter.
“Hi girls,” the taller of the two boys said. He had cutoff shorts, sandals and blue tank on, exposing strong muscular arms.
“I’m Gary and this is my friend, Jason,” he said. “Who are you?”
There was no response, and Gary repeated the question.
Finally, Tanya answered: “Hi, I’m Tanya and this is Angela. She’s just a friend of my mom’s.” Her response seemed to indicate to the boys that she was not a friend to Angelo but had to be at the mall with him because their mothers’ desires.
“Well, Angela, say hi,” Gary pressed on. “We won’t bite.”
Angelo gave his same tentative “hi,” hoping it sounded girlish enough.
“She’s shy,” explained Tanya.
“Well she shouldn’t be. She’s a cutie,” the other boy, Jason said. He was crew-cut, slender with a wiry body and bright blue eyes. He was wearing a tight white tee-shirt and shorts.
Angelo blushed. That this sparkling, lively boy would think he was “cute” excited Angelo excitedly.
As their turns at the counter came up, the boys asked if they would join them at their table, but Tanya explained they had to go with their mothers.
“Well, give us your phone numbers, at least,” Gary joshed.
Tanya laughed. “No way. We’ll see ya’ around.”
As they walked back to the table, Tanya said: “You’re going to have to learn how to handle yourself around boys, Angela.”
“I know. Thank you for being there.”
“You know, you’re really pretty. Maybe we can come here again; we’ll see if those boys show up next Saturday. They were hot.”
Angelo only nodded his head. He wasn’t sure how he would handle being a girl with boys like those. He could imagine their conversations now at their own table, comparing which of the two girls they met was the hottest.
*****
Mary Elizabeth, Sharon, Tanya and Angelo went shopping; spending several hours, hitting mainly women’s clothing stores. Tanya started talking to Angelo more eagerly as the day wore on and they both became impatient with the older women and their slow way of shopping.
As the day wore on, Tanya seemed to warm up to Angelo, and the two soon were giggling together, making comments about some of the boys they saw in the mall. Angelo, who always liked to perform, mimicked some of them, bringing smiles to Tanya’s face.
While the two older women shopped in a high-level store, Angelo and Tanya headed for the Old Navy store. Mary Elizabeth said she had not purchased much casual clothes for Julia. “Perhaps, Tanya, you can help Angela pick up some cool outfits,” she said, sending the two off with $100 in cash to spend.
As they went down the mall’s hallway, the two chattered, stopped at show windows, and admiring some of the outfits, criticizing others.
“Oh that’s gross,” Angelo said, now having more comfort in his voice, as he pointed out a particularly garish outfit.
“It is awful, isn’t it?” Tanya agreed.
“I like more simple, light styles,” he said. “Gauzy type materials.”
“Oh, me too, Angela.”
“Like that one,” he said, pointing to a prom gown in the window of the next store. It was a strapless gown with a taffeta skirt, in a light teal green. “You’d look lovely in it, Tanya.”
“You too, Angela,” she said quickly. Then she added: “Oh I’m sorry. I forgot you’re really a boy.”
“Oh, but I’d love to wear it,” he responded as thee two continued looking at the gown.
“Angela, you really are so much a girl, I can tell. You have great fashion sense; you seem to be totally feminine.”
Angelo smiled. He liked the fact that Tanya was now accepting him as a girl and he was hoping the two would be girl friends together.
“You girls got prom dates, already.” The words came out loud and teasingly, interrupting Angelo’s musing. He looked to see the two teenage boys they met at the Pizza Pete stand.
“You following us?” Tanya challenged.
“Not really,” said the bigger boy named Gary. “But it’s not a bad idea.”
His partner, Jason, laughed in conspiracy, adding: “You’re both worth following.”
“Well, we’re shopping. Leave us alone,” Tanya said.
“Aww come on. We don’t mean any harm. We think you’re both pretty special girls.”
Angelo blushed, turning a bit coyly to one side. He was not used to be praised, but now as a girl he was finding he was something lovely and special.
The two boys finally persuaded them to sit down for a moment on a nearby bench, pairing Tanya off with Gary and leaving Jason for Angelo. They shared small talk for a while, with Jason even taking Angelo’s soft, tiny hand in his. Jason, it turned out, was a theater student at the local high school that specialized in the arts.
“Oh that’s neat,” Angelo said, admitting he was new to the city and was looking for a school in the fall. He told Jason that he wanted to study theater; he loved to act, he said.
“You have to audition to get into the school,” Jason said.
“Oh. I did theater in middle school,” Angelo said.
Jason explained that auditions were next week and told Angelo how to apply.
“You’re very pretty,” Jason said. “I’m sure if you got any talent at all, you’ll get in.”
Angelo was gaining affection for this boy, who seemed to be a bit shy himself and had come up to the girls only through the urging of his more aggressive friend. He let Jason hold his hand, feeling very warm and light-headed.
“You wanna go with me to a movie or something sometime?” Jason finally said.
“Oh, Jason. I’m not sure. Mummy doesn’t want me dating or being with boys yet.”
Jason seemed downfallen. “I’m sorry, Jason,” Angelo continued. “I can’t.”
He knew full well that Jason, if he found out he had dated a boy, would be furious and might beat him up, or embarrass him in some way.
They finally broke away from the boys, but they did agree to take the boy’s phone numbers, just in case they ever wanted to call them. They refused to give the boys their own phone numbers.
“I think that Jason has his eye on you, Angela,” Tanya said.
“I know, and he seems very nice, and a little shy. How about Gary? Did you like him?”
“Oh he’s all right, but he’s too full of himself.”
“I saw that too.”
“Oh Angela. It’s so much fun being with you. You’re going to be my best girl friend, I bet.”
“Tanya. That would be so nice.”
“You really think like a girl. I can’t believe you’re actually a boy.”
Angelo laughed: “Well, I never was much of a boy, anyway. Look at my arms; they’re so weak. I bet you could beat me up if you wanted to.”
The two hugged then, transmitting a warm friendship that would overcome all odds.
The two never got to Old Navy, being waylaid by the boys, and realized they had to race back to meet the two older women in the shoe department.
“You two are late,” Sharon scolded as they entered the department.
“We’re sorry mummy,” she said. “But we met these real cool boys.”
Mary Elizabeth was stunned. “I hope you didn’t do anything dumb, like giving them your names and phone numbers.”
“No, mummy,” Angelo said. “But we took their numbers.”
“My God, girls. We can’t let you two loose here.”
“Oh it was just in fun,” Tanya interjected. “This one boy. He’s real cool. He was so interested in Angela.”
“Yes, mummy,” Angelo continued. “His name’s Jason and he’s a student at the arts school in theater. He told me how to apply for the school.”
“Yes, Mrs. Dayton. Angela would be perfect for that school. She’s such an actress.”
“I’d say she is,” Mary Elizabeth said. “She’s fooled everyone into thinking she’s a girl.”
“Isn’t she really a girl?” Sharon said, and they all laughed. Angelo beamed; he so loved being a girl.
The young man who waited on them in the shoe department made a point of saying to Mary Elizabeth: “We want to make sure your young lady here gets the shoes best suited for her lovely feet and legs.”
The fitting went easily, with Mary Elizabeth buying a three pairs of shoes, flats, sandals and pumps with three inch heels.
As they broke up to go home, Tanya turned to her mother, and asked: “Can Angela go to the beach with me tomorrow?”
Angelo was surprised. Tanya hadn’t said anything about joining her at the beach.
“I’m not sure about that,” Sharon responded to her daughter. “Ask Mrs. Dayton what she thinks.”
“Mummy, can I?” Angelo interjected.
“Oh Angela. I don’t think we’re ready for that yet. Why don’t Sharon and Tanya come to our place tomorrow? How about it, Sharon?”
It was agreed the four would get together on Sunday and the two girls could do girly things together. Angelo was so happy as they headed for home.
“Mummy, you’re the bestest mummy in the world,” he said.
“And you’re the darlingest daughter,” Mary Elizabeth said, hugging her charge gently.
Angelo knows now that he has become “Angela,” and he knew that was to be his destiny.
Now, it was Angela who smiled. Angelo was no more.
(To Be Continued)
Angelo spends his first summer with his new foster mother, finally finding happiness in his life as she treats him as "Angela," a lovely teen girl. That happiness may end since the foster care agency feels he should be raised as a boy. But the foster mother and Angela's friends are ready for a fight to keep Angela as the girl she was meant to be.
The Foster Mom’s New Daughter — Part Three
By Katherine Day
(Copyright 2007 by Katherine Anne Day)
(Dedicated to and inspired by Angelo, of Rome, Italy)
Summary of Parts I and II: Angelo was 14 when his mother died, leaving him with an aunt whose family taunted him mercilessly for his delicate, tender body and gentle nature. A year later, Child Protective Services rescued him, placing him in a foster home with a woman who always wanted a daughter. The two within a short time of one summer became like mother and daughter; Angelo also found he could be girl friends with Tanya, the 15-year-old daughter of a friend of his foster mother. Soon, it would be time for Angelo to return to school, raising many concerns.
Chapter Five — The Foster Agency Raises an Eyebrow
He was now called Angela, the name he chose as he became a fulltime girl. Angela became fast friends with Tanya in the summer before they were both to enter senior high school. They were constantly together, giggling and playing together in each other homes and bedrooms, running off to the mall to shop. You could see them holding hands as they skipped through the stores, stopping and looking at store windows, and ogling boys and putting their hands before their mouths as they giggled about seeing a particularly hot boy.
Mary Elizabeth Dayton, Angela’s foster mother, couldn’t have been more pleased that the shy, almost terrified 15-year-old boy who had arrived at her home in late June had become the giggly teenaged girl she’d always wanted. Nonetheless, there was a lingering fear that this idyllic summer would have to end with Angela going to school, facing questions about his gender. Added to that was the question of Child Protective Services, which had placed Angelo with her as a child in need of protection and as a male child.
In July, Anna Simms, the Children’s agency worker, stopped for an unscheduled visit to see how Angelo was getting along. Luckily, Angelo was not at home and was visiting Tanya that day, thus avoiding the chance that Ms. Simms would see the child was dressed as a girl, and acting in a most feminine manner. She did ask to see where Angelo was sleeping, and Mary Elizabeth was forced to show her the child’s room, still decorated in a most girlish, frilly style.
“I thought you were going to make this into a boy’s room,” she said.
“Oh, we’ve been so busy,” Mary Elizabeth replied. “Besides, it doesn’t seem to bother Angelo.”
“I think you’d better try to change it soon, Mrs. Dayton. I’m going to have to put this in my report, so when I come by next time, I’ll want to see this more like a boy’s room.”
“Ok. We can do that. I’ll fix it up; give me a couple of weeks.”
Anna Simms also asked to see where Angelo kept his boy clothes. “All I see are girl clothes here. In fact, it seems like they’re more here now than last time.”
“Oh no, Ms. Simms. Here are Angela’s clothes . . . er . . . I mean, Angelo’s clothes.”
“Angela? Did you can him Angela?”
“Oh, no. Angelo, just Angelo,” Mary Elizabeth answered quickly, trying to cover up her obvious naming of the boy as ‘Angela.’ She led Anna Simms to a single dresser drawer where Angelo’s meager belongings, the same clothes he brought to the house, were stored.
“Is that all you have?”
“Well, we’ve been so busy.”
“Mrs. Dayton,” the social worker said. “I feel Angelo is perfect for you, but he needs to be treated as a boy. It seems you’ve maintained a feminine atmosphere here, and I’m not sure that’s right.”
Mary Elizabeth merely nodded, recognizing that the social worker felt compelled to do the proper thing for Angelo.
“We may have to have a closer review of this placement,” she continued. “I’m still new on the job, and my supervisor may want look at this.”
Mary Elizabeth Dayton sighed as she led Miss Simms to the door. She knew the worker had no choice but to wonder about the feminine life style she had created for her charge. She recalled her friend, Sharon, warning that Child Protective Services might not look with understanding on the process of letting Angelo live as a girl.
Yet, she knew in her heart, that Angela would never have peace in her mind unless she lived as a girl. The child knew that, and Mary Elizabeth knew it, but the State Child Protective Service agency may not.
*****
Angela literally bounded into the house, just as Mary Elizabeth was about to prepare supper. The child was just bubbling with excitement, and the short ponytail of hair that poked out of the back of the pink baseball cap she wore was bobbing up and down. The foster mom, still worried about the recent visit by the social worker, couldn’t help but smile at this lovely, vivacious girl, dressed in a blue and white polka-dot mini skirt, and a white short sleeved tee shirt emblazoned with pink and light blue appliqué.
“Mummy, mummy,” Angela said breathlessly, “I saw the most loveliest prom dress. In fact, I tried it on!”
She knew the young girl’s desire had been to wear such a dress; they had looked at them at Macy’s during the previous Saturday shopping trip. Mary Elizabeth was trying mightily to try to stifle Angela’s desire to go to the prom, or to even have dates with boys. She still realized that Angela physically was a boy, and the consequences of that being discovered by her “date” could be disastrous.
“Angela, I specifically told you NOT to go to the mall today.”
“We didn’t mummy. Heather was home for the weekend, and it was her gown from her senior year in high school. She let me try it on.”
“OK. I guess that’s all right. And did you pester Heather to try it on? I know how you can get when you want something.”
“No mummy. It was her idea. Honest.”
Heather was Tanya’s older sister, who was beginning her freshman year at the State University and had come home for the weekend. It was the end of August, and she had just finished freshman orientation, returning home for a date with her boy friend.
“OK, Angela. Does Heather know about you? That you’re a boy.”
“Oh mummy. I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.”
The two laughed, but Mary Elizabeth persisted: “Does Heather know?”
“Yes, she does, mummy, and she thinks it’s cool.”
“Well, that’s nice. How did you look in it?”
“Oh mummy, I looked scrumptious. That’s what Heather said. ‘Scrumptious.’”
Angela began to giggle, interrupting her conversation.
“What’s so funny?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“Well, that’s when Tanya told her about me, that I have boy’s parts. We’d been talking and doing things for two hours with her, and she was convinced I was a girl. Isn’t that neat?”
“I know honey. You’re really a gorgeous girl.”
“And Heather had told Tanya I was the prettiest girl friend she’d ever brought home. That was before she was told I was a boy. Isn’t that cool?”
At that Angela skipped about the room, joyfully. Mary Elizabeth was so taken with this display of unvarnished joy and feminine reaction that she began to dread what would happen when she began the process of returning Angela to the world of boys. She thought she’d talk to Angela later about it. Instead, she asked Angela to describe the dress.
“Well, it was light green chiffon, with a square bodice and narrow straps over the shoulders. It was short, mummy. Just about mid thigh in length, with a layered look and high thick belt.”
“It sounds lovely, Angela.”
“And it fits me perfectly. Well, it will when we fill my breasts out a bit.”
“Does she want to sell it to you, Angela?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“Oh, no. But she said I can wear it if I get a date for the prom in November.”
“Oh darling, I don’t know about that. You’re only 15 and you’ve been wearing girl stuff only a few weeks now. And, we’re still not sure you can get into the arts specialty school. We’ll know Monday.”
Angela came up to her foster mom, hugged her hard. “Oh mummy, everybody thinks I’m a girl. And, I feel like one.”
“We’ll see,” Mary Elizabeth said, her heart heavy as she contemplated how she was going to deal with the child’s desire and need to be a girl. Probably the child had never been happier in her life than she was at this moment. “And now, I have to spoil it,” she said to herself.
*****
Mary Elizabeth had foreseen that difficulties would develop as Angelo began his life as a girl. She did considerable research on the Internet about transgendered children, but could find nothing about such children when they were placed in foster care. Her friend, Sharon, had grown fond of Angela (the once boy now a girl) and wished, too, that the child could continue to be female. Yet, Sharon had warned: “I’m not sure Child Protective Services will not accuse you of sexual abuse of a child in assisting him to dress up like that.”
“Oh, Sharon,” Mary Elizabeth said as the two sipped wine in the shopping mall’s cocktail lounge as the two girls shopped the mall the previous Saturday. “This happened so fast, and Angela wanted it so badly. The child needs to be a girl. You can see it in her.”
“I know, Lizzie, but he arrived as a boy and in less than 12 hours, he was all girl. The bedroom, the clothes. Everything was there for him to be a girl.”
“He wanted it.”
“I know, but you should have moved slower.”
“Sharon, you’re right. I’m sure Miss Simms will see how it could happen. She’s aware of Angela’s situation. She’s a sympathetic worker.”
“But, Lizzie, she’s a new, young worker. Will her bosses understand?”
Mary Elizabeth thought back over this conversation after Anna Simms’ visit the following week. She realized the wisest course now was to turn the lovely, lively, happy Angela back into being Angelo, the boy, at least part of the time.
“Mummy,” Angela said at supper that night. “What’s the matter? You unhappy with me?”
“Oh, no, darling, not with you. Just got stuff on my mind. My real estate business stuff, you know?”
“Well, you hardly seemed happy when I told you about the prom dress. And, you said hardly anything at supper tonight.”
She told Angela that they’d talk more after cleaning up the supper dishes. The two turned on “How Do I Look?” on the Style Channel as they worked, criticizing the TV show’s theme of turning a once “ugly duckling” of a woman into a swan. Again, Mary Elizabeth was astonished at the child’s knowledge of fashion and her sense of taste.
They sat down in the living room after supper, joining each other on the couch. Mary Elizabeth put her arm around Angela’s slender shoulders as she began to explain that Anna Simms had come for a visit, and wondered why Angela’s room still was so girlish in decorations.
“I’m afraid, honey, you’re going to have to begin to wear boy clothes, particularly when we leave the house. And, we’re going to have to change your room to be more boyish.”
“Mummy, be a boy again? I can’t. I won’t.” She started to cry.
Mary Elizabeth drew the child tighter against her body. Angela was shaking with sobs now. “I’m a girl. I’m a girl.”
Angela pushed out of Mary Elizabeth’s arms and ran crying into her room. The foster mom waited for a few minutes, and then went into the room, sitting next to the sobbing tender girl. “She’s so weak and delicate,” she thought. “How can she possibly live in this world as a boy?”
Her eyes were full of tears as she put a comforting hand on the girl’s shoulders.
“Look,” she said, forcing Angela to sit up straight. “Now listen to me. Listen to me carefully.”
“Yes, mummy.”
“The only way you can stay in this house with me is if you live as a boy. Otherwise, they’ll take you away from me. They’ll say I abused you by turning you into a girl.”
“But mummy, I always was a girl.”
“I know honey, but to them you’re a boy. So we will have to put on a good show for Miss Simms and her agency to show them you belong here. But, you’ll have to look and act like a boy.”
“But, mummy. I’ll forget. I feel like a girl.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed. “I know that you are my girl; but we’ll have to make you a boy again, at least for the social workers. But, honey, we’ll fix it up so that you can still be a girl sometimes. That’ll be our secret.”
“Yes, mummy. And Tanya’s and Heather’s secret, too?”
“Yes, their secret, too.”
Mary Elizabeth took the sweet child in her arms now, recognizing how vulnerable she was, so defenseless, so ill-equipped to be in the world of men and boys. Yet, she knew, if she were to keep the child in her home, she would have to give up her desire to treat the child as “Angela,” the daughter she always wanted.
The foster mother began crying, holding Angela even more tightly in her arms. Her tears, she realized were as much for Angela as for herself. Both of them had been enjoying six weeks in a marvelous, lovely dream as mother and pretty daughter. Now, that dream would be ending, and a new chapter would begin for Mary Elizabeth and her pretty foster child. Mary Elizabeth now was determined somehow to preserve the joy and comfort both she and Angela felt as mother and daughter.
“I love you, my child,” she said, smelling the fresh shampoo in Angela’s lovely locks. “As long as you want to be with me, I’ll do whatever I can to keep you here.”
“I know mummy. I love being with you so much.”
Angela felt comfortable as the girl she had become; her delicate body was hardly that of a boy’s; but, she was so comfortable as a girl, particularly in the protection of Mary Katherine’s arms.
“Tell you what, Angela,” the foster mother said. “Why don’t you pick out the prettiest dress here? Then, well dry your tears, and face your face, and you and I will go out to the Cake ‘n Goodies place for a scrumptious dessert. Just Angela and mummy. OK?”
“That’ll be so nice,” the girl said. She loved Cake ‘n Goodies, which was a favored dessert place for women and girls. You rarely saw a boy or man in the place.
Angela picked out a layered, light violet colored mini-dress, with spaghetti straps. It was highlighted with a darker violet appliqué along the bodice and hemline. She found costume jewelry, with matching earrings and necklace. The earrings dangled and Angela’s spirits bounced noticeably as she fixed herself before the mirror.
“Oh, you’re so pretty, Angela,” the foster mother said, kissing the child on her forehead.
*****
Mary Katherine called Sharon later that night, telling her that she’ll have to somehow return Angela to the “Angelo” mode to satisfy the child protection agency.
“But I fear it’ll hurt the child,” she told Sharon. “She’s really a girl at heart, I think.”
“Lizzie, from what I’ve seen, she is a girl,” Sharon replied. “Really, I do. And, I don’t think your actions had anything to do with it. She was more like a girl than a boy when she arrived in your home. You just made her more comfortable.”
“I know, Sharon, but that means nothing to Child Protection.”
Mary Elizabeth explained that she’ll set up a bedroom for Angelo, the boy, probably turning her office in the rear bedroom into his room. She’ll move her office to the girly bedroom she had been letting Angelo use.
“And, I have some old Green Bay Packer pennants and stuff from my boys that I’ll put in the room to make a boy’s room.”
“And, Lizzie, you’ll have to do some shopping for boy’s clothes, too, I suppose?”
“Yes, we’re going Saturday to the mall,” she said. “Want to join us?”
“No honey, I think you need to do this on your own.”
“I agree, Sharon. I do have a favor to ask, though?”
“Ask, Lizzie.”
“I think we’ll have to provide some chance for Angelo to have some ‘girly’ times. Would you agree to continue to let Tanya be with Angelo so he can have a girl friend when he’s being girly?”
“Oh yes, Lizzie. I know Tanya been so fond of Angela. The two seem to hit it off so well, and they’re just like two giggling girls when they’re together.”
“Thank you, Sharon. Angelo, I think, will need the chance to be a girl every so often.”
“And that’ll be a secret between us.”
The phone rang again, about five minutes after Mary Elizabeth hung up. It was Tanya wanting to talk to Angelo.
“My mum just told me, Angela,” Tanya said, using the boy’s female name. “I think that’s so mean. To force you into being a boy again.”
“I know. I so loved being with you, in being a girl friend with you.”
“We’re still friends, Angela. Mum said you and I can still be friends and do our girl stuff.”
“But that means we can’t go to the mall together as girls, Tanya. I was kinda hoping we’d see Jason again at the Food Court.”
Tanya laughed. “I know he was hot for you. I wonder what he’d think if he saw you as Angelo.”
“I know I shouldn’t have flirted with him. Mummy told me if he found out I still was a boy, he’d do something bad to me.”
Tanya paused for a moment, then said that her older sister, Heather, wanted to talk to Mary Elizabeth. Angelo and Tanya talked for a few more moments, and then turned the phone lines over to Mary Elizabeth and Heather.
Angelo sat in the kitchen, listening to the one-side of the phone conversation, and his foster mother nodding, saying “Yes,” and “That’s interesting,” and “You think we can do something about this?”
When she hung up, Mary Elizabeth said: “Heather’s been active in an ACLU rights group in town, Angelo, and she thinks we should challenge the Child Protection agency on this.”
“Is Heather lesbian, mummy?”
“No honey, she supports all causes of justice. You know she’s got a nice boy friend.”
“Yes, mummy. She’s such a smart girl. Does that mean I can stay a girl?”
“Not yet, honey. But she’ll look into it and let us know soon.”
That night, Angelo wore the lovely nightie and slept in the same girly bedroom he’d used for the last six weeks, realizing that night may be his last in such a lovely room.
*****
Chapter Six — The Retrofitting Begins
“I should have realized that we shouldn’t have made you into the girl so quickly,” Mary Elizabeth told Angelo the next morning at breakfast.
“Oh mummy, it was me. I wanted it. I really did. I was so excited that first day when I saw the bedroom. I really hoped you wouldn’t change it.”
“I know darling, but we’ll have to do something about it, dear.”
She told the child her plans to move him into the back bedroom, and bring the office material into the bedroom he had been using. “That way, darling, we’ll still have that room kept the way it was.”
Angelo smiled. He knew that meant he might be able to still spend some time in it, even if he had to sleep in the other room.
“Oh mummy, you’re so good to me. I love you.”
“Now dear, we’ll have to dress you in some boy clothes today, and go shopping. We’ll have to make you a boy again.”
Angelo made a pouting face: “Do I have to?”
“Yes, honey, but I’ll tell you what. Since you don’t really have any decent boys clothes, why don’t we find some girl jeans to wear, and maybe one of those blouses that could pass for a boy?”
“Mummy, you’re so smart.”
Angelo found a pair of light blue jeans which rode low on his hips; of course it had no fly to zip, but at a glance they could be worn by a boy. He found a short sleeved light grey shirt, which had no collar and a low scooped neck. He put them on over a pair of cotton panties and a crá¨me-colored camisole, both of which were well-covered by the outer clothes. He wore short white socks and sandals.
“You still look like Angela,” his foster mother said, as he walked out of the bedroom.
“And I suppose you’re wearing panties underneath?”
Angelo blushed. “And mummy, my camisole, too.”
“Oh darling, I don’t know how we can do this. You look so much a girl. You walk like a girl now. Look at how you swing your arms.”
“I know mummy, but I’ll try to be a boy. You know I will.”
“And we’ll have to cut your hair, too.”
It was not a surprise that as they entered the Boys Department at Macy’s the clerk asked: “You’re wanting some pants for you’re daughter, ma’am?”
“Sir, he’s a boy. My foster son. We need to outfit him for school.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but . . . er . . . well . . . I’m sorry. Let me show you were the pants are.”
“That’s fine, young man,” she said easily. “Angelo is a very pretty child, but we need to outfit him so he’ll fit in better in school.”
“Ok, ma’am. I think I can help.”
The clerk identified himself as Mario; he was a slender young man with light brown hair that hung full and thick to his neck. As he spoke, he flicked a strand of hair from his face, showing full lips on a clean-shaven face. Mary Elizabeth could not help thinking this young man, too, must have been a pretty child, as Angelo was.
As if to comfort Angelo, the clerk said: “Come, Angelo, let’s see what we can do. I’m sure we’ll make you look very nice. You’re handsome young lad.”
Angelo was blushing now. He felt so out of place in this boy’s department; his own mothers had never been able to afford any new clothes for Angelo, usually getting clothes from second-hand stores or from charity groups. Often Angelo realized the shorts or jeans he wore were actually made for girls.
They bought two pairs of pants, three sets of jeans, a half dozen boy’s briefs, socks and boy’s tee shirts.
“I think he’s a handsome young man, now,” the clerk said after Angelo walked out of the fitting room, dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white boy’s shirt.
Mario helped Angelo put on a sports, jacket. The clerk had exquisite hands, slender, long fingers, smoothness to the back of the hand and thin wrists. He had a light, dainty manner as he adjusted the clothes on Angelo. Mary Elizabeth was so pleased they had found a clerk who obviously had similar traits to Angelo. The clerk showed great gentleness in assisting Angelo in her return to boy’s clothing.
“Where you going to school?” the clerk asked.
“I’m trying to go to the Arts High School. If I pass the audition Monday,” Angelo said.
“I hope you do. It’s a great school, if you have an artistic talent, which I’m sure you have.”
“I’m trying out for theater, although I love to draw, too.”
The clerk smiled, as he took Mary Elizabeth’s credit card. “I graduated from there two years ago. In theater. I’m going to the University now in theater, but not as actor.”
Angelo liked this young sale clerk; he had a soft, gentle way that was attractive to Angelo.
“I’m studying production. You know, back stage, costumes, scenery and stuff.”
“Oh that’s cool. Didn’t you like acting?” Angelo asked.
“Yes, but I’m not exactly the John Wayne type. And that’s what they want in boy actors.”
Angelo blushed, realizing also that would be his problem, if he wanted to act. He was just not manly enough.
The clerk completed the sale, and said: “Very nice meeting both of you. Best of luck in the audition, Angelo, and if you get in and want any help at the school, my name is Mario Castagne. I’m here most weekends.”
“Angelo Davies. That’s my name, and this is my mummy.”
As they walked out of the department, Angelo glanced back, and saw Mario still watching them walk out. Angelo gave Mario a tiny, girly wave, which the clerk returned similarly.
“He was nice, mummy,” Angelo said.
Mary Elizabeth merely nodded, wondering about where this serendipitous meeting between the two delicate boys might be heading.
Angelo, however, felt tears coming into his eyes. The clothes felt stiff and confining, not silky and free as a skirt or blouse did. He walked awkwardly, particularly since the new shoes were tight, also restricting.
“Oh mummy, thank you for doing this,” he said as they left the store. “But I wish I could have my girl’s clothes on.”
“I know, but these will work for school next month. You’ll get used to them.”
*****
The next pressing problem facing Angelo was school; he was due to begin attending school in two weeks at the High School in Mary Elizabeth’s neighborhood. The school once had been the gem of the city’s system, but changing demographics had turned it into a school full truancy, bullying, violence and poor grades. Even though she lived in a neighborhood that retained much of the old working class nature, the school had changed.
Mary Elizabeth frankly was concerned over the fate of a tender, sweet boy like Angelo. It was good fortune that Angelo (as Angela) met Jason in the mall and had been informed of the possibility of attending the arts high school. Angelo had applied to enter the school and on the next Monday was scheduled for an audition. Such auditions were necessary to judge the child’s aptitude toward the arts.
Since he was going to do drama, Angelo chose a Shakespeare soliloquy: Hamlet’s famous one that began: “To be or not to be: that is the question.” In it, as he practiced it, Angelo had been able to project the indecision and tentativeness of Hamlet’s character. He would show Hamlet as a fragile young man who was rejecting the love of Ophelia.
As Shakespeare wrote it, Hamlet and Ophelia were teenagers, facing the cruelties of the adult world.
On the Saturday before the audition, Angelo went over to Tanya’s house to rehearse with her and her older sister, Heather, who was home from college for the weekend. As he dressed to leave, Mary Elizabeth noticed Angelo had put on his girl jeans, the pink tennis shoes and wore a collarless dark purple blouse that was considered unisex.
“No way, Angelo,” she said, halting him as he as about to leave. “I told you that we were going to be wearing boy stuff. You have to get used to it.”
“Oh mummy, no one will notice. These look like boy clothes.”
“No honey, with that long hair and the way you handle yourself, they’ll only see a girl in jeans.”
“Mummy, please. Why not?”
“You know ‘why not?’ If I permit you to be a girl, or to act like one, they’ll take you from me.”
“OK. I’ll change.”
“And change everything. I know you have on panties and knee highs and a cami underneath.”
“Yes mummy. For you.”
Mary Elizabeth was beside herself now. Being dressed as a boy seemed totally out of character for Angelo. How, indeed, could he ever revert to living as a boy again, she wondered. He seemed happy as a girl, but she knew she had to try.
“Oh, mummy,” Angelo said as he came out of his bedroom, now dressed totally as a boy. “I look just like a sissy boy.”
“No honey, you look like a very handsome boy. Remember what the young man said in the shoe store.”
“Yes, mummy. He was nice.”
“Yes, he was. Now, run along to Tanya’s. And don’t forget to take your Shakespeare book so you can rehearse.”
Angelo headed for the door, and Mary Elizabeth halted him, grabbing his arm. “Now honey, please try to walk like a boy.”
*****
Tanya and her older sister, Heather, were surprised to see Angelo dressed as a boy, not being made aware that Mary Elizabeth had already begun the process of remaking him as a male.
“Mummy wants me to be a boy all the time now,” he explained. “I don’t feel like a boy.”
“Oh, but you’re cute as a boy,” Tanya said.
“I guess,” Heather, a tall, muscular, blonde 19-year-old. “I think you’re still a girl, Angela.”
Angelo blushed. Heather was very athletic young lady, and Angelo wasn’t sure that she liked him, because he was so girlish. He felt that such strong girls would only like muscular, macho boys.
“I think you’re sweet, either as a girl or a boy,” Heather continued. Then she did something unexpected; she reached over to him, taking his arm, pulling him to her, and giving him a kiss on his lips.
Angelo was shocked, but found he liked the attention and the obvious acknowledgment that Heather liked him. He felt a tinge in his crotch, as his penis hardened. Oh, this was so strange, Angelo thought.
Heather actually towered over Angelo; she was easily 5’9” tall, probably 5 inches taller than he was. No, Anglo realized, this was no kiss of romantic intentions, but a kiss of warmth, of comfort, of friendship. Perhaps, he thought, she was kissing him as two girls would kiss as friends.
Heather and Tanya sat transfixed as Angelo read his lines to rehearse the famed Hamlet soliloquy. He read it in a breathy, low voice, seeking to give meaning to the words.
“Angela, that was great!” Tanya said, suddenly realizing she had used the feminine name.
“Maybe he sounds a little too sissy in that,” Heather said. “Otherwise, I loved it. Angelo, you put such meaning in the words.”
“Oh, Heather, should I sound more manly?” he asked. “I wanted Hamlet to sound weak, not sure of himself.”
“I think you did that. It’s just that I can’t see you as anything but a girl. I’m sorry. What you think Tanya?”
“I loved it. It’s the first time I’ve heard a Shakespeare speech I could understand,” Tanya said. “And, the school won’t know him as a girl. They’ll just see a boy.”
“But I’d rather be a girl,” Angelo said suddenly. “I also know Ophelia’s part. I’ve practiced those lines, too.”
“You have? Let’s hear them,” Heather said.
“But, I need someone to read Hamlet’s part,” he said reaching for his volume of plays, and opening it to Act III, handing it to Heather.
“Read the last lines of Hamlet’s speech,” he said to Heather, pointing out the place to start.
They took a minute, with Heather standing up opposite Angelo, and Tanya seated before them, acting as the audience. Heather repeated the last lines of Hamlet: “Soft you now! The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember’d”
“Good my lord, How does your honour for this many a day,” responded Angelo, taking the part of Ophelia, his voice thin, wispy and falsetto.
“I humbly thank you,” Heather said, picking up Hamlet’s line in a husky voice.
Tanya interrupted, saying: “Stop! Stop! Stop! This is no good.”
“Why?” Angelo said. “Didn’t it sound right?”
“No, Angela,” Tanya responded, reverting to his girl’s name. “You sounded marvelous, and so feminine. But, you’re dressed now as a boy. You should be in costume.”
“Oh yes,” said Heather enthusiastically. “You need to be costumed as Ophelia, in a light, wispy dress.”
Angelo smiled, but then suddenly the smile turned a bit sour. “But mummy doesn’t want me in dresses. She’s trying to make me a boy again.”
Heather said: “It’s just for now, and our mum isn’t home. So who’s to tell on you?”
“Oh Heather, yes,” continued Tanya. “I think you have just the dress for her. Remember the one you wore in high school to that Christmas dance. It was all chiffon, almost see-through. So white, and totally girly.”
“It’s perfect. It’s too small for me now, but should fit our little girl here just fine,” Heather added.
They led Angelo to Heather’s bedroom on the second floor. He had never been there before, and he was awe-struck with what he saw: It was decorated in pastel pinks and purples; the bed’s coverlet was a creamy white with pink floral trim, in a design that was matched by the drapes and vanity cloth. One wall was spanned with shelves, painted white, and Barbie Dolls in all sorts of costumes and dresses stood stunningly on the shelves.
Angelo had never seen so many dolls; he had played a few times with his cousin’s dolls during the last year. His cousin, Maria, however, had always wanted him to be the Ken doll as they played, but he had convinced her several times to let him be Barbie. He loved to dress and undress Barbie, but his Maria had only a small selection of dresses to choose from.
He remembered how his cousin had said how gentle he was in handling the dolls. He also remembered her brother finding them playing dolls one time and began to tease Angelo for being so much of a girl.
“Yeh, you’re a girl,” Maria had said, echoing her brother’s taunts. “Angelo’s a girl. Angelo’s a girl.”
In spite of himself, Angelo began to sob, and both his cousins began to laugh at him. He felt so weak and humiliated, as well as being betrayed by Maria whom he thought was enjoying their time together playing dolls. It was part of Angelo’s gentle nature, however, that in his sorrow, he forgave Maria, knowing that she always seemed to be subservient to her crude brothers.
Sensing Angelo’s interest in the dolls, Heather said: “That’s OK, Angela, you can go over to handle them.”
“Oh I just love them all,” he responded. “Thank you, Heather.”
Heather and Tanya watch the boy as he picked up one doll, then another, carefully examining how each was dressed. They watched how daintily he caressed each one of them, running his slender, sweet fingers across the clothes of the doll’s outfits.
Meanwhile, Tanya found the dress she wanted, and put it out on the bed with panties, a bra with some breast forms and a white slip. They left him to take off his male clothes, and put on the girl outfits. He called them in after he had put the slip on, so that they could help him with the dress.
“Oh this’ll be lovely on you,” Heather said.
They assisted Angelo in bringing the dress down over his head, fastening it in the back and tying the white sash just below his breasts, to help the dress flow easily and flare out. The dress was knee-high in length and sheer see-through chiffon shoulders and sleeves gave the outfit an almost fairy-like quality.
“You’re the prettiest Ophelia, my darling Angela,” Tanya said, leading Angelo to the mirror.
They sat Angelo down and put on white, sandals with sparking stones across the straps, commenting how lovely his legs were. Angelo smiled as he saw his image in the mirror. He felt so comfortable again; it just seemed natural that he was indeed a pretty girl.
“Angela, that was marvelous,” Heather said after he finished reading Ophelia’s lines.
“You said them so lovely, so convincingly,” Tanya agreed. “You sounded so much like a sad girl.”
“You’ll be a great actress,” Heather added. “An act-TRESS.”
Angelo flitted about in the dress, twirling, dancing, feeling so sweet. Yet, he was saddened by the realization that on Monday he’d have to audition as Hamlet, not Ophelia.
*****
Angelo spent the rest of the weekend being dressed constantly in boy clothes, and being reminded over and over again by Mary Elizabeth: “Quit walking like a girl.” “Stop flailing your hands as you talk. That’s so girlish.” “You can slouch in your chair, now.”
Mary Elizabeth began to think the hope of remaking Angelo into a boy was hopeless. He still sat on the floor, legs folded in a feminine manner; he read on the couch, looking totally like a girl. During a recent trip to the book store, he had found the “Gossip Girl” series, which involved rich high school girls and their adventures. He read them voraciously, giggling at spots, and wishing to share the books with Tanya.
She realized she had to get Angelo out of the house and engaged in some physical activity, maybe even try him out doing some sports, like volleyball or even a quick softball game. She called Sharon and suggested that if she and her daughters, Tanya and Heather, weren’t busy they’d perhaps like to have a picnic.
“It’s a lovely idea,” Sharon said. “I’m sure both Heather and Tanya would like that. Is it all right if Heather brings Michael, her boy friend?”
“That should be fine, Sharon. I hope he understands about Angelo.”
“Yes, Lizzie, he does. And he’s sympathetic.”
“Good, but Angelo will be dressed as a boy today. You know how I need to make him act more masculine?”
“Yes, but how is that coming?”
“Hard, Sharon. He’s really more like a girl.”
“Well we’ll see if he can have some fun as a boy this afternoon.”
They agreed to meet at Lake Park about 12:30.
At noon, Angelo was still prancing about the house in panties and nightie, despite Mary Elizabeth’s urging that he dress in something more boyish. Part of the morning he had been at her sewing machine, an older model she hadn’t used in years, but which he found in the closet of the new room he was occupying. He also found some dress patterns and some random pieces of cloth Mary Elizabeth had set aside and forgotten.
He had found the pattern for a floral skirt and had it laid out on the floor, and was cutting a piece of cloth to fit the pattern as Mary Elizabeth walked in. His legs were curled under him, his hair hung loosely and his slender hands were working carefully with a scissors. He looked so lovely, she thought.
“Where did you learn to do that?” she asked.
“My mum taught me how to sew.”
“Oh,” she said stopping herself from saying more, knowing how much Angelo missed his mother, even though she had been sick and dysfunctional as a parent. Mary Elizabeth had been told that for the last five years or so, Angelo usually handled the chores of preparing food, cleaning the house or doing the dishes. In a sense, he had assumed a typical female household role, but it had developed within himself a sense of responsibility.
“I guess she treated me like a daughter, too. Just like you do, but in a different way. Maybe that’s why I love you so, mummy.”
“What are you making there?”
“It’s a skirt for you, mummy. I hope you’ll like it. The pattern is in your size, I think.”
“Ok, honey, but you better put that aside now, and get ready for the picnic.”
“Yes, mummy.”
“And you’re to wear only boy stuff there. You have a new pair of shorts and a tee shirt and those new running shoes. And, no panties or bra. OK. You understand me?”
“Yes, mummy, I know.” Angelo couldn’t hide his disappointment; he so would have liked to dress like Tanya, wearing mini-shorts and tank top, with his long hair being tucked under the pink baseball cap, and flowing through the opening in the back. He loved how the hair bounced as he walked. But, he knew the consequences.
*****
Sharon and her family, along with Heather’s boy friend, Michael, had found an empty table under a large oak tree in a picnic spot overlooking the huge lake. There was a large grassy area nearby and they had already setup a volleyball net.
“Now try to walk like a boy,” Mary Elizabeth told Angelo as they got out of the car and headed to meet the others.
As he expected, Tanya and Heather were indeed wearing mini shorts and tank tops. Heather’s larger body was firm with a layer of fleshiness. She was a tall girl, with a heavy waist, and radiated a natural warm beauty that made her an attractive woman.
“Angelo, I’d like you to meet Michael, my friend,” Heather said, introducing a boy who was actually a larger version of herself: a tall, blonde and muscular young man with a broad face and sparkling blue eyes.
Angelo’s tiny hand felt smothered by the other boy’s large hand, but Michael’s grip was gentle and warm. Usually, Angelo felt threatened by muscular, strong boys, but for some reason he felt friendliness about this boy.
“Michael’s also going to State,” Heather said. “He’s majoring in English. He’s also interested in drama, so I thought you two might like to meet.”
“Really,” Angelo said, wondering why this tall, manly lad would care about drama or English. Wasn’t drama just for sissies, like himself, he thought?
Soon, however, Angelo was talked into playing volleyball; he played about as pathetically as he always did, his weak arms sometimes having trouble getting a serve over the net.
He was teamed up with Michael, making it a boy’s versus girl’s game, and his weakness at the game was easily compensated for by Michael’s athleticism. Nonetheless, both Tanya and Heather were no easy competitors. They played a hard, sometimes even nasty, game, and they all giggled when a point was made.
They never laughed at his pitiful playing in volleyball or the fact that he actually ran like a girl. Michael, with a patience that was astounding, showed Angelo how to serve the ball so that it would go over the net. As the game progressed, Angelo surprised himself by sending several moderately wicked serves that Tanya missed, and he squealed with joy in making the point. Angelo jumped up and down, waving his arms in a girly fashion, prompting Mary Elizabeth to yell: “Angelo. What did a tell you? Act like a boy.”
Later, as they were relaxing after their picnic lunch, Heather said to Mary Elizabeth: “I shouldn’t say anything, Mrs. Dayton, but I think it’s wrong to make Angelo into something he isn’t.”
“Oh Heather, I know, honey, but I have to. Otherwise Child Protection will take him away from me.”
“That’s so wrong. He’s really a girl in his soul. I can see that,” Heather replied.
“Yes, Mrs. Dayton,” added Michael. “I’m active in the ACLU Student Club at the University. We talk about these gender issues all the time.”
Both Heather and Michael were active in the club, they said. With her permission and that of Angelo’s, they said they’d like to take Angelo’s case up and see if there was something they could do.
“That’s fine, Heather and Michael,” Mary Elizabeth said as the conversation was ending. “In the meantime, I will have to try to make Angelo act like a boy. He understands that. We all love him for who he is, a loving marvelous child.”
On the trip home, Angelo finally spoke up. He had heard the conversation, but said little. He was so pleased to be accepted by Tanya, Heather and Michael as the person he was.
“Mummy, I love everybody so much now, you and Tanya and Heather, and, yes, even Michael. I’ll work real hard to be the best boy I can. I feel I am a girl, mummy. But, I know what I have to do.”
“I know you will, honey.”
“Mummy.”
“What?”
Angelo began to cry. “Why am I such a weirdo? Why am I so different? You’re all acting like I’m sick, or something? Heather and Michael are trying to make me some sort of a special disability case. Mummy, why can’t I just be me?”
Mary Elizabeth felt tears welling up, feeling so sad for this child who was only trying to become the person he was meant to be. He was special, she knew, but not because he felt he was a girl, but because he was kind and open and generous and loving.
Mary Elizabeth forced a smile, put her right hand on the boy’s smooth forearm, and said: “Honey. We all love you, you know that. Good things don’t happen sometimes without a struggle and some pain.”
“I know, mummy.”
“And you’ve already had lots of pain. You’re too good a little girl. I’m sure we’ll work this out.”
She knew Angelo was indeed the daughter she always wanted. To her, Angelo would always be Angela, even if the rest of the world would know him as a tender boy called Angelo. Yet, Mary Elizabeth had faith that Child Protection Services would eventually see that Angelo is really Angela.
(To be continued)
Angelo finds new joys and comforts as a girl, including admiring boys and impressing drama teachers with his acting abilities. The child welfare system, however, has other ideas and blames his foster mother for feminizing him. Is there any hope for this lovely teen to find happiness?
The Foster Mom’s New Daughter — Part Four
Synopsis: Orphaned at age 14, Angelo is a delicate boy, and after a miserable year living with his aunt and her family, he is placed in foster care with a woman who has always wanted a daughter. Angelo finds comfort in often living and dressing as Angela, a lovely 15 year old girl and befriends a girl with whom he shares girly ventures. When dressed as Angela, his obvious prettiness attracts the attention of boys. Yet, Child Welfare services is threatening to remove Angelo from his new foster mother, and put him in a place where he’d be forced to be raised as a boy, a prospect that horrifies him.
Chapter Seven: The Audition and Afterwards
Angelo’s audition at the Arts High School was set for 2 p.m. Monday; he had rehearsed Hamlet’s “To Be Or Not To Be” speech several more times Sunday night, each time finding himself more dissatisfied with how he was doing it.
Mary Elizabeth thought he’d done fine; Angelo knew the lines, it was obvious, since he never missed a word during his repeated speeches.
“Mummy, I can’t do this,” he said, after he read the scene for the fourth time. “I don’t feel right.”
“What are you saying? It sounded fine. You haven’t missed a word.”
“I feel I’m forcing my voice. It doesn’t feel natural.”
“It sounds fine, just like Hamlet is supposed sound. Like a confused, crazed young man.”
“That’s it! I’m trying to sound like a man. It just doesn’t sound right to me. I feel I should read Ophelia’s line.”
“Don’t be silly,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I know you’ve been talking so much like a girl in the last few weeks. I know it must be hard to change, but you sounded fine. I could hardly hear any of that girlish lilt in your voice.”
“Oh mummy. I’m not a boy.”
“Well, you are now, again, and you know why. You read your lines fine, and you’ll do OK in the audition, I’m sure.”
Mary Elizabeth hugged the boy and said: “Get ready for bed. You should get your rest.”
“Ok, mummy, but can I wear that shorty pink nightie? Just tonight?”
“No, darling, you know I want you in all boy’s stuff. Put on those Green Bay Packer jammies I bought for you.”
“Mummy. Just for tonite. Can’t I wear the pink nightie? Can’t I?”
“Just this once,” Mary Elizabeth gave in. Then, on an impulse, she said, “Let’s put your hair up for tonight, too. I love working on your hair.”
“Mummy, I love you so much.”
Mary Elizabeth knew she was probably wrong to provide even these few hours of “girl time” to Angelo and that she had to continue to bring him back into boyhood if she were to keep him as her foster child. When she saw the sparkle in his eyes as she fixed his hair and treated him like a teenaged girl, she was elated.
“Look how pretty we are,” she said, directing his attention to the mirror over the dresser. “Mum and daughter.”
Mary Elizabeth kissed him lightly on the lips, twirled a finger through his long hair and let her hand follow down his delicate slender arm, full in the knowledge that Angelo would never succeed in being a boy, as hard as they might try. Yet, she knew they had to follow through on making him a boy, at least to all outward appearances, and that would require all the acting ability Angelo had, and it was apparent he had plenty of talent.
*****
The Amanda Crutchfield School of the Arts had been founded some 15 years earlier as part of the big city school system. It had been the genius of Ms. Crutchfield that made it possible. She had been a longtime theater teacher in the school system, eventually heading the District’s drama program, and she foresaw the need of developing a School of the Arts that could bring out the talent of children from all walks of life, including those from even the most disadvantaged families. Through her efforts, she persuaded the politicians that formed the School Board and the City Council that such an arts focus in a school would not only develop potential artists, actors, musicians, stage production staff and dancers, but would create an atmosphere which would increase interest in academics. It would likely save numerous children from poverty-stricken neighborhoods from a life of despair, drug behavior and hopeless.
Ms. Crutchfield, who was a tall, somewhat severe looking woman, was single-minded about her cause. A single woman, who still lived with and cared for her mother, Ms. Crutchfield used every tactic possible to win her goal of creating the Arts School, and she was successful.
The Arts School became everything Ms. Crutchfield envisioned: at least three graduates of the program had become actors in Hollywood and on television; a full half-dozen had ended up as fulltime musicians and several were performing with ballet companies across the nation. In addition, the school became a jewel of the city’s school system in academics and the percentage of graduates entering college was highest in the city. Competition to be accepted in the school was always stiff.
Nothing about the school’s appearance, however, would indicate its successful record. It was located in a 50’s style two-story building, sprawled across a dowdy campus in a failing inner city neighborhood. It was aesthetically uninspiring, built of utilitarian concrete block with a faux red brick front.
Angelo was disappointed when he arrived, being driven to the school by Mary Elizabeth. “That’s the school?” he asked.
“Yes, honey, but don’t let its appearance fool you. It’s a good school.”
She looked at him, his short stature and fragility so apparent in his nervousness over this audition. Despite the warmth of the August afternoon, he shivered as he sat in the car. The question of what to wear became the topic of a heated discussion. Angelo felt that because Hamlet was so fragile and uncertain, he should dress the part in female slacks and a blouse, along with girl flats.
“No Angelo, you’re not wearing girl’s clothes to that school,” she said. “They know you as a boy and a boy you are going to be.”
“But mummy . . .”
“There is no more argument here,” she said, raising her voice in frustration. It was the first time she had yelled at Angelo and she felt bad about it, but he had to recognize how important it was to make an outward appearance that he was male.
Yet, she had agreed he could wear the dark purple, collarless shirt, which was emblazoned with a metallic trim. It was truly a unisex blouse, and would provide a sense of artistic quality that might help with the judges at the audition. He wore dark slacks, which were long enough to disguise the fact that he wore pumps, with two-inch heels, as a way of adding height to his diminutive stature.
Mary Elizabeth wanted to argue about him wearing the pumps, since she knew it would cause him to walk in a most feminine manner. As she left him to wait in the lobby as he entered the theater for his audition, she merely warned him: “Now walk like a boy.”
She kissed him on the forehead and sent him off into the theater. She joined other parents who were also awaiting their child’s auditions.
“You have a lovely daughter,” said one of the parents, a tall, short-haired woman with rimless glasses.
Mary Elizabeth looked at her for a moment, wondering whether to correct the women’s impression. She decided not to, and answered, “Thank you.”
For Mary Elizabeth, it was a tortuous hour of waiting, fearing that Angelo would not be accepted, perhaps because he was not macho enough to be a credible actor as a boy, or that he would stumble in his recitation, or because of some unexplained bias by the judges. She reflected back to the same feelings she felt as her own sons competed on the football field, suffering shame when they might fumble the ball or miss a tackle and also facing fear that they might be seriously injured. She knew it would be critical for Angelo’s future that he be accepted in this school, since it was the only one where a boy with such girlish tendencies might be comfortable; if he failed, Angelo would be forced into the neighborhood high school, where he’d face constant bullying, teasing and humiliation.
“Oh here comes your daughter,” said the tall woman.
Mary Elizabeth had been reading and had failed to see Angelo leave the theater and approach her. She looked up and realized that Angelo truly looked like a girl, wondering how she would handle the situation with the tall woman.
“How did you do, honey?” she asked as she rose to great Angelo.
“I think I made it, mummy.” His voice was high and excited and truly girlish.
“Congratulations, dear,” said the tall woman. “And what is your name, dear?”
“Angela. It’s Angela,” repeated Mary Elizabeth quickly before Angelo could reply. Angelo looked surprised, but quickly broadened in a smile.
“Well, that’s good for you,” the woman said. “Did you see my son, Todd? He’s a tall boy.”
“Yes,” Angelo said, sticking to his high feminine voice. “I think he’s auditioning now.”
Mary Elizabeth offered best wishes to the woman and grabbed Angelo’s hand, taking off for the office where they would complete arrangements for enrollment.
“Did that woman think I was a girl, mummy?” Angelo asked as they walked down the hall.
“Yes, she did, right from the time we came in, and I can’t say I blamed her. I should have dressed you only in boy clothes, and cut your hair.”
“Oh mummy.”
“You still prance about like a girl, in spite of everything we’ve done.”
“I can’t help it mummy.”
They were told to wait in the hall for a few minutes while the admissions office finished with another enrollment.
“Mummy, they loved me. I did the Hamlet speech without a mistake.”
“Wow, that’s sweet, honey.”
“Then they asked me if I had memorized anything else, and would I perform it for them, and I said, I only knew Ophelia’s speech, before she drowned.”
“Oh did they want to hear that?”
“Yes, mummy. And I said it, and they loved it even better than my Hamlet.”
Mary Elizabeth felt a knot grow in her stomach. Why, indeed, did Angelo agree to recite a female part? She was sure he had done that part with great credibility.
“One of the judges said, they thought I could do both male and female parts, and another said she thought I’d be a good actress. That’s word she used, actress.”
The boy’s joy was unbounded as he described how well he was accepted as a female actress, and Mary Elizabeth knew that there were great difficulties ahead if he was to remain with her, and not surrender to his girlish ways.
“And what is your daughter’s name, Mrs. Dayton,” asked the admissions person, just glancing up as they entered the office.
“Oh, this is Angelo Davies, Miss Joyner. He’s my foster child now.”
“Angelo,” the woman said looking up, and now studying Angelo a bit more closely. “Oh, Angelo. You’re a boy. I’m sorry, I didn’t get a good look at you, dear.”
“That’s OK, Miss Joyner, I need to get his hair cut before school starts.”
“Well, we have lots of long-haired boys in this school, but it would help, I guess to make him fit in as a boy.” Miss Joyner smiled, but it was a false smile, indicating she was not too fond of the artistic types that filled this school. There was obvious disdain in her eyes as she viewed Angelo’s feminine appearance, and a coldj, but most proper manner, characterized the interview. It was also apparent she wanted this to end as soon as possible, a view shared by Angelo and his foster mother. Mary Elizabeth hoped the teaching staff would be more tolerant.
*****
After the admission process was completed, Mary Elizabeth took Angelo to the Cakes ‘n Cookies cafe for a treat. Angelo loved the place, since female customers usually populated it and he could act in what he felt was a more natural manner.
“Good afternoon, Mary Elizabeth, and you, too, Angelo,” said Jessica, a smooth-faced, young waitress, as they were seated. The two had become fairly regular costumers of the restaurant and several of the waitresses had gotten to know them.
Mary Elizabeth explained that Angelo had just been accepted after an audition into the Arts High School, and they were celebrating.
“Well, that’s worth celebrating,” Jessica replied. They had learned she was a freshman college student. Most people would call “cute,” with still a bit of lingering baby-fat that fleshed out an average young woman’s body. “I always wanted to go there, and you’re lucky to get in, Angelo.”
“Well, he’s talented in acting,” Mary Elizabeth said.
“I bet he is,” Jessica said. “What did you audition for?”
“Drama,” Angelo said. “I read two parts from Hamlet: Hamlet and Ophelia.”
Jessica was taken aback for a minute. “Really. But, err, but Ophelia is a woman’s part.”
“Yes, and I did that real good. They loved it.”
“I am sure you carried that off well,” the young waitress said, as she took their orders: Mary Elizabeth for a Black Forest Cake with coffee, and Angelo for biscuits and tea, knowing in his own mind that was what British women liked for afternoon tea.
As the waitress left, Angelo turned to Mary Elizabeth, saying, “Mummy, I love their uniforms here.”
“Oh yes, they’re so dainty, aren’t they?”
The outfits consisted of a black mid-thigh length skirt, with white lace trim and a light pink apron front, topped off by a white peasant blouse, with square lacy bodice and short puffed up sleeves. The waitresses wore coffee colored sheered stockings and white tennis shoes.
“Yes, mummy, maybe next year when I’m 16 I could work here. To help out with the money for college.”
“I don’t know if they hire boys, honey, except maybe as bus boys or dishwashers.”
“But, mummy, I was thinking, I could be a . . .”
“Don’t even think of that now,” Mary Elizabeth stopped him. “You’re not going to think now about working here as a girl. Think about being a boy, now.”
Mary Elizabeth, however, couldn’t scold Angelo. She knew full well he’d look adorable in a Cakes ‘n Cookies dress, and smiled at him, grabbing his slender hand, caressing it gently, wishing that in her own heart he could someday become just the waitress he wanted to be.
“I love the outfits you wear,” Angelo said to Jessica as she put down the biscuits and tea.
“Thank you, dear. I do too.”
“Yes, all you girls look so lovely in these outfits,” Mary Elizabeth added.
“How old do you have to be to work here?” Angelo said.
“Sixteen, but they don’t seem to hire boys here,” Jessica said. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, it’d be fun to be able to eat all desserts,” he said, quickly recovering himself, knowing full well that he’d love to be dressed as a waitress.
“Well then you’d get chubby like me,” the waitress responded with a smile.
“Oh, you’re not chubby,” Angelo said.
“I’m not slender like you, either, Angelo,” she responded with a smile.
“She’s a cute girl,” Mary Elizabeth said as the waitress left.
“Oh mummy, I’d be a cute girl, too, if I could work here.”
“Yes, you would, honey, and probably the prettiest girl, too. But, you can only dream for now. You’re still Angelo, my son.”
*****
As they arrived home, Mary Elizabeth said she had a treat for him. “This is for one day only, in honor of your success at the audition.”
She led him into her workroom, which she had converted from Angelo’s original bedroom, a room completely furnished in a manner befitting of a teenaged girl. The frilly bed and dresser were still there, as were the lace chiffon curtains, but Mary Elizabeth had removed the lovely chair and stool. In their place, she put her computer desk, chair and a small file cabinet, now constituting what existed of her home office.
She had forbade Angelo from entering the room when she was not home, because she knew he’d immediately head for the closet to look for the lovely girl outfits she still stored there.
“Oh mummy, I love this room so much,” he said as they entered.
“I know you do, honey, but look what I have laid out for you,” she said pointing to a gold-colored gown laid out on the bed.
“Oh mummy. For me?” Angelo skipped lightly to the bed, and began to pick it up.
“Yes, honey, for you. But just for tonight, in honor of you passing the audition. I know you worked so hard for it.”
“You’re the best mummy.”
“And for being such a sweet girl, so nice to her new mummy. I saw this gown at Fashion Bug and couldn’t resist. I just knew you’d look lovely in it.”
As Mary Elizabeth went to drawer to get a matching set of panties and bra and slip, she smiled to herself. Angelo was her “daughter,” regardless of what child protection services said or the child’s own male anatomy.
The gown sparkled with its faux gold fabric, with thick straps flowing over the shoulders, leaving a deep cleavage. A similarly colored gold fabric belt tied the dress at the waist, permitting the fabric to spread flowingly out, the dress ending just above the knee. Angelo held it up before himself, looking in the mirror, smiling in pleasure.
“It’s perfect. It’s me,” he said.
“Perfect for a perfect little girl,” Mary Elizabeth said, as she looked at the mirror reflection of the two of them.
Mary Elizabeth told Angelo to get undressed and take a nice bubble bath. She handed him the bra and panties to put on after he dried off.
As he took his bath, Mary Elizabeth changed her own clothes, putting on a platinum gown that was an exact match in style for the one she had purchased for Angelo. She donned sheer, silvery colored hose and a sparkling set of 4” heels, sandal style, also silver.
“Oh mummy, you look scrumptious,” he giggled as he came out of the bathroom, seeing Mary Elizabeth already dressed.
“Thank you, Angela,” she said, using the child’s female name for the first time since she began her crusade to restore him to boyhood. “And I see you’re already clean and perfumy, dear.”
The slender child, standing before her in only panties and bra with white, sweet flesh exposed, was truly meant to be a girl, she realized. He looked lovely, his hair flowing loosely about his slim shoulders, standing daintily before her. She hugged him tightly, and the boy seemed to surrender himself to her.
“Oh mummy, this feels so good, to be held by you.”
“Yes, my dear. It feels good to me.”
She noticed a sudden bulge develop in his panties, realizing that this embrace was exciting the young boy. Mary Elizabeth had seen her charge naked, and thought nothing of it, having raised three sons. Yet, she admitted to herself that now she too felt a warmth that could only come from sexual stimulation.
Angelo, like many tender boys, had virtually no body hair; even his pubic area had only a beginning of light fuzz, very similar to the light fuzz on his face. She had only seen his penis soft and tiny, but now she saw it grow to a small bulge in the panties.
“OK, honey,” she said, quickly releasing him, realizing that the sexual stimulation could become a problem for both of them.
“Let’s get you dressed, darling,” she said. “We’re going to have our own special night, Angela. Just you and I, mum and daughter.”
She explained she had made reservations at a fancy restaurant in New Harvest, a town about 30 miles away, where no one would know them. After dinner, they would go to a play, called, “Tea and Sympathy,” at the local playhouse there.
The waitress and maitre d’ both had sung their praises at the restaurant. “Such a lovely mother and daughter,” commented the maitre d’ in leading them to a table. It was an observation repeated by their waitress, an older, but carefully coiffured woman, as she took their orders: “OK, ma’am, and what does the young lady wish to order. You have a lovely daughter, ma’am.”
Angelo was immediately affected by the play, even though it was first performed more than 50 years earlier and had an old-fashioned feel. He felt strong identification with Tom, the young hero of the play, a sensitive college student who finds love with a middle-aged landlady. Like Angelo, the student is effeminate, and, though the play never stated it, may have been gay.
Angelo found himself crying near the play’s end, and was comforted to notice Mary Elizabeth also pulled out a hanky.
Like most amateur productions, this one had some obvious flaws; the mother actually seemed a bit harsh and angular. Some of the transitions were rugged, Mary Elizabeth noted as they left the theater.
“Oh, I loved it mummy,” Angelo said. “Especially the boy who played Tom.”
“Oh yes, he did that with great sensitivity,” she agreed.
“I suppose that’s the kind of part I could play, mummy.”
She smiled. “Yes, dear. But you also could play the part of one of the college girls in the play.”
“Oh mummy, this was the best night.”
The drive on the way home was quiet. Neither said anything, both realizing that beginning tomorrow Angelo would have to return to boyhood. Mary Elizabeth felt some tears role down her face as she thought about it, but knew that Angelo had a great inner strength and would deal with this in his own way.
Yet, her thoughts kept reverting to one of the comments of the waitress: “You have a lovely daughter, ma’am.” It helped her stanch the flow of tears, and bring a smile to her face.
Angelo himself was in his own dream world, seeing himself on a huge stage, taking bows with elegant curtseys for playing Ophelia, and receiving a dozen roses from the theater usher, who delivers them with a kiss.
For both Mary Elizabeth and her “daughter, Angela,” this night and its memories would carry them through some difficult days ahead.
Chapter Eight: Child Protection Has Its Say
During the two remaining weeks before school was to open, both Mary Elizabeth and Angelo worked diligently to develop greater masculinity in his mannerisms. Try as he might, Angelo’s voice continued to maintain feminine inflections and he walked in the dainty step with his hands flipping about freely.
“Damn it, Angelo. I told you a hundred times: Walk like a boy.” Mary Elizabeth’s voice often during this period burst out in frustration at the boy, trying so hard to get him to dump his girly ways so that he’d be acceptable among other students as a boy once he entered school.
“Ok, mummy,” Angelo would reply meekly, feeling sorry that he was disappointing his foster mother who only wanted to make life easier for him.
“I’m sorry, darling,” Mary Elizabeth would usually apologize, knowing full well that they were facing an almost impossible task in making him boyish.
It was apparent that the latent femininity that was within Angelo all of his life came into full bloom that summer. His gentle, sweet nature grew out of him, like a lovely flower in the springtime, full of color, lovely shapes and daintiness. “You’re like a pretty flower,” Mary Elizabeth had told Angelo one summery day when he was dressed in a flowing floral skirt, white peasant blouse and peach-colored sandals, his soft and creamy complexion looking so lovely. She had affixed yellow ribbons in his long brown hair, and in her mind’s eye, she saw him, prancing as a pretty little girl through a field of daisies.
On the weekend before school began, she let Angelo spend Saturday with Tanya, the daughter of Mary Elizabeth’s best friend, Sharon. For that day, and that day only, she warned Angelo, he could dress as a girl, and with Tanya they could enjoy doing whatever teen girls enjoy doing.
Tanya, it turned out, had recently gained a boy friend, the first of her life. His name was Joshua, who was a year older and was going to the same high school.
“I met him at the pool, Angela,” she said, using Angelo’s female name, as she always did.
“Is he cute?”
“Oh, I think so. He’s not too tall, but taller than me. Oh, he’s so strong. He’s a lifeguard.”
Angelo was taken aback. Tanya was his only close friend, and even though they weren’t going to the same high school, he had hoped he would be able to spend time with her, to live his female moments with a friend. Now, a new boy friend would interrupt that.
“You sound hot for him, Tanya?”
“Oh yes, Angela. Wait ‘til you see him. He’s coming over soon. I thought maybe he could take us to the mall. He’s got a car.”
Angelo felt sick at heart, feeling he was losing a girl friend to this macho lifeguard. His self-pity was soon ended as he saw the joy and sparkle in Tanya’s eyes as she talked about Joshua.
“Oh Tanya, maybe I should go home,” Angelo said. “I don’t want to interfere with you and Joshua.”
“Oh, no, Angela. I told Josh you’re my best friend ever. Just join us. Please.”
It was agreed, and the two lay on their stomachs on the floor, poring over teen magazines, giggling and discussing what kind of boy would be best for Angela.
Joshua turned out to be everything Tanya said he was; and, despite all his good looks and muscles, he was not arrogant, as so many macho boys could be. His warmth and sweetness was quickly apparent to Angelo.
“You’re very pretty,” Joshua said as Angelo was introduced.
“Thank you. My mummy always likes me looking nice,” he smiled.
“Angela got admitted to the Arts,” Tanya explained. “She just found out on Monday.”
“Cool. What are you going into?”
“Drama, I think. But I also like fashion design.”
“She did Ophelia for the audition,” Tanya said, beaming. She seemed to take as much joy in Angelo’s successes as he did. Naturally, she left out the part about his performance of Hamlet.
The day at the mall went smoothly. Tanya and Joshua were new friends, and for both it was their first “boy-girl” friendship; it was obvious Tanya wanted another girl friend along to ward off any advances by Joshua, and Angelo, looking as pretty as any teen in the mall that day, filled the part to a tee.
As they sat at the food court, drinking latte, Angelo suddenly turned his head, looking away.
“What’s wrong?” Tanya asked. “What are you doing?”
“I think I saw that Jason and his friend over there.”
“You mean those boys we met at the mall this summer?”
“Yes, and I don’t want him to see me,” he said turning his chair so that only his back was exposed to the boy.
“He’s coming this way, with his friend,” Joshua said.
“O darn,” Angelo, leaned down to pretend to tie a shoe.
The two boys moved quickly to their table. “Well, if it isn’t the two prettiest girls in the mall?”
It was Jason’s friend, Gary, who was always so forward. Jason seemed to hang back, and gave a tentative wave to Angelo and Tanya, as his friend talked.
“Introduce us to your friend,” Gary said, pointing to Joshua.
“This is my boy friend, Joshua,” Tanya said firmly. “And I don’t remember these two boys’ names, Joshua.”
Jason meanwhile looked at Angelo, smiling, and saying hesitatingly, “I was hoping you’d call me.”
Angelo held his head down for a minute, saying, “I guess I lost your number.” It was a lie, of course.
“Oh that’s OK. You want it again?”
Angelo felt sad for this shy boy. He was not pushy, but it was obvious he found a connection with Angelo, and considered him for what he appeared: a lovely teen girl. Angelo knew the boy needed an explanation. He really was nice.
“Mummy says I can’t go out with boys, yet. I’m sorry. You seemed nice.”
“Can you call me sometime?”
Angelo again took his number, which the boy scribbled on a napkin. He put it in the pink, plastic purse he carried over his shoulder.
“Jason seems like a nice boy,” Joshua said. “Too bad he’s got that other jerk as a friend.”
“Isn’t he going to the Arts school, too, Angela?” Tanya asked.
“Yes. So he says. It’s because of him I knew to apply. So I guess I should be nice to him.”
Joshua beamed: “Well, you’ll see him there. Who knows where that’s going then?”
“Oh he’s a junior, two years ahead of me. I probably won’t see him.”
“Well, when you’re ready to date, Angela,” Joshua said. “Let me know.”
“Hey, Josh,” Tanya interrupted.
“Angela’s pretty, Tanya, but you’re my girl,” Joshua quickly explained. “But I bet Todd would love to date her.”
Tanya explained briefly that “Angela” was in foster care, and the “she” had had a tough life; her foster mother, she said, was very sweet, but strict, hoping to protect “Angela” from disappointments that so often befall teen girls.
Joshua gave Angelo a quick friendly kiss on the cheek in dropping the pair off at Tanya’s house. Tanya got a long hug, with accompanying hands caressing her back. Angelo blushed, and turned away while the exhibition went on. He wondered: Would he ever be in the arms of a strong boy like Joshua, being kissed and hugged as Angela? It would be a dream come true.
*****
“Angelo, I told you. I don’t want you getting into those girl clothes anymore.” Mary Elizabeth saw that the boy had gone into his former bedroom, the one that had been so prettily decorated for a girl and was rummaging among the feminine attire in the closet. Angelo had thought his foster mother was in the basement washing clothes, and he snuck into the room, and was in the midst of attempting to fasten a black lace bra on when Mary Elizabeth unexpectedly came up from her washing.
Angelo was standing there, wearing sheer black pantyhose as she entered, the rest of his slender body exposed. He loved the action of putting on the pantyhose, rolling them down to put in his feet, carefully pulling the hose up each leg, smoothing the nylon material on his legs and pulling them up over his butt. He looked at his toes, framed into reinforced nylon, looking so slim and lovely.
Angelo paraded before the mirror, turning as a model would on a runway, smiling: “I really do have pretty legs.”
In the mirror, he could see his thin ankles, neatly turned calves, lovely knees, and slender thighs which broadened as they reached his hips. His legs were firm but showed none of the muscular tendons some boys had.
“Oh mummy, I know. Just this once.”
“No, Angelo, and you know why. I expect Anna to come one of these days, and she’d probably bring a supervisor with her from child protection services. I don’t want you acting all girly. Now take that hose off and get into your jeans and tee shirt and running shoes.”
Angelo loved his foster mother, and he really didn’t like displeasing her, but the fact was he felt natural and comfortable in girl’s outfits; he knew that with his slight frame, long hair and effeminate mannerisms that when he dressed as a boy he must have looked like a “sissy boy.” It often brought him ridicule, while as a girl all he heard was praises for his natural beauty.
“OK, mummy,” he said, quickly rolling off the pantyhose and neatly replacing the clothes in their appropriate drawer spaces.
Several afternoons later, Angelo sat on the couch, his right leg tucked under his left, holding a book, his fluffy stuffed kitten resting next to him. He was engrossed in the newest book in the “Traveling Pants” series, which had become a favorite among teen girls. Written by Ann Brashares, it concerned a trio of 15 year-old girls who were quickly growing into young womanhood, and learning about life.
Tanya loaned Angelo the book, gushing that she had finished it in just one day. “Oh honey,” she told Angelo, “I think one of those characters could be you. Really.”
Angelo truly did find himself identifying with a shy girl in the book, a girl who had yet to have a date and was afraid of boys. So intense was his concentration that he didn’t hear the doorbell ring until Mary Elizabeth yelled: “Angelo, get that door.” He was startled to attention, dropping the book and grabbing the fluffy stuffed animal as he walked to the door.
“Oh, Miss Simms, it’s you.” Angelo said with astonishment, and with his voice retaining its girlish inflections that he was trying hard to lose.
“Yes, Angelo, it’s me. Won’t you let us in?”
Anna Simms, the social worker, was dressed in black slacks, an orange top and her hair fixed in dreadlocks. With her was a middle-aged white woman, tall, slender, wearing a grey suit and a severe expression.
“This is Ms. Pentecost,” Anna Simms said, introducing her supervisor to Angelo and Mary Elizabeth who entered the living room.
“Nice meeting you, Ms. Pentecost,” commented Mary Elizabeth, realizing full well that Ms. Pentecost was not going to make this a pleasant visit.
“And, I take it this is Angelo, the boy you have charge of, Mrs. Dayton?” asked Ms. Pentecost in a rather loud, coarse voice.
She pronounced word “boy” had a marked, sarcastic tone, indicating her already made conclusion that Angelo was no “boy” in the normal sense. Angelo recognized the nastiness in the tone, as he sat back on the couch, still holding the stuffed animal, almost as a little girl would hold it. He quickly tried to hide it at his side, but he knew the damage had been done; his effeminate mannerisms had already betrayed him.
The adults in the room were still standing as the Child Welfare Department supervisor began: “Mrs. Dayton. Let me get right to the point here.” Ms. Pentecost, it was obvious, was a no-nonsense, quick-to-decide supervisor.
“Yes, Ms. Pentecost, before you go on . . .” Mary Elizabeth interjected, only to be cut short by the forbidding Ms. Pentecost.
“No, Mrs. Dayton, let me finish. I have read the file and have talked with Ms. Simms here. It’s obvious you have been a bad influence on this boy. Look at him now; he’s hardly a boy anymore.”
“But, Ms. Pentecost, Angelo has never been happier in his life,” Mary Elizabeth began.
“No, Mrs. Dayton. You have corrupted him. You wanted a girl, and you’ve tried to make him into that. That’s disgraceful, and I should bring you up on child abuse charges.”
Angelo wrapped his arms around himself, drawing his legs up and curling his slender body into the couch, wanting to cry so badly. His whole happy world was about to crumble down about him.
“We should never have placed this boy in this house. But, Ms. Simms here was a new worker and didn’t see the abnormalities in this household. This is disgraceful. This boy here has become so pathetic, and you’re to fault, Mrs. Dayton.”
Angelo could take it no more; he bounded up from his protective seat on the couch, rushing to the arms of his foster mother, cuddling his slender frame next to her, as she instinctively held him tightly, caressing his shoulder gently. Angelo began to sob, tears flowing and his cries of anguish tearing through the household. Through his sobs, he spoke out:
“I love mummy. I love mummy. She’s made me so happy. I’ll be a boy. I’ll be a boy. See my room. It’s a boy’s room. I’ll be a boy.”
“Ms. Pentecost, Angelo’s had a rough life, and he’s truly happy here.,” Ms. Simms spoke up.
“He’s been corrupted, Ms. Simms Can’t you see that?” Ms. Pentecost’s words were harsh.
Ms. Simms, whose career may be in jeopardy now if she continued to protest, retreated.
Angelo, however, suddenly found strength. He released himself from Mary Elizabeth and said loudly to the stern supervisor, trying to fight back tears as he did so, “Ma’am, mummy here did nothing I didn’t want her to do. I feel better as a girl, and fought with her to stop trying to make me a boy. She’s been a good mum.”
“What do you mean, you ‘feel better as a girl’?” Ms. Pentecost demanded. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. This woman has warped your mind.”
“No. No. She’s a good mum.”
Mary Elizabeth interjected. “I’ve tried hard to stir Angelo here to be a good young man. At the suggestion of Ms. Simms, we fixed up a boy’s bedroom for him, and even tried to get him interested in some sports. But, you know, Ms. Pentecost, he cared for his ailing mother until her death, actually acting like a maid. He’s a sweet, warm-hearted, lovely young boy, and he may indeed have a transgendered personality.”
“Transgendered. I don’t buy that,” Ms. Pentecost shot back. “That’s poppycock for aberrant behavior. He needs a boy’s atmosphere.”
It was obvious that Ms. Pentecost was not to be argued out of her attitudes. Her rigidity must have been legendary in the department.
Mary Elizabeth tried to explain that Angelo had been accepted into the Arts High School and had a good future ahead of him; she said he had become fast friends with a girl of his age and they enjoyed shopping and doing things together.
“Angelo was so unhappy in his previous placement with his aunt. He was teased mercilessly, and that’s a fate that awaits him in another atmosphere, Ms. Pentecost,” Mary Elizabeth pleaded. “He’s a naturally small and delicate child. Here he can follow his natural tendencies.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of, Mrs. Dayton,” the supervisor responded. “He needs another placement.”
“I’m afraid, Ms. Pentecost, we have no home available for Angelo right now,” Ms. Simms said.
“What about the adolescent group home? He’d fit in good there. They had strong physical fitness program there. Buck Spencer will make a man out of this boy.” Again Ms. Pentecost said “boy” in a derisive manner.
Angelo cringed at the thought of such a place. His physical strength was so minimal, his muscular talents so weak, he’d be harassed and bullied by both staff and other boys alike. He knew he could never make it in competition with other boys.
“They’re filled up, with a waiting list,” Ms. Simms said.
“Ok,” Ms. Pentecost said, now looking defeated. “I guess the boy is not abused. We’ll let him stay here for the time-being, but I will find another placement for Angelo, and in that placement he will be a boy, not such a sorry excuse for a boy as I see before me.”
Mary Elizabeth started to protest the nasty remarks of the supervisor, but held back, knowing they had received a reprieve, although it might be brief.
Ms. Simms obviously cringed at the words of her supervisor, and as the pair left, she gave Angelo a gentle nudge, winking slightly and showing a faint smile.
Mary Elizabeth held Angelo in her arms, and after the two were out the door, she let him cry out loud, holding him tightly, his face pressed into her bosom, her fingers running through his long, lovely hair which smelled of sweet shampoo. “My darling, Angela, you’re such a sweet girl,” she thought.
Then out loud she said: “Angela, yes, my darling Angela, we’ll figure out a way to keep you here and make you happy. My dear girl.”
“Oh mummy, why wasn’t I born like other boys? I’m a burden to everyone.”
“No, honey, you’re a talented marvelous young person, and we’ll show that Ms. Pentecost just how wrong she is.”
Angelo drew away from Mary Elizabeth, looking up at her, smiling through tears, and said: “Yes, mummy, we will.”
*****
Later that afternoon, Mary Elizabeth phoned her friend, Sharon, relating the morning’s visit with Anna Simms and the horrible Ms. Pentecost. Sharon was sympathetic, knowing fully how hard her friend had tried to direct Angelo away from his girly tendencies. “The boy just seems to be transgendered,” Sharon volunteered.
She explained that her college-going daughter, Heather, and her boy friend had researched male-to-female gender situations after meeting Angelo. “These transgendered people seem to be the real thing,” Sharon said. “These boys are not faking it. It seems they feel they are girls, only with a boy’s anatomy.”
“Yes, so I’ve found out,” Mary Elizabeth agreed. “In fact, I think Angelo considers himself a girl.”
“Well, the think you should challenge this decision to remove Angelo, and to get him examined. Maybe to see a psychiatrist,” Sharon said.
Even though Mary Elizabeth had told Angelo about her promising conversation with Sharon, Angelo remained skeptical that he’d be able to stay with her, or that his feelings of femininity would be respected. He felt he was doomed to a future of futility in trying to be masculine, a future in which he would always be a failure as a male. He remained curled up on the couch, clutching the stuffed kitten, caressing it, sobbing intermittently.
Angelo was awakened from his funk after supper when Sharon, her two daughters, Tanya and Heather, and Heather’s boy friend, Michael, appeared.
“We’re going to help you, Angelo,” said Heather, after they entered.
Angelo perked up immediately, so happy to see Tanya who in his mind had become the best friend he’d ever had. The two hugged, as teen girls normally would, and both giggled as Angelo produced the stuffed kitten for Tanya to kiss as well.
“Oh my darling, you’ve been crying,” Sharon said, looking at Angelo’s reddened eyes and flushed face.
“I guess,” he replied, brushing his mussed hair from his face. His motion was unmistakably feminine.
He felt messy and unkempt, and felt, like most women, that he should excuse himself and fix his face and hair. He rejected that feeling immediately, realizing that he must maintain a boy mode.
“Listen to what Heather’s friend has to say now, Lizzie and Angelo,” Sharon said.
They all walked into the kitchen, gathering around the table, with Angelo bringing an extra chair from the dining room. Mary Elizabeth had been preparing a cider punch to accompany the orange cake that Angelo had baked in the morning.
Michael began by stating he and Heather had been affected by Angelo’s story, his life with a sick mother and her death, his awful experience living with his aunt and cousins and his obvious feminine demeanor. Michael was active in a social justice group in school, and felt that the people who were gay or lesbian or transgendered should be respected.
“We don’t know if you’re what they call a transsexual, or not, but if you are, that should be considered,” the Michael said. He was warming to his topic, becoming more and more demonstrative as he expressed his thoughts.
“But, child welfare is thinking of accusing me of abusing Angelo, but letting him dress as a girl,” Mary Elizabeth said. “I tried to tell them that he seems only to be happy when he is a girl.”
“I know, Mrs. Dayton,” Michael said. “It’s also true that he’s only 15, and child welfare is properly concerned that a foster parent doesn’t lead a child into a life that could bring problems. The agency has to be careful, otherwise they’d be turning children over to pedophiles.”
“I understand, but can’t Angelo’s case be looked at more carefully? Shouldn’t his desires be considered?”
Heather intervened then: “Yes, Mrs. Dayton, that’s the point. We’re going to help you with child welfare, to make sure they don’t remove Angelo without reason.”
“And they have no reason to remove me,” Angelo piped up. “She’s the kindest, neatest mummy anyone could have. I miss my mum, but I love my new mummy.”
Mary Elizabeth eyes welled up in tears, and she reached over, patting Angelo’s slender hand.
“We’ll do everything we can to help Angelo remain here,” Michael said.
“Yes, we’ll all drink to that,” said Mary Elizabeth as they raised their glasses of cider high.
(To be continued)
Angelo finds friendship and acceptance at high school, in spite of his girlish nature. His joy is short-lived as he finds Child Welfare Services has come to remove him from his foster mother's home, a prospect that horrifies him. He works out his own solution to this frightening event and finds a whole new world.
Synopsis: Orphaned at age 14, Angelo is a delicate boy, and after a miserable year living with his aunt and her family, he is placed in foster care with a woman who has always wanted a daughter. Angelo finds comfort in often living and dressing as Angela, a lovely 15 year old girl; he befriends a girl with whom they share girly ventures, with Angela’s obvious prettiness attracting the attention of boys. Yet, Child Welfare services is threatening to remove Angelo from his new foster mother, and put him in a place where he’d be forced to be raised as a boy, a prospect that horrifies him and his foster mother, who has helped him become so lovely. (NOTE TO READERS OF EARLIER CHAPTERS: At suggestion of many of you, I have Anglicized the reference to Angelo’s foster mother: He now addresses her as “mom” or “mommy,” not “mum” or “mummy.”)
Chapter Nine — A Family Affair and School Begins
Angelo hugged the fluffy stuffed kitten tightly, caressing its sleek fur daintily. He and Muffy, that was the name he had given it, had become almost inseparable in the last few weeks. Muffy was one of the few remaining links to his girlhood, as he was being forced into returning to boyhood.
“Mom,” he had confessed to his foster mother, “I’m so scared. I just don’t know how I can be a boy. How awful it’ll be when I start high school.”
Mary Elizabeth Dayton had found Angelo curled up on the davenport, cuddling Muffy, his hair flowing across his face, and looking so much like a little girl, she couldn’t resist sitting next to him, and gently running her hand down his slender, pretty arms. He was dressed, to be sure, in boy’s shorts and tee shirt, but with his long hair, fair complexion and slim body, he looked so much like the little girl he so wanted to be.
She knew that the boy would feel so out of place as a boy in the large high school where his effeminate actions would bring about bullying and teasing and snickers. She knew he felt inadequate as a boy, but she knew she had to strengthen his spirit so that he’d begin school.
“Angelo, my darling. I know you’ll do fine once you’re there. You’ll find some nice friends. People like you, my dear.” As she said these words, she began to tear up herself, her eyes moistening as she fought off sobs that would only worsen Angelo’s feelings.
Right now, she wanted to hug this tender, gentle boy and then dress him in the prettiest, most frilly frock she could find. But, she knew that she had to direct him away from such girly things, and try to make him boyish enough so he could remain with her in foster care.
“Mom, I hope you’re right, but I just don’t know. I’m so scared.” He began to cry aloud now, and Mary Elizabeth could do nothing more than hug him tightly, with Muffy tucked between the two.
“Now come on, you need to help me,” she said to him.
“Why, mom? What do you want me to do?”
“My son Dean is visiting us this weekend, with his family. They’ll be here tomorrow, and you’ll have to sleep in with me. I’ll set up a cot for you. We’ll have to straighten up the house. Dean and his wife will sleep in my office and the kids in your room.”
Angelo felt another shock of fear. He knew that Mary Elizabeth had three grown sons, and all lived out of town. He wondered what she had told them about him, and whether she had warned them that she had a foster child who might be a little different from other boys.
“Mommy,” he said. “That’s nice. You want to see them and your two grandchildren, I know.”
“Yes,” she replied, knowing how fearful he might be about meeting her family. “And I want them to meet you and know what a marvelous boy you are.”
“They won’t like me.”
“Why do you say that? I’ve told them about you, and they know how happy you’ve made me. They’ll adore you.”
“No they won’t. Your boys were big and strong and muscular and played football. And look at me?”
“No honey. I think they’ll like you. And I know you’ll like Dean’s kids. Clara is seven and Jake is four.”
“Mommy, I’ll try to make you proud of me. I want your family to like me.”
Mary Elizabeth loved this child so much, almost as much as her own boys, and she was hoping they’d like him as well. Still, she was concerned how her football-playing, masculine sons and their families would take to this sweet, delicate boy. Besides Dean, who sold insurance in Chicago, about two hours away, there was Daniel, the second oldest, who was a high school math teacher and coach. Finally, there as Derrick, who was a senior at the University of Illinois and was a varsity football player. Only Dean was married. They had all been given first names that began with a “D,” to match their deceased father’s first name (Donald).
That afternoon, they cleaned the house and arranged things to fit the needs of Dean’s family. Dean and his family arrived late Friday afternoon, and Angelo busied himself helping his foster mother prepared to feed them. He suggested Mary Elizabeth visit while he did most of the preparation for supper, but Mary Elizabeth said, “No. I know you want to help, but with you cooking, that would make you look too much like a girl. And you know I need you to be a boy now.”
He dressed in jeans, tennis shoes and a polo shirt, and drew his hair back from his face. A few days earlier, Mary Elizabeth had taken him to her beauty salon, where she told Sandra, her hair stylist, to fix Angelo’s hair in a boyish cut. “You want me to cut this lovely hair?” the stylist had asked. “He has such a marvelously light, airy head of hair.”
“Trim it, Sandra, so he looks less like a girl,” she had told the stylist.
“OK, but it’s a shame. Most girls would love to have such lovely hair,” Sandra said.
Angelo blushed. He was the only male in the salon that day, and one of the older women said, “Oh, you’d make a very pretty girl,” much to Angelo’s joy.
“Oh, mommy,” he told Mary Elizabeth later. “I wish I could go there as a girl. Sandra’s so nice.”
“Well, you’re now my foster son, Angelo. Remember that,” she replied, thinking also that Angelo would indeed be made even more beautiful after a trip to Sandra’s salon.
True to what Angelo expected, Dean was a monster of a man, though now his body had grown a bit fleshy. Yet, Dean had obviously been a strong, dominating athlete at onetime, and Angelo’s slender hand was dwarfed when the two shook hands. Dean’s grip, however, was gentle though firm, and Angelo, remembering that a man should have a firm handshake, did his best to respond in kind.
“Nice meeting you, Angelo,” Dean said. “Mother has talked an awful lot about you.”
“We’re getting along just fine, aren’t we, Angelo?” Mary Elizabeth said with a smile.
“Yes, mom,” he responded, careful not to use the “mommy,” which he knew was how a girl might speak.
Dean had a smooth, rounded face with sparkling eyes, much like his mother’s. His wife, Constanza, was a short, dark-haired woman with compact body, which accentuated firm hips and breasts. She wore loose shorts, which exposed her solid, well-tanned legs. It was apparent she, too, was athletic. Even at seven years old, Clara had all the appearances of growing up to be a tall, strong girl; she had her father’s fair complexion. Jake appeared small for his age, dark-haired and wiry, and was constantly on the move.
Angelo remained silent as the Dean’s family brought in their luggage and shared family talk, so typical of families who are reunited after several months of separation. It was apparent the family was close and loving; Angelo felt a pang of jealousy, recognizing that he had never found such warmth and love in his early life. Yet, Mary Elizabeth was welcoming him to become a part of the Dayton household, perhaps even to experience the love and warmth he now saw before him. “I must not disappoint them,” he thought to himself, vowing to try to act like a boy, a real boy.
Jake soon busied himself with the trucks and construction set that Mary Elizabeth brought out of the closet where it rested between visits. Derrick, her youngest son, had last used the toys and she kept them around just for little Jake. Angelo joined the boy on the floor, moving the construction toys around, to the glee of the younger boy. He giggled and Angelo enjoyed the boy’s laughter, purposely moving the toys in a manner to excite the child.
His attention was interrupted by the rather frantic yells of Clara: “Grandma, grandma. What happened to Barbie? She’s got different clothes.”
The young girl, now dressed in cute pink shorts and a white and cream tank top but no shoes, ran into the living room, carrying two Barbie Dolls, one wearing a long formal gown and the other a white wedding dress.
“Grandma, grandma. Last time I dressed them for the beach. They were going to meet Ken,” she explained, excitedly. “Now they’re all dressed up.”
“Oh,” Mary Elizabeth. “Are you sure Clara?”
“Yes, grandma. Somebody’s playing with these dolls. They’re all different.”
Angelo reddened, realizing he had been playing with the doll collection that Mary Elizabeth had maintained in the bedroom for her granddaughter’s visits.
“Grandma,” Clara persisted. “These are my dolls.”
“Yes, honey, but you know you must share your toys,” her mother, Constanza, said.
Mary Elizabeth was silent, and Angelo knew she didn’t want to tell her son’s family that it had been he, Angelo, who had been playing with the dolls. He felt compelled to tell the truth.
“Clara,” Angelo said, still seated on the floor, playing trucks with Jake. “I hope you don’t mind too much. I dressed the Barbie dolls that way.”
Everyone in the room, except Jake who was making truck noises, looked at Angelo in surprise.
“But you’re a boy,” Clara said.
Angelo blushed. “I know, Clara, and I’m sorry. I just felt like making Barbie all pretty.”
Mary Elizabeth was quick to the rescue. “Yes, shortly after he moved in, he was bored and the only things to play with were the dolls. He and I had lots of fun dressing them up.”
“Oh grandma, Angelo,” the child said. “That’s OK. I think you made the dolls so pretty.”
The matter seemed to be forgotten as Angelo returned to playing trucks, the family continued their conversation and Clara went back into the bedroom carrying the two Barbie dolls.
As the supper was ending, Clara said to everyone, using a loud voice, “Can Angelo play dolls with me now?”
“Well, I don’t think he’ll want to do that,” Dean, the father, said quickly.
“He played with Jake before,” Clara persisted. “Why can’t he play with me?”
“Well, I don’t think Angelo wants to play dolls?” Dean said.
“He did before. Remember how pretty he dressed them?”
“Oh that’s all right, Mr. Dayton,” Angelo said. “I can play with Clara.”
“Really, you’re sure?” asked Dean.
“I’m sure Angelo will enjoy playing with Clara for a while. Won’t you, dear?” Mary Elizabeth said.
“Yes mommy . . . er . . .er . . mom.”
Dean gave Angelo was quick, strange look, as if to wonder about what kind of a boy this slender, pretty looking child was.
After supper, Angelo ended up playing with both children, with Jake bringing his trucks and construction equipment into the bedroom, while Angelo and Clara went about dressing and undressing the Barbie Dolls. Soon, Angelo and Clara had set up a scenario with a household out of some shoeboxes and brackets.
Angelo was curled up on the floor engrossed in dressing one of the dolls when Dean entered the room.
“My, aren’t you children playing nice!” he said.
Angelo got up abruptly, realizing that he must have looked so girlish at that moment. “Oh, Clara and Jake are fun to play with, Mr. Dayton.”
“Well, Angelo, you’ve been so much fun for them.”
As it turned out, the visit of Dean’s family was a truly enjoyable weekend, until the family was about to leave. For most of the weekend, the family seemed to accept Angelo as he was. Both Clara and Jake seemed to adore him, always pestering him to play with them.
Sunday morning, Angelo slept in, not arising until well after 10 a.m. He could smell coffee and breakfast cooking in the kitchen. As he lay there wondering when to get up, he heard his foster mother, Dean and Constanza talking in the kitchen.
“But he’s such a sweet boy.” It was the protesting voice of Mary Elizabeth he heard first.
“Oh mother.” It was Dean’s voice, rising. “There’s something wrong with that boy. You see how much he likes playing with dolls.”
“Dean.” Mary Elizabeth protested again.
“He’s hardly a boy at all. You said he’s 15?”
“Yes, but he’s small for his age.”
“My god, mother, he’s like a 12 year old girl. See how weak his arms are.”
“Dean, that’s enough. He’s had a tough life. No father and his mother died last year.”
“And you, mother, seem to enjoy treating him like a girl. Having him play with dolls. My god.”
Angelo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had so enjoyed Dean and his family. They seemed so nice, and now they were making fun of him. Angelo buried his head in the pillow, not wanting to hear anything further. He began to cry.
Mary Elizabeth would be angry with him now; he had disappointed her son, Dean. He stayed buried among the bed clothes until his foster mother sent Jake into rouse him and tell him to get up.
He dried his tears, washed his face and put on jeans and a Green Bay Packer jersey and walked into the kitchen, trying to be brave and to look more like a real boy.
“Well, that’s more like it,” Dean said sarcastically, obviously seeing the football jersey. “That’s my boy. Glad you’re for the Pack.”
“Oh yes, Mr. Dayton,” Angelo said, perhaps a bit dishonestly, since he cared little for football or the Packers. “They’re my favorite team.”
Dean’s family left in the early afternoon, with both children hugging Angelo tightly. “I think Angelo is fun,” prompted Jake. “Yeah,” added Clara. “He’s cool. We had so much fun together.”
Dean and Constanza said their “goodbyes’s” more stiffly and Angelo knew he had been a failure to Mary Elizabeth’s son and daughter-in-law.
*****
Mary Elizabeth was saddened by Dean’s reaction to Angelo; she thought he would have more understanding, but it was apparent all he saw was a weakling and a sissy, and in his masculine thinking, that made Angelo truly a pathetic being. “All that boy needs is a little discipline and some exercise. It’s disgusting to see such a weakling. Our Clara could probably beat him up,” Dean had said.
“Oh, Dean, don’t be so critical. Give him a chance,” she pleaded.
“OK, mom. I love you, but I’m worried about you being disappointed in getting too close to that boy.”
“Thank you, Dean. I think I’ll be all right. He’s really a sweet boy, and very obedient,” she said.
“I just wish he was more like a real boy,” Dean said.
The conversation about Angelo ended on that note, but it was hardly reassuring to Mary Elizabeth. Her joy at raising Angelo was again deflated.
She could tell, also, that Angelo must have sensed the disgust Dean had expressed. While the boy had truly enjoyed her grandchildren, he was obviously fearful and tentative around the adults. Could he have heard their breakfast table conversation, she wondered.
“Mommy, I’m sorry,” Angelo said after Dean’s car had pulled out of the driveway and headed for home.
He began sobbing, his slender body shaking uncontrollably, as he stood there, looking out the living room window. Mary Elizabeth felt so much sorrow for this child, a girl really, who no doubt was beginning to realize that his future would be a difficult one.
“Mom,” he said through his tears. “I’m bringing you so much shame. And I love you so much. Why can’t I be a boy like your sons were? A real boy? Instead of being like I am.”
Mary Elizabeth hugged him tightly now, letting his tears moisten the front of her blouse. “Honey,” she said finally, as his tears lessened, “We need to get you ready for school tomorrow. Let’s get ourselves cleaned up. Remember, we need to find you a book bag.”
Angelo knew he had to stop crying; he had endured much disappointment in his life, but he had always been able to stand up to it, and meet it head on.
“Mommy, let’s get a backpack with the Packers’ symbol on it,” he said. “I think I’ll have to begin to like football.”
Mary Elizabeth didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She knew that Angelo’s natural desires would be to get the girliest backpack available, complete with pink bunnies or a Hannah Montana emblem; yet, he was making a firm effort to give the appearance of being a boy.
“You’re my brave boy,” was all she could say.
*****
Angelo’s worst fears about starting school failed to materialize. True, he was one of the shortest and most slender of boys, but he was hardly noticed among the many diverse students in this Arts High School. There were both boys and girls with spiked hair, many in all sorts of unnatural hues; there were lots of boys with earrings, and some girls dressed in most macho, unflattering outfits. Among the many African-American students (at least half the school was minority), there were the extreme styles. School rules prohibited hats, largely to ward off gang symbols.
He noticed one slender, effeminate boy, an African-American, who wore a pair of tight-fitting slacks with a silvery sheen, topped off with a deep purple unisex blouse, and rows of silver necklaces. He exaggerated his effeminacy, and was always surrounded by a gaggle of girls, with whom he was giggling and using outlandish gestures. The boy performed for his admiring group of girls, but seemed to have the rapt attention of one particularly attractive blond girl.
Angelo watched him intensively, marveling how such a boy, an obvious sissy, could be so attractive to girls. Briefly, he put himself in the boy’s place, perhaps looking even more girlish and finding admiring looks.
The scene was interrupted by a group of husky, ill-dressed boys who burst into the group, roughly pushing the effeminate boy out from among his female friends, and calling him names: “Freddy the fag,” “Freddie fruitie,” and “Sissy boy.” The boy seemed to slink away from the bullies, who moved on down the hall looking for their next victim.
Angelo watched as the boy, whose name must be Freddie, moved to a small alcove and cowered up into isolation. Angelo could swear he saw tears in the boy’s face; the blond girl had moved to his side, and was offering comfort.
It was a moment of truth for Angelo; certainly he might soon be victimized in the same way if he continued to display his femininity. He had to be careful, he realized.
Being new to the school, Angelo had no friends or acquaintances there; in fact, every face was a strange face. He realized he was seeing everyone for the first time in his life, as he attended his classes, beginning with his homeroom, then on to algebra, a study hall, English, dance class, lunch break, history, and general science. In the early classes, no one talked to him, and he shyly sat in the sessions, identifying himself in his voice, which sounded to him as being girlishly high, as “Angelo Davies.” No one, it appeared, seemed to notice the high voice, but Angelo would know that anyone looking at him would see a deep red fill his face.
He had chosen to take dance class in lieu of gym, which was an option for theater program students. Since this was the first day of school, the students remained in their street clothes. They were told to sit in a circle around the floor as Miss Satterstein, the teacher, told them they would work hard in the class. “You’ll work harder here than in gym class, so if you chose this class to avoid hard work, you better leave now,” she warned the students. No one did leave.
He counted perhaps 20 kids in the class, and was surprised to see only one other boy. It was Freddie, the effeminate boy Angelo had seen bullied in the hallway. At quick glance, the class seemed to be composed of all girls, since both Angelo and Freddie had long hair and had seated themselves with their legs tucked in a most girly manner to one side.
Miss Satterstein asked students to introduce themselves and to state why they chose dance class and whether they had had any training. The introductions drowned on and Angelo day-dreamed, looking at pictures of ballerinas on the wall, wishing someday he could wear a tutu. His day-dreaming was interrupted with: “Now, Miss, what is your name?”
“Me?” He looked up startled, seeing the teacher pointing at him.
“Yes, you. Miss. And what is your name?”
Angelo was tongue-tied, but soon blurted out: “Angelo. Angelo Davies.” The voice came our high and frantic, and to make matters worse, he flicked his hair out of his face with a flick of his wrist.
“Angelo,” the teacher repeated. “Angelo. Oh yes, the other boy in this class.”
Angelo sat down feeling shamed in front of his new classmates. He turned his head down, feeling totally humiliated, knowing that his classmates were now examining him in a most curious fashion. He felt so inadequate trying to be a boy, when he could easily have been in the class as a girl.
“Well students,” the teacher went on. “We’ll start off slow and see what each of you can do. It’s too bad we don’t have any more boys in the class, since it’ll restrict some of our dances.”
Angelo knew, too, that the teacher must have lamented that the two boys she had in class were no stronger than the girls, and were too weak to do the muscular roles demanded of male dancers.
She explained that beginning tomorrow the students would have to wear shorts and tank tops for the dance class.
“Hi Angelo,” said a high feminine voice behind him as he left for the lunch period, and was about to enter the cafeteria.
He looked to see a short, somewhat fleshy girl who had identified herself as Cecilie in class. He acknowledged her with a nod of his head, and she walked up next to him. “You’re new here, aren’t you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I don’t know anyone.”
“Well, you know me at least,” she said with a wide grin on her round, freckled face.
“I guess I do. Hi.” He smiled at the friendly greeting of this girl.
“Come join our table for lunch,” she offered, pointing to a table with four other girls. There remained two empty stools.
It turned out that this table seemed to be populated by the brainiest, but hardly the prettiest, girls in school. Two of the girls, Maxine and Janet, were much like Cecilie; they were chunky, but also warm and friendly. Another, Marie, was tall and blonde, but wore no makeup and let her hair flow freely, and apparently uncombed or brushed. The last was, Henrietta, a light, dark-complexioned girl of slight stature. She had a pimply face, but like the others had dancing, bright eyes.
They welcomed Angelo without ceremony, giving him a cursory “Hi” or “How are you?” They were deeply involved in giggling over the remarks that emerged from the speaker system in the morning by the principal, commenting how inane they were.
Soon Angelo was giggling along with them, and he was adding some comments of his own, no longer trying to hide the girliness of his voice. It was obvious the girls liked him and he was welcomed into their group. It was like being “one of the girls,” he told his mom later.
Cecilie, it was obvious, was truly bright and observant. As they walked together to the next class (history), she confided in him that there were a group of bullies in the school, and they loved to pick on younger and smaller boys.
“Try not to walk alone,” she said. “My girl friends like you. We’ll walk with you, maybe they won’t bother you.”
Angelo blushed at this, realizing that girls were now offering to protect him. Was this not the most awful irony of all? A boy needing the protection of girls?
“Oh you don’t have to,” he protested.
“But we like you, Angelo. We want to walk with you.”
Angelo smiled to himself. He had already on this first day found friends. The friends, he realized, were all girls he would enjoy being with.
Chapter Ten — The Great Escape
Cecilie and Marie, the tall, blonde girl, also rode the same school bus with Angelo, though they got off several stops before he did. He found out that Marie wanted to be a librarian and the Cecilie wanted to write and perhaps be a poet. Both were on the school literary magazine, and Angelo volunteered that he did some writing too.
“Maybe you can be on Winged Verse,” Marie said.
“Winged Verse?”
“Yes, that’s the name of the literary magazine,” Marie said. “I’ll show you a copy tomorrow.”
Angelo felt like skipping to Mary Elizabeth’s house as he got off the bus. The school day, after a scary beginning, had ended marvelously, Angelo felt. He loved his new friends, and best of all, they accepted him, just as he was. He couldn’t wait to tell Mary Elizabeth.
He rounded the corner onto the street heading to his house, stopping suddenly, ducking behind bushes at the home of Bessie Simkins, two doors away. In front of his foster mother’s home were two cars; four people were exiting the cars, and they included the hateful Miss Pentecost of Social Services, Anna Simms, the social worker, and two uniformed officers.
Angelo knew immediately they must be coming to take him away. He saw Mary Elizabeth open the door for the four and saw her seem to argue with them. Miss Pentecost showed the foster mother a sheaf of papers with a blue cover. Mary Elizabeth looked at them with obvious disgust, muttered something and opened the door to let the four enter.
Angelo felt he was going to cry, but he knew he had to think fast. He knew he couldn’t go home; they’d be waiting for him. And, if he didn’t come home, where would he go? And, if they ever found him, then they’d definitely put him in another foster home or maybe a group home. And, he thought further, maybe even juvenile detention.
He buried himself deeper into the bushes, well hidden by the heavy late summer foliage. He told himself: “I must not cry. I must be strong.”
But what was he to do? His only friend was Tanya; why couldn’t he go there? It was only a mile away, a walk of no more than 20 minutes, and Tanya should be home from school. He knew Tanya’s mother worked, and wouldn’t be home and he could stay an hour or so with Tanya until he figured out what to do.
It was the obvious choice, and Angelo emerged from the thicket of bush and headed toward Tanya’s house, almost running some of the time. He was fighting back tears, but they flowed any way, as he cried about his worries for his own future and over the pain he was causing his foster mother, Mary Elizabeth, a woman who had respected him for whom he was.
*****
“Angela,” said Tanya in surprise, using his girl’s name, as she opened the door. “What happened? You look awful, and you’ve been crying.”
“I don’t know what I’ll do,” Angelo said after he told Tanya about seeing the child welfare people at his foster mother’s home.
“Come just let me hug you,” Tanya said. She had already changed from her Catholic Girls’ Academy uniform into shorts and a tank top, and Angelo felt a feeling of security as he nestled into Tanya’s warm, comforting hold. Tanya was taller and huskier than he was, and they cuddled for several minutes, before talking about the options Angelo faced.
“They should just let you be a girl,” Tanya said. “And you know Heather and Michael want to help you and your foster mom fight this.”
“I know, but that’ll take time,” he said. “And I know I can’t stay here.”
Tanya got two cans of Diet Coke from the refrigerator, and sat down at the kitchen table with Angelo before she answered:
“You know, I’m going to call Michael. He’ll know what to do,” she said finally.
“Thank you, Tanya. Would you? I just can’t go back to child welfare. They’ll put me in with all boys, and I’ll be picked on.”
He started to cry again. He cursed his physical weakness, his inability to relate to boys or to even enjoy doing boy activities.
Michael was not to be found, as it developed, and after a half hour of talking, Angelo said finally: “Can you loan me some of your clothes? Let me dress up as a girl.”
“I can,” Tanya replied. “But what are you going to do?”
“I’ve got $20 in my pocket,” he said. “It’s enough to buy a bus ticket to Milwaukee. I know a girl there who might take me in.”
“Who is that? How do you know she will?”
Angelo explained that the girl had lived next door when his mother was alive; she was 18 then and had once babysat for Angelo when they were both younger. The girl, whose name was Debra Jean, had, in many ways, been Angelo’s best and only friend, before Tanya. Though she was five years older, she had tolerated his interest in girls’ clothes; after his repeated urging, she had allowed him to put on pretty frocks and helped him to make up his face and fix his always longish hair.
“There, you look just like a pretty little girl now,” she had told him, to his great glee.
“I just know she’ll help me. She’s working at the big insurance company there, and going to school in drama,” Angelo said.
Tanya wasn’t so sure this was the best idea, but she could think of no other options. “Why do you have to dress as a girl?” she asked.
“Oh I think I’ll be safer,” he said.
“Safer? As a girl? How to you figure that?”
“I look like such a sissy boy. I always get picked on. I can be myself as a girl.”
Tanya had to admit this was true. She found an old book bag. It was pink, with pigtailed girls pictured on the outside, and was specifically designed for teen girls. Into it, she put several changes of panties and bras, some girl socks, a camisole and blouse and several denim skirts. “I’ve grown out of these, but I think they’ll fit you fine.”
After some deliberation, Angelo decided to wear a pair of beige Capri pants, sandals and a white shirt over a pink camisole. On his head, he wore a light blue girl’s baseball cap, with his hair poking out of the back. Tanya painted his lips a light natural, glossy pink, and highlighted his eyes in teal blue. They painted his nails a natural pink, the theory being that if he dressed rather plain he’d be less noticeable.
“You’re still cute as ever,” Tanya said when they were done.
In truth, Tanya was always jealous of the daintiness and cuteness of Angelo. She always considered herself too tall and fleshy to be beautiful, but the fact was her bright eyes and cheerful disposition had marked her as a girl who would never lack for friends. As she remembered, the boys at the mall seemed to be looking at Angelo first, before noticing her.
“If mom wants to know about me, just tell her I ran off, but that I will be safe. Tell her not to worry.”
“Are you sure you should do this?”
“Yes, it’s the only way I can survive,” Angelo said, tears coming to his eyes. “I’ll call you and my mom once I get settled.”
Tanya hugged him again, and they both stifled an urge to cry, before Tanya said: “If you wanna make the five o’clock bus, you better hurry.”
*****
Angelo was able to gain a window seat on the bus when he entered. The ticket was $14.50, leaving him $5.50 to spend until he could find his friend, Debra Jean. He had her phone number in Milwaukee, and would call her from the bus station.
As the bus was about to leave, the driver reopened the door and let a late-arriving passenger on board. It was a stunning, tall well-dressed woman, perhaps in her 30s. The woman’s eyes scanned the bus, and even though there were one or two empty double seats, she still chose to sit in the empty seat next to Angelo.
“Mind if I join you, young lady?” she asked as she put her bag in the overhead, and took Angelo’s silence to be approval.
As the bus left the city and moved into the hilly, lush Wisconsin countryside, the woman said: “Hi, I’m Wendy. And who are you, my dear?”
“Angela,” he said softly, and he had to repeat it over the bus noise.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty young lady? How old are you?”
“Sixteen,” he said, adding a year to his age. For some reason, he felt being “15” may have marked him as too young for traveling alone on a bus.
“Really?” she said. “You hardly look over 13.”
Angelo tried to look offended, and answered most truthfully: “I guess I look young for my age.”
The woman continued to ask questions of Angelo, and to show great interest. Angelo was smart enough to realize that it would be unwise to tell a stranger too much, so he merely said he was going to Milwaukee to visit a friend. The more he looked at the woman, Angelo became wary. At first he had thought she was dressed as a classy woman, but soon he realized her outfit was actually rather garish and cheap-looking. She was loaded with costume jewelry, and her language, too, seemed rather crude.
Fortunately, the bus ride was only about an hour long. Wendy never really gave up trying to push Angelo for information, but he felt he had been discreet enough and hadn’t given away the fact that he was running away.
The fact was that Angelo was frightened. He had never been to a city as big as Milwaukee, and he really wasn’t confident that Debra Jean would be willing to put him up. Would she even answer her phone? Angelo had a street address for her, and he could always go to her apartment and wait for her to come home. All these thoughts were going through his head when the bus finally reached the seedy bus station on Michigan Street in Milwaukee.
“Here’s my card,” Wendy proffered as the bus pulled to a stop. “If you need any help, call me. I can find work for girls like you, if you need it.”
Angelo took the card, saying: “Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll need it.”
Wendy smiled, though Angelo felt it was not a sincere smile. “Darling. Don’t be too sure. I’ve helped many girls like you.”
Angelo knew suddenly that this woman must have figured out he was a runaway. Would she really help him out, particularly when she learned he was really a boy? Who was she? Does she work for some agency? Maybe she was a cop in disguise, or a social worker, he thought.
His instincts told him to stay clear of this woman.
*****
Angelo headed for the phone as soon as he got off the bus. He dialed Debra Jean’s number, and got no answer, even though he waited through 12 rings. She apparently had no answering machine, because the phone just kept ringing. Well, he’d call later.
Angelo found a bench in a fairly empty section of the waiting room, putting his school bag on the seat next to him. He noticed Wendy had met a sharply dressed middle-aged man, who looked to Angelo like he was one of those crime bosses you’d see on television shows. He noticed the two looking at him, talking and nodding in unison.
Soon, they were walking toward him, smiling. Both had that same sweet, but insincere smile he’d seen on Wendy earlier.
“So your friend’s not home?” Wendy asked.
“No, but she will be,” he said, turning way from them.
“Dear, I think you may not have a friend here,” the man said firmly. “You look like you’ve got nowhere to go.”
“I do,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
“We can help you,” Wendy said, more gently now.
Angelo persisted first in trying to ignore the two, and then responding with vehement denials to all their observations that Angelo was alone with no place to go.
“We better go,” the man said suddenly. “You’re on your own now, honey.”
In an instant, the two were gone, darting out the door to Michigan Street. Angelo then saw the reason for their quick departure: a young man and his female companion, both dressed in jeans and bright green tee shirts reading “Teen Help,” appeared on the scene. They headed directly toward Angelo.
“Were they bothering you, miss?” the young woman said.
She was a husky young woman, her brown hair tied in the back. She had a freckled face, and a friendly smile.
“A little,” Angelo responded. “They seemed to want to take me with them. I was scared of them.”
“You were wise to be scared,” said the young man, an African-American who introduced himself as Melvin. “Those two were up to no good.”
“Do you need any help, miss?” the young woman said. “I’m Karen, from Teen Help. We’re a youth help group.”
Angelo looked at the two. They looked innocent enough, but he felt, they’d probably call the police and soon he’d be back in the foster care system as a boy.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Are you sure, honey?” the girl said. “Where are you headed?”
“To visit a girl friend here,” he said. “Here’s her address. How would I get there?”
Angelo handed Melvin a piece of paper with Debra Jean’s address written. He looked at it, got a quizzical expression on is face and then shared it with Karen.
“This can’t be right,” Karen said. “This address puts her in middle of Lake Michigan.”
Angelo reddened. He explained the Debra Jean hadn’t answered the phone, either. Angelo finally admitted he had only about $5 left, and that he had no place to stay unless he could find Debra Jean.
In a few minutes the two Teen Help workers led Angelo into a small private room, with a small table and four hard backed chairs. The room was entitled: “Police Room.” It was a drab room, painted gray and without any pictures on the walls.
Angelo suddenly wanted to bolt away from these two workers, fearing they were actually police officers, or that they were connected in some way to authorities like Miss Pentecost who wanted him to be a boy. But, Melvin had him by the arm, and he couldn’t escape. They asked him to sit in one of the chairs, with Melvin sitting opposite and Karen right next to Angelo. She took his hand, as if to lend support.
“Now, young lady, tell us who you are,” Melvin said. He was a tall, trim boy, with a rich black complexion and closely trimmed hair. He had a gentle manner, but he also sounded firm, and with a no-nonsense demeanor.
Angelo said nothing. He had no idea what he should tell them. How could he tell them he was really a boy?
“Come on, we won’t bite,” Karen said gently. It was obvious these two street workers were used to dealing with runaway children whose only defense often is to clam up and say nothing.
“We’re not the police,” Karen continued. “Your secrets are good with us.”
“Yes, honey,” added Melvin. “We know many children runaway because of abuse at home, and we need to find out what your issues are.”
Angelo sat primly, as a proper young lady would, still refusing to say anything, but soon he began sobbing, tears running down his cheeks, with Karen reaching over to wipe them with a tissue.
“You look healthy enough,” Melvin said. “I don’t think you’ve been abused. Something’s wrong, though isn’t it?”
Soon, Angelo was crying out loud and found himself in the arms of Karen, who held him gently, patting his slender back and brushing his hair lightly. His body was shaking with his sobs.
He finally said his name was Angela and that he was 15 and was from a city about 40 miles away. They closely questioned him on his age, since they both felt he was a girl, not more than 13, given the frailness of his body, and the fact that he seemed to have not very well developed breasts.
When their interrogation of Angelo produced nothing, Melvin said, “We better take her to the shelter to see what to do about her.”
They led him to a white minivan outside the station, carrying the words, “Teen Help: Street Outreach Rescue Unit.” They led him into the van with Karen sitting with him in the back, and Melvin driving.
“Where are we going?” he asked through his tears.
“A safe place for you, dear. There, we’ll find out what’s bothering you.”
*****
They drove down a dark heavily treed street, stopping in the driveway of an old-fashioned mansion. Inside, he was led through a lounge area which at onetime must have been the living room of the mansion, he thought. Several teen girls were watching a re-run of “Hannah Montana” on television, and gave him only a glance. Two were African-American and one Southeast Asian, and at least one of them appeared pregnant.
They led him to a room that was lined with bookshelves, and Angelo figured it must have been the library of the old mansion. The dark walnut wood gave the room a dignified warm atmosphere. The book shelves were filled with papers and magazines and a few books. There was a clock that ticked interrupting the silence of the room.
“Sit here,” they directed him to a straight-backed, upholstered chair. There was a two-seat couch and another lounge chair in the room, with coffee, canned soda and cookies on a side table. Several teen magazines and National Geographics were sitting on another side table.
Melvin left the room, leaving Karen to sit on the couch. She spoke slowly, and softly: “Now that Melvin’s gone, is there anything you want to tell me? You know, girl to girl? It’s hard to talk about our problems, isn’t it, with a man around?”
“Yes,” he said, volunteering nothing further.
“You’re a very lovely girl,” Karen continued. “You have a boy friend.”
“No, my mom won’t let me go out yet with boys.”
“She’s wise. You look so young for your age.” Karen beckoned Angelo to join her on the couch, taking his hands in hers. He looked down at his tiny wrists, next to her huskier forearms, realizing how dainty he was.
“Do you love your mom?” she asked.
“Oh yes, I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
“Well she must be worried now. You were supposed to be home after school, right?”
“Yes.” He started crying again.
“You must tell me, honey. What’s wrong? Why did you run away?”
“They were going to take me away from my mother.” He finally blurted out, the words coming out in a desperate voice between tears.
“Who was?”
“Miss Pentecost and the agency.”
“What agency?”
“The child welfare people. They don’t understand. They want to take me from my mother.”
“Why would they want to do that?”
Angelo’s crying continued. He stopped to blow his nose into a tissue handed him by Karen. She had wrapped an arm about his shoulders and drew him tightly against her, and he found great comfort in her soft, large young body.
“My mother’s made me so happy. I don’t want to leave her.”
“Well they must feel your mother’s not treating you right if they want to remove you from your home and her,” Karen persisted. “Why would they do that?”
“Because they want me to be a boy,” he said, suddenly feeling he was wrong for hinting at his real gender.
“Oh?” Karen said, a questioning look crossing her brow. “Why in the world would they want you to become a boy?”
“Because I am a boy. I’m a boy but I really am a girl.” He began crying loudly, his sobs filling the room.
Karen held him as he cried onto her bosom, saying slowly, “Now, now. Let’s have a good cry and then you can tell me all about it.”
Within 15 minutes he had told Karen everything, his real male name, his foster mother’s name and the reasons he fled his home city. “I can’t live as a boy. I can’t. Don’t you see? How can I be a boy? I’m so much a girl. I am weak like a girl.”
*****
Karen got Angelo a can of cola, and told him to remain where he was. She was going to seek someone to help him, but first she asked for the foster mother’s phone number. “I’m going to call you foster mother,” she said. “As a child outreach worker, I’m obligated to see you return home safely, and I assure you we’ll stress with your County Child Welfare Agency how critical it is that they understand your concerns about rejecting your feelings of femininity.”
Angelo could hear a shriek of joy when Karen got Mary Elizabeth on the phone and explained that Angelo was in Milwaukee, safe in the hands of an agency that handled runaway teens. She explained, too, that Angelo had told her the full story of his feelings about being a girl and that she understood the concerns of the boy.
“If it’s OK with you, Mrs. Dayton,” she said. “We can keep Angelo here overnight; we have a spare room so he can have privacy. Normally we don’t keep boys here, but I think we can make an exception here.” She winked at Angelo with her last remark.
“And, we’re more used to dealing with gender confused children here in Milwaukee, and before we return Angelo to your County, I’m going to get the Child Welfare people here involved. They have a program for children who have alternate needs. I think they may be able to talk with your Miss Pentecost and anyone else there.”
Karen finally, handed the phone over to Angelo. “Your mother wants to hear your voice, dear. You scared her badly.”
“Oh mommy,” he said, holding back tears that came over the joy of hearing her voice. “I’m so sorry, but I saw that awful Miss Pentecost going into the house when I got home from school. I just knew they were going to cart me away.”
“They were, honey. I never want you to run away again,” Mary Elizabeth said. “But, in this case, I’m glad you did. She was all set to take you. She was mad as she could be, since she thought I had knew where you were. They even threatened to jail me.”
“Oh mommy, I’ve caused you so much trouble.”
“No honey, you’ve brought me joy. We’ll get through this. Heather’s boy friend, Michael, is going to intervene with the Gay Rights group to help you out, and Karen there says she thinks people in Milwaukee will help, too.”
“Oh, mom. Maybe I can still be your little girl,” Angelo said, almost ready to leap for joy.
“Let’s hope so, Angela,” she replied, using his girl’s name.
“Angela. You called me Angela, mom. I love you so much.”
“So many people love you, Angela. We all see you as our sweet girl.”
The phone call ended, and Karen took Angelo to a small sleeping space, where he’d had privacy for the night.
“You can freshen up here, and I’ll give you a nightie and robe so you can join the other girls in the lounge,” Karen said. “While you’re here, Angela, no one except me and the staff will know anything more about you, other than you’re a fifteen-year-old girl named Angela.”
“Oh Karen, you’re so good to me,” he said.
He joined the girls in the lounge and soon he was giggling with them over a foolish scene in “That 70’s Show,” just as if he belonged with them as one of the girls. He was Angela again, at least for one night anyway.
(To Be Continued)
Angelo, continuing his adventures into becoming a girl, faces frightening prospects and returns to his loving foster mother as high school years continue. The story ends in a surprise.
The Foster Mom’s New Daughter — Part Six
Synopsis: Orphaned at age 14, Angelo is a delicate boy, and after a miserable year living with his aunt and her family, he is placed in foster care with a woman who has always wanted a daughter. Angelo finds comfort in often living and dressing as Angela, a lovely 15 year old girl; he befriends a girl with whom they share girly ventures, with Angela’s obvious prettiness attracting the attention of boys. Yet, Child Welfare services is threatening to remove Angelo from his new foster mother, and put him in a place where he’d be forced to be raised as a boy, a prospect that horrifies him. He runs away into the big city and is saved from being enslaved to become a prostitute and finds temporary shelter in a home for abused girls. Soon, he is expected to return to his foster home and his school.
Chapter 11 — Adventure in the Big City
It wasn’t easy to get the County Child Welfare Department to change its ruling that Mary Elizabeth Dayton was not the proper foster parent for Angelo.
Angelo’s first morning at the home for troubled teen girls, many of them runaways, was a marvel to him. In the eyes of all of the girls (and most of the staff), he was a troubled 15-year-old girl whose name was Angela and who arrived the previous night after being picked up at the bus station.
“Did that Wendy woman come on to you?” one slender, almost anorexic African-American girl asked as they gathered, along with 14 other girls for a breakfast of oatmeal, toast, orange juice and bananas.
“Yes,” he answered, in a shy, almost reluctant voice. “I was afraid of her.”
“Good you were,” the girl said. “By the way, I’m Charlene. They tried to pick me up, too.”
“I’m Angela,” he said. “She sat next to me on the bus, too. I was scared.”
“Angela, I’m not sure your ready for the big city,” Charlene said. “Did you know why she was after you?”
“She said she had a place for me to stay, but I didn’t know what she meant. She was scary, and so was that guy with her.”
By now all the others were listening in on the conversation, and several had begun to laugh. Angelo knew they were laughing at him; did they suspect he was really a boy, he wondered?
“No, honey,” a large, chubby girl named Jo Marie interjected. “They wanted you to whore for them.”
“Oh?” Angelo said, suddenly realizing how naíve he was about the ways of the big city.
“You should have gone with them,” Charlene said. “You’re just what they want. So darn pretty and cute. And white, too.”
“I bet she’s a virgin, too,” Jo Marie chided.
Angelo was embarrassed, and obviously showed it. He quickly realized the girls here had much more experience with life on the streets than he did. He looked down at his food, saying nothing. Suddenly, he felt a fear that he was in a situation in which he was incapable of protecting himself.
Maxine was a tall, Amazon-like girl; she had been sitting opposite Angelo, saying nothing but looking at him steadily through breakfast. Angelo looked at her several times, and Maxine quickly averted her gaze each time. Angelo was not quite sure what was behind Maxine’s intense interest in him.
“Oh yes,” Maxine finally said, in a deep raspy voice. “Those white boys would pay a fortune to enjoy your white virgin cunt. You’re too cute for words.”
Angelo forced a smile, looking at Maxine, hoping she’d stop.
“Cat got your tongue cutie,” Maxine continued. “Maybe later, I show you how it’s done.”
Charlene suddenly interjected: “Shut your back fat black mouth. Leave Angela alone. Can’t you see she’s frightened?”
Suddenly Angelo began to cry. He felt so alone in this foreign place. These girls frightened him; he had never been to the city, and here they were talking about sex and things about which he knew little. He wished now to be in the warm arms of his foster mother, Mary Elizabeth.
Charlene placed a light hand on his arm, patting his arm sympathetically, helping him to stanch his flowing tears.
At that moment, Karen, the community worker, entered, yelling: “All right, girls. Finish your meal in the next five minutes and we’ll have a little meeting in the lounge. And be kind to Angela, please.”
Later, as they walked out of the dining room, Maxine appeared alongside of Angelo, her strong hands grabbing his slender bicep, and whispering: “Sweetie, you need some education. I’ll get to you later.”
“What you want? Leave me alone?” Angelo said.
“Oh the little baby girl wants to be let alone,” Maxine said sarcastically, suddenly leaving Angelo and charging out onto the back porch, probably to smoke. (Smoking was prohibited, but for the most part the staff looked the other way, realizing the vice at that time of the girls’ lives was the least of the girls’ problems.)
Karen called Angelo into a side office after the meeting, telling him that things weren’t going well. The Milwaukee County Child Welfare agency had talked with Angelo’s home county child welfare department, and Karen said the agency failed to change its thinking about Angelo’s placement.
“They’re convinced you’re being corrupted by Mrs. Dayton,” Karen said.
“But she’s not corrupting me. She’s made me so happy,” Angelo said.
“I know, but to them you should be raised in a masculine setting. They feel they have a responsibility to see that you’re a young man ready to enter the world on your own at age 18,” Karen explained.
“Oh, they’re awful. Can’t they see I’m a girl? Not totally, but a girl anyway.”
“I know Angela,” Karen said, still using his feminine name.
Karen told Angelo that the law required her to turn him back to his own County foster care program. “I have no choice. If I don’t, I will lose my job,” she said.
“Oh Karen, you’ve been so nice. I don’t want you to lose your job.”
“I know you don’t, honey. But I can delay getting you back for a day or so. In the meantime, maybe something can be worked out.”
Karen then said that she had talked that morning with Mary Elizabeth. She said his foster mother told her that Michael and Heather had been working on his behalf, too, but had little success with the Gay Rights Group. The Gay Rights group, she explained, rarely assisted transgendered persons, claiming that gays and lesbians had enough issues to deal with.
Michael, however, went to the ACLU, she said, and they were interested in his case.
“What can they do?” Angelo asked.
“For one thing, the might seek a court injunction prohibiting child welfare from removing you from Mrs. Dayton’s home.”
“Really. They can do that? Permanently?”
“No honey, just until the case is considered in court.”
Angelo smiled, to learn that his foster mother and his best friend’s sister and her boy friend cared enough about him to try to help him remain with Mary Elizabeth, and to permit him to continue to explore his femininity.
“It’s a civil rights issue,” Karen explained. “The foster care system has no right to interfere with your need to live as a boy or a girl or as some combination of that. A least, that’s the point the ACLU is trying to make.”
Karen explained further that the case would be difficult to win, since transgendered persons currently are not protected under any anti-discrimination laws; the state, however, did have a law protecting persons against discrimination for sexual orientation, that is, being gay or lesbian.
“Oh? “ Angelo pondered. “So nothing’s certain, yet?”
“Not really, honey. But just stay as sweet as you are. You have lots of people on your side.”
Karen explained that Mary Elizabeth would drive to pick him up the next day; in the meantime, Michael and Heather will be seeing if the ACLU can get the injunction. Angelo smiled at the prospect of seeing his “mommy” again.
“You should be able to stay with Mrs. Dayton,” Karen said. “She’s treated you well, but you will likely have to continue to try to live outwardly as a boy.”
“That’s OK. I was doing that, Miss Karen.”
“Now, go out and mingle with the other girls, honey. We’ll be having some classes on feminine hygiene starting soon. It won’t hurt you to learn about that; maybe you’ll have second thoughts about becoming a woman.”
Karen smiled when she said that, giving Angelo a hug as they parted.
*****
Angelo returned to his room after the morning training session; the girls had been shown a video on proper cleansing of their female parts, as well as renewed education on the dangers of having sex, especially with multiple partners.
Maxine, the tall muscular girl, and Jo Marie, the chubby girl, spent much of the session giggling and making fun of the instruction. It was apparent the two girls had become close; they were sitting next to each other, their thighs touching. Angelo noticed one of them would touch the other, on a thigh or an arm.
Maxine and Jo Marie, along with several other girls, acted as if the session was a bore. Angelo instead found it interesting, and intriguing.
His room in the shelter had once been a huge walk-in closet at the mansion, and a twin-sized bed was tucked in, under a high shelf. A small, square window let in light, and was open to let in the breeze.
It contained only a bed and a dresser and one plastic, patio chair. Despite its tiny, cramped space, Angelo liked the room, perhaps because it was painted in light, airy colors, mainly pinks, light blues and yellow. There was one large picture, showing little girls in bright costumes dancing around the maypole, each one holding onto a brightly colored ribbon.
He lay curled upon the bed, caressing one of his arms with his other hand, enjoying its slender, soft smoothness. He loved how tender and girlish his body was, further confirming his need to be female.
Despite the warmth of the place, Angelo had a gnawing fear; most of the girls in the shelter scared him. Most of them appeared to be street-smart, tough and hardened. He, on the other hand, despite his difficult life thus far, had been somewhat sheltered. He knew nothing about sex and love; he had been terribly shy throughout all of his schooling. He knew his physical weakness would make him easy prey for others looking for mischief. Indeed, he realized that probably most of the girls in shelter could beat him up easily.
Maxine and Jo Marie scared him. They were both big girls and appeared to have a nasty streak. Sitting in the lounge with the other girls he realized how terribly ill equipped he was to be in the city this big, without friends or family. And, yet, he could hardly return home and face being removed into another household or group home where he’d faced bullying and teasing for his feminine ways.
He was day-dreaming about how prettily his foster mother had dressed him for their outing to the play and dinner when the door to his room opened suddenly, causing him to bolt upright in the bed to see Maxine and Jo Marie burst into the room.
“There’s the sweet little Angela,” Maxine said sarcastically. “She’s too pretty and tender to sleep in the dorm.”
“Yeh, she’s probably fucking Melvin,” said Jo Marie who grossly fat body jiggled as she laughed. She was dressed in boy’s clothes, and her hair was cropped. Her pale white face was pimpled as she jumped on the bed, pinning Angelo down before he could respond.
“Yeh,” added Maxine, towering over the scene, her black skin rippling with muscles, making her look masculine, except for the rather small breasts that poked out of her black tank top. “She thinks she’s a high class ‘ho.’”
Angelo was now pinned under the huge pillow of fat that constituted Jo Marie. The girl was sweating profusely and a stale smell almost made Angelo want to gag. Angelo tried to topple the big girl off of him, but he was too weak to move her; suddenly, he felt Jo Marie’s large lips upon his, and he tried to cry out, but she kissed him hard, blocking any chance for him to scream for help.
Now, Maxine was on the bed, too, and the bed moved precariously as if to collapse under the weight of the three of them.
“Let’s see if you still got your cherry,” Maxine said. “Get off her, Jo Marie. You’ll suffocate her, piggy girl.”
Jo Marie climbed off the bed, but she continued to hold Angelo down, placing one hand on his narrow chest and another on his mouth to prevent him from screaming. Maxine, in the meantime, had removed his Capri pants and was moving to take off his panties.
“The girl has no breasts at all,” Jo Marie said. “Won’t make much of a ‘ho.’”
Angelo tried hard to keep his legs together to hide his penis, but Maxine’s strength made that impossible, as she grabbed his panties at the top and began to pull them off. Angelo was powerless against the both of them and he began crying, scared about what was to happen to him.
The panties came down, and Maxine stopped after she had pulled them down to his knees. Angelo knew she had seen his penis, which was in its soft state, and must have looked tiny to her.
“Lookie here,” Maxine said, slowly.
She grabbed the penis and pinched it hard, holding it between a thumb and one finger.
“We’ve got ourselves a sissy here,” Maxine announced. “Ever see anything so tiny?”
Jo Marie lifted her hand from his chest, but kept a firm hand on his mouth, which was still enough to prevent him from rising or crying out.
“Oh my god,” Jo Marie said. “She’s a boy.”
“Well, not much of a boy, I’d say,” Maxine said.
“What should we do with him?” Jo Marie asked.
“Let’s suck that thing, see if it’ll work, but he’s such a sissy, I doubt it.”
“I know,” Jo Marie said, “Let’s use that dildo we brought for her pussy and use it on her ass.”
“But not before we suck this girl,” Maxine said.
“Me first,” said Jo Marie, moving her fat hand off his mouth and grabbing his penis, which had stayed limp and almost recessed into his crotch. Soon, both girls were fighting, seeking to be the first to suck Angelo’s withered penis.
He screamed as loud as he could before Jo Marie returned her hand to cover his mouth. Suddenly her hand was released and the two girls got up to leave the room, only to be halted by a loud male voice:
“What are you doing in here?” It was Melvin, and he had stopped them from leaving.
Angelo was now sobbing noticeably, tears streaming down his face. He lay on his bed, his panties down about his knees, his penis all pink and reddened from being handled roughly.
Melvin could see clearly what had happened, and soon several other staffers joined them, but not before Melvin had Angelo pull up his panties and put on the Capri pants. Maxine and Jo Marie were paraded off, and Karen entered the room, closing the door and sitting on the bed next to Angelo.
“I bet you had quite a scare, didn’t you honey?” Karen ran her hand gently on Angelo’s shoulders as he began sobbing again.
She stayed there for several minutes, and then said, Angelo would be safe, since they were going to keep an eye on the room to assure no one bothered him again.
“I’m going to have to make some phone calls,” she said. “I’ll be back soon.”
“Karen, oh Karen. What’s going to happen to me?”
“Darling, we don’t know now. Everyone here will know you’re a boy and we can’t keep you here any longer.”
She left the room, and Angelo’s sobbing continued, as his pillow grew wet. His chest hurt from the pressure exerted by the fat Jo Marie, and his penis was sore. Angelo began to curse his pathetic state of being, whether it was his terrible physical weakness as a boy or his failure to be a genetic girl.
“I am a girl. I am a girl.” He said those words aloud, haltingly through his tears.
*****
Mary Elizabeth arrived at the shelter that afternoon, having been called by Karen and told that they could no longer keep him there, due to his being outed as a boy. It was less than a two-hour drive from the foster mother’s city to Milwaukee, and she got there about 4 p.m.
“Technically, Mrs. Dayton still has custody of you,” Karen explained to Angelo. “Therefore, we will be safe in releasing you to her. What your County Welfare Department does now is up to them.”
“Oh, Miss Karen, you’ve been so wonderful to me,” he said. “I’m sorry I’ve caused you trouble.”
“You haven’t dear. Girls like Maxine and Marie Jo cause us trouble, but they’re being sent to juvenile detention for their attack on you. We can’t keep them here.”
Angelo was silent for a moment. He really hated to see anyone put in detention, but realized they had attacked him and exposed his secret.
“I guess that’s OK,” he said finally. “But I’m sorry they have to be in detention.”
“I know, Angela, but they did attack you, and we can’t have that going on here. This is a safe place for all girls.”
When Mary Elizabeth arrived to pick up Angelo, he was still dressed in girl outfits, the Capri pants and pink, girl’s tee shirt. He raced to her, receiving her hugs eagerly. It was a quiet ride home, and Mary Elizabeth broke an uneasy silence in the car, by saying:
“I’m so mad at you. You scared all of us half to death. We had no idea where you went.”
“I know mommy, and I’m sorry, but I was so afraid they were going to take me away and make me live as a boy,” Angelo said.
“Oh honey, we love you and we’re doing everything we can to assure that you can stay with me.”
Mary Elizabeth outlined the work that Heather and her boy friend were doing with the ACLU, and said that for the time being, Miss Pentecost had relented, saying that they will take another look at the situation.
“I think they’re afraid of going to court on this,” she told him. “But, to the outside world, you’ll have to remain as a boy and wear only boy clothes.”
“Ok Mommy.” He smiled, knowing that he could stay with Mary Elizabeth, and find some moments to be his girly self.
Chapter 12 — School Days
By Thursday, Angelo was back in school, having missed only two days of the new semester. With a note from Anna Simms, his foster care worker, that the system had to some “paper problems to sort out” as his excuse, his teachers accepted him back without question, giving him some back work to do.
Angelo was pleased that morning that he was hardly noticed by the other kids in his classes. He was content to sit quietly in each class, observing the others and saying nothing. As he walked the hallways, he realized that, even though he was dressed totally in boy’s outfits (as a result of his foster mother’s insistence to keep Child Welfare happy), he still must have looked like a girl, with his long hair flowing and his light airy girlish mannerisms. Fortunately, there were other effeminate boys in this arts specialty school, and with the exception of the few bullies in the hallways, Angelo felt relatively safe and content. And, he told himself, I feel like I’m a girl, as he literally pranced down the hallway toward the ballet class.
“Oh, here’s Angelo,” screamed Cecilie, as he entered the classroom. “You’re back. What happened?”
Before he could answer, Eric, his effeminate mannerisms on full display, danced over to place his arms about Angelo, hugging him, and saying quietly into his ear: “I’m sooooooooo glad to see you, girl.”
“Oh, Eric, get your hands off him,” demanded Cecilie.
Eric dropped his hands, put his hands to his mouth and gave a demur pout, moving aside.
“Angelo, you’re blushing,” Cecile said. “You’re so cute when you blush.”
Angelo realized the Eric must have figured him out, that he was just as much a girl as Eric was; and that he really felt like a girl. Eric, he realized, was wearing the same type sweat outfits for class as the girls were; in his case, he wore gray sweat shorts, a pink girl’s tee shirt and white ballet shoes. With his dreadlocks and slender frame, he truly matched the girls in the class.
Angelo merely told the group there had been some problems with the foster care system and that it was all ironed out now.
Miss Satterstein welcomed Angelo and talked to him briefly before class began, telling him to change into his ballet sweats outfit; she said that he hadn’t missed much in dance forms in the two days he was gone since she had mainly given the class background in the history of ballet, showed some videos and some basic steps.
“Just so you know, Angelo,” she told him, “We’ll be doing mainly dance steps for girls, since you and Eric are the only boys in the class. It’s important you learn those steps, and then I’ll give the two of you some lessons meant for boys as time permits. Is that OK?”
Angelo merely answered, “I guess so,” hiding his growing enthusiasm to be doing female rehearsal steps and, deep in his dreams, to become a ballerina.
The class that day was spent almost totally on basic positions and some easy steps. Yet, Angelo found his legs growing pained as he tried to hold positions, or make short dance steps. He realized his legs were not strong; indeed, most of the girls seemed to be handling the pain better than he was. At the end of the session, he was truly panting.
Eric and he changed in a boy’s restroom, located off the classroom. Again, Eric addressed him as “girl,” as they sponged themselves off before putting on their street clothes.
Angelo didn’t protest his use of the word “girl,” merely smiling coyly, prompting Eric to say, “You should call me Erin. Now, what’s your girl’s name? I bet you’re Angela.”
Eric giggled as Angelo blushed fully now. “See, I knew it. I can see you’re just like me.”
Angelo nodded as if to agree, but then said: “No, I’m a boy. I have to be a boy,” he protested.
“You can’t fool me,” Eric persisted. “I think we’ll both enjoy being one of the girls in this class. And, you, Angela, my dear, are as pretty as any of the girls in this class.”
Angelo was about to protest, but then the bell rang, signaling that they had to leave for their next class.
It was lunch time then and Cecilie steered Angelo to the same lunch table at which they had eaten on Angelo’s first day in school. Cecilie was so busy gushing over the fact that Angelo had returned to the school that he hadn’t paid any attention to who was at the table as they approached with their trays.
“Oh Angelo, you’re back,” yelled Maxine. “Come sit with us.”
“Oh hi,” Angelo muttered, before he realized there was another boy at the table. And, in a glance, he was in shock. He had seen this boy before.
“You know everyone here,” Marie, a tall, striking blonde girl said, “Except for my friend, Jason.”
“Nice to meet you,” Angelo said, putting his tray down, quickly averting the other boy’s glance. He finally realized who the boy was: it was Jason the boy who had mooned over him at the mall during the summer when he was masquerading as Angela.
It was apparent, though, that Jason was too interested in his friend, Marie, to notice Angelo, as conversation at the table picked up. Soon Angelo was giggling with the girls as he did the first day of school, while Jason and Marie carried on their own tight conversation, speaking so low that the others couldn’t hear.
As the lunch hour was about to end, the group got up to return their trays to the wash line. Angelo found Jason at his side.
“I think I know you from somewhere,” he said to Angelo.
“Oh? I’m new here.” Angelo responded.
“I know I’ve seen you before.”
“I doubt it,” Angelo said, placing his tray on the conveyor belt and hurrying away.
Jason followed close behind. “You look so familiar. Oh well, nice meeting you Angelo.”
Angelo breathed a sigh of relief as the two headed down different hallways to their next class sessions. Jason must have recognized him, but so far, he knew him only as a girl; dressed in boy clothes, Jason couldn’t figure out where he’d seen Angelo before.
Angelo knew he’d have to steer clear of Jason; but how could he, with Jason being so friendly to Marie, and with whom he’d likely be eating lunch in weeks to come. Yet, Angelo later in the day found himself day-dreaming in class, realizing he was just a bit jealous that Marie had attracted Jason’s eye.
It was only to be expected, Angelo realized, since Marie was among the most beautiful girls in the school. Still, Angelo thought: I think I could be prettier. And he wondered: Wasn’t he thinking like a girl now?
*****
Eric had a novel idea, and he told Angelo about it the next day as they changed into their ballet class outfits in preparation for class. The two boys had both chosen sweat pants and tee shirts that matched what the girls were wearing; also, having relatively small feet, they were able to wear ballet shoes that were usually worn by the girls.
As Eric tied the band about Angelo’s forehead, tying his long hair as a girl would, the boy in dreadlocks said: “Look into the mirror. Don’t we look like two girls, Angelo?”
Eric was right, of course. The mirror reflected a pretty brown-haired girl whose hair was being tied up by a lovely, dreadlocked African-American girl. Angelo didn’t reply right away, and he began to blush.
“Yes, we do,” he said finally.
“Do you like the idea of being a girl?” Eric asked.
“I guess.” Angelo was uncertain how to reply. Of course, he wanted to be a girl, but since he feared being taken from his foster home if he showed outward girlish tendencies, he remained noncommittal.
“I wish I was a girl,” Eric admitted. “I hate trying to be a boy.”
“You do?”
“Oh yes. I’ve been bullied all my life, beat up because I’m not strong.”
“Me too.”
“And they don’t have any other boys in the class, right?”
“I know, and they may want us to do boy parts, and I’m not strong either.”
Eric smiled, and his hands caressed Angelo’s slender, smooth arms. “Let’s be girls in this class, OK?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s tell Miss Satterstein that we’ll dance as girls. We’ll just be part of the corps.”
“You mean, wearing tutus and girl outfits?”
“Yes,” Eric said. “What do you say? Let’s be girls here.”
The idea excited Angelo, but he only responded: “I don’t know. My mom might not like it.”
“No, just for class here we’ll be girls. You can be Angela and I’ll be Erin.”
Angelo considered the idea, finally saying only: “Let’s.”
And the two hugged each other and giggled. In the tiny space, they then held hands and did a dainty dance, giggling again and acting very girlish.
Miss Satterstein was not too keen on the idea when Eric told her before the class started, but agreed to it for the time-being, since she was not ready to involve any dance curriculum for boys anyway.
She decided not to tell the others in the class, and just let the two boys dance the female parts, allowing the others to get used to them dancing as one of them. Apparently it worked, for within a week, the other girls accepted them, and Miss Satterstein now began addressing the class as “girls,” never saying, “boys and girls.”
Eric had gone so far as to bring makeup in for the class sessions, and he and Angelo often put on lipstick and eyebrow pencil and rouge.
“Angelo, I’m jealous,” Carole said to him one day. “You’re the prettiest girl in this class, you know.”
“Oh no,” he protested. “You are the prettiest.” And in Angelo’s mind, Carole was very pretty, in spite of having a round, freckled face. She looked naturally feminine, just as he wished he looked.
“I’m too fat,” she responded, even though she was “fat” only in the view of what ballet dancers consider “fat.”
Angelo had begun to realize that his face was particularly pretty, in a feminine sense. He had full lips, a narrow chin and high cheekbones; at the advice of Eric, he had trimmed his eyebrows, and brushed his hair into bangs that framed his face. He had a naturally slender, almost swan-like, neck, exposing his white skin; his whole demeanor exuded a fleshy softness.
“Oh yes, Angelo,” came the voice of Tamara, another of the girls in the class. “You are so pretty, as pretty as any girl around.”
Eric added, pointing at Angelo: “I think she has the loveliest body, too. Let’s call her ‘Angela’ from now on. And, you can call me ‘Erin.’”
“What?” protested Carole as the other girls in the class gathered around. “You wanna be called girl names?”
“Yes,” Eric responded, exaggerating his voice into a high register. “But only in this class.”
“Since we’re dancing as girls, we should have girl names,” Angelo added.
All of the girls, except one, cheered. The one, Crystal, a tall, never-smiling girl with an awkward posture, turned away: “That’s gross.”
Yet, from that moment on, they were called “Angela” and “Erin” by all of the girls, except Crystal, who tried to ignore the two of them. Miss Satterstein, however, always used their boy names. Even though the girls were careful not to use their girls’ names outside of the classroom, Angelo and Eric were pleased their classmates thought of them as girls.
Eric became Angelo’s best friend as the weeks went on, as they shared their own life experiences and how being female was “freeing” them from unhappy childhoods. They also loved looking at women’s fashions, and even went shopping once together, dressed as boys (though definitely effeminate boys).
*****
At the lunch table each noon, Angelo couldn’t take his eyes off Jason, who was almost always there, with the four girls, including Marie. Angelo watched as Jason looked at Marie with obvious admiration, holding the tall blonde girl’s hands under the lunch table. Angelo assumed their thighs were touching, and he was burning with jealousy. He loved to imagine that he was Jason’s girl friend, accepting his gentle, shy touches.
Jason seemed to be so enamored with Marie that he only once again said that Angelo reminded him of someone. It was at the end of the second week of school when Angelo and Jason got to the table before the others did.
“You’re here early,” Jason said. “Did your class get out early?”
“Yes, just a bit. Miss Satterstein had a meeting she had to go to, so she let us out.”
“Oh, must have been the same meeting for Mr. White. He let us out early,” Jason said as they both set their trays down.
Jason then looked directly as Angelo: “I remember now why I thought you looked familiar.”
“Why?”
“You reminded me of a girl a met a couple of times at the mall this summer. She was so cute, and you looked just like her,” he said.
“Oh,” Angelo said, brushing his hair back with a flick of his wrist. “But I’m not a girl.”
He blushed as he said that, and hoped Jason didn’t notice his flushed face.
“I know. And you don’t have a twin sister?”
“No. No sisters.”
“You have the same ocean blue eyes that girl had, and almost the same hair. Isn’t that strange?”
“Yes. It is. I can’t explain it.”
“Oh here’s Marie,” Jason said, rising to meet his girl friend, and Angelo sighed in relief, knowing that Jason would no longer think about him. But, he wondered, how soon would Jason discover that Angelo was the lovely girl who attracted his attention in the mall the previous summer.
Angelo cried in bed that night, wanting so badly to be the girl in the arms of such a sweet boy as Jason, and knowing how impossible that would be. As was his custom at night, he wore a silky baby doll nightie, even though Mary Elizabeth had forbade him to wear girl’s clothes. Typically, he put on his Green Bay Packer pajamas as he went to bed, changing into the nightie later on after he was sure Mary Elizabeth was sound asleep. Then, his dreams became the dreams of a pretty teenaged girl.
*****
His foster mother, Mary Elizabeth, tried diligently to treat Angelo as she did her own sons years before, but Angelo’s behavior in the house seemed to make that impossible. More and more he walked like a girl, sat like a girl and even talked like a girl, using feminine expressions and inflections.
The boy seemed to take great attention to Mary Elizabeth’s own dress habits, often suggesting that she wear a certain dress or skirt, or brush her hair in a particular way. In virtually every case, his suggestions were good ones, and she was noticing her own dressing style was becoming sharper and truly elegant.
He pored over the fashion magazines and catalogs that Mary Elizabeth got in the mail, pointing out dresses for her. Mary Elizabeth believed that his real reason for looking at the dresses and skirts was to imagine which ones he’d most like to wear.
He begged to paint her fingernails and even toenails and she loved to watch him do it. He had an intense expression as he daintily, but firmly, held her hands and feet as he applied the polish. He had the prettiest hands, slender and smooth with long fingers, and he was always careful to suggest using only subtle colors on her nails.
“Mommy,” he would say. “Elegant and lovely women like you need not use garish colors.”
Angelo was not into overstating his femininity, she realized. He seemed to adopt feminine characteristics naturally, without any of the “campiness” or flamboyancy that featured many transsexuals and crossdressers. Michael (Heather’s friend) had directed Mary Elizabeth to various web sites on transgendered issues, and she now understood that many apparent males were actually “feminine” in their brains and physical being. “It has little to do with a child’s environment,” Michael told her. “Many boys are born with feminine tendencies, largely due to certain strengths in the brain.”
Mary Elizabeth considered all of this carefully, soon coming to the conclusion that Angelo may indeed be a “girl” born into a boy’s anatomy.
“Oh my darling Angela,” she said one night after supper while he was assisting her in cleaning up the dishes. It was the first time she had used his female name since he returned from the shelter in Milwaukee.
“Yes, mommy?” He smiled as she called him “Angela,” brushing his hair lightly.
“You really are such a lovely little girl. I can’t see how we’ll ever make a boy out of you.”
“Mommy, I love you,” he said moving close and putting his arms about her.
“Darling, I need to tell you something,” she said, motioning him to sit down with her at the kitchen table.
She took both his hands in hers, looking at his tiny wrists and smooth white forearms. He was so tender and dainty, she felt, that there was no chance to have him enter the adult world as a male. Not only was his physical stature so weak, but his mind responded, she felt, as a girl’s mind would. He had such gentle tendencies.
“What is it, mommy?”
“I hope the Child Welfare people finally come to their senses. It seems someone over there should realize that there often are boys like you who might feel they are girls.”
Angelo smiled.
Mary Elizabeth explained that she was going to ask for a psychiatrist to examine Angelo to determine how real his feminine tendencies are. She said that the psychiatrist might be able to show to Child Welfare that Angelo truly needs eventually to be female.
“If we can show you have true problems with your gender,” she continued, “Then they may let you explore those feelings. And, best of all, you could probably stay with me.”
“Really, mommy. Would I have to tell this psychiatrist everything?”
“Yes, honey. That’s the point of it. Don’t you want to do that? You don’t have to, you know.”
“Oh I’d be scared. What would I say?”
“Just tell the psychiatrist your feelings,” she said. “Oh darling, I hope you will agree to this. It’s our best hope. And this was all because Heather and Michael went to bat for you with the ACLU.”
“Mommy, I will. I will.”
Angelo kissed Mary Elizabeth and then said: “Can I wear my nightie tonite?”
“Angela, my dear,” the foster mother said, again using his female name. “Of course you can. I know you’ve been sneaking into your nighties after I go to sleep. You little scamp, you.”
Mary Elizabeth felt her love, a nurturing love, continue to grow toward Angela; yes, that was how she viewed the tender fairy-like child before her: as a very feminine young lady.
*****
During October, Angelo continued to attend school as a boy, but his mannerisms were becoming noticeably more feminine. He was called in to the school psychologist for a special meeting at the request of a science teacher who had wondered whether Angelo was facing what he termed was “special feelings.” Angelo had been teased openly in his class for his effeminate behavior.
“Eeeeeuuuuuuuuu, I can’t be a lab partner with this creature. It’s not a girl. It’s not a boy. What is it?” The words came from a Sonja, a tall athletic blonde, who was assigned to share a lab desk with Angelo.
“I don’t wanna either,” echoed another girl.
Except for Eric and the girls in the ballet class, Angelo still hadn’t made friends with others in the school. To be sure, he felt he was viewed with disdain by most of the students due to his questionable gender.
This day, hearing the harsh words from the two girls, Angelo cried openly before the entire class. This brought some guffaws and derisive laughter, before it was silenced by the strong words of Mr. Kennedy, the science teacher, a muscular young man who doubled as an assistant football coach.
He told Sonja that she had to share the desk with Angelo, or else face disciplinary action. “We treat all students here alike,” he told the class.
Sonja moved over next to Angelo, assuming her assigned seat, whispering so only he could hear: “You’re weird. Such a sissy.”
Angelo merely nodded, his face still wet with tears. Mr. Kennedy handed him a tissue to dry his tears and went about the day’s lessons. After class, he asked Angelo if he’d like to see the school psychologist, and Angelo had nodded “yes.”
The meeting with the school psychologist was brief when he realized Angelo was in the foster care system. He asked Angelo what was bothering him, and Angelo said other students were harassing him because he was different. “I don’t feel like I’m sick in the head or anything,” he told the psychologist.
The psychologist returned Angelo to his next class and said he would call the Child Welfare agency to alert them to the situation in school. That action bothered Angelo because he felt his continued feminine behavior may cause him to be removed from Mary Elizabeth.
That afternoon, after getting off the school bus, he saw Anna Simm’s car in front of his foster mother’s house, causing him to again consider running away. He felt Anna Simms had been sent by the Child Welfare agency to remove him from Mary Elizabeth’s care and try to have him raised as a boy.
Angelo realized running away again would put him in grave danger, and he was ill-prepared to defend himself. He went home to find Miss Simms in the kitchen talking with his foster mother as well as the hated Miss Pentecost.
“Angelo, come here,” Mary Elizabeth said.
Angelo put down his book bag, and slowly entered the room, afraid of what was in his future. Were they going to send him to a place where he’d have to be a boy, and play sports and become strong and muscular? He’d never survive, he thought.
Angelo was directed to the only vacant chair in the room. The three were having tea, and Mary Elizabeth asked if he wanted some as well. He nodded that he would, keeping his eyes looking downward and his shoulders narrowed, feeling like his body was shriveling up into insignificance before the three women.
“Angelo, look at me,” Miss Pentecost said firmly, though more gently than he had heard her speak before. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, looking up at the tall social work supervisor. Her eyes had seemed to take on a more kindly tone.
“We’ve reviewed your situation,” she began. “I can see you’re a very special young person, and we’re ready to look at that.”
“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
“We know you have feelings of being female, and our research tells us that happens to some boys, but not many. We will be asking you to see some specialists in the next month to discuss your feelings with them. Would you be willing to do that?”
“I guess so,” Angelo said.
“You would have to promise to be open with the specialists, and tell them everything you feel and all of your thoughts. Would you do that?”
Angelo looked at Mary Elizabeth before answering. His foster mother smiled and nodded “yes.”
“I would,” he said.
Anna Simms smiled at Angelo, adding: “We’ve looked into transgender situations since your case came up, and we realize that you may be special. It appears that Mrs. Dayton here has not done anything to create your natural tendency to like feminine things and to act feminine. It seems this is a part of your own person.”
“I guess so,” he responded. “She tried to keep me being a boy, but I kept finding the dolls and dresses and stuff. I feel so much like a girl.”
“Well,” Miss Pentecost said, “We’ll have to see how deep your feelings are. That’s why you must see our specialists. In the interim, we’ll let your remain with Mrs. Dayton, but you’ll have to still go to school as a boy and wear boy clothes.”
Angelo smiled and grabbed Mary Elizabeth’s hand, noticing how cheerfully his foster mother was dressed. She had on a dark blue pencil skirt and a light blue satin blouse with gold earrings and a necklace.
Miss Pentecost said: “And we won’t know how you dress at home.” She followed that with a knowing wink.
When the foster care workers left, Angelo said: “She’s not so bad. Miss Pentecost.”
Mary Elizabeth laughed: “Even she can see the girl in you.”
In the next three weeks, Angelo had two meetings each with a psychologist assigned to the child welfare system and with a private psychiatrist who seemed to specialize in serving teenagers. He was able to be honest with both of them, telling how he felt so inadequate as a boy, while feeling so natural when he dressed as a girl.
The answer came the week before Halloween: Angelo could continue to live with Mary Elizabeth. Publicly, he must continue to present himself as a boy, but he can dress as a girl at home and with friends.
The specialists concluded in their report to the Child Welfare agency: “In all respects, we feel Angelo Davies has true feelings that he is female. He understands his anatomy is that of a male, but he has shown no interest in pursuing normally male activities. His physique is small-boned, which is compatible with a feminine body, and if he wishes to consider transitioning to becoming female in the fullest sense, we feel he would find success in such a transition.
“However, because he is only 15, we cannot recommend any overt action being taken at this time that would make his journey to womanhood irreversible. We recommend that he be permitted to practice cosmetic actions to achieve femininity, as far as his desires go. But, he should remain in all other respects a male child until he reaches 18, at which time he may consider taking actions that would make him a woman.”
The Agency accepted the recommendations, and Miss Pentecost told Mary Elizabeth that Angelo might dress as often as he wanted to at home, and with friends like Tanya and Eric.
Chapter 13 — The Halloween Party
“Then you can come to our Halloween costume party,” Tanya said when Angelo told her the results of his psychological evaluation in a phone call.
Tanya said she and girls from her school were holding a party at their school and that she could invite a friend.
“I’d like you to come, Angela,” she said, using his female name. “And come dressed like a girl.”
“That wouldn’t be a costume for me,” he replied, almost giggling at the prospect. “I feel natural as a girl.”
“I know, silly, but come as a woman character, like, oh . . . say . . . Marie Antoinette.”
“Oh yes. Marie Antoinette. I‘d like that, but where would I get a dress like that now?”
Tanya said: “I know. We have a suitable gown and wig in our theater department for Marie Antoinette. I’m the costume girl for the next play, and I could bring it home. I bet it would fit.”
“Oh yes, can you?”
“Angela. I will. You’d be a beautiful Marie Antoinette.”
They agreed Angelo would come to Tanya’s house after school on Thursday to try it on, and fit it for the Halloween Party on Saturday.
The dress Tanya brought home was a chemise gown that had been favored by Marie Antoinette and her court ladies in the years 1780-1790. It could be closed in front for an open gown, or it could be worn as a closed gown with closure in the back. Belted and sashed, the flow of the gown accentuated the hips, as it widened to the hoop at the bottom.
The crá¨me-colored material flowed to the floor, and it had an open bodice and ruffled sleeves that ended at the elbow.
“I love it,” Angelo said. “It’s so elegant.”
“And you’ll look lovely in it. I hope it fits.”
Tanya also showed a corset and camisole that Angelo would wear underneath the gown, helping to form a more feminine figure. The corset had metal stays and could be tightened by ties in the back, which, in the days of Marie Antoinette would have been tied by a maid.
Angelo giggled a bit. “I need that corset,” he said. Even though he had a slight frame, he had grown a slight paunchy tummy and he knew the corset would make him so much more feminine.
The two spent the next hour dressing Angelo, including old fashioned bloomers that were lace trimmed, and went to just above the knees. Then, the corset was put on, with Angelo holding his arms high over his head while Tanya put it on him, and setting it in place.
“It’s tight already,” Angelo said.
“You’re getting to be a chubby girl,” Tanya giggled. “We’ll slim you down now.”
She began to lace up the back of the corset, making it tighter and tighter. “Know hold on to the bed post, Angela, while I see if I can get it tighter.”
Angelo began cursing all the cakes he’d been eating recently, as Tanya tightened down on the corset laces. He was holding on for dear life to the bed post, as Tanya braced her knee against his butt to make the laces tight.
“I can hardly breathe,” he said.
“But now you have a nice girly form,” she said.
This made Angelo smile, knowing that as his tummy was compressed, his hips would become more obviously broad and his breasts would become more noticeable.
Now came a garter belt that fit tightly about his hips; Tanya was discreet and let Angelo put them on himself, before she provided the white stockings he’d wear. He held out his legs for her one at a time as she placed the stockings on his feet, running her hands to smooth out the material.
Angelo loved how feminine and pretty his legs and feet looked as the stockings were pulled up to be hooked to the garters. He had made a practice of applying lotion to his feet and legs on a daily basis to keep them soft and lovely.
“Honey, you have truly the prettiest legs I’ve seen,” Tanya said. “I’m wild with envy.”
Angelo blushed, realizing that his darling friend, Tanya, would be unable to match the sheer feminine beauty of his legs; hers were pretty enough, but a bit more chunky and muscular.
“You have nothing to be envious of, Tanya. You’re so beautiful in so many ways.”
Tanya assisted Angelo in putting on a pair of bloomers with lace trim at the top and the legs; the bloomers reached to his knees. When she added the camisole, Angelo felt all trussed up and completely feminine.
Though he could hardly breathe, Angelo pranced about the room, doing a few pirouettes and leg kicks.
“Angela,” exuded Tanya, “You could be a Rockette.”
The gown was put on by having Angelo step into it, which he did daintily. “You do that just like a girl,” Tanya giggled.
“Well?” He giggled, too.
It was buttoned up the back, and had a scooped bodice that showed the pale softness of his skin; his slender arms showed beneath the elbow-length sleeve. The gown flowed to the floor.
“You don’t even need a wig,” Tanya said. “You have plenty of hair for it to be piled up and fixed.”
“Who’ll do that?”
“Don’t worry, Angela. My sister made an appointment for you at the hairdressers on Saturday afternoon.”
“The hairdressers. I can’t go there. I’m a boy, and all the ladies there will laugh.”
Tanya laughed, knowing that while Angelo was protesting, he probably was welcoming the idea to go to the beauty salon.
“That’s no problem, Angela,” Tanya said. “You’ll go as Angela. No one will see you as a boy.”
*****
Angelo had little to fear, since the ladies at Christine’s Beautiful Girl Salon — hairdressers and customers alike — shared his excitement at dressing like Marie Antionette for the costume party. Dressed as he was in beige Capri pants, pink sandals with sequins and a light blue tee-shirt (his bra filled out with breast forms), the ladies accepted him as “Angela,” a pretty 15-year-old girl.
Tanya had brought along a picture she copied from an old history book, showing the French aristocrat’s hairstyle, and Christine, the salon proprietor, found in her stylebook almost a perfect match.
“You have a lovely head of hair,” Christine said, as Angelo sat in the chair. “We’ll be able pile the hair upon your head and fashion it beautifully.”
“Honey,” said an elderly woman to Angelo, her silvered hair curled in an up-style. “It’s so nice to see such a sweet girl these days. So many girls look like sluts, but you’re so pretty.”
Angelo blushed, as Tanya said, “And she’s a good student, too.”
Angelo’s hair was trimmed, then washed, and dried. As he sat in the dryer among two other women, they began to quiz him about his school. One even asked: “Do you have any boy friends, yet?”
“No,” he mumbled.
Tanya who was sitting nearby merely said: “Her mother is very strict. She won’t let Angela date yet.”
“You’re a heartbreaker, darling,” said another woman. “You’ll find lots of boys crying over you.”
Angelo merely nodded, slowly beginning to realize that he had a naturally feminine quality that would bring him problems similar those many pretty women faced with men. He had no idea how he would handle himself when a boy would take him on a date.
“There you are, Angela dear,” said Christine as she completed fixing his hair, and turning the chair so he could look in the mirror.
“What a dignified young lady you are,” Tanya said. “What do you think, Angela?”
“I’m blown away,” he said.
He strode out of the Beauty Salon in a somewhat exaggerated imperious walk, seeking to emulate the style of Marie Antoinette.
“I love being in the beauty salon,” he told Tanya as they drove home. “I felt so at home with Christine and her workers and the other girls.”
“And they loved you, too dear. I think you’ll be a hit tonight.”
*****
The costume party was a “mixer,” in which boys and girls usually came with friends usually of the same sex. Rarely did any of the teens come with dates. Tanya told Angelo that there’s be a disc jockey by the name of Malcolm McKinley, a senior student who had a nice collection of music ranging from rock to sweet jazz to hip hop.
“Some boys may want you to dance, Angela,” she said, continuing to use his female name. “You can refuse, you know.”
“No I want to try to be friends. I think I am girl enough, don’t you?”
“Oh my yes. Even your voice is so feminine now.”
There were plenty of adult chaperones at the dance, and a strict admission policy was followed, with no chance for students to leave and return, perhaps with some illicit drugs or a pint of vodka. Tanya had registered Angelo as “Angela Davies,” a student at the Arts High School.
For the first half hour, as the kids began to fill the school gymnasium, only a handful of kids danced, in spite of urging from DJ Malcolm, a chubby African-American boy with a sunny personality. Tanya introduced Anglo to many of her girl friends, all of who expressed astonishment at the marvelous costume he wore. Tanya dressed up as a pirate captain, thus, in a sense, preserving a boy-girl relationship with the two.
“Oh my god,” Tanya explained. “Look who’s here!”
She pointed to a group of kids gathered around the food counter. There, Angelo saw both Jason, the boy from his school, and his friend from the mall, Gary.
“The boys from the mall,” Angelo said. “You know Jason goes to my school.”
“Yes, I know that. And, Gary goes here. He’s been pestering me, but I kept telling him I had a boy friend. Gary must have invited Jason.”
“Let’s go. I can’t be seen here by Jason. He’s the boy friend of a friend of mine. And he sees me everyday, and tells me I remind him of a pretty girl he met in the mall. I’m afraid he’ll figure out that girl is me, as a boy.”
“No, Angela. We’re not going. We’ve spent too much time making you Marie Antoinette. Besides I think you’ve got the best costume here, and you might win.”
Angelo nodded in agreement. It wouldn’t be right to leave Tanya’s party, since she had worked so hard costuming Angelo.
Angelo accepted several dance invitations from boys, and they went off without incident, usually with the boys being awkward and unable to think of anything more to say than they liked his costume and to ask where he went to school. Angelo replied shyly, not encouraging any further conversation. One of the dances was a slow ballad, encouraging his partner, a slender bespectacled boy to try to hold him tightly. The boy’s hand, he realized had wandered down to the small of his back. Angelo was saved by his wide dress that made it difficult for the boy to get too close.
“You’re pretty and you dance good,” the boy said as the dance ended. “Can I call you sometime?”
“My mom won’t let me go out with boys yet,” he said, shyly. He kept his voice soft, giving it always a bit of a “little girl” character. One of the boys had said he looked so “cute” when he looked shy; Angelo knew it would exude feelings of vulnerability and defenselessness.
The boy, whose name was Kevin, took Angelo’s hand in his, and said: “Let’s go get some punch. Would you like that, Angela?”
Angelo nodded, accepting the boy’s lead and following him through the masses of costumed teens to the punch bowl. It was fortunate he did, because it was at that moment that Jason noticed Angelo in his Marie Antoinette costume.
Instinctively, Angelo nestled closer to Kevin, the boy who held his hand, putting on the appearance that this slender boy was his “boy friend.”
“Fancy meeting you here,” Jason said, coming face-to-face with Angelo, stopping the couple in their trek to the punch bowl. “Remember me. Jason. We met last summer at the mall. Hi Angela.”
Angelo tried to lower his eyes, projecting more shyness.
“Hi Jason,” he said meekly, keeping his voice soft.
“Why didn’t you call me? I thought you would.”
“You know. Mom doesn’t like me dating boys yet.”
Kevin stood there silently, looking at the quiet game going on between Jason and the person he knew only as “Angela.”
“And, Jason, this is my new friend, Kevin. He goes to school here.”
The two boys nodded to each other, but Jason continued to address Angelo: “I thought you were going to the Arts School; weren’t you accepted?”
Angelo, however, moved toward Kevin, and said: “Let’s get some punch. Bye Jason.”
Kevin took the hint and quickly moved the pair away from Jason, who was left standing open-mouthed in the middle of the dance floor.
“I guess you don’t like him,” Kevin asked Angelo, as they waiting in line for punch.
“I hardly know him. He met me at the food court at the mall last summer, and seems to be after me, but my mom doesn’t think I’m ready to date.”
Kevin smiled. “That’s too bad. You’re so pretty. Maybe you’ll let me call you, and I can meet your mom sometime. She might think I’m OK for you. Or, at least I hope I am.”
“Oh I think you are, Kevin,” Angelo said, giving him a coy look.
Angelo and Kevin found a place to sit and finished their punch, just as Malcolm the DJ announced: “All contestants for the costume contest gather at the front now.”
Angelo continued to sit there; he knew Tanya had entered him in the category of “Girls in Vintage Dresses.” Now, with Jason present, Angelo wasn’t pleased with the idea of parading in front of everyone as Marie Antoinette.
“There you are, Angela,” Tanya appeared suddenly. “Get yourself up there.”
“Do I have to? Jason’s here.”
Tanya persisted, finally grabbing Angelo by the hand and leading him by the hand to the contestant area. He squeezed Kevin’s hand, and said: “I guess I must go. Thank you. You’re so nice.”
Kevin held his hand firmly for a moment, saying: I hope you’ll dance with me later.”
By the time he lined up for his walk on stage, Angelo had regained the regal manner he had adopted in being Marie Antoinette. He walked head held high, taking tiny steps and holding the lower part of his gown as he mounted the stairs to the stage.
There were ten girls, including himself, in the competition, wearing costumes that ranged from being a prairie peasant woman to a “Gay 90’s” dancer to being Martha Washington. Malcolm asked each contestant to introduce herself, say something about her costume and say her grade in school. Angelo said merely: “Angela Davies. Ninth Grade. I’m Marie Antoinette.”
After all were introduced, they were given huge numbers to hold in front of them. The audience was told to fill out ballots giving their first, second and third choices. Angelo was “Number 7,” and he worried that the number would bring him luck and he’d win. He didn’t want to win, since it would mean he’d have to appear before the group again, and Jason would see him again, and maybe figure out who he really was.
There were four categories in all, and the audience was asked also to vote on the “Best of the Night.”
Twenty minutes later, the results were in. Angelo stood with Tanya and her sometimes boyfriend, Joshua. Kevin soon joined them. Angelo was silent, tense with concern that he’d win one of the awards, since many persons had praised his costume. One girl said: “You should win, since you carry yourself with such elegance and daintiness.” Angelo let Kevin hold his hands as they awaited the announcements.
It took a while, since the “Girls in Vintage Costumes” class winners were announced last; beginning with third place. He was relieved when the third and second place awards went to the “Gay 90’s” dancer and Martha Washington. Certainly, he hoped, he wouldn’t win.
“And the winner is . . . Marie Antoinette, portrayed by Angela Davies of the Arts High School. Come up Angela.”
Angelo was mortified. Here he was, a boy, dressed as a girl and winning in a girl’s contest. Tanya had to push him to get him moving to the stage, and he was greeted with large applause; even the girl dressed as Martha Washington who finished second whispered to him as he passed her to climb the stage steps: “You were lovely, Angela. You should have won.” He thanked her and remembering to be elegant and dainty, climbed the stairs.
To his horror, Angelo was also named “Best of the Night.” He faced flashing lights from cameras and repeated praises for his beauty and elegance.
“How come I never see you at the Arts School?” Jason had pressed forward as others were praising Angelo.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Angelo responded. For the moment, he was tongue-tied, not knowing how to answer Jason. He was saved from answering as Tanya saw his situation and came to rescue him away.
After the award was given, Angelo found himself the center of attention, particularly from other girls who wanted to know about his dress and hairdo. Kevin hung around, and was successful in getting only one more dance with Angelo.
Kevin was an awkward boy, and he danced clumsily, but Angelo felt comfortable with the boy. Angelo also was happy to be with a shy, somewhat naíve boy like Kevin. He was afraid a boy who was more experienced with girls would find out he was really a boy.
“I’ve never asked a girl out for a date,” Kevin said haltingly after their dance. “Can I call you sometime?”
“I suppose you could. You’re so nice.” Angelo so enjoyed being a girl now, and being pursued by a boy. He felt sorry for boys; they always had to be the pursuers, while girls merely had to wait to be asked.
“Angela,” he said. “I’d love that. You’re so pretty and so kind. I bet you’d be pretty in anything you wore.”
Angelo gave his phone number to Kevin, but asked him not to call for a several days, since he wanted to warn Mary Elizabeth that he might be hearing from a boy.
“Aren’t you glad you went, Angela,” Tanya asked as they were driven home by Tanya’s mother.
“Oh I was worried, but I loved it. Your school is so nice.”
“You should have seen her, Mom,” Tanya said to her mother, Sharon. “Angela had to be the prettiest girl there. Everybody said so.”
“I’m not sure your foster mom will be pleased,” the mother said. “Remember, you’re still a boy.”
“Oh Mom. She’s really a girl. You know that.”
*****
By the Monday after the Halloween Party, school had been in session for a full eight weeks, and Angelo had become comfortable with his classes and his schoolmates. That he was becoming an increasing feminine-acting boy seemed to pass without notice; after all, there were several others like Angelo in the school, and he and Eric seemed to be getting along fine as being among that group of boys being thought of as “sissies” or “faggots” or “fairies.” The Arts School was known for being able to keep such boys safe from bullies that populated the mainstream schools.
He enjoyed ballet class the most, even though it was physically exhausting. He had never been a strong or active boy, but as the school year continued he found he was able to keep up with the girls. The group was now beginning rehearsals to perform several dances at the school’s Christmas program, including several scenes from the “Nutcracker Suite.” Angelo and Eric were to dance as girls and the other girls in the class accepted their presence in the corps without comment. The two boys were called by the girl’s names they adopted, “Angela” and “Erin.” The one exception continued to be Crystal who would occasionally scowl at Angelo or Eric as they performed; she several times quoted phrases from the Bible that would seem to shout scorn upon the two boys because they were dressing and dancing as girls.
After class that Monday, Cecilie, who was perhaps Angelo’s closest friend in the ballet, said: “I feel like you should use the name, Angelica. That sounds just like you.”
Angelo smiled, “It’s a lovely name.”
“You’re so feminine, and the name is so pretty. You’ll be Angelica now.”
“Cecilie, that’s nice of you to think of me as another girl.”
“You seem to enjoy being a girl, don’t you?”
“Cecilie, to be truthful, I do. I’m kind of weird, eh?”
“Not really, Angelica,” she said, using his new feminine name. “It seems to be so natural with you.”
“Thank you, Cecilie. You’re kind to understand.”
As the two walked to the cafeteria for their lunch, Angelo spotted Jason standing in the hallway, as if he were waiting for someone.
“I want to talk with you,” Jason said firmly, pointing at Angelo.
A pang of fear coursed through Angelo’s soul as he feared that Jason might have finally realized that Angelo and the girl in the mall and at the Halloween Party were one and the same.
“I’ll go on ahead,” Cecilie said. “I’ll meet you two at the lunch table.”
Jason put his hands on Angelo’s arm and led him to an alcove that led to a janitor’s closet. “Now, what are you? A boy? Or, a girl?”
Angelo’s lips quivered. “Ah . . . what do you mean? I . . . er . . . er . . . am a boy, of course.”
“You’re also the girl in the mall and the girl who dressed as Marie Antoinette. Aren’t you?”
Angelo turned his head away, and attempted to walk away from this boy, but Jason’s firm grasp on his arm made that impossible. He didn’t answer.
“Aren’t you that girl? Aren’t you?” Jason persisted.
“I’m a boy,” Angelo said quietly.
Jason was growing exasperated, and squeezed Angelo’s slender arm harder. “You know I have thought of no one but you since we first met in the mall. You’re just about the prettiest girl I’ve ever met. You’re eyes are just magical.”
“Jason, but Marie’s your girl friend,” Angelo said, referring to their lunch mate.
“She’s just a friend,” Jason said, tears beginning to form. “It’s you I think about constantly, but now I’m confused.”
“Oh Jason, I am in trouble here. I have to be a boy.”
“What’s going on? Have I fallen in love with a boy?”
Jason’s eyes were flowing with tears now.
“Jason, it’s so complicated. Don’t cry. I can’t explain now, but maybe in a few days, I can tell you everything.”
“Angela,” Jason began. “Angela. I think of you only as Angela. Even when I look at you now, dressed as a boy, I think of you as a girl.”
Angelo began to cry as well, causing Jason’s tears to become more pronounced. “We better go to lunch,” Angelo said finally. “Maybe in a few days, I’ll ask you to come home with me and my foster mom can explain everything.”
Jason seemed to regain his composure. He smiled at Angelo, and promised that he’d call Angelo by his male name, and treat him only as a boy in school.
Chapter 14 — The Finishing Years of School
Thus it was that Angelo completed his first school year, being identified basically as a boy, but one who walked and talked and acted mostly like a girl. He and Eric never did dance male parts in the school dance group, and they were even identified in the dance programs as Erin and Angelica, the name Angelo had been given from Cecilie.
Mary Elizabeth, her friend, Sharon, and Tanya attended two of the dance concerts and were overwhelmed by the beauty shown by the two boys.
Angelo also auditioned for the school drama group, winning a part of a small boy in a performance of “Our Town.” His small stature made him a natural for the part, although he had to use all of his acting ability to hide his girly mannerisms in the part.
Meanwhile, he dressed as a boy, except for occasional weekend outings with Tanya when he would dress in lovely dresses or skirts and go out as a girl. He kept his hair long, and he often was mistaken for a girl even when dressed as a boy.
The County Welfare Department soon lost interest in trying to change his behavior, or to remove him from the care of Mary Elizabeth. The psychiatric examinations had been convincing enough for the agency to realize that a boy like Angelo could indeed feel he should have been female. It was apparent, too, that finding good foster homes for teenagers was always difficult, and there would probably be law suits coming if they tried to remove him.
Meanwhile, he and Mary Elizabeth studied up on what would be involved in his transitioning to become a fulltime female. He learned that he would have to eventually live fulltime as a female for a year before any kind of sexual reassignment surgery could be done. And, the cost of the surgery, the breast enhancement and facial changes could be as high as $25,000 to $30,000.
Jason refused to talk with Angelo for several weeks after he stopped to talk with Mary Elizabeth and was told about Angelo’s gender issues. Just before Christmas, he called Angelo and suggested the two go shopping and that Angelo go as a girl. They continued to date for all of high school, appearing as a boy and girl couple only in other cities or places where no one would notice them.
Angelo found he loved cuddling into Jason’s arms, feeling his gentle touches. They kissed, but Jason realized there would be no sexual encounters. Jason went off to the State University after graduation, leaving Angelo to finish off his senior year, which he did, making the Honor Society.
*****
When Angelo turned 18, he was no longer in foster care, and was free to live anywhere, but Mary Elizabeth suggested he stay with her. She said she would not charge him rent, saying: “I love having a daughter.”
She had a surprise for Angelo: “I have set up a trust account for you; it’s worth nearly $20,000.”
Angelo was shocked. “How could you do that?”
“I saved all my foster care payments and I love you so dearly, I think you can use that money for something worthwhile.”
“Like college, mommy?” he asked.
“That, or to have your surgery to be a woman?”
“Really mommy? I love you so much.”
As it turned out, Angelo felt it best to use the money for college; he felt he could attend one of the local universities that specialized in drama. “Maybe I can get a job and save up enough for the operations,” he told Mary Elizabeth.
The two hugged: “You’re the best mommy,” he said.
“And, you’re the daughter I always wanted.”
They both cried in each other’s arms. Then they dressed, as mother and daughter, for an evening performance at a popular dinner theater. Jason, as Angelo’s date, and Matthew Kennedy, the science teacher, joined them, becoming Mary Elizabeth’s date.
“Mom,” Angelo said after they got home that night. “Wasn’t that just the most perfect night? And, mom, you were so pretty tonight. Do you think Mr. Kennedy likes you?”
“Yes, honey, it was a magical night. What could be better than a mother and her daughter double-dating?”
The two hugged. It was a bonding between a pretty teen girl and a lovely mother.
*****
Epilogue:
Five years later, Mary Elizabeth opened the morning paper at breakfast and was startled to see a news account that made her smile with pride:
“Unknown Girl Wins Part in Movie After National Search”
HOLLYWOOD — Twenty-three-year-old Angelica D’Amore was selected by famous director Dale Lamont for the part of Scarlet O’Hara in his remake of “Gone With the Wind.”
The selection of this unknown actress, whose acting experience has been limited to regional theater in Wisconsin, was made after a year-long search for an actress to play the part made famous by Vivien Leigh.
“This young lady has the same exceptional beauty that Miss Leigh brought to the first film done in 1939,” Lamont said. “Besides, she has the same unbelievable femininity that Miss Leigh had. And, in addition, Miss D’Amore is also an accomplished actress and dancer.”
Little is known of Miss D’Amore. Lamont’s studio said that she was raised as a foster child in a mid-sized town in Wisconsin after her mother died at age 11. Since foster care records are sealed, it is hard to determine much else about her past.
A picture of a slender beauty with flowing brunette hair accompanied the article. Mary Elizabeth knew the beautiful girl had naturally brown hair, but realized how much more striking a beauty she was as a brunette. The boy she knew as Angelo was never prettier. Mary Elizabeth put the paper down and smiled. Her daughter had made the big time.
The End