“Live … That’s the message … Come poor child … Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death… Come on now child, live ... live … live ...” — famous scene in movie, “Auntie Mame”
These are the stories of how a dance teacher raised her 12-year-old orphaned nephew during World War II. The boy discovers how marvelous it is to be a girl.
“Live … That’s the message … Come poor child … Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death… Come on now child, live ... live … live ...” — famous scene in movie, “Auntie Mame”
It was the cold late autumn of 1941, and I was totally sad. I found no joy in life, no joy in being a 12-year-old boy.
There were good reasons for that: Mom had been taken from me in a cruel death, a freak hit-and-run accident when she was hit while extracting mail from our rural mail box. A truck skidded on an icy two-lane road in front of our decrepit farm house and hit her cruelly and bringing an instant death. And I had no dad, at least as far as I knew. Of course, there was a dad once, or else I wouldn’t be here; but who or where he was, no one ever told me.
I loved my mom; she had held me often in the cold nights of winter, as we both tried to stay warm and cozy as the wind whipped through the leaky windows on the 80 year old farmhouse in which we lived. Our source of heat was an aged oil space heater, no doubt one that would be condemned had any fire inspector come by.
Mom would say her favorite cuss word (“fiddle sticks”) whenever the flame on the stove would flicker out. She would hug me tightly as we huddled against the cold and then say, almost apologetically, “Terrence, honey, would you prime the oil pump and get that flame relit?”
Mom, well her name was Ellen, was very prim and proper; maybe that’s why my dad, whoever he was, decided to desert her. Maybe he liked to cuss, I don’t know. She could be very demanding, and always insisted that I use proper words and always be neat and polite. I tried, really I did, but mom always found something I fell short on. Maybe she just didn’t understand that 12-year-old boys sometimes can be a bit disorganized.
Except that I wasn’t really disorganized, at least by 12-year-old boy standards. I was always the neatest boy in the two-room school (Tippecanoe District No. 4) I attended. For being so neat and maybe even a bit prissy, I was teased. It didn’t help that I was a bit lousy at sports, and really not very strong, in spite of helping gramps work on the family’s hardscrabble 40-acre farm. We had lots of chickens, and a few milk cows; gramps raised corn and soybeans, alternating the fields each year, just as the Extension office suggested.
I loved my mom. Oh, did I say that? Well, it’s worth repeating. I loved my mom; she appreciated me and she had been really my only friend. The adjoining farms were childless, and I had no cousins. There was only gramps and grandma, and they were all right, I guess, but they had found Christ somewhere along the line and just prayed and prayed and then spent hours and hours at the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, a strict Wisconsin synod place, in the Tippecanoe village, located in a valley among the rock-infested soil of the hills of western Wisconsin.
I went a few times with them, but I hated it. There was a strange odor in the place; maybe it was because so many in the congregation still had manure on their boots when they entered the church. I don’t know. It was strange. And, I didn’t like the God they talked about. Mom never went to that church; she said that if a person followed the Golden Rule, God would know it and he’d open the gates of heaven to them.
That’s what mom always told me: “Terrence, follow the Golden Rule and you can’t go wrong.”
“Even when they tease me, Mom?” I asked her in the week before her death.
I had told her I wanted to get even with Billy Gustafson who pushed me in the snow; some 12 inches had fallen on the week before Thanksgiving, and the plows had left a huge pile right in front of Tippecanoe District No. 4 School. And he used only one hand to push me down, right into the biggest drift. And then he pushed snow in my face. And I cried. That only made it worse.
“If I had a BB gun, I’d shoot him, right in the hinder,” I said angrily that day, upon returning home from school.
“Hinder’s a naughty word, Terrence,” she scolded. “And I never want to hear you want to shoot anyone. How would you like it if they wanted to shoot you?”
I hung my head at that. Of course, mom was right. Besides I wouldn’t have had the courage anyway to shoot Billy. But, I thought, he deserved it for calling me “Miss Prissy Sissy.” Right in front of Sally Hansen, too, who I liked, but was afraid to tell her that.
Well, you get the picture. I really wasn’t much of a boy, was I? Really not. I was afraid of my own shadow, I guess you could say. Pretty pathetic, right?
That’s when mom would hug me. I loved how she would run her hands through my long, blonde hair, running its fine texture through her fingers, kissing me on the forehead, caressing me, holding me tight against her bosom.
Then she’d suggest: “Help your mother make a batch of cookies, dear.”
“Yes mom,” I’d say eagerly. This was truly the sweetest time of the day for me. How I loved baking cookies, and I could make the best oatmeal raisin cookies ever. Really. I won first prize at the 4-H Club challenge at the Harrison County Fair, the first boy ever to win such a cooking prize. I stood so proud in my dark pants, white shirt and tie holding the blue ribbon amidst six girls about my same age, each one dressed in light summer dresses, white stockings and black sandals. They looked so lovely.
I was so proud of that blue ribbon. It was the first time I ever won anything. My pride was soon shattered when Billy Gustafson (yes, that Billy) saw me near the Merry-Go-Round and said, “Hi girly. Is that all you can do is cook, like a girl?”
At first I didn’t understand. Why couldn’t a boy cook? Then I realized that most little boys don’t work in the kitchen. That’s girl’s work. But I was so proud of my oatmeal raisin cookies. What was wrong with that?
“Girly girl,” he taunted.
I had been waiting at the Merry-Go-Round for mom, who was off to buy some cream puffs when I saw Billy; and now I felt sad. Of course, I began to cry. That was a mistake, for Billy got even more abusive, until he saw my mom come. He scooted away.
Again, a hug from mom soon helped to make me feel better. And now she was gone from me forever.
*****
On the night of her death, I was moved from the ancient old farmhouse to stay with gramps and grandma. I guess they loved me, but it was hard to tell; they were both taciturn, reluctant to smile, ever. It was hard after the warmth and hugs I got from mom.
I had spent my whole life in that old farmhouse, across the road. It was not much of a place, just two tiny bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room, and had been built by the farmer carpenters too many years ago. It was built for the hired man’s family, and thus there wasn’t much care put into building the place. But it was my home. Soon, I suspected, it would be lying in ruin, collapsing from heavy snows that landed on its weakened roof.
They put me in a small room on the second floor, a room that was even more confining due to the slanted roof that cut into its space. A small window, located at about thigh level, offered the only view of the outside; no doubt the room would be freezing in winter and stifling in summer. Gramps and grandma slept in one of the two bedrooms downstairs, with the other room being used for an office for gramps who was chairman of the township Board of Commissioners. I guess my room had been carved out of the attic.
I couldn’t get mom out of my mind on those nights at gramps’ place. Imagining her horror as the Simonson’s Milk Truck careened toward her, I cried and cried. She was so sweet to me; why did she have to die? Is it a crime for a boy to cry over that horror?
The sound from the kitchen filtered up through the stairwell, and I could hear gramps and grandma talking each night as I lay in bed. Usually, it would be either one reading parts of the Bible to the other, but sometimes they talked about money, or rather the lack of it.
Our farm family was like so many others in 1939, still reeling from the impact of the Great Depression, which caused the farms to fail and had sent many men into Milwaukee or Minneapolis for work, leaving the wife and kids behind. But, gramps was already too old to move, and they struggled by mainly raising their own food, with a vegetable garden that constantly needed weeding and the chickens.
In the first week of December, a week after we laid mom into the ground at St. Paul’s Lutheran Cemetery, I heard my name come up in the conversation, as a tried to get to sleep.
“What should we do about Terrence?” I heard grandma say. “This is no place for a boy. He seems so sad and lonesome.”
“I don’t know, Em,” grandpa said, using the short version of Emma. “He’s not much help around here.”
“I know Cletus, but he’s just a boy.”
“You’d think he could help out more, Em. He’s just not very strong. He may as well be a girl for how he works.”
“Oh, posh, Cletus. He’s just 12.”
“Posh nothing,” gramps said, his voice rising a bit. “Sometimes I think Ellen raised him as a daughter. Can you imagine winning a cookie baking contest at the 4-H fair? He’s supposed to be a boy.”
“He helps out feeding and cleaning up after the chickens, Cletus, and he’ll get stronger as he grows,” grandma said.
“Let’s see if Adele could take him,” I heard gramps say. “She’s got that big old house with all that room.”
“Oh I don’t know, Cletus,” grandma said. “She’s so flighty. I’m not sure it’d be good for Terrence to be with her.”
“Well, it hard for us to feed another mouth, Em,” gramps said.
Aunt Adele, my mom’s sister, was a widow who lived in Milwaukee. She lost her husband early in the Depression. His death, too, had been tragic. He took a shotgun to his head in the family garage after his bank went belly-up in 1933. Nonetheless, he left Aunt Adele with a big house, no children and enough money to keep her comfortable for perhaps another ten years. But she was only 30 years old when he committed suicide and she knew she had to eventually work to maintain a living. So she decided to convert the first floor of the large house into a dance studio. We knew Aunt Adele had worked for a while as one of the “Dime-a-dance” girls at the big ballroom in Milwaukee, and that she also danced with an amateur troupe. She could be quite a beauty, mom said.
We saw Aunt Adele only once a year, when she’d spend a week in the summer visiting gramps and grandma. She always drove up from Milwaukee in the latest model Buick, usually a shiny grey; I loved her cars and really admired how elegant Aunt Adele was. Her hair was always perfectly groomed in the tight, curly style of the 1930s, and even in summer she wore stylish dresses. During the visits on the farm, she still wore skirts and blouses and heels. I watched her with envy, sometimes even mimicking how she smoked cigarettes or drank her iced tea or lemonade. I even wondered what it would be like to be a gorgeous woman like she was.
“She’s always putting on airs,” gramps would grumble when talking about his eldest daughter.
I liked how Aunt Adele put on “airs.” Besides she always was nice to me, and often showed me how she put on makeup. “A woman’s got to take care of herself,” she’d say, glancing toward mom who rarely put on lipstick or wore nice clothes. I guessed she was taking a dig at mom, but the two seemed to enjoy each other. Mom was the younger sister.
A year ago, Aunt Adele brought a man friend up for the week, an older man with graying hair and wearing a brown suit and fedora. His name was Mr. Simpson, I think, and he took me a couple of times into town for ice cream. I liked him, but mom tells me that he and Aunt Adele are no longer friends.
I don’t ever remember mom having a man friend, but maybe she did and I didn’t know about it. She worked weekends at the Tippey Café in town to pick up some money, and, until I was 11, Mildred Hampton, from down the road, would babysit for me. Now, she left me alone, and gramps or grandma would stop by to check on me.
Aunt Adele was skinny, and not at all like mom, who was chubbier. But then, Aunt Adele used to be a dancer; that was why she went to the big city at age 18, just as World War I was beginning. She got a job at the Harley-Davidson factory, doing assembly work, filling in for the men who had been drafted. That’s when she met her husband; they were at a dance hall on the roof of an office building in downtown Milwaukee dancing to the music of Bill Carley and his Badger Times Dance Band. It was a happy marriage, and Aunt Adele’s husband, mom told me, was nice to her, but apparently the pressure of his bank going bankrupt caused him to take his life.
*****
Well, three days before Christmas, and on the Saturday after school ended for vacation, I was put on the Northwestern 400 train in Elcho Junction for Milwaukee. Aunt Adele picked me up as the train stopped at the Northwestern Station along Milwaukee’s lakefront. Aunt Adele hugged me, just like mom did. I liked that, and I loved her smell; it was a mixture of perfume and rouge and other makeup materials.
I marveled at the tiled floors and vaulted ceilings of the old train depot as I followed my elegant Aunt Adele through the station. We drove off from the magnificent station, its turrets towering over the lakefront landscape, and I really had my breath taken away at the tall buildings and all the people on the streets, accompanied by the clanging of streetcars and honking of horns. I had never seen such things. It was amazing!
Aunt Adele’s house was a mansion. Well, at least I thought it was, considering the cramped spaces we had on the old farm. Really it was elegant, built maybe in the 1800s sometime in what must have been the outskirts of the city, but now was smack dab in the midst of the bustle of Milwaukee. It was a giant stone place, with a full porch with white columns surrounding it. The porch was a little in need of paint; yet, it made the whole house look commodious and welcoming.
“Here’s your room, honey,” she said after leading me up the ornate center staircase to the second floor.
It took my breath away; I’ll admit that. It was huge, with a four-poster bed, topped off by a lace trimmed canopy. There was scent of perfume in the room, and everything was in either pink of light blue.
“This has been our guest room, Terrence,” she said. “I’m sorry it’s not what a boy might like, but your stay here came up so fast, I was unable to change it and get rid of some of the girl atmosphere.”
I didn’t know what to say, ‘cause the truth was I loved the room. It even had a vanity. I was just sorry I didn’t have many clothes to fill the monstrous closet.
“You think you’ll be OK here, honey?” she asked.
“Oh yes, auntie,” I told her.
“If you stay I’ll change it for you, Terrence.”
“You don’t have to, auntie,” I said then, hoping against hope I could continue to have a room with such feminine touches. I really felt right at home, just like the room was made for me. But, I could hardly tell her that.
Once I began living with her, Aunt Adele hugged me a lot. I loved it. Best of all, I carried her smell with me to bed at night. It was funny, but I kept thinking I was a pretty girl, maybe even a dancer like Aunt Adele. What a crazy thought!
*****
Later that day, Aunt Adele showed me the dance studio; it occupied what had been the huge living room of the house; there was no furniture in the room and the rugs were gone, leaving a burnished oak floor, almost slippery in its sheen. There was a balance rod mounted on one wall, with floor length mirrors space about the sides.
She had turned the library into changing room for the dancers, complete with a row of floor length spaces for hanging street clothes. Along one wall were three portable clothes racks, all containing what I imagined were dance outfits. I could only see dresses; there appeared to be no boys’ outfits hanging.
As Aunt Adele told me about her students, I soon learned they were from 8 to 14 years of age, and all were girls.
“I teach them basic ballet steps to start,” she said. “But we do all sorts of dances here, including ballet and Latin and some ballroom steps.”
“No boys in the class?” I asked her.
“Not yet, just girls. You can meet my students if you’d like,” she told me.
As she spoke, I wandered to the clothes racks, looking at the gauzy, flowing outfits. I fingered a pink one, looking at it closely, seeing its soft material.
“They are pretty, aren’t they dear?” auntie said, having watched me examine the dresses.
I nodded, turning red, knowing I got caught admiring the dresses. I feared she might have even read my thoughts. And, dear reader, I’m sure you know exactly what I was thinking.
“I’ll tell you what, Terrence,” she began.
She told me that on Sunday — the next day — her studio was holding a holiday dance program at a room in the Eagles Club. That was a big building several blocks away, and they had lots of rooms for events, I guess.
“Maybe you’d like to help me set it up, and then you can see the girls dance,” she suggested. “Would you like that?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “I don’t have nothing better to do.”
Actually, I loved the idea, but I tried not to show it.
It seems Aunt Adele was like my mom in lots of ways; she caught my bad grammar and corrected me, “It’s ‘I don’t have anything better to do,’ Terrence. Your mom would be shocked if she heard you say that.”
The idea of my mom still being alive, and correcting my language, as she did so often, caused me to grow sad, and tears flowed to my face. I could tell auntie was mad at herself for causing me to cry. She was so nice. She came and hugged me again, and I loved her sweet scent.
“Really Terrence, would you like to help me tomorrow at the program?” she asked again.
“Oh yes, auntie,” I told her, having held back more crying and tears.
She told me I could help her pack the outfits we were going to bring for the show, and help distribute them to the girls as they came to the Eagles Club. And I could run the phonograph machine for the music; she’d help me set it up and then I merely had to watch her for a cue for each song. It sounded like an OK job for me. Besides, it’d be nice to see all those girls dance.
*****
I inspected my new room after supper that night. It was so luxurious, and really very much for a girl, I thought. I wondered why Auntie Adele had put me in it since there was another bedroom. But she told me this was nicer and bigger. She said we could change it later, if I wanted to, but, you know, I was beginning to like this room. What’s wrong with me?
Looking into the big walk-in closet, I noticed there were already some clothes hanging. There was even a light inside the closet. Can you imagine having a light inside a closet? But there it was, so strange to see, since we didn’t get electricity in our old farm house until I was six years old, and then we had only a few make-shift places into which we could put in electric plugs. And, actually , we didn’t have much to plug in, but one small radio, an old toaster and a few lamps.
I turned the light switch on. My, oh my, there were girls’ clothes here. Pink dresses and light blue dresses and even all-white dresses, and lots of gauzy lace. The sweet scent of lingering perfume on the dresses was stronger inside the closet. That must have been why the room itself smelled so nice. This was so exciting!
Gingerly, I touched one of the dresses, running its cloth through my fingers, feeling the lightness of the texture. I began wondering: what does it feel like to wear such a lovely dress? No, what was I thinking? Why do I care how it feels to wear a dress? I’m a boy.
Oh what the heck! I took one of the pink dresses down from the hanger, and held it before me. It looks like it’ll fit.
So I carried it out into the bedroom, holding it up before my body and looking into a full length mirror mounted on the closet door. It looked like it was just my size. So, why not? I was ready to change into my jammies anyway.
I took everything off, except my underpants, examining my slender body in the mirror, as I did so. Noticing how terribly lacking in muscle I was, I thought for an instant how nice I might even look in this dress.
Then, I wondered: Do I step into the dress? Or, do I bring it down over my head? I’d seen mom do that both ways. I didn’t think it made a difference, and decided to bring it down over my head; after some jiggling of my body I was able to get it down over my body.
This dress went all the way down to just below my knees; the dress was full with seeming layers of cloth which made it flare out from my hips. It had short sleeves, of the puffed-up kind and a very high neckline. It was almost like a dress I’d seen in the movies about the old time South. But, the buttons were on the back. No way was I going to be able to button it up. What the heck?
“Aaarrrggghhh!” I exclaimed loudly, looking in the mirror. I realized I had let out a loud scream, but when I looked into the mirror it was obvious I looked like a girl. It shocked me; really, just like a girl. My longish hair helped in the apparition.
I began to twirl a bit, just like a fashion model might do when showing off a dress, when the door to the bedroom burst open and I heard Aunt Adele yell, “What’s wrong honey?”
“Nothing . . .”
“Oh my Lord Jesus Christ in Heaven,” she said not even catching her breath. That was about as blasphemous as Auntie could be, so I knew she was shocked.
“I heard you scream and thought you were hurt,” she said quickly.
I didn’t know what to do. So, I quickly said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I knew she’d be mad at me for putting on the dresses, since I suspected they were for use in the dance class.
“Terrence, Terrence, Terrence,” she said. “That’s OK, but you should have asked me first. I’d have helped you.”
It was too much, and, of course, I began crying. It just seemed all I had done since mom’s death had been to cry. I had developed a natural tendency to burst into tears. Was that a girl thing?
“Come, come, come,” auntie said, sitting on the side the bed, and drawing me into her arms, pulling me toward her slender, almost bosom-less chest. She was so much harder than mom was, but her hugs and caresses seemed just as warm and comforting.
Finally, she released me, and had me sit on the side of the bed, while she drew the vanity bench over, and sat on it, right in front of me.
“First of all, honey,” she said, her voice low and serious. “You must never use other people’s things without the permission. You should know that.”
“I do, auntie,” I said, drying the tears off my face with a lace hankie that auntie gave me. “Mommie always told me to respect other people’s property. It’s just that . . . ah . . . the dresses looked so pretty. I never had a dress on. I just wondered.”
“You wondered?”
“Well, yes, wondered how it felt to wear a dress.”
“You were curious?”
“I guess so.”
“How did it feel?”
“Oh auntie,” I said, at a loss for words, and not willing to admit I liked the feeling, the smoothness of the dress, the flow of air up my legs, and how pretty I looked in the mirror.
“You liked it?”
I nodded, as if in agreement. The truth was I liked it a lot.
She had me then get out of the dress and told me to put on my pajamas and then suggested: “How’d you like some cocoa?”
“I’d like that very much, thank you,” I said, politely, just as mom would have told me to do.
“Well, I’ll get you a robe and then you can come down to the kitchen for the cocoa.”
I did just that, the shock of her discovery of me in a dress still resonating. I was actually shaking as I took the dress off and re-hung it on the hanger, making sure it was not mussed in any way. While I was in the closet, I heard my door open and auntie yell, “Terrence, honey. I put the robe on your bed. It’s cold in the hallway so you better wear it. It’s the only one I could find.”
Well, the robe was obviously a woman’s robe; it was bright red shimmering satin, with colorful flowers on the upper left breast area. She had also left a pair of fluffy pink slippers for me to put on my feet. Must I wear those?
It being winter, and I knew auntie kept the heat in the house low, still following the wartime demands to preserve coal as well as money. I decided that staying warm demanded I put aside any shame at wearing a woman’s robe and slippers. I soon decided I liked the feel of the robe, too, as well as the light scent of flowers seeming rising from its material.
*****
“You’re a very sweet child,” auntie told me as I joined her at the kitchen table. She had two steaming cups of cocoa set out.
“I wished I’d have gotten to know you better as you were growing up,” she said. “But I had to be here, and your mom stayed back on the farm. We didn’t talk much, since your mom didn’t have a phone, but she wrote almost every week.”
“I know, auntie. She liked writing letters to you. She told me so.”
“She always wrote about you, darling,” she said, patting my hand. “You were her pride and joy. She said you were a very special boy.”
I blushed, and visions of my mother writing Aunt Adele came into my mind. I could see her even now, sitting at our kitchen table, her writing pad open on the faded oil cloth that covered the old table, writing in the dim light of a single overhead bulb. She never let me see what she wrote, but I could see she wrote in very tiny strokes, but most precise. She had wanted to be an English teacher, she had told me, but marriage and motherhood ended any possible hopes for college or even two-year normal school. I wanted to cry at how mom had lost her future; and it seemed all her hopes were aimed upon me. I represented her “hope.”
“Don’t cry, baby,” auntie said, interrupting my thoughts.
“I won’t. I gotta be strong, auntie.”
“I’m sure you will be, Terrence. Your mother was a very strong and principled woman, and I can see her in you right now. You’ll make her proud, as she looks down upon you from heaven.”
I still wasn’t sure about the “heaven” part, but it was a nice thought. I smiled at Aunt Adele, kind and pretty, Aunt Adele.
“Did you like wearing the dress,” she asked, suddenly.
“I don’t know,” I equivocated.
“I think you did, honey, and you looked so darling in it.”
“Oh?” I was embarrassed. How could a boy look “darling?”
“There’s nothing wrong with looking pretty, Terry. Can I call you Terry?”
“I never was called that, auntie.”
“Terry somehow seems to fit you better.”
“Ok.” I began wondering where this was going.
We both paused, taking sips of cocoa, before she continued.
“I want to make you very happy, Terry. You deserve it and you’ve been through a tough time.”
“Thank you, auntie.”
She proceeded to outline various chores she expected me to do if I continued to live there. They really weren’t much: to help her set up things in her dance studio, to answer the door if she’s not handy to do so, to take out the garbage and, eventually, to learn how to shovel coal in the furnace in the basement, remove clinkers and take out the ashes. “You won’t have to do dishes, dear, but if you want to help dry, I’d love that. We can talk then.”
“I want to help, auntie.” I really did want to feel useful in the house. She was kind and generous, and it meant I wouldn’t have to go back to live with gramps and grandma. They were all right, but they never smiled and all they did was read the Bible.
“Now, answer me this honestly, Terrence,” she said seriously. She took my hand in hers. I noticed how tiny my hand felt while being held.
“Yes ma’am.”
“This is just between you and me,” she began. “I sensed that you really liked wearing that dress.”
I started to protest that, but she put a finger up to my mouth, as if to shut off my words. I stopped talking.
“Let me finish, then you can talk, honey. OK?”
I nodded in agreement.
“You mom wrote me that often she looked at you and wondered if she had birthed a daughter, instead of a boy. She said you always paid so much attention to her dresses and how she used makeup and brushed her hair. Even in your earliest years, she wrote, you seemed to prance about like a little girl.”
I didn’t know whether I wanted to hear any more of this. I couldn’t imagine mom thinking of me in that way.
“But she loved you, honey. And that’s why she said you were so special. Now, I want this Christmas to be so perfect for you, baby. We can’t bring your mom back, but we can help you get through this time in a way to make you happy.
“I think you know what I’m saying. I think you like the idea of wearing girl’s clothes and even doing girl things, like maybe sewing or cooking or even playing with dolls. Tell me the truth, honey. This is just between you and me. No one, not even gramps or grandma, will know of this.”
Oh no! I couldn’t imagine what gramps would say; he already was disgusted with me, ‘cause I proved to be so weak at threshing time, being hardly able to handle the bundles of hay as they were thrust up onto the wagon.
“Just our secret, auntie?”
“Cross my heart,” she smiled.
“Well, I kinda like the girl things, yes,” I began tentatively.
“Would you like to wear dresses and skirts sometimes, maybe even a nightie?”
I nodded slowly, growing flush as I did so. The truth was I wanted to dress like a girl badly. I didn’t realize it until that evening when I tried on my first dress.
“Now, dear. Christmas is three days off. Is there anything you most desire for your gift?”
“Oh no, auntie. Anything would be fine.”
“Really, honey, I know you’ve never had many toys, and I can afford something really nice, if you’d like it.”
I hesitated. Could I dare ask for the item I always wanted? I wanted it since I was about five years old, but never even asked Santa for it.
“Just between you and me?”
“Yes, dear. Our secret. Cross my heart.”
It was so embarrassing. So, I whispered: “Shirley Temple doll.”
Aunt Adele said nothing. She hugged me close, ran her fingers through my long blond hair and kissed my forehead gently. I cried, again.
*****
That night, just as I was about to get into bed, auntie appeared at my door, knocking first. She entered after my “Come in auntie,” which she did, carrying something over her arm.
“Maybe you’ll want to wear this, dear,” she said, handing me what turned out to be a girl’s nightie.
I was still in the red satin robe and fluffy slippers, sitting at the vanity, examining myself in the mirror, wondering if I really could look like a girl. I did have rather full lips, and I practiced puckering them as I made faces at the mirror. Then, too, my neck was skinny and my shoulders kind of narrow, all of which added to the possibility that maybe I could be a pretty girl. My nose wasn’t too long, either.
“Oh auntie, really?”
“Yes, darling. If you like. I had this in my drawer and I don’t think it’s ever been worn.”
I stood up, taking the nightie. It was satin in light beige, with thin straps over the shoulders and lace trim along the top and bottom.
“Try it on, let’s see if it fits,” she said. “It was a little short for me, so this should be right for you.”
She stood there as I took off the robe and my boy pajamas; she helped me step into the nightie and bring it up, slipping my arms through the straps.
“There,” she said. “What do you think?”
I went over to the full length mirror. What I saw sent a shiver down my spine. How could I be a boy and look so much like a girl? Maybe it was my lack of muscle in my arms, or my skinny looking ankles and narrow feet. I don’t know, but I was always one of weaker boys in my class at school, and that had always shamed me.
“Thank you, auntie,” I rushed over to kiss her.
I went to bed that night, feeling good for the first time since mom died. I imagined, as I lay there, that I was a girl in the 7th Grade, thinking of wearing makeup for the first time and wondering about fashions and boys. It was exciting. Auntie Adele had opened up a whole new life for me, as a girl. Of course, it would be a secret life. How marvelous it might be! I slept well.
*****
Auntie introduced me as Terrence, her nephew, at the recital, and I proved to be very helpful in getting the girls into their proper outfits for the performance. She set me up at the right of the stage in one of the rooms at the Eagles Club to run the phonograph. I thought that was really neat, since I had never played a record on a phonograph before. We had no phonograph player at the farm. Auntie helped me practice playing hers at home so I knew what I was doing.
“You picked that up fast, Terry,” she said, now using my nickname, which could of course be either a girl’s name or a boy’s name. I liked the name, even though mom only called me Terrence.
The dancers, there were about 15 of them, looked so pretty in their dresses. I found myself yearning to be up on stage with them, even though I knew I couldn’t dance a lick. It was without shame, though, that I thought I could be as pretty as any of them. Mom never wanted me to be so much of a braggart, so I better not think that. Well, anyway, I’d be no less pretty.
Fortunately, I didn’t miss a cue, and the dance troop went through their routines, some quite good and others a bit shaky.
But the audience, spread about the room on hard folding chairs, cheered everyone as if they were superstars. Of course the audience was all moms, dads, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts and grandparents. It was kind of nice, and the Christmas cookies and punch afterwards were even better.
“Will you dance with us?” asked a girl named Wanda, who was blond and thin, just like me. I had helped her button up her costume earlier, and she said she too was in the 7th grade, attending the Wisconsin Avenue School where I was supposed to go after the vacation period.
“I don’t know,” I told her.
“Yeah, there’s no boys in her dance classes so I guess you won’t,” she said. “That’s a shame. I bet you’d be good.”
I shrugged at that. How could I possibly know? I never danced before; besides gramps and grandma wouldn’t permit it. It was a rule in their church: no dancing. Actually, they were no fun at all, I thought.
“Maybe she’ll have me dance anyway,” I suggested. “I just moved in and will be going to Wisconsin Avenue school.”
“Good, same as me, maybe we’ll be in the same classes.”
Wanda had a very pale complexion, but with the most sparkling blue eyes. Just then, her parents came by and stole her away. It was time to go home.
That night, I again wore the nightie.
*****
Aunt Adele and I had our own private Christmas just after dawn on Christmas day, seated around the tree she had set up on the dance floor of her studio. She had perhaps 15 gifts, wrapped in colorful paper, scattered around the tree, most of which were destined for her guests that would come for a Christmas gathering in the late afternoon. She’d be introducing me to all her friends as her nephew, Terry. Since our family was so small, there would be no other relatives. Gramps and grandma stayed on the farm for the holidays, since they had the chickens and the small herd of milk cows to tend to.
“Open this first,” she said, handing me a gift wrapped in green paper and tied with red ribbon. It was a pair of dark blue boy’s pants, a white shirt and a tie.
I must have scowled when I saw the gift, and auntie saw it.
“That’s so you’ll look like a nice young man when you have to, Terry. I know boys your age don’t want clothes, but you need this.”
“Thank you, auntie,” I said.
“Now open mine,” I suggested.
She had given me $10 to shop for her the previous day, and I had been able to get her a scarf set, since I noticed she had only one scarf she was wearing. I bought it at the small women’s store on 27th Street, just a short walk from her house. I had fun in the store, looking at the fashions, and I say I must have been a very fussy customer, since I pestered the clerk about what best to get for auntie. In luck, she knew Auntie Adele, whom I was learning was known as somewhat of an eccentric in the neighborhood, though a person everyone seemed to like.
“Oh I love it, honey,” she said when she opened the gift.
She kissed me, and I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing I had satisfied her. I was so worried she wouldn’t like it.
“You have three more gifts, Terry,” she said, handing him a gift box shaped similarly to the first gift.
I tore the package open, and let out a high girlish squeal, drawing the gift out. It was a plaid skirt, just like I’d seen so many girls were. Underneath was a white, silk finished blouse, with white pearl buttons.
“For me?”
“Yes, for lovely Terry,” auntie said smiling.
“Oh auntie, I love it, really, I do, can I put it on?” My words ran together.
“Just wait dear. You’ll have time.”
She handed me a small, narrow gift, wrapped in paper of sparkling silver and white ribbon. It was almost too pretty to open. But not THAT pretty. I tore it open.
“A necklace, auntie. Of pearls,” I squealed again.
This was too much, I know. Growing up so poor I was not used to getting more than one or two small, cheap presents at Christmas.
“Now for the grand finale,” auntie said, handing me a gift that looked like an out-sized shoe box.
I looked at auntie, hoping against hope that this was what I told her I wanted most.
“Go ahead, open it, my dear girl,” she said, smiling broadly.
This time I was almost hysterical when I opened the gift. It was the newest Shirley Temple doll, something that I knew every girl wanted that Christmas. I pulled the doll out of the box, holding it high and squealing.
“Oh auntie, this is so special.” I leaned over into her arms, almost knocking her off the cushion upon which she was sitting. We both had brought cushions to sit on the floor, since there were no chairs in the studio.
“I’m so happy for you, darling,” she said to me, again hugging me tightly. “I’ve never seen such a happy girl.”
Oh my, it dawned on me. I had been really acting as a girl that morning. Except, I wasn’t acting. I really must be a girl; well, not really, since I had boy parts.
“I wished mom could be here, auntie,” I said finally.
“Your mother is smiling down at you right now, honey. She always said there was something special about you and she loved you so much.”
I moved into Aunt Adele’s arms, still holding my new doll. And, I cried and cried and cried. Tears of joy and tears of sorrow.
#####
It was sort of funny, I guess, but I couldn’t forget what my new friend, Wanda, said to me after the Christmas Dance program: “Maybe you could dance with us?”
Well, anyway, that’s how I remembered her words. And she also said something about me being a good dancer. How in the world could she know that? I never danced in my life; after all I was only a few months away from my life on the farm with grandma and grandpa. They were very strict Lutherans and they said dancing was the act of the devil.
Mom had died in an awful accident the previous year of 1941, having been hit by a skidding milk truck on an icy stretch of highway in front of our farm home, leaving me to be raised briefly by grandma and grandpa, and I don’t think they ever liked me. Grandpa called me a sissy and other nasty names, and I guess I must have been since I really seemed not strong enough to do many of the farm chores to his liking. Grandma tried to defend me, but in that strict household, what grandpa said went.
So just about Thanksgiving time, I went to live with my Aunt Adele, and she was really a different lady. Some people called her eccentric, since she ran about the neighborhood dressed in all sorts of exotic clothes, like the clothes I saw some women wear in Paris on the pages of Life Magazine. Aunt Adele also ran a dance studio, and that’s how I met Wanda, who was 12 years old — the same as me. Wanda, you see, was one of the dancers in Aunt Adele’s dance group, and I went along to help her set up the program and assist her with the little girls who made up the group. Besides, I also set up the music by running the phonograph and I didn’t miss a cue, either, for that performance.
Since then, I couldn’t get Wanda out of my mind. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t feel anything like romance; I was only 12, and really very innocent about all those types of things.
But you see, Wanda was skinny with flowing blonde hair, and I was also skinny with blonde hair, too, though not as long as Wanda’s. Still I probably should have had a haircut since some people mistook me a girl sometimes.
And, Wanda and I were about the same height. I remember helping her button up her ballet costume at the Christmas pageant; I had helped out with many of the girls in that way, since Aunt Adele really needed the help.
“You look like an angel in that dress,” I told Wanda after I buttoned her up for the performance.
“I love the dress, too,” she told me. She even did a little pirouette for my benefit. The dress of white gauzy material with a petticoat undergarment flowed out in pleats from the hips. It featured puffy over-the-shoulder wide straps and a square bodice. As she spun while dancing, the dress flared out showing her white slender legs.
Well, then strange thoughts kept flowing into my head almost every night while I tried to go to sleep. I’d toss and turn in bed and wonder: “Could I look as pretty as Wanda if I had such a dress?” That’s what I wondered about almost every night since then.
Often, I’d look in the mirror in my nice bedroom — and it really was very nice and very, very feminine room having been decorated for guests — and imagine myself in that dress. “I’d be so pretty,” I told myself often. And just as strangely, I’d tell myself I’d be prettier than Wanda, which really wouldn’t be too hard, since Wanda was kind of a plain looking girl, and she was always so pale, too. “Yes,” I’d agree with myself in my musings, “I’d be lots prettier.”
Just then I’d realize how ridiculous that was. After all, I was a boy, wasn’t I?
*****
I don’t know what happened exactly, but Wanda and I sort of became like brother and sister, except we never fought, as I’ve seen other brothers and sisters fight in the family. We were always together, she either came over to Aunt Adele’s after school or on Saturdays, or I’d go to her house.
Actually, more often, we were playing at her house, just a block away, and her mom seemed to want it that way.
“This neighborhood’s kind of rough,” Mrs. Linkfuss said one day when I suggested Wanda could come over the next afternoon so we could play around in the ballroom.
“I don’t like Wanda coming home in the dark. After all she’s a girl.”
I had to kind of laugh at that, although I didn’t really laugh; that would have been rude. But Mrs. Linkfuss was right — it was dark by 4:30 during the winter months, and the toughs from St. Rose’s always like to chase kids, particularly girls. I don’t know what it was about those Catholic school boys; they always seemed rough, lots rougher than us public school boys. Well, that’s what it seemed like to me, anyway.
But what seemed funny to me then was that I, too, was scared of those boys; they seemed so nasty and big, too. Ours was largely an Irish neighborhood, and the Catholic kids had a sort of scruffy look, like they never took a bath or washed their faces. That left the Lutheran kids (and whatever kids were in the neighborhood) to go to the public school. The one thing I learned from mom and my grandma, too, was to be clean, not like the St. Rose kids.
In truth, I’d seen Wanda get into a scrape with a couple of older boys at school one day, and she sent them packing. She was a feisty one, she was, and far tougher than I could ever hope to be.
“I’m sorry we don’t have many boy toys and things for you to play with, Terrence,” Mrs. Linkfuss said, adding, “But, if you’d like you can bring over some stuff of your own.”
“Oh that’s OK Mrs. Linkfuss, this is fun, too.”
“Well, honey, I know boys don’t often like to play with girl stuff, but remember, you can bring some of your own toys around if you wish.”
I blushed. Little did Wanda’s mother realize that one of the joys of playing with Wanda was that we could play with her dolls, look at some of the books she had (like the Nancy Drew series) or sometimes play “house.” Usually, we’d do our homework together, and when we’d get bored we’d get into a mock fight and maybe roll around on the floor together, wrestling.
“See I pinned you again, Terry,” Wanda would say, after she’d nail me to the ground.
“Oh I can’t fight all out against a girl,” I’d say in defense of myself, but that was a lie I knew. Wanda knew I was lying, but she was too good a friend to argue with that, not wanting to humiliate me.
My real name was Olaf Terrence Michaelson, but no one ever used Olaf to address me, except in school, at the beginning of each school year when I’d had to correct the teacher and say firmly, “My name is Terrence.” Olaf was my great grandfather’s name, and he had established the family farmstead in Wisconsin after he emigrated from Norway just before the Civil War. Olaf Michelsson had become kind of a family icon for his pioneering spirit, and I guess since I was the first born of a new generation of the family and the family felt they needed to carry on his name.
How would you like to be Olaf? So Terrence it was, named after my mother’s Irish father.
I was always called Terrence up on the farm, but it seemed my Aunt Adele and Wanda, along with the few friends I was slowly developing since in Milwaukee, began calling me “Terry.” And that was sort of nice, I thought. “Terry.” It soon dawned on me that “Terry” could be either a boy’s name or a girl’s name.
My favorite gift at Christmas had been a Shirley Temple doll. My Aunt Adele knew I cherished the gift before Santa was to come. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I still didn’t believe in “Santa;” my gosh, I was 12, after all!
In a way, Aunt Adele was my “Santa.” She rescued me from my unhappy existence with my strict and unforgiving grandparents and offered me a warm and friendly home after my mother’s sudden death. Most of all, however, she offered me her unquestioning love, shown often through her warm hugs and attention to my needs. She would never replace my mom, but no one ever would.
Aunt Adele understood me. That was so marvelous. She seemed to know that I was not like other boys. Not at all. She treated me as if I was a girl. I liked that.
There were a couple of reasons for that, I guess. First of all, I didn’t object when she gave me her “guest room” as my bedroom when I moved in, even though it was decorated for a woman, all light pinks and blues and with lacy curtains and bedclothes. Then, she caught me in a pink ballet dress that I was trying on from among the supply of dance clothes she had stored in a huge closet in my bedroom.
I guess that’s when she started calling me “Terry.” And, she said I could wear dresses whenever I was home, but that I had to ask her permission first.
“I don’t want you ever to sneak about, Terry,” she warned me. “It’s fine with me if you want to look like a pretty little girl ‘cause you really do look pretty in those dresses.”
“Yes, Aunt Adele.”
“If you’re going to do something, do it proudly,” she said. “Proclaim it to the world. Let them see how pretty you can be.”
I remember blushing when she told me this. But that was Aunt Adele. She was really a great woman.
Of course, this being 1942 — a time when our nation was at the beginning of a War that we weren’t sure would end very good — there was little chance that I’d be proclaiming to the world that I loved being a pretty girl. It was still a time when anyone with such desires was thought to be a weirdo or a “pervert” or a “homo.” There were always stories of a neighborhood weirdo who liked to steal women’s underthings from clothes lines. I certainly didn’t want to be anyone of the “those people.”
I never wanted to lie to Aunt Adele. She deserved my honesty since she loved me so. I was so happy to have her protecting me. So I stifled my desires to put on the dresses that hung in my closet. But I’d think about them almost every night as I climbed into my perfume-scented bed. I dreamed I was a princess awaiting my Prince Charming.
*****
I couldn’t believe how big Wisconsin Avenue School was when I entered. The halls seemed so long and went on forever, and there were so many kids around. This was so different than my old school, Tippecanoe School District #4. There were only two rooms in the school, one for kids in the first through fourth grades and the others for grades five through eight. And there were never anymore than six kids at my grade level in the school. There I had become known as “Miss Terry,” for my girlish mannerisms and total ineptitude in sports. In that rural area, sports were very important and since there weren’t many boys around, I had to play on the school’s baseball team. Naturally I was placed in right field, where I performed abysmally, shying away from fly balls and letting them drop, in fear I’d drop them. Then, when I threw them back to the infield, the throws were short and woefully off target.
“You throw like a girl,” my tormentor in that school, Billy Gustafson, yelled one day. So from then on I was “Miss Terry.”
So it was with a mixture of relief and fear that I entered the 7th Grade at Wisconsin Avenue School in the dark winter of 1942. I could start fresh, without the name of “Miss Terry” hanging about my neck. I was scared, too, about the mean and nasty “city kids” that I had been told existed in the big cities. How would I fit in?
Actually, as I soon found out, the city kids weren’t so bad; best of all, there was no boy like Billy Gustafson, my tormentor at old Tippecanoe School, around to beat me up. For the most part, the boys ignored me, sticking in their own groups and seemingly always pushing each other around in playful shoves and trips. I don’t think I wanted to do that stuff.
Since I walked too and from school with Wanda, the only student I knew in school, it seemed only natural to start hanging around with her friends, who were all girls. Her friends were always so nice to me, but I soon realized they weren’t among the prettiest girls in school. Nancy and Carol were both still carrying the chubby fat of adolescence and Marjorie was tall and gawky (several inches taller than me) and she had lots of pimples and a swarthy complexion.
They were all in my English class, and I could tell right on that they were among the smartest kids in the class. It happened in the second week of school that Miss Elliott, the English teacher, gave us an assignment to write a book report on any book we had read (or could read in the next week).
“Now, young people,” she said. “I wanted it to be a book you particularly liked, maybe even one you consider to be your favorite. Then write and tell ‘why’ you liked it. Don’t just say it was ‘good,’ but write about what you found that made it so good.”
I remember doing a stupid thing then, raising my hand with a question. “Yes, Terrence,” she said, taking my question.
“Can I write about a play I read and liked?”
“A play? I guess, if it’s something you read. Yes, you may. What play?”
“Hamlet,” I answered without thinking.
“By Shakespeare?”
“Yes ma’am.”
I could all of a sudden hear the room snicker. What was so funny about a boy interested in Shakespeare? That bothered me; the snicker seemed to indicate the rest of the class thought I must be kind of weird.
“Quiet class,” Miss Elliott warned. She was a stern teacher, but she had a ready sense of humor, often seeming to get the most reluctant of students to find interest in English.
“Hamlet’s a story full of action, even killing,” she said, giving it a masculine interpretation, and obviously using the incident as a learning experience, hoping to entice boys into literature.
The class quieted, but I felt strange about the whole affair.
Marjorie, the tall girl, walked with me from class to our Social Studies class, and said, “I think it’s nice you read Hamlet.”
I explained we only had a few books in our house on the farm and one of them was a leather bound version of Shakespeare’s Plays. I told her I read Hamlet several times over, always crying when the distraught Ophelia drowned herself in the river. What I didn’t tell Marjorie was that in my mind I pictured Ophelia in a white chiffon dress floating dead in the water while I stood on the shore crying; always I too in my day-dreaming was wearing a similar dress and looking as fragile and pretty as the Ophelia of my imagination.
“I think I’ll write about ‘Pride and Prejudice,’” Marjorie said. “I liked the book.”
“Oh I read that, too,” I admitted to her. My mom had that book, too, and it came with me to Aunt Adele’s when I moved to Milwaukee.
“You did? And you liked it?”
“Oh yes, and I particularly liked Elizabeth,” I volunteered, referring to the lead character in the book.
“Me too,” Marjorie said. “Gosh, I never knew a boy who read that book.”
I didn’t reply, glad for the warning bell to ring, giving us ten seconds to be in our seats for the next class.
*****
“My girl friends like you,” Wanda said, as we walked home from school a few days later.
I don’t know, but that made me blush for some reason. Maybe it was because I had come to like them too. They had welcomed me without question into their circle, and let me talk and they listened. I found myself giggling with them a lot. Like most smart people, they found lots to laugh at in life, especially those girls who were trying to be all fancy. They called them “princess girls,” and said Serena Stinson was their “queen,” since she was reputed to be the richest kid in the school.
I guess it was kind of snotty talk, but it was all harmless and seemingly good for a laugh. I had my comments, too, and I realized they were just as snarky. Did I like this gossiping, too?
My comments always seemed to deal with the dresses the “princess girls” wore; I always looked at the clothes girls wore. I don’t know why I did that. I just liked looking at their clothes.
“You seem to know lots about dresses, Terry?” Marjorie said one day at lunch after I made a comment that Serena’s dress was the “wrong color” for her light complexion.
“I guess I notice things,” was all I could reply.
Yes, it was obvious, I loved being with the girls.
*****
As the new school year went on, I still didn’t seem to make any friends, beyond Wanda and her coterie. It seemed only natural, then, that I’d get involved in Aunt Adele’s dance classes. She had classes every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after school and all day on Saturday.
The Tuesday classes were for kids in grade school and beginners from the higher grades; Wednesday was for junior high school kids and Thursday for high school. All three groups came again on Saturdays, for separate sessions.
Needless to say, there were no boys taking ballet classes , in spite of Aunt Adele’s pleading with the girls to help recruit their brothers or friends to join. Well, one did join for a while, Bruce Wells, a skinny kid (kinda like me) who as a year older than me. He only came twice, but when some of his friends found out, they teased, calling him “Brucey” with a sort of lisp. He was reduced to tears in one encounter that Wanda told me about, and he started crying before running home after school one day.
I did hear some of the boys talking about Brucey in the boy’s room a few days later, saying “he cried like a girl.” I didn’t think that was very nice, but I didn’t say anything.
I started helping Aunt Adele out during her dance classes, making sure I had the record player ready when she wanted music and assisting in adjusting the girls with their dresses and ballet shoes. Aunt Adele kept some spare shoes available, just in case some of the girls tore one open — or, forgot to bring them to class, which happened far more often. Girls were always forgetting something. They seemed rscatter-brained, I thought.
Wanda came for classes on Wednesdays from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10:30 a.m. to noon, and I liked watching her dance. “You dance like a fairy,” I told her one day as class ended.
“Like a fairy?” she replied, a puzzled look on her face, like she didn’t like the comment.
“Well, ah, yes . . . so light and pretty … so like a fairy leaping in the air,” I said, rather sheepishly.
“Oh. You liked it?”
“Yeah.”
With that she pulled me into her sweaty body, engulfed me with her arms, quickly releasing me. I felt kind of strange, weird, maybe a bit spacey, too. I couldn’t figure out why.
“And Terry,” she said then, “I think you’d dance like a fairy, too.”
“A fairy?” What was she saying? I didn’t know much about all this sex stuff, but I did know about being a “fairy;” that’s what they were calling Bruce, and I didn’t want that.
“Well,” she blushed. “I didn’t mean ‘fairy’ with that meaning.” She emphasized the word “that,” obviously upset that she might have hurt my feelings.
I nodded. She continued:
“I just meant that I’ve seen you helping your Aunt and you seem to have nice light moves, too. I wish you’d start dancing with us. Maybe some other boys will join, too.”
“Oh I couldn’t,” I protested. “Look what happened to Bruce.”
“Think about it,” she pleaded, and left to change her shoes and go home.
In truth, I had been thinking about it a lot, but I guess I was scared, and Bruce’s experience didn’t help any. I really wanted to and auntie had given me a few rudimentary lessons on the proper way to stand and use my feet. Sometimes, I’d prance about the ballroom floor on my own, always wearing ballet slippers because auntie warned me to stay off the polished floor with street shoes on.
Of course, the ballet shoes were white, pink or light blue. Well, girls’ shoes, naturally.
Aunt Adele encouraged me to continue working on my dance steps, and she hugged me after each quick lesson, saying, “You dance beautifully my dear. So natural.”
It was wonderful, truly dreamy to think about soaring in the air between steps, floating my arms as if they were wings and flying high into the blue sky between fluffy wisps of white clouds. Could I fly, like Peter Pan?
“Here, I think you should put these tights on,” Aunt Adele said one day early in February as I was about to do some solo dancing. She handed me the black tights, and I could tell they were brand new. She must have bought them for me.
“Aren’t they for girls?” I asked.
“No, boy dancers wear tights as well, honey.”
She also handed me a pair of white shorts to wear.
*****
Over the winter, Aunt Adele had installed a floor-to-ceiling mirror that ran for perhaps six feet along one wall of the ballroom. She kept it covered with a drape, except during training sessions, when the girls were being taught techniques.
On that February day, a Friday afternoon after school when there were no lessons, I ventured into the ballroom, a frigid place, since auntie kept the heat down, knowing the dancers would quickly warm up once the exercising started. Besides, it was wartime, the President had told everyone to keep the heat down at home to save precious coal, needed for war production in the factories. After putting on the tights, the shorts and the ballet shoes, along with an old practice blouse I found among some discarded clothes in my closet, I proceeded to the ballroom to practice my twists and turns and leaps and leg curls. The drapes were open, exposing the mirror.
As I stood erect, ready to begin dancing, I looked into the mirror. I couldn’t believe it. I looked like one of the girls. Really, I did. Soon I began to twirl and swing my arms about, my longish hair flowing in the wind I created by my twirls. I felt so dainty, so light, so free. It was a lovely feeling.
It wasn’t to last for long, since I soon tired and my legs grew heavy. I was quickly learning how exhausting dancing can be. Could I even keep up with the girls who were in Aunt Adele’s classes?
I stopped, almost collapsing in fatigue, already in a full sweat. As I did, attempting to lower myself onto the floor gracefully, as Aunt Adele had instructed her students, I fell, my legs not strong enough to control the descent. I tumbled in a heap on the floor, certainly not with any grace.
“Oh, Terry, are you hurt?” I heard a high-pitched voice, and look up from my undignified position to see Wanda standing there.
She had rushed to my side, holding a hand so that I could rise. I refused it. I could get up by myself. Then, she stood there and clapped, yelling “bravo, bravo, bravo.”
“What’s going on here?” It was Aunt Adele. She rushed into the room.
“Nothing,” I said. Of course, I knew that was a stupid answer.
“He’s so graceful, Miss Adele,” Wanda said hurriedly. “I saw him finish dancing. He’s so pretty when he dances, ma’am.”
“What?” I was shocked, suddenly realizing my secret was out.
“Yes, honey,” my aunt said. “She just said you dance very gracefully and you do, dear. You’ve got the good qualities of a dancer.”
I stood and starred, my sweat cooling in the cold room. I began to shiver, and Aunt Adele led both of us to a small closet where she produced a pink robe, handing it to me.
“Here put this on, you’ll catch cold otherwise,” she said.
“That?” It was a girl’s robe, obviously.
“Yes, this, put it on. You need to stay warm.”
I was glad I did, the robe was nice a snuggly and warm. Besides it smelled girly, or at least I guess some of the girls who wore it in past left the scent of their sweet soaps lingering on the cloth. I liked the scent.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Wanda.
“She told me when I answered the door, honey, that she and you were going to work on a school project today,” my auntie told me.
I stood there dumbfounded, finally remembering we had discussed doing that. I just forgot. Possibly I was so busy day-dreaming about dancing when we talked about it that it didn’t register. Who knows? I do that sometimes.
Wanda nodded, smiling. Finally she said, “I’m glad I watched you dance, Terry. Don’t you think she . . . ah . . . I mean . . . he should join the dance group, Miss Adele?”
I looked at Wanda. Did she say “she?”
“I’d like him to do just that, Wanda, but it’s up to our Terry here.”
Aunt Adele nodded at me, smiling. Oh, I think I’ve told you before I love my auntie so much; I knew she would not push me to dance. She really meant for me to make up my own mind.
*****
“Come on, Terry,” Wanda pleaded later. “You’re good enough you could be in the corps for the Easter show.”
“There’s no spot for a boy in Aunt Adele’s pageant.” It was a logical response, I thought, and would end Wanda’s continual whining about me joining the dance class.
“I bet Miss Adele could figure out something for you, Terry. You’re good enough.”
“No.” I said that quickly, but maybe not with much conviction in my voice.
“I bet you want to, don’t you, really. Terry.”
“No,” I said, hoping my voice was more convincing.
“Yes, you do,” she said, now beginning to giggle. “I know you want to. Tell me, don’t you want to. Tell me the truth. Criss cross your heart hope to die!”
“No,” I said, again. But then I couldn’t help it. I, too, began giggling with her.
“See you do,” she said loudly in a high girlish squeal.
Of course, I blushed. Oh how I blushed. I blush so easily.
*****
The Easter pageant had become a tradition for the community’s west side area, being held in the huge Eagles Club ballroom on Easter Sunday afternoons, long after the morning festivities of church services and Easter egg hunts. Sponsored by the Eagles, it attracted dance groups, chorales and the civic orchestra. Major politicians, including the mayor, always made it a point to stop by.
Though it wasn’t a competition, there was pressure on the groups to out-shine others, usually in hopes of winning the more honored positions in next year’s program, those being near the end.
“Girls,” Aunt Adele yelled, “Now quiet down and come over here.”
What was my auntie saying, linking me into the girls? I was standing there, too, in my black tights, shorts and lace blouse. Was I being lumped together with all the girls now that I had joined the corps de ballet as we began rehearsing for the pageant? After all, I wore black tights and the girls were in an assortment of pink, peach and white tights.
But I dutifully gathered about her at one end of the ballroom, mixing in with the dozen or so girls, all about my age. I stood with my hands demurely in front of my, one foot forward, in the relaxed ballet position Aunt Adele had taught me. I noticed the others also stood about the same way, except for Judy McQuistion, who chose to sit on the floor in front of the group. Judy always was a bit different.
“Now girls,” Aunt Adele began and I began to wonder why she kept saying “girls,” leaving me out.
“Last year the Metro Dance Club did better than my girls,” she said. “So they will be dancing last and we’ll be on the program just before them. I think we’ve got such a good group this year we can do better.”
“Yes, Miss Adele,” several of the girls said almost in unison.
“This year we’ll be celebrating the arrival of spring, the eruption of flowers from the ground, the budding of tulips and the lilies, and sprouting of buds on the bushes and trees,” she said.
“And the rain falling, too, Miss Adele?” It was Judy interrupting. She was always quick with a wisecrack.
“That too, Miss McQuistion,” and the group giggled. Spring in our town seems always to be slow in coming, usually staying cold and wet well into May, so Judy’s comment was very much on the mark.
“Now we have three weeks to practice, and shortly I’ll separate you all into the parts you will be playing,” Aunt Adele continued. “I’ll show you what to do, each person, and then we’ll begin practicing together and putting it all together in one neat package.”
“What if I don’t like the part you’ve given me, Miss Adele?” It was Judy again.
“I want you to try it out, Miss McQuistion, and if it doesn’t fit you, we’ll arrange a part that does. And that goes for all of you. I want you all to be happy about this. This is about the reawakening of the flowers and plants in spring. We must all show joy!”
As we about to break up, one of the other girls, a girl named Bertha who went to the Catholic school, raised her hand.
“Yes, Miss Schmitter,” auntie addressed her. “You have a question?”
“Yes, Miss Adele,” the girl who was a bit cherubic and perhaps the heaviest girl among the dancers, most of whom were slim. She stuttered a bit, too.
“Ah . . . Miss Adele . . . ah . . . is T — T — T — T — erry d — d — d — d - ancing with us too? What will he do?”
“Yes, Miss Schmitter, he is in the corps now, and I think he’ll be a good member. He’s a good dancer.”
“B — b — b — b — ut he’s a b — b — b — oy.”
There were giggles from the others. This was so embarrassing now. Why had I agreed to this? All I could do was blush again.
*****
I guess all the girls in Aunt Adele’s class liked me. After all, I had been hanging around the studio for a while, helping out with various chores, including caring for the dresses, and even helping the girls fasten their outfits and tying their ballet shoes on. So, when I decided to join the corps, they seemed to accept me.
Oh, a couple of them looked at me with those amused faces, as if to say: “What a strange boy he is!” They probably laughed at me when I wasn’t looking. Oh well, the cat was out of the bag now: I was going to be a ballet corps member, probably the only boy at Wisconsin Avenue School ever to dance in such a group.
For the pageant, Aunt Adele combined her beginning students, all girls still in grade school, with our group, mainly of girls in junior high school and of me, of course.
“We’re entitling our pageant this Easter as ‘Arising Spring,’” Aunt Adele told the combined group as we gathered for our first rehearsal. She outlined the dance:
“Like the Lord Jesus who arose on Easter Sunday, we’re symbolizing the arising of the flowers and the grasses in spring after a harsh winter. Those of you in the beginner’s group will be the budding flowers and bushes, and the older girls will all be the wind and the rain and the sunshine which nourishes the flowers into blooming.
“And, girls, this will be a very pretty event, since many of you will be wearing lovely and bright and fresh colors, signifying the freshness of spring. What do you all think about this?”
Cries of “we love it,” or “we like it,” or ‘it’ll be so nice” came out from the assembled group.
I was seated on the floor, wearing the black tights and ruffled blouse, my legs folded to one side, joining in a posture very much duplicating the other girls. I could tell they were all excited about the performance. I was, too; it would be beautiful, I’m sure, but I was also full of fear, still wondering where this was all going.
As it turned out, the younger girls would be wearing cute baby doll dresses of varying bright colors, yellows, pinks, light blue and greens. Over the dresses they’d be wearing shrouds of gray or brown, which they would slowly shed as we in the older group would dance around them, sprinkling either rain in the form of shredded bits of tin foil or sun rays in the form of tiny pieces of bright yellow paper upon the girls.
It sounded easy enough to do, but then Aunt Adele and her assistant, a slender teenager named Donna Mae who had been one of her students in previous years, decided to add some drama. They decided that every so often the wind would blow.
“Then all of you older girls,” Donna Mae explained, “will have to have the capes you’re wearing flow out in unison with the direction of the win.”
I don’t know why, but both Aunt Adele and Donna Mae kept addressing all of us, me included, as “girls.” I didn’t say anything, since I seemed to understand that to say something else like “girls and Terry” or “students” might be hard to remember. But still to be linked as a “girl” was a little embarrassing, but still kind of nice to hear.
Half us junior high school age students would be dressed in soft yellow dresses over white tights and flowing veils of white gauzy materials, signifying sunshine; the other half would be in a dark grey, signifying clouds and rain.
“Do any of you volunteer to be clouds and rain?” Donna Mae asked the group.
No one raised their hand.
“So I thought,” she said. “OK, we’ll count of by twos. That’s ‘one’ then ‘two’ then ‘one’ and ‘two’ and so on.”
“Which is going to be the sun, Miss Donna?” piped up Judy.
“We’ll draw for it when we’re all done. Just start counting, girls, beginning with you, Judy.”
It turned out I was a “one” and Wanda, who had been sitting next to me was a “two.”
When it was done, Donna Mae called Judy and Wanda to rise and draw from a hat to determine the roles. It happened that Wanda drew the slip saying “rain and clouds” and Judy got “sun.” So I was to be with the sunshine group.
“You’re so lucky Terry,” Wanda said afterward. “You’ll be in the pretty dresses.”
“I know. Maybe I should drop out. Being the only boy, you know.”
“No. No. Don’t. You’ll be so pretty. I know you will.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to be “so pretty.” But the idea still excited me, to be twirling about in a pretty dress, daintily sprinkling bits of sunshine colored paper upon the grade school girls who would soon rise from their crouches and turn into budding flowers, swaying in the wind.
Wanda and I were sitting down on a bench in Aunt Adele’s ballroom after all the others had left; we were next to each other, both beginning to shiver in the coolness of the ballroom, as we cooled down from the rehearsal.
“I love the dancing, Wanda. I just feel so free when I dance, and I like the idea of the veil which will stream out as I move.”
“It’ll be so pretty, and you’ll be the best of the bunch, Terry. You’re so graceful.”
“You think so?”
“You are, Terry.”
I blushed. I didn’t say anything, but then I felt I really was a girl, sharing time with Wanda as two girl friends. I think she must have felt I was her girl friend, too. I liked the idea.
*****
“You can still back out, Terry,” Aunt Adele said to me that night as I was preparing for bed.
“It’s OK, auntie.” I was sitting on the bed, just in my briefs. Aunt Adele entered the room before I could get my pajamas on for the night. I could tell my legs had become more firm as a result of the dancing, but my upper body was still slender and without much tone.
“I could switch you to being a cloud, honey, where the costumes are more neutral,” she suggested.
“No, auntie, this is fine. Either way, I guess I’m considered one of the girls.”
“Oh honey,” she said, taking me in her arms, drawing me to her. I loved her smell; it wasn’t the smell of my mom who always smelled of soap. Auntie’s smell was sweet.
I began to cry. I missed my mom, but Aunt Adele was so comforting. I loved being with her and would do anything I could to please her.
“Aunt Adele,” I said, breaking away from her.”
“What Terry?”
“I love you, Aunt Adele. I want to make you happy. Am I making you happy, auntie? I’m not much of a boy.”
“Oh my darling,” she said, pulling me even more tightly against her. “You’re making me very happy just the way you are.”
We both began to cry.
*****
I’m not sure whether it was the innocence of childhood, or the general naíveté of the times, but as rehearsals went on for the pageant, I found myself being accepted by the girls as just one of them, that is, another girl in the corps de ballet.
All of us seemed to be concentrating on the show, trying to make it the best ever. The girls seemed clearly to adore “Miss Adele,” as they called her. Since the dance routines and the general flow of the program was complex, Aunt Adele was stressing the need for being unified and dancing together, as if we were one body, as she described it.
“Now, girls,” Aunt Adele addressed us on the day of our dress rehearsal, “You’re going to have to try very hard today to stay alert and sharp. Remember your sequences and don’t worry about your individual steps. We must show unity and be together, as one.”
“You all look so lovely in your outfits,” Donna Mae, her assistant, said. “So just make it all flow together, in rhythm. Now let’s go to it girls.”
Several weeks before, I quit wishing I was not included in the phrase “girls,” since both Aunt Adele and Donna Mae used it unconsciously. Did everyone just assume I was a girl, too? The idea made me smile. I liked it.
Certainly, as I stood there in my dress before the dress rehearsal started, I felt very much a girl. I know I looked it and it would be hard to realize that somewhere under all the gauzy material there was a boy lingering.
As one of the “sun girls,” that’s what auntie called us chosen to be the “sun,” we all wore a short yellow skirt, sky blue-colored tights and sleeveless matching yellow blouses, with sky blue veils that fanned out as we danced and twirled. We all had white ballet shoes. After I had dressed for the event, I proceeded to the stage of the Eagles’ Club ballroom, but stopped short at a full length mirror in the hallway to examine my costume.
I loved what I saw. So I took time to pose, to twirl about and prance about daintily.
“Aren’t you cute?” said a voice.
I stopped short, looking up to see Officer Joseph Clancy, the local beat cop, an older, ruddy-faced man with an almost constant smile on his face.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, hurrying away, heading for the stage. I wondered whether he recognized me; he knew me as Terrence, the young boy who had moved in with Adele Michaelsson who ran the dance studio.
Once he had even stopped some older boys who were tormenting me as Wanda and I walked home from school. And, Officer Clancy always made it his business to see what was going on in the neighborhood, obviously stopping into the Eagles Club to see what kind of program was on, and perhaps, too, to wangle a cup of coffee from the club’s manager.
If he recognized me, he didn’t say. I don’t think he did. He probably just thought I was one of the girls.
*****
Well, let me tell you this. The program on Easter Sunday went over perfect; not one of us girls (there I go, making me one of the girls again) seemed to miss a step, and we all made it beautiful to behold.
Our program, “Rising Spring,” was one of the hits of the afternoon. We received a standing ovation, but then did most of the groups, I have to be honest, since the audience was filled with parents, grandparents and other relatives of all the performers.
I still think our program was special. When the curtain opened for “Rising Spring,” the little girls performing the role of plants crunched themselves down as tightly as they could to the floor, and each one covered by a white sheet. The floor was covered in white, too. Of course, that all signified snow.
At first, the “cloud girls” came in wearing grey dresses and darker veils. They sprinkled tiny pieces of cut white paper (snow flakes) over the huddled smaller girls. They finished their snow storm routine to great applause.
Then it was time for us “sun girls.” We burst onto the stage, scattering the “cloud girls” who retreated off stage. We danced around the huddled grade school girls, still curled up on the floor, waving our hands, making sure our veils flowed over each of them until they slowly shed their white cloth covering; in unison then the young girls began to rise up as us “sun girls” danced between them, casting our warmth upon them.
Next, of course, came the “cloud girls,” chasing us off the stage, while they scattered bits of paper, signifying rain, of course, upon the budding plants. Slowly the littler girls dropped their brown shawls to reveal bright green skirts and multicolored blouses and the girls turned into beautiful flowers.
As the finale, we “sun girls” came on to the scene, scattering the “cloud girls,” but not running them off stage as both the clouds and sun intermingled while the plants burst into bright spring colors.
We all curtsied to the applause, and danced off the stage. I never felt more alive in my life. It was so nice to be a part of something so beautiful. I wished mom could have been there. From that special place in heaven, my mom must be so proud of her little girl.
(Watch for future stories about Aunt Adele and pretty Terry. If you wish to suggest a theme, please do so in comments)
Can you believe it? I was one of the “sun girls” in Aunt Adele’s Easter program and all the girls in the dance program made me feel I was one of them. What makes that so special is that I’m not a girl, but a boy, and the only boy in the dance troupe.
What a great feeling it was: to be included in a group. I had always been so alone, having been raised on a farm in an isolated area of the state. But that wasn’t the whole story, you see. I never had any real friends there mainly because I wasn’t a tough, rough nasty boy. I was always sort of . . . oh how would you say it? . . . weak and girlish, I guess best describes it. That was no way to be a boy in the hardscrabble farm country where I spent my first years of my life.
But mom died suddenly when I was 12, and I had to go live with my Aunt Adele in the big city. That’s when my life changed. I still cry almost ever night about mom; she shouldn’t have died while I was still alive and needed her. She was my best friend, and, truth be told, my only real friend up there in farm country.
My Aunt Adele tried her best to make up for my loss, and I loved her for it.
I think she knew how different I was from most boys, and didn’t try to change me. What she did was introduce me to a life of almost total femininity, and I felt right at home in my new life . . . a life that seemed to mark me as a girl.
You see, my Aunt Adele runs a dance studio and all her students are girls. That is all except me, of course. But if you looked in while we rehearsed you wouldn’t know one of the cute little girls dancing was me, a boy. I fit in with the girls perfectly, it seemed.
At first the girls giggled and gossiped when I joined them for dance class, and you can’t blame them. But I found they liked me, I think, and soon I was welcomed among them, ready to giggle along or gossip with them as well. They called me ‘Terry,’ short for my middle name of Terrence, which I always used, trying to ignore my first name of ‘Olaf,’ since I was a namesake of a great grandfather from Norway who homesteaded back in the 1850s.
In the recently completed Easter Pageant at the Eagles Club, called “Rising Spring,” half of us were “sun girls,” and the other half “cloud girls.” I ended up being a “sun girl,” and if I must say so myself, I looked really cute and pretty in my yellow and white dress and flowing veil. We worked really hard for the pageant and afterwards we really celebrated when Aunt Adele took us all to the Ice Cream Palace for a treat.
Everyone commented how pretty the girls in the pageant looked, and there were “oohs” and “aahs” when we arrived at the Ice Cream Palace. “What a lovely group of girls,” I could hear people say. Of course, I was one of the girls, too.
It felt so good to be part of this group. And I giggled and frolicked about with the others, flailing my arms as they did, excitedly talking and being totally girlish. I felt so good.
My best friend, Wanda Linkfuss, was part of the dance group, and we were always together. We seemed to like all the same things, dolls in particular, and we were both beginning to be thinking more and more about clothes. And you won’t be surprised that meant girls outfits, dresses and shoes in particular.
I think you could describe us as girl friends; sometimes one or two other girls would join us, as we might venture out to a movie at the Tower Theater nearby, still getting in for the “under 12” charge of 10 cents. I have to admit Wanda usually did some shameless flirting with the teenage boy taking tickets. Besides I went dressed as a boy, of course, but I was small for my age, so that helped us get in for a dime. Otherwise, we’d have to pay the adult fee of 25 cents, a full quarter.
Still it was strange that I often got mistaken for a girl, even when I was in boy clothes. My mother always said I had a “pretty face,” and I guess I did, since occasionally others said the same. It must have been my full lips and longish hair, and perhaps that way I brushed my hair back from my forehead repeatedly, flicking it in a dainty way. It could have been my voice, too, since it still hadn’t changed and was told it was a “sweet” voice, and obviously girlish. When I answered the phone, I was often called “miss,” so that should have been a clue.
Being around the girls all the time, I guess it was only natural that I took on their ways of doing things, in how I walked, and sat down, even tucking my feet under me at times. Anyway, I was still happy to be included with the group of girls, usually the only boy joining in their gaggle of giggling and gesturing.
*****
I really felt happy, probably happier than I’d been in my whole life. That bothered me a lot; how could I be happy when my mother lie buried in a grave in the barren country in the middle of our state.
For the first time, though, I had friends. Back on the farm, I was so lonely and my life had resolved around books and helping mom, who was always busy working. I had even won the 4-H contest at the County Fair for baking the best cookies, a feat that lost its shine when the boys in my school found out and laughed at me for winning in a “girls’ contest.”
True, now my friends were all girls and we did girl things, like giggle and gossip and look at clothes. I even found talking about boys to be fun, since my friends apparently overlooked the fact that I was a boy, too. I think they thought I really was a girl inside. What a strange boy I must be! Right?
My happiness, however, had its limits. You must remember this was 1942, and it was now only six months after Pearl Harbor had been bombed, and Franklin D. Roosevelt had declared war on the Axis countries, Germany, Japan and Italy. Even though our city was located in the middle of the nation, we were still worried about being attacked, and we had already had several air raid drills, when the city was supposed to go “all dark” for a few hours. And the war itself was going not too good: Hitler continued to roll German storm troopers through Europe and had even sent submarines to patrol the coasts of New Jersey. The Japanese had taken the Philippines and subjected the brave troops of Corregidor to a death march, putting the shame to American power.
So we were scared, and every young man in the country was being drafted into the Armed Services; I knew if the war went on long enough, I’d soon be drafted too and be forced to push my weak, skinny body through all sorts of torture in basic training camps and eventual conflicts. Would I ever be able to do that? I doubted it.
Yet, my happiness always emerged from those dreaded depressed moments when I joined the girls in the dance group or skipped along with them in whatever girlish endeavors they were headed off to. I was with friends.
“I love you as my friend,” Wanda said one day as we walked home from school. With that she punched me playfully in the arm and skipped off in front of me.
“Oh, I’ll get you for that,” I said, charging after her, trying to maintain a hold on my books as I ran.
She stopped suddenly, and I bounded into her, both of our books falling to the ground, and loose papers floating about in the light spring breeze. We worked feverishly to gather them up, finally succeeding in getting them into our hands.
“Which ones are yours and which are mine?” she asked. We both stood there our books piled in front of us, both holding handfuls of school papers.
“I guess we’ll have to sort them out,” I said.
“We’re closest to your Aunt’s place,” she said. “Can we go there to sort them?”
I agreed that was best idea. We stopped first in the studio to tell Aunt Adele our plans; she was working in a small office she had set up to handle billing and other business matters that arose in running a dance studio.
“I fell into Wanda,” I began haltingly, “And we both dropped our books. Our papers got all mixed up and we have to sort them.”
“It was my fault, Miss Adele,” Wanda said quickly.
“No it wasn’t,” I protested, quickly. “It was mine.”
With that I looked at Wanda, and she began to giggle; then I did too. We were both in high chirping voices.
Aunt Adele just laughed. “You two, you’re like two giggling little girls.”
That only made us giggle more.
“Ok, off with you two, now,” Aunt Adele said. “Why don’t you go into the kitchen. There still are some of the oatmeal cookies you baked, Terry, for you and Wanda. And there’s plenty of milk in the ice box too.”
“These are so good, Terry,” Wanda said. “You baked them?”
Her question was one of astonishment, I could tell. Obviously, she didn’t think boys should bake cookies. I merely blushed, not bothering to reply. Besides, my mouth was full of cookie at the time.
It took us no time to sort out the papers and Wanda had just finished her fourth cookie, still obviously relishing the taste. They were good, if I say so myself.
“So you baked these, Terry? They’re scrumptious.”
“Yes.”
“You amaze me, Terry,” she added. “I don’t know any boys who bake.”
“I like to bake,” I said simply, “Besides, I had to cook on the farm, since mom always was too busy working.”
Wanda nodded, seeming to accept that as reason enough for me to be doing “girls’ work.”
“You should enter these in a contest,” Wanda said. “I know the Electric Company has baking contests.”
“Thank you,” I said. “I already won a cookie contest, at the County Fair last year.”
“Really, you are special Terry.”
“Can you stay a while, Wanda?” I asked, changing the subject.
“Sure. What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
She paused for a moment, finally blurting out, “Show me your room. I’ve never seen it.”
Well, I didn’t want her to see that room. I never did change the room; it still was a girl’s room. In fact, I had even made it more frilly and feminine since I moved in.
“No, you don’t want to see it,” I said. “It’s all messy.”
“I do, I do,” she persisted.
Well, she pleaded and pleaded, but I held firm. Well, I did until she grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind my back, until I gave in. She always was so much stronger than I was.
She gasped when I opened the door to my room. She just stood at the entrance looking at the pink and frilly bedroom, its sweet scent permeating our nostrils.
“It’s not messy, Terry,” was all she could say.
I blushed heavily now, having exposed my private room to her searching eyes. Would I ever be more humiliated? She could tell this was a room of girl, not of a boy. And she was right of course, the room was neat and orderly. Prominent on the bed, covered with a pink and peach pattered duvet, were my three fluffy animals, a white rabbit with pink nose, a calico cat and a brown bear. There on a rocker, which had pink and white cushions, sat my prized possession, my Shirley Temple doll, holding a place of honor in my room and in my heart.
“And you have a Shirley Temple doll,” she cooed, running into the room and scooping my doll up in her arms.
“Yes, Auntie gave that to me for Christmas.”
“And you like dolls so much, I know.”
“Yes,” I blushed. “I’m sorry about that. I know it’s wrong for a boy to like dolls, but I just do. Don’t tell anyone, please.”
Wanda didn’t answer, but continued to survey the room. I knew it was a mistake to bring her here.
“This room is for a girl, Terry,” she said, both as a question and a statement.
I nodded, and explained that Aunt Adele hadn’t been able to change the room over before I arrived in the house. My moving to her home was so sudden, I said.
“I suppose so, Terry,” she agreed. “But it looks like you like it this way.”
I didn’t say anything but just let the statement sit there unanswered. I think Wanda knows I do like it kept as a girl’s room. And my blushes grew deeper and deeper. I was so humiliated.
“Don’t worry, Terry, I won’t tell,” Wanda said, later as she was about to go.
“I don’t know why I’m like this, Wanda,” I admitted.
“I like you as you are, Terry. Mind if I consider you to be my girl friend, and we can be best girl friends?”
She kissed me, and I began to cry.
Wanda turned and bounded out the front door and down the steps, returning to her home, leaving me standing at the door, tears streaming down my face.
Aunt Adele, hearing the doors opening and closing, came out of her office, and saw me standing there, crying.
“What’s wrong honey?” she said putting her arms about me.
“Nothing auntie, I’m just so happy.”
*****
Aunt Adele suspended classes for a week after the Easter pageant, giving the girls (and me, of course) some free time, but I found I missed the Wednesday and Saturday sessions when all the girls were assembled at the studios.
There were 16 of us (counting me) and the effort to put on a good Easter pageant had paid off in building a spirit, much like a team spirit in sports. We wanted to be the best, and though auntie didn’t say as much, I think we did better that the Metro Dance Group in the pageant. Auntie didn’t want us to rest on our laurels, I guess.
In those precious moments before our rehearsals began, the girls would gather about, assisting each other with their outfits, jabbering about all sorts of things, but usually it was about clothes or movie stars or Frank Sinatra. We were all mooning over Sinatra, including me, I’m ashamed to say. He was to come soon to the Riverside Theater downtown, and Wanda and I and a couple of other girls were going to try to go. I found myself waving my arms and talking as excitedly as any of the girls over the discussion.
The girls always included me in their groups now; there was a sense that I was no different than any of them. I had even stopped wearing the black tights for rehearsals, and now wore the same cream-colored or grayish tights of the girls; sometimes I even wore the short skirts as the girls did, since there were many in my closet, and they felt so liberating as I danced. The practice blouses I wore were from the girl’s outfits that auntie stored in my closet as extras for the dancers.
“I think Mark is so cute,” Serena Stinson, one of the girls in our dance class, said to me one day. “He’s in our class. Don’t you think he is?”
“Me?” I replied, surprised by the question. Why would I care if a boy was cute?
“Oh well, I guess you wouldn’t know about that,” she blushed. “I forgot you were a boy.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that remark; Serena was in my classes at school, too, and she always acted like I was sort of strange and like I was inferior to her. Well, I guess I was since I didn’t have any real mom and dad and also wasn’t as rich as she was.
That was the way my life was going. And, the way all the girls had been treating me, I guess most of them forgot I was a boy, too. It was a sweet feeling, though a bit scary.
*****
We gathered to begin rehearsal on the Wednesday after Easter vacation and most of us were gathered in clusters, some doing warm-ups. We were all chattering, mainly about boys and school stuff. I was on my back, doing stretching to loosen up my legs, when Serena, the girl who talked about the boy named Mark, came and lay down next to me, beginning to stretch as well.
Now, I know you’re going to find this strange, but was in a tutu, which I found in the closet in my room where auntie stores many of the ballet outfits. Auntie said I could wear it, along with the tights and a sleeveless blouse. On my head I had taken to wearing a scarf, just as many of the others did, to keep my hair from flowing about as we danced. It all seemed so natural to me, looking just like all the other girls.
I had looked in the mirror as I entered the ballroom. What I saw pleased me so much, I smiled, and even did a demure pose. I was so much a girl, with my slender, smooth arms and my long slim legs, so devoid of apparent muscle tone, even after all my dancing.
“You’re cute, too, Terry,” Serena blurted out, as she began copying my leg exercises.
“Oh?”
“You are, Terry, as cute as any girl here,” she said.
I didn’t respond, but just went about my stretching, not sure where this was going. I had never paid much attention to her, largely because she always looked so superior to me and that superiority scared me, I have to admit. Actually she was a little taller, even, with short dark hair, always brushed neatly, and flowing down to her shoulders. And, she was clearly quite athletic and strong-looking. She could easily be a princess, I thought, walking regally with her prince.
“But why do you put on skirts now for rehearsals? You could be a cute boy, too,” she persisted.
“I just like how free they make my legs feel,” I said, not really sure it was the whole truth.
Really, I’m not sure why I so wanted to be dressed in all this girl stuff. Maybe I just never felt I could be accepted as a boy and be part of a gang; so to be a girl meant I could be part of a group, at least with the girls in Miss Adele’s Dance Group.
“I still think you’re cute, Terry.”
Just then Miss Adele entered the room and gathered us together down at one end of the ballroom.
*****
“Now girls,” Aunt Adele began, as she shooed us all to one end of the ballroom. Of course, we continued our giggling and talking as we gathered about her.
“Quiet down girls,” she finally said firmly. I looked sheepishly at Serena who had accompanied me to the gathering. She nodded to me and then smiled. It was like we were part of a conspiracy.
“You can sit down now, girls,” she continued.
We all sat down on the floor, some sitting Indian-style, others with their legs tucked to one side, which is how I postured myself, purposely sitting in what I felt was a truly girlish manner. Serena smiled at me again.
“Girls, I need to ask you all something,” my Aunt began. Her assistant Donna Mae stood by her side.
“We’ve been invited to audition for the city’s big Fourth of July Program at the lakefront. It’s a real honor just to be invited, and it’ll be an even bigger honor to be picked. What do you all say to that?”
I must say we were all so excited. The news was so unexpected. Well, I yelled along with all the girls, our voices all in a higher pitched squeal of delight.
“We’ll be competing for one spot on the program, and it’s a spot for a girl’s dance group,” Donna Mae explained. “But we need to be sure we’ll have at least 12 dancers, and we know some of you may be gone on family outings that weekend. So we need you all to think carefully about what we’re going to ask you.”
It was Aunt Adele’s turn to speak.
“First of all, how many of you think we should try out, even if you can’t make it. Let me see a show of hands.”
I quickly raised my hand, as did every other girl as far as I could see.
“Ok, then, I can see you all seem to want to do it. Now, how many of you girls are certain that you will be available for this on the Fourth of July?”
I raised my hand, as did most of the girls, including Serena and Wanda.
“I only counted 12 hands,” Donna Mae said.
“Me too, but that’s just enough as long as we have no dropouts,” Aunt Adele said.
Aunt Adele told the girls that they should all check with their parents to be sure they will be able to take part. “We can’t lose anybody,” she said.
She said she needed to have slips signed by all the parents no later than the next class on the following Saturday.
*****
I waited anxiously for Saturday’s rehearsals, hoping that somehow we’d get 12 girls to agree to be in the program. That would mean the group could participate in the tryouts.
Some of them handed slips of paper to Donna Mae or Aunt Adele as they entered, and there was a lot of talk as we all wondered whether we’d get enough to dance. “Are you going to dance,” the girls asked each other.
I sort of stayed out of the chatter, content to do some stretching at the bar. I blush to state that I was able to look at myself in the mirror. What an attractive girl I made, even though I was only wearing a rehearsal outfit of beige tights, a tight pair of blue shorts and my practice blouse, a ruffled affair that had been washed far too many times. I wore a ballerina’s hairnet, and even without makeup, looked totally girlish.
“You like what you see, Terry?” It was Serena, who seemed suddenly to take an interest in me.
Well, I tell you, I blushed when she asked the question. The truth was: I did like what I saw.
“That’s OK, Terry,” she said quickly. “I liked what I saw.”
I nodded, and pretended to go about the stretches, but Serena’s questioning made me so puzzled. What was she up to?
“Let’s you and I stretch together, Terry,” Serena said.
I agreed with the idea and we did some stretching, working in tandem each one mimicking the other as we danced. Serena, who was easily the best dancer among all the girls, set a difficult pace, but I was able to keep up. The truth was I had been able to capture all of the dainty moves of the girls in my own movements, and I think I was probably soon to be one of the better dancers among the girls.
I really loved the feeling of floating about that ballet provided, even though it required so much effort to achieve that.
We were so busy concentrating on our moves that we didn’t notice Donna Mae approach. She began clapping, and we both stopped our dance, and looked at her, noticing a group of girls gathered around Donna Mae, watching us as well. We both looked at our audience, and did an exaggerated curtsey, that prompted more applause, and a comment from Donna Mae: “What a beautiful pair of lovely girls.” I blushed.
Aunt Adele signaled the group to begin rehearsals, which we led by Donna Mae.
It wasn’t until rehearsals had ended that Aunt Adele gathered us together to tell us whether she had enough girls for the tryouts.
“I’m sorry to tell you this, girls,” she began, “But we only have 11 girls signed up. That’s not enough. The contest people specifically said a minimum of 12. I guess we’ll have to pass this year.”
There was a general groan. It was like someone pricked a balloon, since all the spirit left the group.
“Is Terry among the 11 girls, Miss Adele?” Serena asked.
“No, dear, he isn’t, and you know why.”
“But Miss Adele he dances just like all of us girls,” Serena said. “Why can’t he dance? No one would take him for a boy.”
“Yes, Miss Adele,” Wanda joined in. “Why can’t he?”
“That would be cheating, girls,” Aunt Adele said.
“No, Miss Adele,” Serena persisted. “We’re not in any competition. It’s just a show, and Terry looks like a girl. And he dances so pretty, too.”
I sat silently, wanting to hide somewhere. This was so embarrassing; what would happen if people in school heard about this? But as I sat on the floor, my legs tucked to the right, I felt strangely excited. I was acting very much like a girl, even in the way I sat. Was that the real me?
“Serena,” Aunt Adele replied, “I’ll check into it. I’m just not sure it’s right.”
“But we want Terry to dance with us,” Wanda burst out. Her outburst was unusual for a girl who was always so shy.
“We do, Miss Adele,” echoed several other girls, and soon they were all clapping. There were even a few whistles heard.
I felt I couldn’t let all this pass, so I stood up, and did an exaggerated curtsey, to even further applause, and then some laughter.
“OK, girls, I promise I’ll check into this and we’ll let you all know on Wednesday at our next rehearsal.”
“OK, Miss Adele,” the girls all said in unison.
*****
After rehearsal and we had changed out of our dance outfits, Serena approached me as I was talking with Wanda over what we were going to do that afternoon. Wanda and I usually did something on Saturdays, if nothing else than hanging around each other’s homes, listening to the few records we had, maybe doing some homework or just talking.
Wanda had even introduced me to listening to the Metropolitan Opera on the radio on Saturday afternoons; I never understood the words, but found the high, beautiful voices of the sopranos and the male tenors to be so magical. And I loved how announcer Milton Cross described the stories and the costumes.
Wanda showed me some pictures from Life Magazine of some of the famous singers in their costumes. I was most intrigued by the outfit worn by in the dance scene in the “Merry Widow,” and imagined myself being led around the floor in that magnificent dress in the arms of the handsome prince.
I never even wondered about being that handsome prince; I could hardly picture myself as a strong, handsome young man. I only wanted to be the lovely princess.
“You wanna do something this afternoon?” Serena asked.
“Us?” Wanda answered. I looked at Wanda, sharing her wonder at this question from Serena; she never indicated much interest in either of us, always hanging around her clique of fancy girls.
“We’re not doing much, maybe listening to the radio,” I said.
“Can I join you two?” Serena said. “I got an idea.”
“Sure,” Wanda said. “What did you have planned?”
“Maybe you could come to my house?” she began, her slender, pretty face showing an unusual eagerness. “We have a nice ballroom and we can be there. Play records and such. I got new Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra records. Even some Spike Jones.”
She told us where she lived. It was over on McKinley Blvd., the street with all the mansions. I didn’t know Serena lived there; we had virtually no rich kids in our school, since most of the kids who lived on McKinley went to private schools.
“There’s only one problem,” Serena said. “My mom says I can only have girls over to visit. I thought Terry could just pretend to be a girl.”
“What?” I asked.
“It’ll be easy, Terry,” Serena said. “It’s warm today, and you could wear those shorts and tennis shoes and any old shirt. If you combed your hair a little bit, no one could tell.”
“The way you act and walk and everything, it’s so like a girl,” Wanda agreed.
I wasn’t sure I liked all this talk. All this girl stuff was OK among the dance group, but I was afraid that it would be disastrous if word got out in school and among the rough boys of the neighborhood.
“Yes, let’s try it, Terry,” Wanda urged. “And we could stop by my house and I have a nice skirt for you to wear and a pretty blouse. Serena’s mom won’t know the difference. All she’d see was a girl.”
I blushed, realizing everything the two girls said was true. I know Aunt Adele would be asking me if I really wanted to dance as a girl in the tryouts. She’d not try to force me to do it, either. She was really nice that way. I’d have to make up my own decision. She knew I might be humiliated if my true identity would become known.
The truth was, I guess, that I wasn’t very strong, either physically or emotionally. I knew I was lousy at all sports, that I wasn’t muscular and that I was considered to be a sissy, fairy or even homo. I wasn’t quite sure what a “homo” was, but I thought it referred to a boy like me, who liked girly things.
And I knew Aunt Adele would try to spare me any more emotional situations. Yet, I felt I was part of the girls dance group; they all treated me so nice; they accepted me as one of them. Oh why wasn’t I born a girl?
*****
Wanda’s mother wasn’t home that Saturday; it made it easy for me to change into one of Wanda’s skirts, a pleated affair in dark brown ending just above the knees. She even had a pair of saddle shoes and white ankle socks that fit me. Wanda carefully put a pale shade of lipstick on me. Along with peasant blouse and a light, satiny babushka which was so popular then, I must say I looked cute.
“See, you’re all girl now, Terry,” Wanda said.
She was right of course; in our walk to Serena’s mansion, we even encountered some friends of Wanda’s, several boys who were gathered under a tree, reading comic books. “Who’s your girl friend, Wanda,” one of them asked.
“None of your business, Robert,” Wanda answered. “She’s too old for you.”
“Hubba Hubba,” was the response from some of the boys, using a term popular then to indicate a girl was hot.
I must say I responded by exaggerating my hip sway a bit, to even more comments from the boys. It seemed nice to be the object of such attention.
*****
Of course, I passed through the Stinson mansion lobby under the watchful eyes of Serena’s mother without much of a problem. She greeted us warmly, acknowledging how well we dressed, saying, “Aren’t you two girls lovely!” Serena hadn’t told her mom just who exactly her “girl” friends were for the day, leaving my true identity to chance.
I guess I must look pretty much like a girl, so no further explanations were needed.
Serena herself wore white shorts and a blue tee shirt and was not as nicely groomed as we both were; we thought the people in the mansions must always be dressed fancy. Guess we were wrong.
I’ve said that the Stinson place was a mansion. That may be a bit of an exaggeration, since it was much like Aunt Adele’s place. This area was the original settling ground for most of the early rich families in our city so the houses were really big. The Stinson’s ballroom took up the entire third floor, and apparently the family had purchased an old jukebox upon which they had 24 different 78 rpm records. This was so neat, having access to 48 songs (there were two sides to each record), most of them marvelous dance tunes, including some grand waltzes and polkas which made for great dancing.
And dance we did, playing one record after another, adjusting our dance to the beat of each song. Two of us would dance together, while the third person would sit and watch, and then we’d change places.
We twirled about and when I was dancing with Serena, I followed her lead, and she twirled me about and I felt like I was flying. It was so magical, feeling my skirt flow freely, the breeze tickling my thighs. Serena was so much stronger than I was and I seemed to relish letting her take control.
“You two are hot together,” Wanda said. “I can’t compete with you.”
“Sure you can, Wanda,” Serena said, as we finished up dancing to Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood.”
“No, Serena, you and Terry make a really great pair, like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.”
I giggled, and Serena looked at me, smiling. I felt like I must have been Ginger Rogers in our dances. I know Serena must have felt the same.
“You know, Terry and you, Serena, should work up a routine for the Miss Adele’s 4th of July pageant,” Wanda suggested.
And there was born the idea that Serena and I’d form a dance team!
*****
I could tell Aunt Adele wasn’t too keen on the idea of me dancing in what was supposed to be an all-girl’s danced troupe. It just didn’t seem honest to her, that I’d be dancing a lie.
One thing about our family, we were always terribly honest about everything. Maybe it was our Norwegian heritage, always rather plain, drab and not too exciting. That is, except for Aunt Adele, who was anything but plain and drab. But, she was honest.
“Are you sure you want to do this, Terry?” she asked me late that same Saturday afternoon, when I returned from our outing at Serena’s. I had stopped over at Wanda’s house and changed back into my boy’s outfit.
“I think so, auntie,” I said. “All the other girls seem to want me to.”
“I know they do, honey, and I know you love to dance with them. It’s just that I don’t want you to get hurt.”
I nodded in agreement. I realized I was standing at the door of the kitchen, watching auntie fix beans for supper. I realized I was in a girlish stance, leaning against the door jamb, my feet crossed and both of my hands held to together, at my chin, my wrists bent. I knew what auntie meant: what if people found out? Would that bring shame to her dance studio? Worse yet, would I get harassed for being such a girlish boy? I had gotten teased lots during my one semester at Wisconsin Avenue School for my mannerisms and general ineptitude in boy activities. If I was found out, it might be almost impossible in the next school year.
“Auntie, I want to dance with them. I don’t care what some boys say about me.”
“Oh honey,” she said, dropping her knife, and picking up a towel to dry her hands. “You really are so adorable.”
She took me in her arms, and I nestled next to her, feeling her tiny, firm breasts against my puny chest. I placed my face onto her neck and began to cry. Auntie gently brushed my hair, and my crying slowly subsided.
I heard auntie sniffing, and finally she stepped away from me, and looked me straight in the eye.
“I smell cold cream and makeup on you, Terry,” she said, accusingly. “What’s this mean?”
“Oh, do you? I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me Terry,” she persisted. “Were you into my makeup drawer again?”
“No auntie,” I said truthfully.
“Well then, what?”
I looked down, wondering how I could explain off the cold cream and makeup scent. We had used the cold cream to clean the makeup off my face at Wanda’s.
“Terry, look at me. Tell me the truth now. You know I’ll forgive you almost anything, except lies. Now what were you doing.”
Finally I broke down and told her how Wanda dressed me as her girl friend, and that we went to Serena’s where we practiced dancing and played together. I told her that Mrs. Stinson accepted me as just another girl friend of Serena’s, and that we had practiced dancing as a team.
“I liked being a girl for the afternoon, auntie,” I confessed.
“Oh my dear,” she said, coming back to hug me. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to you. My sweet little niece.”
Of course, I cried some more. What girl wouldn’t?
“Now, darling,” Aunt Adele said to me after my sobbing stopped, “Go dry your tears, and let’s see how pretty you can be tonight.”
“OK, auntie,” I said, taking the dainty hanky she had provided.
She told me to take off my clothes and to get ready for a bath. “I’ll fix you a nice tub so you can look and smell like a pretty girl, OK?”
“What? Like a pretty girl?” Aunt Adele had never before wanted me to dress like a girl before, except for when I was dancing, and that was just to fit in with the others. She had never stopped me from wearing dresses, but she tried not to encourage it.
“Yes, honey, if you seem to want to be a girl, I want to help you be one, at least for tonight.”
What was this about, I wondered. She must have noticed my puzzled looks, for she quickly announced, “We’re going to the ballet tonight, dear.”
“Oh auntie, you mean the Ballet Russe? You didn’t tell me you had tickets for them tonight.”
I knew the Ballet Russe was performing in town; the troupe was among the top ballet companies in the world, and since the war began some of the dancers were based in nearby Chicago, they could make short trips for engagements, in spite of wartime travel restrictions. I wanted so badly to see them, particularly their star, Alicia Markova.
“Yes, honey, I got them today, while you were out. Would you like that? And tonight you’re going as my niece. Would you like that?”
I didn’t know how to answer Aunt Adele. I truly wanted to see the Ballet and I had heard so much about Markova, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to go out in public as a girl.
“Oh yes, auntie,” I said finally, “But really, as a girl?”
“Yes, dear. If you’re going to dance on the Fourth of July, I need to see how you look as a girl in public,” she explained. “You know you’ll have to arrive at the Fourth of July show dressed like a girl, even before you’re in costume. So we need to see how you’ll look and act.”
“Oh is this like a test, auntie?”
“Yes, honey, it is. I need to see how much of a girl you can be, before I say ‘yes’ to you dancing with the girls.”
It seemed to me that I’d have no problems passing the test; so I shouldn’t be wary, but I felt suddenly sick. The fear of truly being in a public place as a girl both scared and excited me. I dreamed constantly of being a girl, and now I’ve got my chance. But that meant acting and talking and sitting and walking as a girl did. Might something I do or say give me away? Might someone see the boy that was still part of me, sense that I had a penis? Then, what would happen? Would everyone laugh at me, scorn me, find me repulsive?
Of course, I said, “Yes, auntie. I’d love to be your niece tonight.”
*****
I must say auntie was treating me like a princess; she had drawn my bath, and as I entered the bathroom, already steamy from the hot water running in the tub, I found my nostrils filling with the delicious odor of sweet flowers. The tub was full of pinkish bubbles, and auntie had hung a light blue robe of sheer, gauzy material on a hook, obviously for me to wear. The collar and hemlines were trimmed in pink ruffles.
I smiled when I saw it. “Perfect” was the most fitting term.
I felt absolutely in heaven when I entered the tub, burying myself in the pink bubbles. It seemed I could feel my body grow smooth and soft as the soap water penetrated my skin. How could a girl not relish this feeling?
Aunt Adele entered the bath as I finished drying myself, using a clunky hair dryer to dry my hair, which had grown to cover my ears. My hair was a light brown, almost blonde, and quite light in texture.
“You have lovely hair, darling,” auntie said, as she took the hair dryer from my hand and finished the job. “Sit still here on the toilet, while I brush it.”
She brushed it out straight, then stepped back and looked at me, her face gaining a quizzical look. Finally she shook her head ‘no.’
“We need to give you some bangs, Terry,” which she did by brushing strands of hair at the front of the scalp to the right and forward, covering about halfway down my forehead. She applied some conditioner to set the hair, and then brought out a dark purple hair band with sparkling sequins to fix over the top of my head.
“Good,” she said, smiling at me, a smile that seemed to show satisfaction at what she saw.
“Let me look in the mirror,” I asked.
“Not just yet, honey. Let’s finish dressing you.”
I’m not sure I had a happier moment in my life, realizing that my auntie — I loved her so much — was making me so pretty and that I was to be her niece, well, for at least one night.
I couldn’t believe my eyes as I entered my bedroom, still having the pink towel wrapped around me. On the bed was a light blue dress, full of ruffles and lace, along with all the undergarments a 12-year-old girl would wear, plus stockings.
“Oh auntie,” I squealed, rushing to the bed. “Is this for me?”
She smiled at me, nodded. “It’s for a pretty girl and the only one I see in this room is you, darling.”
I put on the panties, a light blue satin, and she showed me how to put on the garter belt, which she explained had snaps to which to attach the stockings. Then she assisted with the bra; well, it was a training bra actually.
“You’ll have to learn to put this bra on yourself, darling,” she said. “Girls don’t always have someone around to help them.”
“Yes, auntie, I can do that. But do I have to wear a bra now? I don’t have any breasts to show.”
“Few 12-year-old girls do have breasts, yet, dear, but you need to learn to wear one anyway.”
“Wanda’s already got breasts, auntie. Will I ever get breasts?”
Auntie didn’t answer the question; instead she ordered me to sit down on the bed, and told me to hold out my legs, one by one. She put on the tan stockings, hooking them to the garter belt snaps, smoothing each stocking by running her hand up and down my legs.
“My, oh my, Miss Terry,” Aunt Adele said, as he looked up from a kneeling position. “You have beautiful legs. All that dancing has firmed up your legs, and without giving you a muscular look. So very pretty.”
She held up a slip, and told me to raise my hands over my heard, so that she could put the slip on.
“You really have lovely arms and shoulders, Terry,” she said as she accomplished the task.
I must have blushed. I knew I was never very strong, and hated to compete in any kind of sports since I’d know I’d always lose or be last. I remembered that back on the farm during one summer picnic with kids from my school, I got roped into an arm wrestle with a girl one year younger than myself. I thought I could beat her, since she was a girl. I remember trying real hard, but she downed my arm in just a few seconds. I remember the taunting: “Terrence can’t even beat a little girl.” “Go back to baking cookies.” “Miss Terry.”
I was so happy now; my arms and shoulders were pretty.
“This dress should be perfect for you my dear,” auntie said as she pulled it down over my head.
And, it was “perfect.” The dress had a square bodice, thick straps over the shoulders and a belt. It flared out from the belt, ending just above the knees. My shoes were black sandals, with a slight heel, which I found so adorable.
“There, now, Terry, let’s stand up and get a good look at you,” she said.
I stood up and auntie stepped back, eyeing me slowly, a smile growing on her face. “You’re just adorable, dear,” she said, leading me to her own room where she had a full-length mirror.
“Oh auntie,” I said. I think I actually squealed, too.
I felt so light and airy, so lovely and dainty, so soft and feminine. It was a magical feeling. I did a twirl before the mirror, hardly able to take my eyes off the pretty girl looking back at me.
*****
It turned out we were going to the ballet with her friend, Matilda, and her son, Matthew. Auntie explained that she and Tillie, which is what auntie called her, had been in a dance company together when they were younger and though they rarely talked often, they remained good friends, and would often go to cultural events together. She said, “She just knows I am raising my sister’s child. I never mentioned gender.”
When auntie told me I’d be sitting with a boy who was just two years old than me, and he would only know me only as Aunt Adele’s 12-year-old niece, I grew scared. “What if he figures out I’m a boy, auntie?” I protested.
“Don’t worry, he won’t, my dear,” she said. “No one could mistake such a beauty for a boy.”
“Auntie, please don’t say that. I’m scared. Do you think I ought to change back to Terrence?”
“No, certainly not. I told Tillie that you’re my niece. That’s all she knows and that’s all her son will know.”
“I don’t know, auntie.”
“Just be yourself, dear,” she smiled.
*****
We met them at the lobby of the Pabst Theater, an ornate old show house that was the usual venue in our city for ballets, symphonies and major theatrical presentations. I sort of hung back, holding my head down, my hands clasped nervously in front of me, feeling very much like a shy little girl.
“This is Terry,” she said in introducing me to her friend, still as slender and trim as my auntie was. Her son, Matthew, was tall, also fairly thin, but with wide shoulders, and long gangly arms. He had neatly combed dark hair and dark eyelashes. He was so handsome and immediately connected him with the actor Tyrone Power, thinking that would have been how the actor looked at 14. He was dressed in a navy blue suit, white shirt and dark tie.
“Hi Terry,” said Matthew, words that came out so faintly I could hardly hear them. Was he as shy and scared of meeting me as I was of him?
“Hi Matthew.”
“Speak up my dear,” Aunt Adele said. “Young ladies need to speak up, dear.”
“So do you young gentlemen,” Tillie warned her son.
Matthew took the cue, moving closer to me, saying simply, “Call me Matt, Terry.”
We talked very little before the show began, but it seemed Aunt Adele and Matt’s mother maneuvered the seating arrangements so that the two of us sat next to each other during the show. I was so scared something might happen if we sat together, that he might realize I’m really a boy. That made me nervous, and perhaps as a way to end it, I started talking. I was so happy my voice still hadn’t changed, as most of my male classmates’ voices had deepened.
“Do you like ballet, Matt?” I said in a shaky, little girl voice.
“It’s OK,” he said, his voice deep, but still muffled. “I play basketball, too.”
“Oh that’s nice. I bet you’re good at it. You’re so tall.”
“I’m on the Peckham Junior High team.” His answers were short, clipped, like he was embarrassed to be talking to a 12-year-old girl. After all, he was 14.
“I’ll be 13 next month,” I told him.
He looked at me, smiling now. “Well, Happy Birthday.”
“Not yet, silly, wait ‘til next June 22. Then you can say it.”
He blushed.
Just then the house lights dimmed, and I grew silent. Was I flirting with this handsome tall boy? How disgusting! I’m still a boy. Or am I?
*****
After the ballet, we went to Child’s Restaurant, a popular downtown restaurant, for an after-show meal, where Matt and I continued our conversation. I couldn’t believe how interested he became in me, asking me lots of questions, which I found myself answering easily.
I told him about life on the farm, about how I helped the ladies in the kitchen and threshing time or joined with other girls in cleaning up and serving the men.
“I won the county fair baking contest, too,” I said proudly.
“Well, I know farm girls make the best wives,” he said, with a wink.
Auntie overheard the last remark, and smiled at Matt. “Now, Matthew,” she said. “Terry’s too young to be thinking about that.”
“I know, ma’am, we’re just talking.”
“OK, keep it that way, sweetie,” she said.
*****
It was obvious I passed the test that night. At the following Wednesday rehearsal, Aunt Adele announced to her class that it would audition to perform in the big 4th of July Pageant as an “all-girls dance troupe,” with me, of course, as the 12th girl in the group.
They all cheered and I cried. Both Wanda and Serena hugged me, and I loved their warm embraces, but mostly was thinking of my mom, wishing she could be here and see how pretty her daughter was.
*****
By the time auntie decided that I could join the dance group as one of the girls, there were only two weeks of school left before summer vacation. That meant each day I’d have to shed my life as a girl and revert to being a boy — at least for the school days. Otherwise, I have to say, I was living in a girl’s world.
Even though auntie refused to let me dress often as a girl now, I thought constantly about being a girl. It just seemed natural to me, I guess. When I got home from school, I tried to dress in outfits that could be considered either for boys or girls, and I don’t know how many times I pranced about, glancing in a mirror, posing as a model would do to show off a dress.
My vanity got the best of me, too. I am shamed to say that I must have posed 20 or 30 times a day in front of the full-length mirror in the ballroom, and proclaim to myself, “I am a pretty girl,” or just plain “I am a girl.” And, I certainly looked all girl; I particularly liked to look at my arms; they were so slender and soft, very much a girl’s. And my legs, too, were those of a girl, even though they were growing stronger due to my dancing.
Aunt Adele did let me dress in girl outfits when I practiced dancing; she recognized that if I was to dance as a girl on the 4th of July Pageant at the City’s huge program, I probably should get used to the girl outfits. Naturally, going into the large closet in which she stored dance outfits, I always chose the most frilly and girly ones. And how I loved to wear a tutu and a lace cap so often featured in ballet costumes. That’s exactly what I was wearing when Aunt Adele caught me dancing before the mirror in the ballroom.
“Oh Terry, you really should cut this out,” she warned me.
“What, auntie? Don’t you want me to practice?”
“Yes, dear,” she said gently, “but this priming and preening in front of the mirror is just too much. You’re acting like a prima donna, like a diva.”
“Really?”
“You don’t want to act so vain,” she explained. “People don’t like that. It shows you think you’re better than others.”
“But, Aunt Adele, I don’t think that way at all. It’s just that I finally like how I look. And I know I look nice as a girl.”
“You could look nice as a boy, too,” she said.
“Auntie, I’m not like other boys. I don’t even think I look like a boy. Boys don’t want me playing with them.”
“Oh honey,” she said, coming to me and pulling me into her body. I felt my fragile body surrender into her strong arms.
“I know, my dear, but you are a boy and sometime soon, you’ll be out in the world and it’s time you begin to act and think like a boy.”
“But auntie, I’m so happy this way.”
“I know, darling. I know.” And she held me tightly, and I cried.
*****
In my last two weeks of school, the fact that I was a boy haunted me almost everyday. My mannerisms, I realized, had grown so feminine that I became the butt of nasty comments from both boys and girls alike. I had become the class fairy, which was the name almost constantly given me.
When Miss Hankinson, our 7th grade arithmetic teacher, overheard one of the girls taunt me in the hallway outside of her room as a “fairy,” she scolded the girl.
“You don’t call people names,” she warned the girl. “I never want to hear that term again.”
“Yes, Miss Hankinson,” the girl said automatically, but she had a smirk on her face, and knew that as soon as she was out of the teacher’s hearing, I’d be a “fairy” again.
Of course, there were always snickers and giggles to be heard when I passed by a group of kids.
My best defense, I found, was to walk with a group of girl friends, usually Wanda and Serena. Just being with them seemed to silence any out loud taunts, which seemed to help. Serena, it turned out, was my best defense. Her general popularity and her own tall, athletic body was fair warning against any who would insult me openly when she was around.
But I couldn’t always be in their protection. It’s a terrible feeling to be so frightened just to walk the halls in your own school. I remember grandpa telling me once to “stand up and fight for yourself” after I ran home crying from our one-room schoolhouse back on the farm, dodging the taunts and threats of Billy Gustafson, who bullied me constantly in grade school.
I knew that wouldn’t work. There wasn’t a boy in my school back home or now here who probably couldn’t have beaten me in a fight. I didn’t like the idea of fighting anyway. I couldn’t see hitting anyone. Getting hit and hurt didn’t seem to bother me, and the few times boys tried to fight with me, I just cowered and let them hit me. Otherwise, I ran.
In the last week of school, an unusually hot and humid day for early June, I wore a pair of shorts, and since I had none of my own, I had borrowed them from the ballet costume closet. I didn’t know shorts were either for boys or girls, and not necessarily the same for each. These shorts were long ones, ending just above the knee and they were light green. I didn’t realize they were not boy shorts when I went into the boys’ bathroom to pee and found they had no opening in the front.
The room was full of boys, taking advantage of the time before recess ended, to use the facilities. I hated using the boys’ room, because that’s where I got taunted the most. It was no different this time, and I entered, realizing I’d have to find a stall to take down my shorts to pee.
“The girls’ room is down the hall,” one boy said to me as I entered.
“No girls in here,” came another. With that came a shove from the first boy, who pushed me toward the second boy.
“Leave me alone,” I said. But, my voice came out like a girlish whine, and that only made matters worse.
The laughter was derisive as I was passed from boy-to-boy, until finally one of the bigger boys, an 8th grader I knew only as Bert, who was perhaps the tallest boy — and probably the strongest — in the room, grabbed me, and held me tightly, saying to the others: “Let her alone and let her get to a stall. Don’t you see she has to go?”
With that he guided me to the door of an empty stall, and ushered me in, motioning off the others. The taunts ended and I stayed in the stall until the room grew quiet as the boys went off to class. Feeling it was safe to leave, and knowing I’d be late for class, I finally left the safety of the stall.
Bert was there, obviously waiting for me. Otherwise the room was empty.
“I’ll escort you to your class, and if the teacher wonders why you’re late, let her talk to me. I wait a minute outside the classroom.”
I looked at Bert, wondering what prompted this act of kindness.
As we approached my classroom, Bert said, “You’re very brave to wear girl shorts to school, Terry.”
“You know my name?”
“Yes, I’ve watched you recently. You’re very pretty for a boy.”
I didn’t say anything, not sure how to respond.
As we got to my classroom, he announced: “I’ll wait for you after school at the 28th Street entrance, OK? I’ll walk you home.”
“You don’t need to do that; my girl friends usually walk me home.”
“That’s OK, I’ll be there. I like you.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Why was an 8th grade boy, obviously a big strong boy, interested in being a friend of a boy like me?
*****
I was thankful that day that Wanda couldn’t walk home with me. She usually did, and I was glad for that, since it protected me from being hassled by some of the roughs. Needless to say, I was fair game for thoughtless, stupid boys who like to bully people.
This day, however, Wanda was staying after school to finish up a project, and I was happy to welcome Bert’s promise, just for his protective presence. I did wonder about what this boy, who was so popular in school and one of the better players on the Wisconsin Avenue School baseball team, wanted with me. I was a bit scared, too.
Bert was there, as he promised, and greeted me with a smile. “Hi, Terry.”
“Hi, Bert, you don’t need to walk me home,” I said, cradling my books in the arms, in front of my chest.
“Well, I walk partly that way, anyway, Terry, and I know some of the guys might be out here giving you trouble.”
“They were?” I asked as we began our trek down 28th Street.
Bert merely nodded. He waved to a few friends, who had gathered at the end of the schoolyard, and they waved back, but then I could see they were pointing and talking among themselves, looking every so often in our direction.
“Can I carry your books for you, Terry?” he said.
“You have your own to carry,” I said, noticing that he carried his books in one arm along his side, as I suddenly realized that’s the way most boys carried books. Except, I guess, me. Since I seemed always to be in the company of girls, I supposed I began carrying my books as they did. I realized another thing, too: when my books were cradled in my arms, I walked with more hip movement, just like girls do.
(Historical Note: Book bags were not around in those days, and children carried their books either cradled in their arms, as girls did, or along their side in one arm, as boys did.)
“No, I want to, Terry. They look so heavy for you and I can put my books in one arm and yours in the other.”
“But it’s not like I’m a girl,” I blurted out suddenly feeling I said something stupid.
He looked at me, smiled and took the books from my arm, securing them under his left arm. I could see he was struggling a bit keeping the books from slipping, and I had to help arrange them so they wouldn’t slip from his grasp. We continued our walk.
“Would you like to do something Saturday?” he asked, when we got to my block.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I have dance classes Saturday morning and then Wanda and I get together. But I think she’s going somewhere with her mom that day.”
“In the afternoon then?”
“I’ll ask my aunt?”
“OK. Do you have a bike?”
I nodded that I did have. Auntie had bought me a bike as an Easter present. It was a light blue Schwinn, with a basket.
“We could go on a bike ride to the Park and the Zoo,” he said.
“Let me ask auntie. I’ll call you later.”
We parted, and he helped me cradle the books in my arms for the last block home. He was so gentle and sweet. It’s like he was treating me as a girl. He was a strange boy, but I liked him. I watched him walk away, toward his home on McKinley Blvd., and strong, broad-shouldered boy whose already muscular body tested the cloth of his tee shirt. I noticed his thick neck and blonde crew cut. He was so strong.
Auntie was thrilled that I had made friends with a boy, finally. “Oh, that’s so nice you’ve got a friend like Bert,” she said.
It wasn’t that she didn’t like the girls I hung around with; she did, since they were all dancers and seemed to be nice girls. I guess she felt I should be with boys more often.
It turned out to be raining Saturday, so our bike trip was off, but auntie said I could invite Bert over to visit me in the afternoon.
“You two will have the house to yourself, honey,” she said, “But I think you’re both old enough to be here alone. And I think you’ll not do anything silly, dear.”
It was so nice for auntie to trust me, and I would never betray her. She had volunteered to work at the local Veteran’s Hospital for the day. Actually it was called “Soldiers’ Home” in those days, and it was already beginning to handle the servicemen who suffered long and difficult recovery from war wounds suffered overseas.
The day had turned warm and stuffy, the steady rain making it even worse, and Bert arrived after a 4-block walk from his home, fairly wet and hot. He was carrying a model airplane he wanted to show me and a game of Parcheesi that we might play. I had also gotten out auntie’s Monopoly game, in case we wanted to do that.
“I got so wet coming over here I gotta change, Terry,” Bert said upon arrival. “Do you have an extra shirt?”
“I think so, but not sure it’ll fit you,” I said, noticing how muscular and broad his body was, compared to mine.
“Let’s check it out,” he said. “Where’s your bedroom?”
“This way,” I pointed to the stairs and he bounded up the stairs, not waiting for me to even nod “yes.”
I followed him up the stairs, realizing he would see how girlish my bedroom was, and I desperately wanted to avoid that. But, Bert was too quick, having reached the top of the stairs, seeking which door to enter. I pointed to a door, upon which a figure of a ballerina was mounted, realizing with horror he’d soon see the true me. I sought to talk my way out of what his eyes would see.
“Don’t pay attention to how the room looks, Bert. Auntie is planning to have it redone.”
It was too late. He had opened the door, stopping short.
“This is your room?” he asked, turning to me in puzzlement.
“Yes, and as I said, auntie is supposed to change the décor for me,” I said, lying, of course.
He surveyed the room, obviously noticing how neat I kept it; the bed was made, and the two stuffed animals were in their usual perched on the bed, with the Shirley Temple doll still in its prominence in the dainty rocking chair. Even the room smelled sweet and feminine.
“Oh my, it’s so pretty,” he said. “It’s nice.”
I looked at him strangely. Didn’t he think it weird that a boy would have a room like this?
“The bed is comfortable,” I said, dodging the topic.
“Well, I like it,” he said.
“You do? Really, you do?”
“Yes, why not? It’s more for a girl, but it’s nice.”
I blushed, and I guess he noticed, since he then said: “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
I went to a dresser, choosing the top drawer where my boy clothes were kept, hoping to find a shirt big enough for Bert. The other drawers had mainly skirts and blouses and lingerie in them. The truth was that I had more girl stuff than boy clothes, since I dressed almost always in girl outfits when at home.
“Sure enough, this should fit,” I said, pulling out a new tee shirt, which auntie bought recently that I felt was too big.
Just then he saw the shoes I had neatly placed near the vanity. Two of the pairs were obviously girls, both sandals with a pink pair having short 2” heels.
“Do you wear these?” he asked, picking the pair up and holding them out to me.
My reddening face gave him the answer. I wanted to run from the room, from him and suddenly from myself. But he must have sensed my dread, and he grabbed my wrist, feeling so slender in the tight grasp of his large, hard hand.
“You do, don’t you? These are yours, you sweet little girl.”
“Yes,” I said, feeling so ashamed.
“As I said, Terry, I like you,” he started, “And I won’t hurt you or tell anyone else. I had a feeling that you maybe dressed like a girl sometimes. You really are so pretty.”
“Don’t tell anybody, please, Bert. I hate I’m not strong like you.”
“But I’m not pretty like you,” he said, smiling. “I pictured you often as a little girl, really.”
“You thought about me before?”
“Oh yes, from when I first saw you, I said, ‘Terry’s as pretty a girl as we have in school.’”
“I suppose so,” I said, slowly getting comfortable with the realization my secret was out to him.
“Would you dress up for me now, Terry? I bet you can be so beautiful.”
“Oh, I don’t think auntie would like that.”
“But I’d so love to see you in a dress, just to show me how you look.”
“You really don’t mind me being like a girl?” I asked. “Most boys would make fun of me or beat me up.”
“I might like you as a girl,” he said, smiling. “I’ll make a deal. If you dress up for me, I promise I’ll keep the other boys from teasing you and taunting you.”
Finally I agreed, and I told him he could dry off in the bathroom and change tee shirts, while I dressed up for him.
*****
My chest was pounding with excitement as I rummaged through the dresses hanging in my closet. I had some really cute ones that auntie and I had found at the Schuster’s store on Vliet St. They always had the most darling of clothes for girls, auntie said, and I had to agree, although I really hadn’t shopped much anywhere else.
Part of the large closet in my room, as I’ve mentioned before, is composed of ballet costumes, used mainly for the students of auntie’s dance studio, but auntie had carved out a section for my clothes, all dresses and skirts and blouses. I loved to go into the closet, if for no other reason than to smell the flowery perfume that emanated from some of the outfits.
I couldn’t imagine why this strong boy was so intent on seeing me dressed up as a girl. But then, I was only 12 years old, was very naíve, and I had little idea about how boys change at my age. As I rummaged through the closet, my mind raced in wonderment as to what Bert would like to see me wear. I really wanted to be “beautiful,” which was the phrase he used about me.
Finally my eyes took me to a peach-colored summer dress, with light green and lavender flowers. It had puffy short sleeves, a belt and pleated skirt, ending just above the knees.
“Good,” I said, feeling pleased with myself knowing I had both ankle socks and a head band of matching peach color that I could wear.
Auntie had fixed a training bra for me, which was permanently stuffed to provide me with smallish breasts so typical of a 12 year old girl. And, I found the most darling of cotton panties, also peach with tiny colored flowers adorning the trim. Even before I put on the dress, I paraded in front of the mirror, wearing only the panties and bra, looking at my smooth, lovely body. What a girl!
“I’m done and changed, Terry,” I heard Bert yell. “What should I do?”
“Don’t come in here!” I yelled back. “I wanna surprise you.”
“OK? But where should I go?”
“Wait in the ballroom. I’ll be down in about five minutes.”
“OK. Hurry up, I can hardly wait to see you.”
I heard his footsteps as he went downstairs, and I finished up, brushing my hair so that it flowed easily, adjusting the headband and applying some lipstick. I also used rouge to brighten my cheeks. I put on the ankle socks and the shoes, and I was ready.
*****
“Oh,” Bert said, suddenly speechless as I walked into the ballroom, where he was standing nervously awaiting my arrival. He just stared at me, and I knew I must have started to turn red before him. He said nothing, and I grew frightened over what he must be thinking.
“You’re a girl!” The words came out suddenly, and he continued to stare. “You are a beautiful girl,” he said finally.
Naturally, I blushed, and I curtsied before him, holding up my dress daintily as I bent my knees.
I looked up at Bert now, noticing how his broad shoulders and muscular arms seemed to burst out of the tee shirt he was wearing. He had combed his hair, and I was taken aback at how marvelous this boy looked.
“Can we play some music?” he asked. “Maybe we could dance. My mom has taught me how to dance with a girl.”
“I guess we could, Bert, as long as we don’t break any of the records,” I said. I really wasn’t sure auntie would like me going into the collection of records, which were only used for dance classes. She was afraid, I guess, of breaking any of the records, which would crack apart if they fell to the floor.
“Do you know how to dance with a boy?” he asked.
“Yes, since we’ve practiced dancing the fox trot and waltz in classes, and I have danced the girl’s part often.”
Auntie had installed a sound system in the ballroom, with a record player, amplifier and record collection located in a former closet. I had learned to use the system because at first I merely assisted auntie in her classes, before joining them as one of the “girl dancers.”
“How about ‘Moonlight and Roses?’” I asked. It was a slow sound, good for a start.
“OK,” he said, crowding into the tiny room with me. “My you smell nice, Terry.”
“I put on some cologne. Do you like it?”
“Oh yes, very much. You are so sweet.”
I had noticed I was acting so much like a little girl, now, with even my voice seeming to take on a lilting, higher pitched quality.
Soon we were on the dance floor, the sounds of music gathering us up in its magic; I found myself easily following Bert’s steps, surrendering myself to his direction.
“Your mom has taught you well,” I told him.
“I liked dancing with her, but you are a good dancer too, Terry. This is the first time I’ve danced with a girl, outside of my mom, of course.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling myself closer to Bert, placing my hands over his shoulder as I’ve seen them do in the movies. We had been dancing at arm’s length to start.
Soon the music stopped, and I had to put on a new record. Auntie’s sound system had a high quality turntable, which had to be loaded with a new record for each song, and most songs were limited to three minutes of playing time, due to the length available for music on the typical 10-inch record.
By the 5th song, Bert and I were dancing “cheek-to-cheek,” in the words of a popular song of the day. I nestled my head on his strong shoulder and he enveloped me, his muscular arms easily holding my seemingly fragile, slender upper body. The music stopped and we stood there as the record player continued to twirl, sending out rhythmical clicks and hisses as the record continued to spin at the end of its track.
It felt so good to be in his arms, but Bert seemed to be shaking now, almost violently and I wondered what was happening to him. I was a few inches shorter than Bert, and I could feel something protrude from his crotch into my own lower tummy. He was trembling. I wasn’t sure what was happening.
Then, suddenly, he kissed me, almost violently, and pulled me tightly, like he was holding on for survival. Our lips met and pressed together. At first, I didn’t know how to respond, but soon I returned his kiss, feeling a stirring in my own penis area.
The record kept spinning sounding its alternate hiss and click, and I was growing light-headed under his hold. Finally Bert broke away from me, running off to the bathroom. As he bolted from me, I felt the tension in my penis lessen. I was confused about what all was happening to me as I danced as a girl with Bert.
I puzzled as to what happened to my friend, and when he returned, he seemed a bit pre-occupied.
“What happened? Are you all right?”
“Yes, I just had to go to the bathroom real bad,” he said, mumbling a bit.
“You left so suddenly, I thought you got mad at me or something.”
“Oh, I couldn’t get mad at you, Terry,” he said. “I I want you to be my girl friend,” he said, as he was about to leave.
“I wish I could be, too, but I’m only 12 now, and auntie wouldn’t let me date so young.”
“I know, but you really are so nice to be with.”
“And I’m still a boy,” I said with a coquettish smile.
“Not that I can see,” he said, kissing me again, as he began to leave.
I closed the door, and watched him walk down the steps and up the sidewalk. And I danced, twirling about, flinging my arms lightly into the air and feeling complete joy!
*****
In the few remaining days of school, I rarely talked with Bert, with me being busy with my girl friends, and he being with his friends. Yet, I noticed he somehow was always around during the times before and after school, making sure that Wanda or Serena or one of my friends would be with me as I walked to and from school.
“Hi Bert,” I said as I we happened to meet in the hallway on the Tuesday following our Saturday visit.
“Hi Terry,” he said looking squarely at me. “Are you doing OK? Anyone bothering you?”
“No,” I said.
We both spoke softly, so no other kids could hear in the din of the halls. It was true; I had not been teased or taunted at all.
“I hope you didn’t mind being forced to dress for me on Saturday,” he said. We had moved into a side alcove to talk. Everyone could see us talking, including a group of his friends who I could sense were looking strangely at us.
I must admit I blushed a bit, and said to him. “No, I liked it.”
He nodded at that. “I liked seeing you that way. You looked so pretty.”
“You’re not telling anyone are you?”
“Oh no, Terry. I gave you my word.”
“Your friends are watching us,” I said.
“I know that and they can like it or lump it,” he said, smiling.
The warning bell rang, summoning us all to our classes, and we parted. I knew I had a strong boy to protect me. For some reason, it seemed only natural for a girl to want to have a boy who will protect her.
*****
The school year ended without any more teasing or taunting. Oh, I continued to get some occasional stares that seemed to show disgust at my growing feminine mannerisms, but no one directly bothered me. Somehow, I guess the word of Bert’s protective shield must have gotten around.
Wanda and Serena and I became even closer friends, as Aunt Adele increased the ballet group’s rehearsal classes to four mornings a week, at least for those girls who were to participate in the 4th of July program. Mostly, we worked on synchronized dances, perfectly our ability to dance totally in unison, without missing a step.
I must say Auntie and Donna Mae, her assistant, worked us relentlessly, forcing us into repeated performances of the same steps over and over again. For the first time in my life, I felt moments of hate for my dear auntie, as she forced into dancing through terrible exhaustion. Yet, I knew she was being so tough in order to make us the best troupe of girls ever to perform.
“What’s our theme going to be for the program, Miss Adele,” Serena asked after about a week into rehearsals. “All we’re doing is basic practicing.”
Auntie had assembled us in a circle. I was seated on the floor, my legs tucked under me just like the others. In my tights, shorts and blouse, I know I mixed in perfectly as one of the girls.
“Yes, Serena, I think it’s about time we talk about the program,” Auntie said. “First of all let me praise all of you for working so hard this past week. I know it hasn’t been easy, but we needed to get you all into the need to be perfectly in sync with each other.
“Now for a theme, Donna and I have decided we should highlight what women are doing on the home front to help our boys at the front as they fight Germany and Japan. But, we want you all to come up with specific ideas to incorporate into the dance program.”
“Like what, Miss Adela?” asked Judy McQuistion.
“Well, for example, lots of women are working in defense factories, making tanks and guns and planes. You could figure out making up a dance of women working on the assembly line.”
“Oh,” Judy said, growing excited. “Like being a nurse for an injured soldier?”
“Yes, that’s it, and I know you all have ideas. I’ll give you time now to break up into groups of two or three girls, each group to come up with an idea.”
It was only natural that Wanda, Serena and I would join together, and at first we didn’t know where to start.
“What could we do as three girls . . . ah . . . or women for the country?” Serena asked. Of course I was considered a girl by them now. It was just to be expected.
“Hmmmmmmmmm,” muttered Wanda. I said nothing, but my mind was twirling in all sorts of directions, picturing the three of us as army nurses, or assemblyline workers or even bus drivers.
“I got it,” Wanda proclaimed. “Let’s be USO entertainers.”
“That’s it,” Serena proclaimed.
“What would we do?” I asked. I didn’t think our troops liked to watch ballet, and that’s all I knew that we could do.
“What about being like the Andrews Sisters?” Wanda said.
“But we can’t sing?” I protested. The Andrews Sisters were a trio that had captured the attention of the nation during the war, singing many popular songs.
“I bet we can, and we can add some dance steps, too,” Serena said.
“I don’t know,” I protested.
“Yes, I know you can sing Terry,” Wanda said. “You sing in the 7th grade chorus, and you have a beautiful voice. And Serena is also in the chorus as an alto. I think I sing, too.”
Serena beamed. “Yes, we can do it, Terry. Your voice still hasn’t changed.”
It was true. My voice was still able to hit high girlish levels, since my voice hadn’t changed, being one of the few boys of my age with such a high voice.
“You can be Patty, Terry” Wanda said, smiling, naming the youngest of the three Andrews sisters. “She’s the cutest of the three.”
“And I’ll be Maxene,” Serena said, choosing the sister who had the greatest range of voice.
“Leaving me for being Laverne,” Wanda said.
“Yes, we’ll be perfect,” Serena said enthusiastically. “With his light colored hair, Terry’ll be a super Patty.”
Later, as they described their plans to the group, all the girls hooted and giggled, with Terry bursting into a high-pitched phrase from one of the Andrews Sisters’ top tunes, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” He had been listening to a record of the Sisters singing that popular song, and knew all the lyrics, having sung along with the music many times.
The other three groups of girls described their ideas, and Aunt Adele said she’d be able to weave all of them into a performance, finishing with a grand finale when all the girls would be on stage.
“I can hardly wait to start setting up our act,” Wanda said.
“You’ll get your chance right now,” auntie said. “All of you spend the next half hour within your group to come up with a 3-minute program to perform.”
Auntie let us put the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” record on the player, and let us crowd into the control room to hear the song, while the others did their planning in small groups at the corners of the room.
“Do we have any pictures of the Andrews Sisters?” Wanda asked.
“I must have,” I said, knowing I had a stack of movie magazines in my room. Other boys my age usually had collections of comic books, but I found them kind of boring. Instead I gathered up auntie’s old movie magazines and pored over them in my room. I blush to admit that I looked mainly at the young actresses, not because I lusted for them, but mainly ‘cause I envied them, wishing a could be like them, wearing sexy outfits. I particularly wanted to have legs like Betty Grable and wear white shorts that ended at the top of my thighs, seamed stockings and high heels. Grable’s picture in those shorts had found its way into the lockers and seabags of thousands of soldiers and sailors.
Actually, I knew I had pictures of the Andrews Sisters, having only recently cut one out from an old magazine because of my love for their singing. And now to actually be one of the Sisters was truly exciting.
I ran up to my room, gathered up the picture, returning to the studio, where we discussed what we’d wear and how we’d look. Their hair had curls, so that would mean we’d all have to have our hair curled, probably at a beauty salon.
“Let’s do it,” Serena said. “I’ll get mom to make an appointment for us a couple of weeks before the program at her hair salon. You’ll have to go with us, Terry, as a girl.”
“Oh can’t we do that here, at home?” I asked. “I’m not sure I wanna do that.”
“Yes, Terry, do it, please,” Wanda added. “No one can tell you’re a boy, anyway.”
“I don’t know,” I protested. My early excitement at this plan was being quickly deflated, as I began to realize what I’d have to be doing. I really wanted to do all this, but it meant transforming myself totally into being a girl, and not just for the dance, but for numerous outings as we got prepared for the big event.
“Come on, Terry, you’ll do it, I know you will,” Serena said, proclaiming that she’d be making an appointment for all three of us.
Of course, I did it!
“I’m so happy with all of you girls,” Aunt Adele said, after each group got done describing what ideas they had for the performance.
We were all giggling a lot, as each group outlined its plans. Our high-pitched voices filled the room, mine along with the rest. I don’t when I’ve seen girls so excited about something once they had a role in planning each dance. Judy McQuistion’s group decided to do a dance routine to working on the assemblyline at the local engine plant; Bertha Schmitter’s group would be passing out doughnuts and coffee to troops; and Nancy’s group would act as air raid wardens.
“We’re going to both sing and dance,” Serena explained, as she outlined our plans. “I’ll be Maxene and Wanda will be Laverne, and Terry here will be Patty.”
“That’s marve’,” one of the girls said. “Terry will be a perfect Patty. She’s so cute . . . ah . . . I meant he’s so . . .”
I blushed so much in hearing that, but I didn’t want her to feel bad, and I merely curtsied to let her know it was OK to call me “she.” I certainly felt like one of them.
For the next five weeks before the 4th of July, we rehearsed our programs and refined them. Wanda, Serena and I spent many hours trying to imitate the Andrews Sisters, which was not easy. The Sisters were truly in tight harmony when they sang, and we had difficulty achieving that. Donna Mae, who played the piano, learned “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” and accompanied us when she could.
Besides Donna Mae had studied singing in college and helped us train.
“You have the loveliest voice, Terry,” she said as we ended one practice. “It’s still a true soprano, and it’s so sweet.”
“Nobody can tell I’m a boy, then?” I asked anxiously, as I was growing more and more concerned I’d be found out, and the whole charade exposed.
“No honey, no one could ever think of that voice as anything but a girl’s. It’s great your voice hasn’t changed yet.”
As the rehearsals continued during the summer, and I spent hours and hours with Serena and Wanda, it just seemed I was really all girl. I had very little “boy experiences,” preferring to be doing whatever 13-year-old girls do. I had my 13th birthday in mid-June, and we celebrated it by having a small party in auntie’s ballroom with Wanda and Serena. Wanda gave me a new outfit for my Shirley Temple doll; she knew how much I adored the doll. Serena gave me a small makeup kit, one of those that are made particularly for girls in their early teens.
You should have heard me gush over both presents, so much so that auntie told me to “tone it down.” But, those presents were just “perfect” for a 13-year-old girl.
Most of the time I dressed now as a girl, except when I had to go somewhere. Even then I was often mistaken for a girl, having let my hair grow since we wanted it long for the performance. I must admit to having mixed feelings about all this; I really felt comfortable as a girl, but I recognized that school would come in September, and I’d have to become a boy then. I worried about the teasing I’d get in the 8th Grade, sure that my girlishness would draw attention and derision. The fact was I was a failure as a boy, having neither the muscles nor the inclination to engage in typical boy behaviors.
*****
My only boy friend and that was what he was becoming, a boy friend to a 13-year-old girl, namely me, was Bert. After our time together dancing, with me in a dress, he treated me as a girl, even going so far as to opening doors for me. And, of course, I was tickled pink to go along with the charade.
Bert had taken over a newspaper route for the summer, delivering the evening paper; he also played on two softball teams, one in a muni league and the other in a league for newspaper boys. So he was busy most of the summer. Yet, sometimes he’d bike over in the morning and we’d bike together to the lakefront or out to the parkway on the west side of town.
“You should really ride a girl’s bike,” he said to me on one of our morning trips.
I nodded, as I was puffing hard to stay abreast of him; even though he tried hard not to speed ahead of me, sometimes I just didn’t seem to have enough strength to keep up with him. I wondered about his remark, realizing that a girl would have a bike without the bar, so that she could ride it more easily in a skirt.
“Come, let’s go in on this path,” he said leading us off the parkway into a wooded section of the park. He led us carefully along a narrow, rough, path, with the branches of trees and bushes hitting us as we rode.
“Where you going?” I asked, somewhat miffed at him for leading me into this darkened pathway with all its bugs and things.
“You’ll see. It’s not far now.”
He stopped his bike at a clearing that had formed next to the river bank, and announced, “Here we are. Isn’t this a nice spot?”
I got off my bike, and watched while he took a light pink blanket from a duffle bag he had carried on the basket on his bike.
“What’s that?”
“A blanket, so we can sit here.”
I looked at the rough ground, damp from the morning dew, with weeds and a few fallen tree limbs laying about. I seem to have forgotten my first 12 years of living on the farm where such rugged places were common. I was suddenly worried about sitting on the ground.
“And have all those icky bugs crawl all over us?”
He laughed. “Just like a girl. Come on, sit down.”
He spread out the blanket, and he pulled me down so that I fell onto him, and we laid together, his arms around me. We were on our sides, facing each other, and he looked directly into my eyes, his blue, clear eyes piercing into mine.
I was still clutching him, not breaking my hold after we fell down together. My hands held his hard, muscular arms, as he continued to look at me. Finally he freed one of his arms, and I felt his hand on my forehead, brushing the hair that had fallen across my face. His touch was gentle and soft and I felt a strange attraction to his handsome, strong boy.
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
Suddenly I felt myself drawn into him, and his lips were on mine. I wanted to turn away, but his mouth was so firmly on mine, his hand behind my head, holding my tightly. His other hand was caressing my arm, a big strong hand moving up and down rhythmically on my thin, under-developed bicep.
I surrendered to him, responding almost without thought to return his kiss. I had never before really kissed anyone, except for the light pecks from my mom, grandma or auntie. As we kissed, I felt my penis grow hard. It began to throb. What was this, I wondered? Never before had I had that happen.
And my desire to kiss him grew and grew. His hands were caressing me and we were both rocking together on the blanket, and my penis ached now but I couldn’t help myself. We continued in this kissing, and caressing and rocking together for a few minutes. My penis grew more hard and began aching, and I wanted him to continue kissing and caressing me. Soon, he released himself from me, and I wondered why.
“I feel like your girl friend,” I said, breathing hard.
He had moved off me, got up, and went to his duffle bag, withdrawing a small towel. He proceeded to open his shorts and then used the towel to dry off his genital area. I guessed he had done what was called "jacking off." I'd heard boys talk about that, but wasn't quite sure what that meant. My own penis had softened and the pain was gone. Soon he joined me on the blanket, and we laid there for a while, saying little, listening to the ripple of the water, traffic noise from the highway a few blocks away and birds chirping.
“I want you as my girl friend,” he said after a while.
I nestled closer to him now, kissing him lightly on the cheek, his hand now caressing my arm. I felt so happy.
We moved together, kissing, each of us having a hand on the other’s penis. I felt his growing harder and he was growing more violent in his embrace of me, beginning to call me his girl, telling me he’d protect me from everyone else.
“You’re so soft and weak,” he said. “You’re my girl, my sweet Terry.”
The more he moved on me, the more he talked, the more I felt his hands on my soft flesh the more I felt I was a girl, the harder my penis became again. It was throbbing, pain growing, the pressure hurting. Something must happen, I felt.
I loved the feel of his hard body next to me, his strong hands massaging my sweet inner thighs, my slender arms and my narrow shoulders. I imagined myself a weak little girl, and I felt warm liquid on my thighs. I must have jacked off myself, but I held back as hard as I could, hoping to stop the flow of juices.
I moved away from Bert, and my penis softened again, the pain leaving me, my panties now a bit soggy. I knew what I did was sinful, and I felt bad about it.
We began our trek home on the bikes, taking our time. We were both exhausted, but I felt a strange exaltation, since Bert still treated me as his girl.
“I think you should come to the social center Friday night,” he said as we were about to part our ways a block from my house. “They’re having a summer dance about 7 o’clock and you could be my date.”
“Oh I couldn’t,” I said.
“Yes, you could. You would be just my girl friend.”
I liked the idea, but I’m sure somebody might realize who I was, since there’d obviously be people from school there. I turned him down, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
*****
The rehearsals went along in the remaining weeks before the 4th of July, with the girls and I gaining in excitement for the big presentation. Oh, sometimes, auntie got mad at us when we didn’t always perform to our best, or when some of us girls chattered too much. She particularly seemed to blame me for the giggling that often filled the room.
“Terry, stop that giggling now,” she’d reprimand me. “Quit being such an inspiration.”
“But, Miss Adele . . .” I began, having been told to call her “Miss Adele” when in the classes, rather than “auntie.”
“Just be quiet and tend to your dancing, girl.” Her voice was firm.
I reddened, hearing her firmness, and Wanda, standing near me, touched my arm comforting me.
After the classes we over, Aunt Adele never said a word to me about my “giggling” or her reprimand. Instead she acted like it never happened, and we reverted to our normal relationship, which was growing into one of a loving aunt with her adoring niece.
I seldom saw Bert after that day in the park; he and I went for some bike rides and even biked to the lakefront. Bert blamed his newspaper carrier duties and his busy baseball schedule that kept our outings to a minimum. That may have been true, but I had the feeling Bert was no longer as interested in me. To be sure, he still called me “his girl,” but I felt something strange about the way he said it. Did he mean it? When we were sure now one was looking, he’d find a way to kiss me, and I loved feeling his lips, but he made no attempt to lure me into private locations where we could repeat our awkward love-making.
I was both comfortable and disturbed by that. My time in his arms felt so special, as did my introduction to “jacking off,” and I kept reliving that moment. Yet, the fact bothered me that we were still two boys — in spite of my girlishness — doing “dirty things” together. It’s funny: I felt so good during that episode; yet, my mind told me it was wrong. I knew the pastor at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church, our church, would not approve, nor would my grandpa and grandma. But it was funny, I wondered whether my mom would approve, or auntie. For some reason, I thought they might be OK with it. But I didn’t think I’d test that thought by telling auntie.
On a warm, absolutely beautiful sunny day in late June, Bert and I found a park bench overlooking Lake Michigan. It was hidden from the view of persons on the park path by heavy bushes, and we were seated together. Bert took my hand in his, holding it gently, using a finger to gently caress my inner wrist. My hand felt small inside his grip and I felt my penis begin to harden.
I looked at Bert, and his eyes were focused on mine.
“I see my pretty Terry,” he said, softly.
“Oh Bert,” I said.
“Why aren’t you really a girl?” His voice was plaintiff, almost sad.
Tears began to form in my eyes, and Bert reached up with his free hand to lightly brush the moisture from beneath my eyes. His leaned over and kissed me lightly, our lips hardly touching, but the feeling of those lips excited me as much as if they’d been deeply passionate. I don’t think that a 13-year-old girl (or boy of 15 for that matter) can experience love at such a young age, but I felt I was in love anyway. Bert must have felt the same way.
At that moment I saw myself only as a girl, as a bride on her way to the altar to join her handsome, muscular husband-to-be and as the mother of his child. I wanted that so bad.
Suddenly, he ended the kisses, and moved away from me. Still holding my hand, Bert said simply, “I guess we better go.”
I could tell he was in distress, since I knew he wanted me, but must have felt it was the wrong thing to do. It was 1942, and there was a war going on, and boys were meant to fight for their country and have girl friends, real girl friends, not a girl like me. Despite the love Bert and I felt for each other, we knew it was an evil love, a love that could hurt us both in the future.
I fought back tears on the bike ride home. I felt that Bert might never call me again that summer and that our bike rides and romance ended on that park bench overlooking the blue sparkling waters of Lake Michigan on just a magnificent summer day.
*****
“Serena’s here with her mother,” auntie yelled to me as I was dressing for our trip to the beauty salon.
It had been a difficult morning, since I hemmed and hawed over what to wear. I knew I had to look completely like a 13-year-old girl, and in spite of the fact that when I was dressed either as a girl or in more androgynous clothing I was always taken for a girl. Still, I was still worried about this trip into an all-female establishment, like the salon.
“Auntie, come up here. I need you first.” I yelled back, as I was struggling to button up a summer dress.
Aunt Adele entered. I could tell she was frustrated with me, since I had been fretting over this trip to get my hair fixed in curls so that I could look like Patty Andrews.
“What?” she said.
“How do I look?”
“Absolutely adorable, dear. Now come on, Mrs. Simpson is waiting.”
“But, auntie, really,” I pleaded. “Can anyone tell?”
“No, Terry. You’re all girl, now come on.”
Mrs. Simpson and Serena were waiting in the foyer, as I went down the stairs, daintily carrying my purse, my yellow summer dress rustling as I walked. Serena told her mother all about me, and all of the parents of girls in the class had been informed that a boy, namely me, would be dancing as a girl in the troupe so as to complete the needed size of the group. Some of the parents had balked at the idea, but their daughters prevailed upon them to accept it. “Terry’s just one of us, mommy,” Bertha Schmitter had told her mom in pleading the case. Eventually they all came around, and for the most part were eagerly awaiting the moment the girls appeared on stage at the big 4th of July pageant.
“You’re adorable, dear,” Mrs. Simpson said, strangely using the same words that auntie said.
“She makes me jealous mom,” Serena said to her mother. “Terry’s really the prettiest girl in the group.”
People kept telling me that, and I guess I was starting to believe it. But auntie had other thoughts:
“Beauty is as beauty does.”
It was a gentle reminder that I should not let all this praise go to my head.
*****
The three of us “Andrews Sisters” all were scheduled to have our hair done that morning, and Wanda was already started when Serena and I, along with Mrs. Simpson arrived.
“Here are the other two girls,” Wanda announced as we entered.
Betty, the beauty salon operator, was a slender, middle aged women with heavy makeup and a hair stylethat piled her curls atop her head. She was blonde, but I sensed that was not her natural hair color.
She had almost a burlesque look, but she had a warm smile in welcoming us.
“One of you was going to bring a picture for us to follow,” she said.
I had clipped a picture from Life Magazine that showed the three sisters, and pulled a folded copy from my purse.
“Thank you, dearie,” Betty said.
We occupied the three chairs in the salon for our permanents, and I found I’d be handled by Betty herself.
“So you’re going to be Patty?” she asked as I sat down.
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well, you’re a lovely young lady. You should do OK.”
“Thank you,” I said, as she began working on my hair.
To make conversation, Betty asked: “So what you like to do, Terry?”
“Sing and dance.”
“And what you want to do when you grow up?”
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe go to college, be an engineer.”
I don’t know why I said that, since I didn’t know what an “engineer” did; I knew the job was not running a locomotive on the railroad, but that it was a good job and paid well.
“Girls can’t be engineers, honey.”
“No, why not?” I asked naively.
“Well they just aren’t. It’s for men. You could be a secretary or a nurse or maybe a teacher.”
“Oh?” I asked.
“That’s just the way the world is for girls, honey,” Betty continued, almost laughing as she spoke. “Don’t be a hairdresser, though dear. I wouldn’t want more competition. A pretty girl like you would get lots of business.”
I giggled.
*****
We practiced and practiced on “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” so that even though Wanda seemed a little overwhelmed by the task we had mastered the harmony that was the Andrews Sisters’ trademark. (To see the Andrews Sisters sing "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, "Click here.">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pfCFU3Mqww>)
We went back to the Tower Theatre three times to see the Sisters perform the song in “Buck Privates,” the 1941 Abbott and Costello movie, after deciding that we’d try to recapture how the Sisters performed that song in the movie. Since Patty had the only solo in the piece, I would be called upon to sing that part, but I protested it wouldn’t be fair to Wanda and Serena.
“No go ahead, do it that way, Terry, you have the best voice of all of us,” Wanda said, with Serena nodding in agreement.
To recapture the film, we had to dress in plain khaki skirts and military shirts, with ties, a well as Army overseas caps. The shirts and ties were no problem, but the skirts had to be made from scratch and Mrs. Linkfuss offered to make them to fit each of us. Serena had an uncle who was a veteran of World War I, and he was able to find some old overseas caps for the girls.
“Now, we need somebody to play the trumpet,” Serena said, as we walked home from spending all Saturday afternoon at the theater, sitting through “Buck Privates” twice that day.
“I’ll ask Bert,” I said, not thinking before speaking, which was beginning to be a problem for me.
“Good, he’s a good trumpet player, the best in the school band,” Wanda said, who was playing clarinet in the band. “And I heard him playing ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy’ one day in practice. The teacher didn’t like it.”
“Was he good?” Serena asked.
“Oh, he was hot.”
My chance to ask Bert came the next day, when he called me unexpectedly and asked if I wanted to ride to Washington Park with him. We hadn’t seen each other for a week, and I had been mooning about the house all the time, waiting for his call. I began thinking he must have found another girl friend, and that made me sad. Only the fun I was having in planning the performance seemed to cheer me up.
“Bert,” I cooed over the phone like a love struck teen girl. “I’d love to.”
“I’ll be over about eleven this morning,” he said. “I gotta be back by two, since I gotta do my paper route.”
I was giddy, almost ready to scream in excitement over the phone that I loved him. But, instead I said, “I’ll pack us a lunch.”
“That’ll be nice, honey,” he said, his voice warm and soft.
It was a picture perfect day, with bright sun and only a few tiny fluffy white clouds moving slowly across the sky. And day for lovers, I felt.
I dressed in boy stuff, naturally, but I chose it carefully, wearing white shorts, saddle shoes with ankle socks, and a blue tee shirt. I knew that with my longish, now curly hair and slender body many people might mistake me for a girl. And, that’s how I wanted Bert to see me.
It was so much fun packing the lunch basket. I had seen girls do that for their lovers in movies, and I pictured Bert and I sitting together under a large elm tree, we had lots of them in our city, with my head in his lap as he stroked my hair, occasionally leaning down to kiss me.
To tell the truth, I was nervous about this outing. Maybe, I feared, Bert was going to tell me he found another girl, and he wanted to let me down easily. I thought the worst, since he had obviously been avoiding me since our incident at the lakefront. Also, I needed to ask him to play the trumpet for us, which meant I had to tell him I was performing as a girl in the 4th of July program. I didn’t know what he’d think about that.
“You look so nice,” he said, as we took off for the 20 block trip to the Park.
We sauntered slowly down the streets, gaining the attention of a few persons out on the sidewalks, including two old guys waiting for a bus while we had stopped to a red light. “You treat her nice now, young man,” one of the old guys said, winking in Bert’s direction.
As the light turned green, we began and I heard the other old guy say, “Hubba hubba,” followed by laughter and the first guy saying: “When she grows up, she’ll be a heart-breaker.”
I blushed, since it was obvious they meant me.
Still I was afraid to ask him about performing with our group, and it took me until after we finished our sandwiches that I told him about the coming performance.
“You never told me,” he said, before I could get to the request I had for him.
“Well, it’s supposed to be a secret, Bert,” I said, trying to defend myself.
“What’s the secret?”
“It’s supposed to be an all-girl dance group, and they needed me to fill out the troupe.”
It took a few minutes before he understood why I kept it secret from him. “OK, I guess it’s all right, but you should have told me. You know I’ll keep your secrets.”
“And I have something else to ask?”
“What’s that?”
“Can you play the trumpet for us for the performance? Wanda says you already know ‘Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.’”
“What? Do I have to dress as a girl, too?”
“No,” I said, laughing. “You’d look silly as a girl.”
Then I explained his role would be to play the opening bugle call of the song, while Donna Mae accompanied us on the piano.
“I don’t have a lot of time to practice,” he said. “But, yes, I’d like to try.”
*****
I never saw the girls more excited than when Bert showed up for the next rehearsal. I knew he was the object of the longing eyes of most of the girls, since he was so strong and handsome. They also thought that he still had no girl friend, so as you might expect they all acted silly around him.
I watched all this and sort of laughed to myself, while also getting those fits of jealousy that seem so natural. I couldn’t help myself. Such jealousy felt natural, at least to me. I don’t know about other boys.
Bert took it all in good humor, and later whispered to me as he left, “Don’t worry, you’re still my girl.”
Needless to say, all the girls and even Aunt Adele were excited about the “Bugle Boy” part of the program. We had worked out a routine that followed the movie version, with us the Andrews Sisters doing jitterbug steps while singing, and the others forming a circle around us following in the same steps. The setting of the dancing to swing music seemed to stir even greater effort on the part of all the girls.
*****
The 4th of July dawned clear and a bit cool, particularly near the waters of Lake Michigan, which rarely warm up until August. That made it a perfect day for performing, as we knew the sun would soon bring its warming rays down upon the pageant.
All three of us girls dressed into our costumes about noon at Aunt Adele’s, where she provided us a lunch of hot dogs, cole slaw and lemonade. We were to leave at about 1 p.m., all crowding onto the No. 10 streetcar that would take us to the lakefront. I know I felt giddy with excitement as I put on the plain khaki skirt, the military blouse and tie. We were able to dress in our costumes even before we left on the trip.
Wanda, Serena and I gathered about the mirror, fussing with our hair and finding trouble placing hairpin to fit our overseas caps onto the curls of our hair.
“Help me, Terry,” Wanda pleaded.
It took me a second to pin hers on so that it fit. We both looked in the mirror, and smiled at each other. “I’m glad you’re my girl friend, Terry,” Wanda whispered.
“Help me, too, Terry,” Serena asked.
She appeared to have fit hers on perfectly, and I wondered why she wanted help. I checked it, however, and found I needed to do nothing.
“It’s fine, Serena,” I said.
“Thanks, Terry. I just wasn’t sure and I wanted you to check.”
I wasn’t sure why she asked me to check. Was there a growing jealousy developing between Wanda and Serena over my friendship? I’d seen that happen before where there were three friends. Neither one I knew by now saw me as a boy anymore, but as just one of their girl friends.
For that reason, Bert’s appearance in our rehearsals seemed to add some testiness between me and Wanda and Serena, too. He always seemed to hang around me during breaks in rehearsals and after we were done. “Let’s go to the sweet shop,” Wanda said several times, but I had to decline, telling her that Bert wanted me to go with him. I always changed into boy clothes when we went out, but of course with my hair and girly mannerisms I continued to be mistaken for a girl.
I know Bert was teased for his friendship with me; more than once I heard him called a “homo,” not because I was a girl, but because I was such a “sissy” boy. Bert was such a darling, however, and would look at the boy who issued such a remark, and say, “Wanna make something of it?”
Since it was well-known he could probably beat up anybody in our school, such taunts were few and far between. How sweet it was to be defended by a big, strong boy!
Wanda and Serena would pout together as I would go off with Bert. Oh well, what’s a girl to do?
*****
I know it sounds like bragging, but the fact was that I stole the show, at least that portion of it that involved Adele’s Dance Group. If you listen to the Andrews Sisters since “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” you’ll see that Patti has the longest solo, as well as does the most dancing. I blush to tell you that I got carried away with the part and performed a few suggestive maneuvers. But I got lots of cheers in doing it, along with a few whistles and “hubba hubba’s.”
And I did the daintiest of curtseys as we took bows at the end.
Maybe I did all this to dazzle Bert. I was able to glance in his direction several times during the performance, and, with his part of playing the bugle completed, was watching in rapt attention, his eyes glued on me. That made me all the more excited to charm him. I may have only been 13, but it seemed I knew already how to excite men.
The great thing about the dance troupe was our sisterly togetherness, and it showed in the group’s grand finale, when we were all on stage doing a dance routine to the tune of Glenn Miller’s American Patrol, finishing with a smart salute to our boys fighting in World War II. I was given the honor to carry the flag on stage for the final routine, flanked by Wanda and Serena, all three of us still dressed in Army style skirts and outfits. No, I wasn’t named by auntie to do it, but I was chosen by the vote of all the girls. I couldn’t have been prouder on July 4, 1942 to stand in the bright afternoon sunshine on the stage looking out over a vast crowd on the shores of Lake Michigan.
As we marched off the stage to end our portion of the program, Bert rushed over to hug me. “You were so marvelous, Terry,” he said.
The other girls walked by, eyeing us with interest, and maybe some being envious of me being in the arms of this handsome boy.
Bert had to leave me then and gather up his trumpet, and I joined the girls, who were all gathered together downing Cokes, trying to cool off. We were all perspiring heavily from our performance in the sun.
“Terry, you pulled that off beautifully,” Judy McQuistion said. “Even your voice was great.”
“Thanks, Judy,” I said through sips of my Coke.
Then she leaned in, whispering, her tone becoming harsh, and said, “But you’re still nothing but a sissy boy. You have no business here.”
Before I could reply, she skipped off to join Bertha, and the two talked conspiratorially together, and I obviously was the topic of their conversation.
I wanted to cry. How could she do that in what should have been a moment of joy and triumph? I wanted to die. Is that what the girls thought of me? Were they only nice to me because my auntie was the teacher? I tried so hard to become one of them, to blend in with the troupe as just another girl. Am I just now someone to laugh at?
Why couldn’t I be a real girl?
*****
My moment of dark despair, a moment when I tried mightily to hold back tears, was brought to an abrupt end, when I heard someone yell out, “Terry, Terry.”
The voice came from a tall, lanky boy. At first I didn’t recognize him, and as I wracked my brain, the boy approached and said, “Terry, don’t you remember me? I’m Matthew. You remember, we met at the ballet.”
“Oh yes, Matthew, of course I do,” I said, partly lying, since at first I didn’t remember.
It had been a few months, but I felt glad to see this tall boy with his long arms. He was sort of awkward, and a bit shy, I had recalled, but for some reason I thought he was cute. I remembered we did have a good time together that night.
“Well, you were a real hit today,” he began. “And you look so cute in that Army uniform.”
I did him a slight curtsey, and blushed.
“Really, you were great.”
“Thank you, Matthew. Nice seeing you again.”
“Well, I just wanted to say hi,” he said, turning to leave.
“Oh,” I said on impulse. “Where you going to school in fall?”
I really didn’t care where he was going to school, but I didn’t want him to leave just then, knowing the other girls must be talking about me. His appearance took me out of my funk.
“Just going into 10th Grade at West,” he said.
“Oh, I’m just entering 8th at Wisconsin Avenue.”
“I suppose you’re too young to go to the movies with me,” he said quickly.
“I suppose.”
“I just thought . . . oh well . . . I have thought about you since that night at the Pabst,” he said, his voice growing faint, as his face reddened. He was such a shy boy; that was so cute.
“You have?” I said, excitedly.
“Yes,” he said, nodding.
“Well, I’ll talk to auntie and then you can call me and we can talk about it. Ok?”
Our conversation was interrupted as Bert approached. He looked angry.
“What’s going on here? I saw you two talking. Who’s this?” Bert asked in a loud, demanding voice.
“Oh, Bert,” I said, confused by his angry tones.
“Hi,” Matthew interjected. “I’m Matthew. My mom and Miss Adele are friends.”
Bert looked at the tall boy, whose awkwardness seemed to dominate his presence.
“Well OK,” Bert said, his voice softening. “You just never know.”
“I have to go,” Matthew said. “Mom’s waiting for me. We came special to see you, Terry, and you were great. I’ll call you sometime.”
With that he was gone.
Later on the streetcar returning home, Bert and I sat in the back, away from the other girls. He spoke into my ear in a whisper.
“Terry, I don’t like you flirting with other boys,” he said.
“Why, he’s the son of auntie’s best friend,” I said. “He’s just being friendly.”
“I think he’s got more on his mind than friendship,” Bert said, his voice more firm again.
“OK,” I said, annoyed with this conversation from Bert.
“And why did he say he’ll call you sometime, Terry. I don’t like it.”
“I told you, Bert, he’s the son of my auntie’s best friend. We just talk, you know, about music and ballet and stuff.”
“I still don’t like it. Remember, you’re my girlfriend.”
“I’m what?”
“My girl friend,” he said again.
*****
I confess that I was flattered by all this attention from two different boys, but I was also bothered by Bert’s reaction to Matthew. What did Bert have to feel defensive about? He was clearly more handsome and athletic than Matthew, who was so awkward and shy.
Besides, it finally dawned on me Bert knew that underneath all my girly looks I was still a boy. As far as I knew, Matthew thought I was just a girl.
Maybe Bert was a “homo,” which is what some boys in school already called him because of his friendship with me. Well, wouldn’t that make me a “homo?” It was all so confusing. I didn’t know much about “homos,” except it was boys kissing boys and it was bad.
I told Serena a few days later about Bert’s reaction to seeing me with Matthew after the 4th of July program.
“It’s like he wants me to be there for him whenever he wants it, Serena,” I said. Serena had joined me on a trip downtown to the Public Library and we had stopped at a White Castle for a 5c hamburger and Coke before returning home.
“Think he’s jealous?” she asked.
“Maybe, but I don’t know about what,” I said. “I hardly know Matthew. He’s nice and everything, but he’s 15. That’s old.”
“Boys want so much,” she said. Serena had been hanging around with another 8th Grade boy, but she broke it off. “He always wanted me to do what he wanted to do.”
“And now Bert calls me every day and asks me what I’m doing,” I said. “He even asked me yesterday whether ‘that boy’ had called.”
“Do you like Bert?” She asked suddenly.
I thought for a minute. I nodded “yes,” but wondered if I was being truthful. What’s a girl know anyway about such things?
“I don’t know what to tell you, dear,” Serena said. “Maybe Bert only wants to be sure the prettiest girl is always ‘his’ girl, and you, Terry, are easily the ‘prettiest.’”
I knew it would be no good to protest. I know when I looked in a mirror I honestly felt I was certainly a most feminine, pretty girl. If there was any boy inside me somewhere, it was hard to see.
*****
I spent the rest of the summer dressed as a girl almost all the time, the exceptions being when auntie took me to the doctor and dentist and for church on Sunday. I fussed with my hair daily and worked over my makeup incessantly, doing what young teen girls normally do. Serena and I spent gobs of time together, looking at fashions in the Sears catalogue and whatever magazines we could find. Wanda was baby-sitting most of the summer, so we only saw her on weekends; we often took in Saturday afternoon matinees at the Tower Theater as a threesome.
My hair grew longer, its dirty blonde natural color becoming bleached by the sun, and growing golden. I loved to play with it, daintily twirling strands of hair between my fingers; sometimes, I tied my hair in pigtails, or Serena would come over, and we’d tie each other’s hair up. I read lots of books, too, including I think every Nancy Drew mystery. She was my hero, and I imagined myself solving mysterious crimes. That was really a stretch, though, since I’m not sure I could be as brave as Nancy Drew was.
Bert came over after supper several nights a week, riding his bike, and we’d sit on our screened front porch to avoid the mosquitoes. Sometimes, we’d take a walk to the sweet shop, and buy some candy or maybe even an ice cream cone. We kissed whenever we were alone, since auntie would have been mad if she ever saw me kiss him.
I never told him that Matthew called several times, and we talked each time for a long time; we seemed to have so much to say to each other. He wanted to take me downtown to a movie, too, but I had to refuse him telling him, “I already have a boy friend.”
“Oh,” he said, and I could hear the disappointment in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Matthew, but you understand, don’t you?”
“Yes, yes, Terry,” he hurried to assure me. “You’re so pretty I’d be surprised if you didn’t have a boy friend.”
“But I like you, Matt,” I said. “I really do. I’m sorry.”
“I like you too, Terry, and we seem to get along so well together.”
“We do,” I assured him.
“Well, I gotta go. Mom’s mad at me for talking so long,” he said, his voice suddenly thick with emotion.
“Bye Matt, I like you,” I said, hoping he’d not be too disappointed.
He hung up, and I got the feeling he was probably going to cry. I felt terrible. He was such a nice boy. In truth, I was a confused girl. I felt really loved Bert like I said I did during our cuddling and kissing sessions; I so wanted to feel his arms caressing me, his lips on mine. But sometimes, I realized, we never talked about much except our own feelings of love for each other. Now, there was Matthew, and it seemed I looked forward to his calls and we always had so much to say to each other. Of course, we had never so much as held hands, so I don’t know why I felt guilty about those conversations I had with him.
And then there were Wanda and Serena, my two bestest of friends. How I loved them! They had stuck by me through the whole year, and I found myself ignoring them to be with Bert.
How could a girl be so happy and so confused at the same time?
,
The excitement of the 4th of July performance lingered on for a few days. If anything, the event solidified my belief that I was truly a girl, at least in spirit and feelings, if not in my body. Our performance had truly won the hearts of our audience and the daily newspaper ran a lovely picture, focusing mainly upon me as I sang the Patti Andrews part in “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy.” It was true I could tell from the picture, no one could have mistaken me for a boy: my slender arms and pretty face created a picture of sweet femininity. Fortunately, the picture did not identify me; someone might have connected “Terry Michaelsson” with the boy of the same name and that would have been a disaster.
Aunt Adele, I know, was still disturbed that she had pulled off a deception by casting me as a girl, but was comforted with the fact that without the group including me there would have been no performance at all. And I had become a so totally girlish for the part, too. Yet, the fact that I had taken so completely to living a girl’s life I know was beginning to bother auntie, and she hinted almost every day at having me wear more boyish outfits. I no longer pictured myself as a boy, and resisted her gentle suggestions.
In the days that followed, I continued to live as a girl, getting together with Wanda and Serena when I could, giggling together as girls do while we went to the sweet shop or gathered at one of our homes. I day-dreamed constantly, too, about being a girl friend to Bert who knew me as a boy but treated me as his girl, relishing in the memory of his kisses and caresses. Almost at the same time, my thoughts would turn to Matthew, who knew me only as a girl and worshipped me for my sweetness. As the thoughts of the two boys turned in my head, I felt so confused, wanting to have the affections of both Bert and Matthew.
It was a warm day in mid-July when I got home from a walk with Serena. As I entered the house I heard Aunt Adele was talking on the phone in the hallway. Before I could yell, “I’m home, auntie,” I overheard her say to the person on the other line, “I’m so afraid I’ve done a bad thing with Terry.”
This sounded weird to me. I couldn’t imagine that anything auntie did would be “bad.” She was always so good to me. Her kindness had helped to remove the sting of my dear mother’s death last November; she had rescued me from my grandparents and their strict rural prison and given me a warm home and loving care. I sat down on the steps going upstairs where I could listen unseen to her phone call.
“Yes, Tillie,” she said, apparently in response to a question. So, she was talking to her best friend, Matilda.
“I’m sorry we deceived you and Matthew, but Terry was still in a very delicate state after his mother’s death. He wanted to go out to the ballet that night as a girl, and we didn’t think Matthew would become so interested in her . . . ah . . . I mean . . . him.”
Auntie waited before speaking again.
“He’s had such a tough life, Tillie, and he really is so sweet.”
(Pause)
“Yes, I encouraged this. It seemed he was so disposed to it, as well. I’m not sure if he needs some sort of treatment.”
(Pause)
“I know it’ll be difficult, but I have to do something before school starts. We’ll need to get his hair cut and then somehow get him to recognize the fact that he is a boy, not a girl.”
(Pause)
“And who knows how long this war will act, and it’ll likely mean he’ll have to go into the Army. I’ll have to do something.”
(Pause)
“Thank you, Tillie, for your understanding. I love you, dear, and say ‘Hi’ to Matthew for both of us.”
The phone hung up, and I started to cry. I got up and started up the stairs, when I heard auntie yell: “Is that you Terry? Are you back?”
My tears were flowing too much and I couldn’t answer.
“Terry, answer me,” Aunt Adele insisted.
“Yes, auntie,” I said, the words coming out between sniffles.
“OK.”
I ran into my room, hopped on the bed, grabbing my favorite fluffy teddy bear and cried, my sobs loud and continuing. I curled up, hugging my bear tightly.
I heard my bedroom door open, and auntie entered.
“Why are you crying dear?”
“It’s . . . nothing . . . auntie.”
“It is something, Terry.”
I buried my head more deeply into the pink covered pillow, my sobs growing in spite of my efforts to stop them.
“Did you hear my phone call with Tillie?” she said firmly.
I nodded. She sat down on the bed next to me, pulling my sob-racked body next to her, patting me gently.
“I’m sorry you did, honey, but we need to do something. You can’t continue this way.”
“Am I weird, auntie? Sick, or something?” I had stopped crying now, just feeling terribly sad.
“No, dear,” she said, her voice soft and soothing. “You’ve had a difficult time in your life. You’re so smart and talented and you’re very sensitive. That’s all good.”
“But I don’t feel I’m a boy, auntie.”
“Oh, honey.” She said nothing. She held me and I soon fell asleep. My dreams were troubled.
*****
Three days later, Aunt Adele took me to the beauty salon, where we all cried, auntie, the hairdresser and myself, as my lovely hair was trimmed, leaving me with a totally boy’s haircut. I felt undressed and ugly, and couldn’t get home fast enough, running up to my room, burying myself among the bedclothes and sobbing. It was awful.
I could tell auntie felt as badly as I did; she had never done anything to hurt me before, and even though she believed she was doing the right thing for me, she knew she had hurt me deeply. She left me alone for a while after we got home, but soon I heard a gentle knock on the door: “Terry, are you all right?”
I didn’t answer, merely began to resume my crying, which had finally subsided a bit. Auntie waited a few minutes and then entered the room, and sat besides me, reaching over and picking me up, holding me tightly in her arms. I laid my head on her shoulder, and cried as she held me, patting me gently, rocking me as if I was a baby. I felt so helpless, so without hope.
I could never be a boy, I thought as a rocked in her arms. I am too weak, too shy and too frightened to do what boys do, such as work in a factory, become a soldier or fight somebody with my fists. It was so scary. Since I had been with auntie, I had never been happier, even though I missed my mother. I know my mother must be up in heaven now, looking down upon me, proud of her pretty, talented daughter. How could I be a boy?
Auntie must have sensed my thinking, and she finally said: “Terry, my darling, I think I’ll fix you a nice warm bath and then we’ll dress you up in something nice, and you’ll feel better. I know this is a shock for you.”
“A bubble bath?” I inquired.
“Yes, if you like,” she said. I could tell she wished I would not want that.
“Oh yes, auntie, I do. Please.” I kissed her.
“OK honey,” she said, releasing me from her arms. “And if you like, you can put on that nice yellow sundress, but just for tonight.”
“I love you auntie, but my hair, it’s too short now to be pretty.”
“Oh my darling Terry,” she said, “You’re impossible.”
I giggled.
“Well honey, we can do something with your hair so you’ll still be a pretty girl,” she said.
“You think so?”
“Yes, honey, but remember this is just for tonight and just for in the house. From now on, outside the house, you’ll always be a boy.”
I kissed auntie as she left the room to begin to draw my bath and I undressed, readying myself for the bath. I was so happy I had a caring auntie. She was going to let me, for a while at least, to be a girl at home, but otherwise I’d have to be a boy and I wondered how I’d fit into boyhood. I had previously been such a failure. Would I lose Wanda and Serena as my girl friends? And what about Bert, who loved me as a girl? And Matt, too?
*****
It was a warm night, and auntie said I could wear a shorty nightgown; it was a gauzy light tan affair, with thin straps holding it onto my puny body, my legs showing from about mid-thigh on down. I found my fluffy pink slippers and looked into the mirror.
“Aghhhhhhhhhhh,” I let out a screech, horrified at what I saw staring back at me.
Auntie overheard me and came into the room, breathlessly inquiring, “What happened?”
“My hair,” I screamed, shocked at how short it was, still matted down a bit from the moisture in the bathroom.
“Oh my gosh, Terry, you’re such a girl! Let’s just fix your hair up and I think you’ll like it.”
“But auntie, it can’t be fixed,” I said, about to break into tears.
“Now, now honey, calm down, and auntie will make you all pretty again, but, remember, tomorrow, when you go outside, you’ll have to change your hair back to being a boy’s cut.”
I nodded, and let auntie led me into the bathroom.
“You know, darling,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re crying about. You still look like a cute girl to me.”
“Do I auntie?”
“Yes, honey, you look just so girlish in that nightie. Now let’s fix your hair.”
She had me stand in front of her, while she sat on the closed toilet seat and began to work with my hair, first rubbing it briskly with a towel to dry it out (she didn’t have a hair dryer at home; few persons did in those days). Then she brushed it, helping to fluff it out, before applying some sort of gel to my hair, rubbing it in with her fingers.
“Good, the hairdresser left it longer enough so I can work with your hair, Terry. You’ll look very pretty when I’m done.”
“Really, auntie?”
“Yes, honey, and remember lots of girls are wearing their hair short these days, particularly if they have to go to work in the war plants,” auntie said.
I remember seeing pictures of girls with short hair; it was true some could still be very beautiful.
Aunt Adele continued to work on the hair, and I was getting impatient, eager to see how I’d look. Finally, she led me to the mirror.
“Oh auntie, I am still pretty,” I said, kissing her. “I love you.”
She had fixed my hair, creating a small bang, while combing back the hair on the side of the head, into a modest ducktail.
“Now, if you aren’t the cutest girl,” Auntie said.
“I am, auntie, maybe even prettier than before.”
I did a little pirouette in front of the mirror. I did, indeed, look like a cute girl, my slender legs and arms smooth and soft-looking.
*****
Wanda and Serena came over the following day to hang out with me. I told them I couldn’t leave the house and if they wanted me to join them, they’d have to come over. They knew I had my hair cut and was supposed to start acting more like a boy; they were curious, I guess, as to how I’d look, but they were surprised.
“My Terry,” exclaimed Serena, “You’re cuter than ever.”
“Oh yes,” Wanda added. “I don’t know how you’ll go back to school as a boy any more.”
“I don’t know how I’ll do it, but I have to, auntie said.” I explained that auntie would let me dress as a girl only at home, but from now on I’ll have to return to being a boy outside the house and in school.
“We’ll still think of you as our girl friend, Terry,” Wanda said, reassuringly.
“I hope so,” I said, worrying about whether they’d still want me as a friend.
“But you’ll still be able to be a ballerina in dance class, like the rest of the girls?” Serena inquired.
“No, that’s over with,” I said. “Auntie thinks she’ll recruit a few boys this year and I’ll have to dance with them.”
“Oh, what a shame,” Serena said. “I can’t see you as a boy dancer.”
I couldn’t either, but I guess felt I had no choice if I wanted to dance again. I just didn’t feel I was strong and muscular enough to dance the male parts. And, the truth was, I didn’t want to have muscles that bulged and were so ugly. My arms and shoulders were so pretty now; what will happen if I continue to make them strong?
The three of us retreated to my bedroom, where we giggled as we always did, and we played with each other’s hair, trying various styles. Later we painted each other’s toes. It was such a fun day!
*****
“What kind of a boy friend do you want, Wanda?” It was Serena who posed the question, when we were done painting each other’s toes.
Wanda blushed easily, just like I did. It seemed her freckles just popped out of her pale board Teutonic face when she grew red. Wanda was really a plain girl, almost cherubic, but when she blushed, her eyes would glisten, and she looked truly charming, so sincere and warm.
“Serena, I don’t know,” she said. “Mom told me not to worry about boys yet; we’re only going into the 8th Grade.”
“That’s when we should think about boys,” Serena said firmly. She had a dark beauty and he already began developing into a young woman physically. Her bosom had already begun to burst tightly within her blouses.
“Terry doesn’t have to worry about boys,” Wanda said. “She already has two boy friends.”
“I do not,” I protested.
“You do too, and they’re both nuts about you,” Serena said. “Anyone can see that.”
It was my turn to blush. It was true, I had two boy friends, but they liked me as Terry, a girl, not as Terry, a boy. I dearly wished I could still be their girl friend, but those days are over. It was enough to make a girl cry.
*****
“What happened to your hair?” cried a shocked Bert when he came to the house, planning to go on a bike ride with me.
I had combed it as a boy would in those days, complete with a part, and a prominent pompadour above the forehead, my longish hair ending in a ducktail at the back. He hadn’t seen me since my haircut, and I hadn’t told him that my life as a girl was about to end.
I was dressed in shorts, a white tee shirt and tennis shoes — an all-boy outfit — but with my slim body and still longish hair and, I guess, pretty face, you could still see the girl in me. It was a warm, muggy late August day, just about two weeks before the start of school. In my outings with Bert, I usually dressed this way, putting on my girlish outfits only when we were home, except for one time, shortly after the 4th of July program, he took me to see a movie, “The White Cliffs of Dover,” a tear-jerker of a World War II movie with Greer Garson. Bert knew I liked romantic movies, just as any girl would.
“I want you to go with me as a girl,” Bert said. “To show you off. I know you’ll be the prettiest girl in the movie.”
At first I objected, pleading that someone might recognize me as a boy or that we’d bump into somebody we knew. That would be a disaster, I told him. He persisted, promising to go to an out-of-the-way movie house, meaning we’d have to take a streetcar.
“Don’t worry,” Bert said. “Everybody can see you’re a girl and we’ll have fun.”
In the end, with auntie’s reluctant permission (I brought tears to my eyes to persuade her), we went to a Sunday matinee at the Tivoli across town. On the streetcar, in the line at the movie house and at the sweet shop afterwards, I saw people looking at us and smiling, obviously pleased to see a handsome boy with his pretty date. I have to admit such admiring looks are intoxicating.
Bert bought the popcorn and he held my hand during the movie, sometimes slowly moving his fingers up my arm, caressing its smoothness. Soon I snuggled as close to him as I could, restrained only by the armrest between our two seats. He was so much a gentleman, taking a clean hankie from his pocket and gently rubbing tears that streamed down my face as the movie hit a poignant part.
I loved being his girl friend, and could hardly see myself now as just another boy.
We biked on that warm day to our usual spot along the river, but the bugs were too bothersome, especially the pesky black flies. We finally stopped at a water fountain for a drink at a park, about halfway home, and Bert looked at me, saying, “I only see a girl in you. I wish you were one for real, Terry.”
We propped our bikes up against a tree and sat on a park bench, hoping the flies and bugs might not be as bad as they were at the river.
“I know, Bert,” I said slowly. “But auntie said I have to start living again as a boy; that’s who I am and I have to plan for the future.”
“Terry, I know it, too,” he said, leaning over to give me a quick kiss.
I accepted it, knowing that we shouldn’t really kiss in such a public place, but for the time being we were alone.
“Who knows how long the war will last, and we’ll both be drafted,” I said. “I just can’t see myself as a soldier or sailor.”
“You could go as a WAAC or WAVE,” he said, with a smile, referring to the two units of the Army and Navy that were organized for women.
“I’d like that, but it’s not possible, since my birth certificate says ‘boy.’”
“Terry, you’ll always be my girl friend,” Bert said. “Remember that. And we can still do things together.”
“I hope so, Bert, ‘cause I like you so much.”
And I pecked him on the cheek. We rode home slowly, saying little to each other. For some reason, I felt my time as Bert’s girlfriend was at an end, even though he promised otherwise. A girl can just sense those things.
*****
A day after the bike ride, Matt called me. Auntie answered the phone and I heard her say, “Nice to hear from you, Matt.”
She listened to him for a moment, then replied, “Well, I’m happy you feel that way.”
I was mystified, wondering what Matt was telling auntie. I was so afraid he was mad at both of us for deceiving him that I was as a girl, but auntie seemed to be smiling, and I took that as a good sign.
“He wants to talk to you, dear,” she said, finally, handing the phone over to me.
I was trembling as I took the phone, fearing what he’d be saying.
“Hi,” I said weakly.
“Hi Terrance,” came his voice, strong a clear. He was using my full boy’s name.
“Hi Matt,” I said with more strength in my voice.
“I know the full story, Terrance,” he began, “And I was mad for a while that you and your auntie lied to me and mom. But mom explained everything, and I think I understand, though I don’t know why a boy would want to be a girl.”
“Thank you, Matt,” I said simply, not trying to respond.
“Can we still be friends, Terrance?”
“If you want to be, but I’ll have to only be a boy with you,” I said.
“That’s OK, I think,” he said, slowly. “I find it hard to think of you as a boy, but we had such nice conversations together, and we like the same things.”
“I know, and I like you Matt, too.”
“Can you go to the Museum with me next Saturday?” he asked suddenly.
“I’ll have to ask auntie, but I’d like to. Don’t they have that exhibit there showing the buffalo and all that?”
“Yes, and a whole lot more, too.”
“I’d love that,” I answered, my voice rising to a higher scale, a sweet girlish tone. Somehow, I’d have to start sounding more like a boy.
*****
Despite what Aunt Adele did, she could not erase my effeminate behaviors. I continued to walk in short steps that seemed to exaggerate my hip movement and I often sat, legs tucked under me as a girl would. And, I couldn’t resist flicking my hair repeatedly, keeping the longish strands from flowing into my face.
Even though I was entering the 8th Grade, my voice still retained it sweet soprano quality, and, as far as I could tell I was to be the only boy in my class who still sang like a girl. It was humiliating, but for some strange reason I liked the idea. My singing as Patti Andrews in the 4th of July program had caused me so much praise and joy. I both wanted my voice to change so I could be like other boys and didn’t want it to change, so I could still be a girl. It was obvious I couldn’t have it both ways, although I suspected nature would eventually make the choice for me and somehow make me a boy.
Auntie bought some weights for me to use to strengthen my arms, to give them some tone. Needless to say, I hated using them; so boring to do repeated lifts. And my arms grew weary so quickly. It was funny, I liked having soft, weak arms like a girl, but, alas, that would have to change, too. I was thankful for one fact: I was still in the grade school setting in 8th Grade, and our school had no gym like the junior and senior high schools did where I’d have to change in a locker room, change into gym clothes and later shower before resuming classes. I hated the thought of changing clothes in front of other boys, all of who would have muscles, and who would make fun of me. And the thought of doing all that boy stuff in gym also scared me; how could I possibly do all of it. I knew I was too weak.
How sad I was to see that summer of 1942 end. It had been the most exciting year of my life, largely because I had spent almost all of it as a girl, but that was over. Somehow, I’d have to be a boy from here on in. Auntie Adele was right: I had no choice that once a boy always a boy; there would be no changing that.
Not too much changed in 8th Grade: the kids in the school had come to accept me, except for a few bullies who occasionally sent taunts my way. Sometimes they’d pushed me around, and challenge me to fight back, but I‘d usually figure out a way to flee without being harmed. I guess they got bored in teasing me, and I settled back into an easy school year, where I found my studies interesting, the teachers friendly (maybe ‘cause I was such a cooperative student) and my girl friends still accepting.
*****
Wanda, Serena and I seemed to be together all the time, walking together often both to and from school, sitting together in the cafeteria or just hanging out in the hallways during our brief breaks. Sometimes, a few other girls would join us, and I would be there, the only boy, but hardly a boy at all. My giggles matched the high pitch of all the girls and my gestures — the flailing arms, the posture and all — were just as girlish. It’s as if I was just one of them.
In truth I couldn’t have been happier, except when I thought of my mother, who by the time I entered 8th Grade had been dead nearly 10 months. I thought of her mainly after school, when I’d want to rush home to tell her I might have met a new friend (it was always a girl), or a teacher had complimented my work or I had been picked again to be the lead soprano in the school chorus.
The teacher, Mrs. Watkins, had auditioned all of the students that tried out for the chorus to figure out where to place them, either as sopranos, or altos, or mezzo-sopranoes, or tenors, or basses. After they were completed, she posted a list in the music room just before our class of where we all were to be placed. In eagerness, hoping to be a tenor this year, I looked on the list, and my name was not there.
“Terry, you’re not listed,” Serena said. “I don’t know why. You got the best voice among the group.”
I couldn’t believe it, and began to hold back tears. I loved singing so much, and I honestly felt I was really good at.
Just then, Mrs. Watkins entered the music room, and walked over to us. I must have given her a dirty look, for she quickly said, “Terry, I need to talk to you. Come with me into the sound room.”
I wanted to burst into tears, thinking I had done something wrong. I saw Serena and the others watching me dutifully follow the teacher into a small room that was used for solo teaching assignments and practicing.
“Terry, you’re probably wondering why you’re not on the list,” she began, after having me sit down in one of the two chairs in the room. I sat down primly, my two hands neatly folded on my lap, as was my manner now.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, honey,” she began slowly. “You know you have a lovely voice, dear.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“But, honey,” she continued, as if she were addressing a little girl, “I could hardly make you a tenor. You’re voice still has the quality of a soprano, and I don’t know where to place you. As a soprano, you’d have to standing among the girls, dear.”
I nodded, a bit puzzled. I had sung as a boy soprano last year, along with two other boys, but now in the 8th Grade Chorus, she explained, I’d be the only boy still singing soprano.
“I don’t know if you still want to be a soprano,” she continued. “It’s where your voice places you, and you’d be so good there. The chorus would sound lovely with you as the lead soprano.”
I was startled. “The lead soprano?”
“Yes, Terry, you have the loveliest voice among all the girls . . . er . . . sopranos.”
“The lead?” I repeated the question.
“Terry, would that bother you to be among the sopranos as the only boy?”
I took a minute to answer. I really wanted to sing soprano and was so flattered she thought I could be the lead, which would mean solos and everything. But, would that open me to even more teasing and bullying? It probably would mean some people’d harass me, but they were stupid, I thought.
“No, Mrs. Watkins, if you think it’s best for the chorus.”
“Good,” she said. “You’re a soprano then. Just take you place with the soprano girls, OK?”
I wanted to leap with joy and couldn’t wait to tell Serena and Wanda. I know they’d be pleased. Too bad I didn’t have my mom around to tell. But I know Auntie would hug me when I told her. Little was I to know that my pleasure at being picked as a soloist would soon cause me great pain.
(To be continued)
My joy in being named soloist — as a soprano — for the school chorus was ended quickly, since Marian Cosgrove thought she had the best soprano voice; her mom had been paying for lessons in opera for Marian at the Conservatory of Music and felt she deserved being lead soprano. And Marian did indeed have a good voice; she was never flat and she sang with great clarity. Her voice did have a rather harsh quality though.
I guess Mrs. Watkins felt that my voice had warmth and sweetness that were most compelling. I just loved singing — even more than dancing — and tried always to make sure the audience understood the meaning of the song. It was so marvelous to sing a love song, putting all my heart and soul into it.
As rehearsals began later in the class period, Mrs. Watkins told the group that I’d be singing as soloist in the Christmas concert with Marian being backup and taking other solos. The fact that I would be singing most of the solos brought some minor clapping from the students, and one large grunt.
“What about me, Mrs. Watkins?” Marian Cosgrove challenged.
“What about you, Miss Cosgrove,” the teacher replied tartly.
“I should be the soloist, not Terry,” she exclaimed in front of the whole class. “I have the best voice and he’s a boy. Not a girl.”
“I chose Terry for the soloist and you as backup, Miss Cosgrove. You both have nice voices, but I think Terry’s fits in best for the chorus. That’s it, dear.”
“But . . .”
“Marian,” Mrs. Watkins warned, looking the student directly in the eye. “I’ll talk to you later.”
Marian Cosgrove grew red and turned away, as if to cry. The girl, however, was not done with the issue. She was a tall, husky girl who might in some day be a truly fine opera singer. She had stage presence, probably drilled into her by her mother. She was waiting for Terry as he left the school. He was alone, since Wanda and Serena were staying after school for a 4-H club meeting.
“It’s not fair,” Marian said, grabbing me by the arm, almost causing me to drop my books that were cradled in my arms.
“I didn’t do anything, Marian,” I said, somewhat frightened by her brisk manner. “She chose me on her own. I didn’t ask for it.”
“You’re such a sissy,” she began. “No boy should WANT to sing soprano, like a girl.”
“I can’t help it that my voice hasn’t changed yet,” I said, but the words came out almost as a whimper.
She was looking so mean and she was even a little taller than me and probably stronger.
“Put your books down,” she demanded.
“Why?”
“Just put them down, sissy.”
I wanted to run away from her, she was looking so mad. I put the books down, and saw she was about to hit me, and I put my hands up to my face hoping to ward off the blows. She easily pushed my hands away and slapped me in the face.
I tried to cover my face with my hands and she easily pulled them away. I was weak to resist her stronger arms, instead started cowering and sobbing uncontrollably.
I don’t know how many times she hit me but soon I was on the ground in a fetal position, powerless to stop her hits, which by now weren’t too hard.
“Look at the sissy,” I heard someone yell. “Being beaten up by a girl!”
I looked up to see a crowd had gathered and they were beginning to cheer Marian for the beating she was delivering. I could hear laughter and hoots, all directed at me, along with words like “homo” and “fairy.” I buried my head in my arms, trying not to look, afraid I’d get hit again. She was so strong.
Since we were a block from school no teachers showed up to break up the beating. It all ended quickly, with Marian taunting me with the words, “If she wants to sing like a girl, let her lay there.”
“And she fights like a girl, too,” someone else chimed in.
I lay there, maybe for several minutes as they all left the scene. All I could do was to cry!
*****
I was so ashamed and I tried to get home and up to my room to clean up before auntie could see me and ask what happened. My clothes were wrinkled, but not torn and my face was all wet and dirty from the tears that fell down as I cried. My face was all red from where she slapped me, and my arms had welts from where I was hit.
Auntie heard me come in and yelled “hi,” but I merely said “hi” back and hurried up to my room; this was unusual because I normally rushed to see her and tell her what happened that day in school. I had so wanted to tell her I was chosen to be a lead singer in the Christmas concert, but now that was spoiled. I rushed into the bathroom to clean myself up, but I no sooner closed the door and auntie was there, rapping gently. “Are you all right, dear?”
“Yes, auntie, just cleaning myself up,” I said hurriedly.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” I knew she could tell something was wrong.
Rather than answer, I merely started crying again. “Terry, open the door,” auntie demanded. I did, and soon I was comfortably cradled in her comforting arms. Between sobs, I told her the whole humiliating story. As I ended the episode, I cried out in desperation, “I was beaten up by a girl, auntie, and all I could do was cry.”
Auntie must have held me for a good 15 minutes; it felt so good in her loving arms, so protected and safe. Why, oh why, did I have to leave that protection and go out into the world? I was not fit to be alive.
I kept those thoughts to myself, but auntie must have sensed my feelings. She held me so firmly, so protectively, whispering in my ear what a talented, caring child I was, making me feel like I was somebody, not just a pathetic, sissy boy who could be beaten up by a girl. Even though Marian was bigger than me, I still felt most girls could have beaten me up; it was a repulsive thought for a boy to have, but probably a true one.
Finally my sobbing stopped, and auntie told me a take my shower, clean myself up and come down for supper. “I have some ideas for you, darling, and we can talk about them later,” she said.
*****
I debated what clothes to wear after the shower. I wanted to put on a nice skirt and blouse, fix my hair and put on some light makeup, which is what many women and girls do when they’re feeling sad. It would comfort me so much. But maybe, given the circumstances, I should put on my boy stuff, but that would only remind me of the afternoon.
I needed to feel good about myself, so I did the only thing I knew would cheer me up. I decided to treat myself, and dress up in a very pretty, frilly peach-colored dress, with puff sleeves and a full skirt, along with my two-inch sandals and ankle socks. It always made me look much like a little girl on her way to church. I loved it.
“Aren’t you pretty?” auntie said when I finally showed up in the kitchen. “No wonder it took you so long to come down. I got worried about you, honey.”
She drew me to her, pulling me tightly against her small, firm breasts and trim body. I always wondered how someone so muscular and hard could feel so warm and comforting. I loved her dearly, almost as much as my mother. Tears came to me as I reflected how lucky I was to have such a loving auntie.
“Help me put on the supper, honey, and please don’t spill anything on that nice dress,” she said.
She handed me an apron, which I put on, asking, “What ideas do you have for me, auntie?”
“Not now dear, let’s eat, and we’ll talk about it later,” she said.
“OK, auntie,” I replied, glad to put the memories of the beating behind me, at least for now.
*****
Just after supper, auntie excused me from the dishes, and suggested I get into something more comfortable and begin to do my homework. When she was done with the dishes, she told me we could talk more about my situation.
I had no sooner completing the change of clothes, putting on a loose pair of Capri pants and a teal-colored sweatshirt with bunnies on it, than the phone rang. Knowing auntie’s hands were likely in dishwater, I ran to answer it.
“Terry, is that you?” I heard the voice ask. It was Wanda.
“Yes,” I said. Even though Wanda was my best friend, I really didn’t want to talk to her just now and trying to be cheerful. I had hoped no one — besides the bullies — knew of Marian’s beating of me, just wanting the whole incident to be gone and forgotten.
“Are you all right, Terry?” she asked.
“Yes.” It was obvious she knew something.
“I just heard,” she said. “Oh how awful. That horrid girl.”
“I’m all right,” was all I could think of do say.
“I’d like to scratch her eyes out for you,” Wanda said. “I love you Terry and so does Serena. We just talked about this and we want to help you. You’ve been our friend.”
“Thank you, but I’m OK, really!”
“And no one came to help you, to stop her?” she asked.
“No, and I couldn’t do anything about it. She’s so strong.”
“My poor Terry,” she said, making me feel even more helpless. “What caused her to attack you?”
“Well, you know it looks like they want me to be lead soloist, and Marian thinks she should be the lead. That’s all. She’s jealous. And she doesn’t think a boy should be singing soprano.”
“Oh the big cow,” Wanda said. “Everyone knows you got the prettiest voice.”
“I suppose if you and Serena heard about the beating, it’s all over school,” I queried.
“Yes, everyone’s talking about it.”
“Oh I can’t go back to school tomorrow . . . never,” I said, beginning to cry.
“Terry you must.”
“But they’ll all laugh at me.”
“Not everyone, in fact most of the girls I talked to are on your side, so are some of the boys, I bet, but most of them are too cowardly to admit it.”
“Oh, I can’t,” I said, realizing my being beat up by a girl was the big news so far of the school year of 1942-43 at the Wisconsin Avenue School.
“Serena and I will be with you, as will a couple of boys we know,” she pleaded. “You must come back.”
*****
Even Bert heard about the beating, and he isn’t even going to the school anymore; he’s a freshman at West Division High School.
“Terry, you’re still my girl,” he said when he called me that night.
I started to cry when he said that, remembering the sweet times we’d had together; he had been bothered by auntie’s decision to start making me more of a boy, since he told me I could some day be Miss America, or, at least, Miss Wisconsin. I missed him so much; he had protected me in the previous year in school from all the bullies.
“Don’t cry,” he said. “Marian is a big girl who could probably beat up half the 8th Grade boys.”
“But I didn’t even fight back, I just laid there and cried and took it,” I protested.
“Please, Terry, stay as sweet as you are. I’ll always think of you are my girl, even if you can’t live as a girl.”
Bert told me I should really go right back into school the next day, with my head held high. “You did nothing wrong, Terry,” he said. “And you won the right to be soloist by being the best singer. Forget Marian.”
“You think I should, Bert? They’ll all be laughing at me.”
“Some will, but only the stupid ones,” he said. “Marian will still rally her buddies behind her, but remember she’s in the wrong.”
“I don’t know, Bert,” I said, doubting my own resolve, feeling very weak and inadequate at the moment.
It was then Bert changed the subject. “Do you think your auntie would allow you to come to the 9th Grade dance with me next week? At my school? You could be dressed all pretty and no one knows you here.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, surprised at the request. Did he want to parade me in front of the whole high school as his girl friend? What would happen if someone there found out his “girl friend” was just a guy?
“Ask her for me, Terry,” he pleaded. “I’d love to show you off.”
“Bert, you could have your pick of any of the pretty girl,” I protested. “Why me?”
“I don’t know, Terry. I just like you. You are the prettiest girl I know, and you dance so nice and you can do the jitterbug. I can see the whole school surrounding us while we danced, watching our moves.”
It sounded so tempting; I could see myself as a dazzling girl in my nice lavender and yellow dress, with thin shoulder straps, bare legs and yellow ballet flats. And Bert was such a good dancer; I just float in the air when I’m with him.
“I’ll ask her, Bert, but I know she’ll say no. She wants me to be a boy. No more running around fooling people that I’m a girl.”
“You’re not fooling people, Terry,” Bert argued. “You’re as much a girl as any girl in the school.”
“I’ll ask her, I promise. Call me later this week, OK?”
As might be expected, Auntie’s answer was “NO.” But both Bert’s call and Wanda’s convinced me to go to school the following day, planning to continue the rehearsal to be the major soloist — as a soprano — in the chorus and to be the best singer I could be for the chorus.
*****
Ever since Aunt Adele mentioned she had some “ideas” for me, I wondered what they were. I was so confused since part of me hoped she was thinking of ways of making me even more of a girl, while the other part of me wondered if she had some magical way to make me like all other boys, strong and confident. Deep down, I really wanted to be all girl.
She told me her thoughts as I got ready for bed; I had taken time doing so, putting up my hair and putting some cream on my face to hopefully prevent the zits from appearing. All the time, I admired the pretty girl in the mirror, my slender shoulders and dainty neck.
“Terry, finish up in there,” I heard my auntie yell at me. “I want to talk to you before you go to bed.”
“Yes, auntie, just be a minute,” I said. I was standing in front of the mirror, still in panties and a training bra. I put on my light teal blue nightie and went out to meet auntie.
Auntie was sitting on the vanity bench in my room and she beckoned me to sit on the bed.
“First of all,” she said. “Do you really want to go ahead and sing as a soprano in the chorus?” Her voice was firm and direct.
“Yes, auntie, I do,” I said without hesitation. “I earned it and Mrs. Watkins thinks I’m the best for the chorus.”
“You saw what happened today after school? You want more of that?”
“No auntie, but Wanda and Serena think I should go ahead,” I said. “Besides they’ll be there to protect me.”
“Terry, girls to protect you? That’s so ridiculous; you’re a boy and you should be able to protect yourself, at least from a girl.”
“She caught me off-guard, auntie,” I pleaded.
“It doesn’t matter, dear,” she said, her voice softening. “You still need to realize that soon you’ll have to act like a man in a man’s world.”
“Why can’t I just live as a girl and a woman, auntie? Can’t I change my sex, cut off my boy part? I don’t feel like fighting people. I’ll never be strong. I’ll never be able to be a real man, auntie. Please, what can I do?”
She got up, sat next to me and held me in her arms, comforting me, and I began to sob.
“Honey,” she said, finally. “The fact is there is no way to make you a woman. You have a boy thingee and as far as I know there’s no record of people changing that.”
“What about letting me go to Denmark?” I asked. “I heard they do it there.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I heard that, too, but I don’t know how successful it’s been. Besides there’s a war on and Denmark is in Nazi hands. They’ll never allow it.”
“Oh, auntie, I’m so scared. I can’t be a man.”
“Now, now,” she said, ending the hug and taking my two hands in hers. “You’re a very smart, intelligent young man, Olaf Terrence Michaelsson, and you can do whatever you want, short of becoming a girl.”
I nodded. It was true; I got top grades in school and enjoyed learning.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” she said. Then she told me her plan.
*****
Wanda and Serena, along with two boys I hardly knew, met me halfway to school the next morning, walking with me into the building. Students lined both sides of the sidewalks as I entered the school, but I noticed several teachers standing among them, stern looks on their faces. The teachers rarely stood outside before school, but I got the feeling they were there to maintain the peace. It was obvious the whole school knew of the beating of the “sissy boy” or the “homo,” which seemed to be the favored phrases used to identify me. I was scared stiff and feeling so strange to be the subject of so much attention, but walked ahead with the head held high, trying to show confidence that I really didn’t feel inside.
I tried not to walk like a girl, which was hard to do. I tried to step out more broadly, but it seemed strange. I tried holding my books in one arm at my right side, instead of cradling them in my arms across my chest as I had been doing, but it was just two awkward, and the books began to slip. I ended up cradling them in my arms, just as the girls tended to do.
“There she is,” I heard some boy say.
“I’ll have none of that Bobby,” a teacher warned the offender.
At the entrance, I saw Mr. Karsten, the principal. He stopped me, telling Wanda, Serena and the two boys to go on into the school and their classrooms.
“You come with me,” he said, his voice firm and demanding. He seemed angry.
Mr. Karsten was a big man, and had hard, muscular arms; it was obvious he must have been an athlete at sometime in the past. His neck was thick and he had a full head of jet black hair and a full set of bushy eyebrows, making him look mean. I thought he was going to hit me.
I felt so weak and inconsequential sitting in his office, where he told me to stay until he returned. Of course, my natural impulse was to cry, but I tried to hold that back.
“You’ve got to start acting more like a boy, young man,” he said, upon returning. “I can’t have this disruption in my school.”
“But, Mr. Karsten . . .” I started to say.
“I heard the whole story, and I’ll talk to Marian,” he began. “I can’t reprimand her for hitting you, because the fight occurred off school grounds. But, young man, you’re asking for it by acting so much like a girl. You’re just inviting being teased.”
I wondered what was happening; why was I getting blamed for this. All I was doing was walking home from school.
“I can see she beat you pretty badly,” he said. “But fights happen and a boy should expect a few bruises and a black eye and learn to fight back.”
He had obviously seen my right eye area was black and blue where she had slapped me. I had worn a long sleeve shirt to cover the bruises and scratches on my arms.
“But, Mr. Karsten . . .” I tried to answer. He cut me short:
“Listen, our boys are dying in the South Pacific and in North Africa and soon you’ll likely be going into the Army and you must be strong and prepared. There is no room in this world for sissies. Let this be a lesson to you.”
“But Mr. Karsten . . .”
“There’ll be no buts, Terrence,” he continued firmly. “You have to get yourself in shape. And another thing, I’ve asked Mrs. Watkins to remove you as soloist. Such a performance will bring shame to the whole school.”
“What? Stop me from singing?” I was shocked. How could he?
“Yes, we can’t have you standing up in front of all the parents and the school singing like a girl. I just won’t have it.”
I felt tears beginning to come to my eyes. Oh how I loved to sing, and now he’s taking that from me.
“But, Mr. Karsten, I just . . .”
“Just go and quit being such a girl,” he interrupted gruffly.
I couldn’t fight back the tears. I cried. Like a girl.
*****
I ran out of the school, my crying taking over all my emotions. I wanted my mother so badly. I needed her protective love and I wanted to bury my face into her ample bosom and feel her comforting caresses. Thinking of her, now dead and gone, I could only cry more.
I loved my Aunt Adele and I knew she would comfort me too and listen to my awful story. I know she, too, would wipe the tears from my face. She was so sweet to me, too, but she wasn’t my mom.
At that moment, all I wanted to be was a pretty little girl, to be the daughter my already dead mother would have loved and enjoyed and to be a niece to my dear auntie. But now Mr. Karsten was telling me I was nothing but a shame to the school, a terrible weakling who could easily be beaten up by most of the girls in the school. How could I possibly be a real boy, strong and muscular and ready to fight the Germans or Japanese?
By the time I was a block from the school, I was out of breath from the combination of my running and crying, and I sat down on the front steps of some house to rest. The street was quiet, except for the rustle of leaves, being blown by a gentle fall breeze; there was a slight chill in the air, but it was refreshing and felt so good after the stuffiness of Mr. Karsten’s small office.
My crying was slowly ending, and I began to day dream that I was a cute girl walking down this very street with handsome Bert on my arm; I pictured myself as a cheerleader with a short white pleated skirt and a top carrying the red and white colors of the West Division High School Cardinals. The dream helped me to stop crying just as I heard the clopping of horse’s hooves and wagon wheels on the concrete.
I looked up to see it was the iceman, stopping along the way to deliver blocks of ice to those homes on the street that still had no electric refrigerator and relied on ice boxes to keep their food. He was stopping at those homes that displayed a sign in their front windows indicating how much ice they wanted that day, either in 25 pound, 50 pound, 75 pound or 100 pound quantities.
The iceman was old, I could see, but he was big and broad-shouldered; he had stopped right in front of the house on whose steps I was sitting. I looked up to the house, noting that they wanted 50 pounds of ice that day. I felt I better go.
The ice man, dressed in gray coveralls and wearing a leather jacket with shoulder pads, took out his giant ice tongs, undid the canvas that cover the blocks of ice and wrestled a block of ice onto his shoulder. He began to walk toward to the house, looking at me strangely as I gathered up my school books to leave.
“Are you all right young lady?” he asked, apparently carrying the large block of ice without effort. He could see I must have been crying.
Young lady? Why would he think that, I wondered. Wasn’t I dressed in my boy stuff? Then I realized my longish hair had come loose and disheveled during my crying session and from the running; it had fallen over my face, and with the light blue jacket I wore and my slender body I may have looked like a girl.
I didn’t answer him, just nodded that I was OK.
“You’re sure? Can I help you?”
“No sir,” I said in a weak, timid voice. With the high register, I’m sure he must now be convinced I was a girl.
“Why aren’t you in school?” he said, still standing before me, his voice still soothing and warm. He carried the ice on his shoulder and occasionally a drop of water would drip from it onto the pavement.
“I’m sick,” I lied. “I’m going home.”
“Where do you live?”
“Just two blocks away,” I said, my voice still thin and high. “I’ll be OK.”
“You look like a nice young lady,” he said. “You be careful now.”
He walked up the steps and around to the back to deliver his load of ice. The horse whinnied at the curb and I resisted the urge to go out and pet the animal on the head.
I felt better now, having had my day dream of being a cute young girl cheerleader turned into reality of sort as the kindly iceman had called me a “nice young lady.”
*****
By the time I got home, I began to realize the truth of my situation: I was a boy who looked like a girl, but I’d have to somehow begin to look and act more like a boy. And that’s where Adele’s plan began to make sense to me. She told me about it the previous evening as I prepared for bed. I didn’t like the plan, but agreed to think about it. As you might expect, I didn’t sleep well that night.
Auntie’s plan was to help me progress into the male world while at the same time letting me live in some ways as a girl. For the time being, she didn’t say how long, I could continue wearing girl underthings at home and nightgowns for sleeping. Occasionally, she said, I’d be able to dress fully as a girl and venture out with her to places where we’d likely not be known.
From now on, however, I had to have my hair cut regularly to a more boyish length.
“You walk and act so much like a girl,” she said, in describing the plan. “We’ll have to get you out of those habits, or else you’ll be pegged as being strange.”
She also told me she was beginning a dance class for boys.
“You’ll no longer be able to dance as one of the girls, honey,” she said. “I’ve hired Andre Des Jardins as a dance coach for the boys.”
“Mr. Des Jardins?” I said. I had heard about him. He used to be a great ballet dancer, I knew.
“Yes, dear. He’s in town working in a defense factory and has agreed to work with boys on Saturday. I’ve recruited four other boys, so you’ll have company. Besides, Mr. Des Jardins is a physical fitness teacher and I’ve asked him to work with you to strengthen your body.”
“Oh auntie, I don’t know,” I said that night. “I’ll never be like other boys.”
“At least you must try, honey,” she said. “It’s the only way.”
“Yes. Aunt Adele, I’ll try.”
I knew auntie was right; I had no other choice. That night I couldn’t get to sleep, my mind whirling over all sorts of ideas in which I could live as a girl and make a living as a woman when I grew up. Why couldn’t I take secretarial classes in school and become a secretary? Maybe I could become some wealthy family’s housemaid? I had seen advertisements in the newspaper entertainment section about “female impersonators” appearing at the Empress Burlesque Theatre: I could certainly do that. What if my voice never changed and I could become a singer-dancer on Broadway?
Oh those were pleasant thoughts! I must have had been smiling as I laid on my side, my right hand resting on my left upper arm, feeling how slender and soft it was. I really had arms like a girl and everyone had commented how pretty my legs were. It was such a joy to be a soft, sweet, dainty girl. How could I ever become a rough, nasty, hard-muscled boy?
I felt my penis hardening as I massaged my arm, realizing how pathetically weak I was, how unlike a boy. The feeling in my crotch, however, revealed one fact: I may look like a girl, sing like a girl, walk like a girl, but the thing hanging between my legs made me a boy. Soon, when I turned 18, I’d be forced to sign up for the draft and likely end up in the Army or Navy, like all other boys. There was no escaping the fact. Somehow, I would have to say goodbye to Terry, the lovely, sweet girl, and make way, again, for Olaf Terrence Michaelsson, a boy and a man-to-be.
*****
I returned to school the following day, the black eye still prominent on my face; my first action was to tell Mrs. Watkins I would be leaving the chorus, since my singing as a soprano seemed to be causing problems. I found her in her room about ten minutes before school started.
“Terry, I wish you wouldn’t do that. You really have a great voice,” she said.
“It’ll just cause a fuss,” I said. “I’ll miss singing with the group, Mrs. Watkins. You’ve been such a good director.”
“Thank you, Terry, but I wish you’d reconsider. You add so much to the group.”
“I can’t ma’am. I just can’t.”
“I understand,” she said. I could tell Mrs. Watkins was sad to see me leave the group, but I think she was relieved since my presence would just cause a fuss in the school.
“You can give the lead part to Marian, then,” I said, almost spitefully. I was mad at myself for the nasty tone of my voice.
Mrs. Watkins smiled. “She’ll get it over my dead body, Terry. No way can she try to beat somebody up for a singing part. I’ve also removed her from the group. For soloists this year, we’ll concentrate on boy parts. I think Mark Luebtke has a nice voice.”
“He does,” I said, with enthusiasm. Mark had a clear tenor voice with some volume.
“And Terry, I argued with Mr. Karstens to keep you as soloist, but he was adamant, and you know the principal is the boss here.”
I nodded my head and left, fighting back tears. Why wasn’t I born a girl so I could sing beautifully while wearing lovely dresses on stage?
Epilogue
I knew what I had to do. I had to hide my girliness and try to be a boy. I really had no other choice, otherwise my life would be torturous and not worth living. Could I ever be a boy? Really, a boy? I knew I had to try. And, I cried a lot too.
I had my hair cut drastically, removing any sign of the beautiful locks that helped make me the girl I felt I was. I worked hard at trying to remove all of my feminine mannerisms; that was so hard, and I didn’t always succeed. I still carried my books like a girl; when I tried to carry them at my side, as most boys did, they tended to slip.
Bert soon lost interest in me; he had no desire to treat me as a boy, since he had plenty of friends at West Division High School. He was headed to be a star athlete there, and any association with a “fairy” would damage his reputation. Soon I learned he had a girl friend and I cried about that, even though I knew that I could never again be his girl. I saw her once; Serena and I were at the ice cream store and she came in with some girl friends and Serena pointed her out.
“She’s not as pretty as you, Terry,” she said, a smile beaming from her face.
I nodded. The girl was a bit plain, with a broad freckled face and slightly chubby. Yet, she had sparkling eyes and seemed to have a happy disposition. I hoped she’d make Bert happy.
“When you dressed up, Terry, you actually were the prettiest girl around,” Serena said. “You could’ve been a beauty queen.”
“Those days are gone, Serena. I’m just Terrence now.”
“I know, but you’re still like a girl friend to me.”
“Yes, we’re still friends and that’s as it should be,” I said smiling.
In fact, my friendship with both Wanda and Serena survived my return to boyhood; we still spent lots of time together, going to movies and just plain talking. My other friend was Matt, who seemed to be around every weekend, even though he went to a different school and he was two years ahead of me. We both shared an interest in artistic stuff and auntie made sure we got to most of the worthwhile concerts and plays in town. He was trying to write poetry, and he always wanted my advice.
The boy’s dance class proved to be most difficult; Mr. Des Jardins was patient and kind, but still a demanding taskmaster. I proved to be the weakest of the five boys in the class, making me always the butt of Mr. Des Jardin’s entreaties. But, I tried, and he recognized that. We rarely saw the girl dancers — the ones whom I had enjoyed being a part of for a year — and I guess that was good, since I’d be tempted to join them, leaving the boys. By Christmas, I had strengthened myself so that I could better keep up.
Sadly, I lost my girly arms, as they now became toned and hard, thanks to some weights that Aunt Adele purchased, as well as the exercise regimen that the new dance instructor had developed. He was patient with my physical ineptness, but I grew stronger thanks to his attentive direction.
*****
World War II cast a dark cloud over all of us those days; while Hitler’s advances in Europe seemed to be stalled, but the war lingered on in North Africa and Italy, with every battle being a costly one. Several families in our neighborhood exchanged the blue star flags in their windows for gold stars, as their sons were reported killed in action. The Japanese Navy was still a formidable foe in the Pacific, as many ships were being sunk and fighting in New Guinea and Guadalcanal was difficult and full of casualties.
“Will the war ever end, Auntie?” I asked one night in the summer of 1943, after graduating from the 8th Grade. We were sitting together on the front porch swing on a mild, quiet early evening; it was such a peaceful evening it was hard to imagine people were being killed in other parts of the world.
“I hope so honey,” she said.
“Will I be drafted, do you think?”
“Maybe dear, if the war goes on for three more years,” she said.
“I’ll be scared to go into the Army,” I said. I seemed to always be able to tell auntie my deepest secrets, even those that were embarrassing to admit. She was always understanding.
“Afraid of being killed, dear?”
“Not really, I want to help my country, but I’m just not sure I could do all those things soldiers do, auntie. I just don’t feel ready. And I’ll miss you so much.”
“Darling,” she said, taking my hand in hers. “You’ll be as ready as any young man. Don’t worry.”
“I don’t know, auntie, I’m still not like other boys.”
She squeezed my hand gently. “You’ll find other boys like you in the Army, too, I’m sure.”
I didn’t think so at the time, but I let the matter pass. My mind turned to other happier thoughts, mainly of a dress I had seen in the downtown store window that had intrigued me. I knew I’d look just divine in it. I was always day-dreaming about dresses.
*****
I entered West Division High School in the autumn of 1943, looking more boyish than I had in grade school. Recognizing that life had dictated I live as a boy and later a man, I worked hard to be more of a boy. I took a newspaper carrier route which would further enhance my credentials as a boy. I even began playing on the 9th Grade basketball team, where I discovered my dancing had improved my stamina and agility on the court. I was a pretty lousy shot, but I could dribble and defend as well as any.
I guess I then became a pretty typical boy, eventually dating Wanda during my junior and senior years in high school. We found we loved each other. After graduating high school in 1947, I enlisted in the Navy, hoping it would not be as demanding and “macho” as the Army would be. The war had ended in August 1945, but the draft was still on, and there was no money for me to go to college, so the Navy seemed to be the best choice.
I enlisted for three years, and in June 1950 I was looking forward to discharge and an August wedding to Wanda. But, the Korean conflict intervened and the President extended my duty, taking me from a cushy on-shore duty station to an LST (Landing Ship Tank), a flat-bottomed crafts that bounced mercilessly in the seas. Our group of amphibious forces later took part in the landing of troops at Inchon. We didn’t get married until three years later when I was in college, thanks to benefits from my service during the Korean fighting.
I am embarrassed to admit that even after four and one-half years in the Navy I was still a virgin, partly because I wanted to remain loyal to Wanda but also because I was so self-conscious of my smallish penis and smooth, still puny body. How vain!
We had a happy marriage; Wanda proved to be an ideal homemaker and sweet mother to our three children. I ended up with a career in accounting. We never got rich, but we lived life to the fullest.
Best of all, Wanda and I found moments — not many to be sure with a houseful of kids around — when I could dress up pretty. We even spent a wedding anniversary at a resort for two days where we registered as sisters and I spent the entire time as a woman, even going swimming in a lovely one piece swim suit. Needless to say, our sex was great on those occasions and that resort trip — made when we were married 15 years — resulted in the birth of our last child, a girl. How fitting!
I think often of my mother and hope she’d be proud of the person I’ve become. How pleased she would have been to have played with our three children, two strapping boys, Robert and Thomas, and a daughter, Theresa, just the daintiest, prettiest girl on the whole wide earth — at least in my thinking. I have to admit I have spent more time with our lovely daughter than with the two boys, and Wanda, in her infinite, loving wisdom, has assigned me to take her shopping for clothes, now that she is a teenager.
“Terry, you’re spoiling that girl,” my Aunt Adele said to me while we visited her at her lakeshore apartment. Even in her 70s, she was a trim, lovely woman, but sadly arthritis had slowed her walk.
“I just want her to look nice,” I said.
“She does, Terry. She’s adorable, almost as pretty as you were at her age.”
“Cut it out, auntie,” I smiled. “Our little Theresa is far prettier, and so talented.”
Aunt Adele nodded. “Of course she is, and I’m so proud of the good father and husband you have become.”
“I try, auntie, but you and mom made me what I am today,” I said, tears welling up in my eyes. “And my wife Wanda who has been with me from the beginning. I’ve been so lucky.”
Every night, it seems, I dream the most beautiful dream in which I am the prettiest girl in school. I really am a woman. Don’t you agree?