“Smile!” The cameraman urges me. Naturally, I obey, curling my scarlet lips upward while maintaining my trademark model’s pout. “Show us the side stitching.” Again, I obey, lifting my arm above my head to show off the stitching on the side panel of the tight under bust corset I’m wearing.
“Beautiful, Nikki,” the cameraman says. “Okay, just one more to go, then you can finally go home!”
“Thank you all!” Becca yells into her microphone to the screaming crowd as we all wave happily. “Thank you all so, so much!”
“Thank you Glasgow!” I scream into my microphone, taking several deep breaths (despite my tight clothing) to rest my tired voice.
“We love you all!” Lauren yells into the microphone, her long, ginger hair pinned to her face with sweat thanks to our two hour long concert- our tenth in twelve days, and thankfully, our last for the time being.
I'm dressed as shabbily as I have ever been. Old, tatty jeans and a loose, long-sleeved t-shirt. I'm wearing no make-up whatsoever, and my short blonde hair is messy and unstyled. I have a paint brush in one hand and a stencil in the other, and for the first time in a very long time, I can truly forget that I was ever a girl.
"Kayleigh-Ann!" Miss Fullerton- my ballet teacher- yells, snapping me out of my fantasy. "When you're done with that wall, can you come and see me in the storage room?"
When my mother died and my father, someone that I had never met in my life, proposed to take me in, I actually believed that I was going to live with him. That of course wasn’t going to happen. That man, without even meeting me once, was sending me to a boarding school - a boarding school that apparently didn’t even know my name or gender, because in the letter they sent me to tell me I was accepted, they kept referring me as Miss Brooke Falconer.
That was completely ridiculous, I mean, I was Brook Woods, a tough (yet slightly short) guy!
“Thank you, please fly with us again!” Jessica said, a wide smile on her scarlet lips as she waved the hundred-plus passengers off the aeroplane. Most of the men and women simply ignored the American girl, tired as they were from their flight, but a few acknowledged her with a smile, making Jessica giggle happily. Once all the passengers has disembarked, Jessica returned to the aeroplane, straightening her tight red skirt and elegant pillbox hat before performing her post-flight checks.
“Ugh, I am sweating like a pig,” Abbey complained as she adjusted her own skirt.
A gender-questioning child is apprehensive about meeting with Father after a long separation. The last time they saw each other it was as troubled father and closeted preteen son. How will they relate now?
“Come on here we go, another bite, yum yum yum,” Lisa May snuck the spoon into her daughter’s mouth. “Come on little Annie, you’ve got to eat these yummy carrots.” Little Annie was not amused as orange goop ran out of her mouth, she swung her little arms in anger and gave a look that could melt ice. “OK, I get it, not your favorite,” Lisa laughed.
The door opened and Tom May walked in, dirty from head to toe in coal dust, he dropped his lunch bucket on the counter and dropped heavily into a seat. “What’s for supper?” he asked.
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
