CHAPTER 23 -- Making Acquaintances

So far, I hadn't made any friends of my own. I mostly just knew Teresa's friends. Usually, you make friends at school, but there wasn't any chance to hang out there except for lunch, and everybody seemed to have their own group there. I could have tried sitting with a different group from Teresa's, but I was still afraid of people being mean to me.

I tried joining the chorus, like Teresa, but there wasn't much free time there, either. Actually, for a while, we had less. The chorus director was shocked to discover I couldn't read music and made dire comments about schools in the West End not teaching children how to read. I couldn't just stand next to Teresa and listen to her because she sang soprano and I got put in the alto section. So Teresa had to spend what little free time we had left in the evening teaching me the alto parts and also to read music.

So the people I got together with on weekends were all Teresa's friends. Not that they were bad. They were fine with me hanging out with them on weekends, usually at somebody's house or other. They knew my story, though maybe not the worst details, but didn't act like it made any difference. As far as they were concerned, I belonged.

One thing, though: they didn't think much of my choice of clothes. "You need to come up with a look, at least one," they'd say. "You look like you just picked up the first thing you saw at the mall." So much for Teresa's and her mother's efforts at shopping for me. Especially, they thought I could look prettier if I paid more attention to how I dressed. I explained that I wasn't sure I wanted to be pretty. A part of me still thought of myself as a boy, and boys aren't supposed to be "pretty."

"That's pretty stupid," one of them said. I think it was Ellen Gundersen. "What's the matter with looking pretty? Do they think their penis will fall off if they do?" They all cracked up at that. They seemed to think the word 'penis' was the funniest thing they'd ever heard. I couldn't help thinking that my penis had as good as fallen off, even without me trying to be pretty, but I decided not to make a stink about it. "Besides," she added in a sly voice, "maybe if they were pretty, they'd get further with us girls."

One thing they did get me to do was to get a haircut. They all had different ideas of what I should do with it, from getting a 'butch' cut to growing it down to my waist. My aunt took me out one day and, with Teresa's advice, had my hair trimmed to a page-boy cut that was fairly feminine but still wouldn't have looked stupid on a boy.

Anyway, one day they were digging through our closet to find something for me to wear, and they ran across a petticoat on Teresa's side: one of those net things that makes a skirt pouf out.

"What's this?" someone asked.

"That's a petticoat I picked up at a thrift shop," answered Teresa. "It's short enough to fit under my school uniform, so one day last year, I wore it to school."

"Did you get in trouble for it?"

"Nobody said anything. I think a lot of people could tell, but it wasn't showing, so it didn't count as 'visible underwear.' I did have to work to keep it from pushing my skirt up too far when I sat down. It was fun. It spiced up the day. I should really wear it again some time."

"Maybe it will spice up Melanie's wardrobe. Come on, Melanie, try it on." They talked me into putting it on under the boring skirt I was wearing and pronounced it "spicier." Then they had me take the skirt off and put my school jumper on over it. They decided that was good, too. When they got bored with having me model it, the girls who were wearing skirts wanted to try it on, too.

They were still going through the closet, and they found the blue dress. When they found out it was for me, they all insisted that I put it on. "Hey, we finally found something that looks good on you," they said. They got me to walk around the house and show it off to my aunt and uncle.

"You should wear it to church tomorrow," said my aunt. I gave in, and said I would. After the girls had gone, I looked at myself in the mirror for a while. Part of me really liked looking like this. The haircut was a little boyish for the dress, though. Maybe shoulder-length hair would be better. I was lost in thought when Teresa came in. She came up behind me and gave me a gentle hug, then started fussing a little with the dress, arranging things.

"It feels funny," I said, "having someone else doing stuff to me. You know, putting your hands on my clothes and my hair. I know you're not doing anything to hurt me, and it feels nice, but it's not what anybody would ever do when I was a boy. Except my mom, when I was a lot younger."

"Girls do that all the time with each other. Grown-up women, too. It feels friendly, I guess. And since we can't see what we look like to other people, and we want to look our best, we do things like that for each other. Like, I don't do make-up much, so when I do, I get another girl to do it for me. By the way, do you want to go to Youth Group tomorrow night?"

"Can I go and not answer lots of questions about my past? I've been trying not to think about who I was and what I went through, it makes it easier to deal with all the, uh, stuff that's going on right now. Actually, I'd rather not talk much at all, just listen and enjoy being there. Like how I used to be when your friends came over."

"I think so. We can talk it over with the youth pastor tomorrow."

I did wear the dress to church the next day, and nothing awful happened. A few of the grown-ups complimented me on it. We talked with the youth pastor, Reverend Jennifer Smallman, and she said she'd try to get the other kids "to give you some time to open up."

Youth group was in a room in the basement with old couches and overstuffed chairs and a ping-pong table. I wore the blue skirt and a blouse, and I was more dressed up than most of the kids there. Teresa and I and one other girl were the only girls wearing skirts. When we got there, two boys were playing ping-pong, while a boy and a girl were figuring out what kinds of pizza to order. Everone else was sitting or lying sort of draped on couches or chairs. They reminded me of a bunch of cats, the way they were in each others' laps or leaning on shoulders. After Teresa introduced me, I found an empty chair where I hoped I wouldn't be the center of attention. I tried to sit so I wouldn't flash anyone, but Teresa and the other girl in a skirt didn't seem to care. Sometimes they'd shift position and their underwear would show, and sometimes they'd move or pull on their skirt, and sometimes not, and nobody seemed to care.

After they called the pizza order in, Rev. Smallman, who everyone called "Jen" or, if they wanted to be formal, "Reverend Jen," got us all to sit in a circle and so a sort of introduction game, where we'd say our name and one good thing that happened since the last meeting. When it was my turn, I told how I'd gotten switched to a more advanced math class. Then Rev. Jen introduced the topic: how we feel about people's differences. We did some brainstorming, and then the pizza came, which we ate in the next room, which had tables and chairs. Teresa sat with me, and a boy and the girl with the skirt and another girl sat down with us. They asked about school, and I told them I'd transferred to Gabriel from West High. They were blown away. The boy said, "wow, that must take some getting used to! Going from Animal House to the nerdiest, most uptight school in town." It turned out the boy and the first girl went to Greenwood, so they started talking about the reputations of all the schools in town, which meant they didn't ask me any personal questions.

The second girl was pretty quiet, so I didn't find out until weeks later that she was the only other kid there who didn't go to Greenwood. Her name was Amy and she went to Hollingsworth, West High's big rival, not that I cared about that stupid rivalry. Once I got to know her, I discovered we had a lot in common: we liked the same music, we thought the same things were funny. We even liked the same pizza toppings: anchovies and onions. But that was a long time later.

After pizza, there was some discussion of a planned camping trip, then a game that involved people getting up and running around, then some discussion of the topic. Some people had guitars and we sang some songs. We finished up with mutual shoulder massages and lots of hugs. It didn't seem so bad.