What if you weren't the person you had always thought you were?

We'd had several appointments over the last few days, but the final consultation was early Saturday morning, the week following Labor Day. At about eleven a.m., I followed my folks out to the parking lot, still stunned by what I had learned about myself.

We talked about it before we started for home. My parents seemed to be into it in a way I would never have expected. Had they always wanted a daughter? Had I been a great disappointment?

I tried to feel them out about me staying a boy. But they were intrigued by the other option.

Surprisingly, it was my dad who made the first open suggestion. "Perhaps you should give it a try? See how life as a girl might be before you make any permanent decisions."

"I don't know a thing about how to be a girl," I protested.

"You know more than you think you know," Mom said. "Should we talk about picking a new name for you?"

"How about Andrew?" I suggested. "I've always wished my name was Andrew."

"Andrew?" She sounded startled.

I did not explode yelling at her. "Mom, I already have a girl's name! I've been fighting since kindergarten about it. Audrey Jane? Is that a boy's name?" I don't know how I wasn't shouting.

"Well, Jane is your last name. Good old famous British last name, Jane's Fighting Ships and all that. And Audrey is after Audrey Murphy, the war hero and movie star."

"Mom, his name was Audie, not Audrey. I looked it up."

"But anyway, I was talking about your middle name—Michael. That's not a girl's name. How about Michelle?"

I shook my head, not willing to participate in this.

"Madeline," she said. "I remember, that was going to be your name if you were a girl, Madeline Audrey. You know, your grandfather's middle name was Audrey, too. We can get your birth certificate changed, the doctor says."

"Let's not!" I yelped.

"Don't raise your voice," Mom warned.

"Yes, ma'am, sorry."

"Shouting isn't very ladylike."

"Mom!"

"Now I'm teasing you, dear. Shouting isn't polite for anyone."

"I'm not much in the mood to be teased," I said. I tried to look grumpy, but Dad kiboshed that.

"Don't pout, Punkin," he said.

* * *

Since Dad and Mom had again come in separate vehicles, we split up for the trip home. I rode with Mom in the big sedan with Dad following in his pickup. The hospital was miles from the Fordyce ranch compound where we lived, and we had a bit of city and suburbs to drive through before we even got to the road leading to Presley.

We traveled in silence for a bit until Mom said as we passed a mall, "We should go shopping."

"No. I am definitely not in the mood for shopping. Especially not shopping for girl's clothes which is what you're talking about."

"No dresses, no skirts. No ribbons or lace or ruffles. Nothing pink. But you can hardly give being a girl a try if all your clothes are boy stuff." She turned in at the mall entrance. "And school starts next week; you will need clothes. You can wear some of your boy stuff but…."

Stunned by the implication, I said nothing at all. Would I be going to school as a girl? When had I agreed to this crazy "try it for a while" plan?

I looked back to see Dad follow us into the parking lot. He pulled up alongside, and they had a conversation with the windows rolled down. Mom told him the shopping plan, and he said he would go home and take Lee Jr and Morgan, my brothers, out for pizza. And let them in on the new family secret.

"Ay, caramba," I said. "Do you have to tell them?"

"Don't whine," said Dad. "Left to you, you'd never tell them, would you?"

I mumbled something, but he pretended not to hear. The mention of pizza, however, made my stomach protest. I was still eating like I had a tapeworm or something and I hadn't had anything in almost five hours.

We entered through the food court end of the mall and got cheap Chinese from Eddie's, chicken chow mein with eggrolls and dipping sauce on the side. I got an extra eggroll.

Then we headed toward Penneys. "We should get your hair done," Mom said as we passed the salon.

"It's too short," I said.

"No, it's not, it's almost four inches, all over. Long enough to have a more feminine style than just a raggedy mess like it is."

"Mom, please, no, not today."

"Okay," she said, relenting. Then we passed an earring kiosk with a sign that said free piercing. Her eyes lit up.

"Just no," I said, trying not to shout.

Mom looked at me as if I had disappointed her, and I didn't get any new holes in my head right then.

Soon enough, we were in the girls' department at Penney's. First, Mom picked out some plain white cotton panties. The idea of wearing them made me feel squirmy, but I realized now was not the time or place to protest.

I'd missed my chance when I hadn't run away in the parking lot. I was going to have to give living as a girl a try, or my parents were not going to give up.

In the jeans section, we found a handy sign showing how to buy boys' jeans in girls' sizes. That wasn't what we were there for, but it gave us a clue as to what sizes to look at in the girls' department. She picked up two pair of girl's jeans. I put one of them back. "No pink," I said.

"They're not pink," she said.

"Pink stitching counts."

"How about these?" she said, holding up a pair. They had gold stitching, but the stitches made a heart outline on the rear pockets. I shook my head, but she put them in the pile anyway.

She picked out four tops, one red, one green, one blue, and one lavender. They weren't terribly girly, but they had little teddy bears where an alligator might have been. I gritted my teeth but said nothing.

"Now you have to go try them on," Mom said.

"What? I can't…"

"We don't know your sizes, honey, you've been growing so fast. I just guessed."

She went into the girls' changing rooms with me, and no one said a word. When I was down to my briefs, she opened the package of panties and handed one to me. I didn't fight over it but stripped off right in front of her and slipped them on. I tucked poor, little, lying mister backward and the panties fit like I'd always worn them.

Both pairs of jeans fit, though they fit differently. The pair with hearts on the ass were supposedly boy-cut—apparently meaning they fit at the hips instead of the waist. I kept them on and wore the blue top, even though I noticed that the teddy bear had a pink bowtie.

Everything fit, Mom's a wonder with sizes. She took my old boy clothes and wrapped them up, stuffing the pants and shorts into the shirt. "You'll just wear what you have on out," she said, removing tags and holding them.

I stood in front of the mirror. It wasn't all that obvious that I was wearing girls clothes. I still looked like a boy to me. Maybe a boy with slightly fruity taste in clothing.

"You're adorable," Mom said, and I blushed.

We left the dressing rooms, and Mom paid for everything and got it all, except what I was wearing, put into bags and stapled closed with the receipts. Then we headed to the shoe aisle.

"I'll let you pick out whatever shoes you want, honey. As long as they're girls' shoes, you can go as butch as you like." She giggled. Butch? I hadn't heard the expression before, but it was obvious what it meant.

"Okay," I said, grateful for a small concession and figuring I would choose some basic sneakers and be done.

"I'll be picking up some other things you may need," she said, heading off to the leather goods. "Like a billfold instead of just stuffing your money in a pocket."

"Nothing pink," I reminded her. "And no more hearts or teddy bears."

She giggled and disappeared. I realized that I had to set firm guidelines on this trying something out idea. Mom would keep moving the goalposts otherwise.

After looking at a hundred pairs of sneaks, I settled on plain white girls' low-tops, buying them just a little bit on the big side. I didn't realize until I was lacing them up that the strings had a rainbow sheen to them. Always some little girly touch, I thought, but they didn't look at all bad.

For some reason, my mood had improved, and I was even smiling. I've always liked getting new shoes, I guess. Feeling a bit more optimistic, I put my old shoes in the new box and went looking for Mom so she could pay for them.

She was already checking out when I found her, so I just added the box to her pile and told the clerk that I was wearing the shoes already. I waited to see if she reacted to me dressed up as a girl, but she didn't seem to notice.

Had my life always been like this and I just hadn't noticed? Even with my short hair was no one going to assume I was a boy? I had longer hair earlier in the summer, before The Crisis, would people have accepted me as either a boy or girl even easier then?

I didn't know. I couldn't know, but it did make me uneasy and went a ways toward ruining the brighter mood that new shoes had helped me reach.

The shopping had taken less time than I would have thought. We went out through the food court, and I got a small dipped cone because an hour and a half of shopping had made me hungry again. I took plenty of napkins to protect my new clothes at Mom's urging.

When we got home, I went straight to my room with Mom following me. Dad was already there, looking at my posters. The Millennium Falcon on one wall facing off against Star Trek: The Movie (which hadn't even come out yet) on the other wall and another smaller poster of Nolan Ryan of the Angels. Presley was a Dodger town, being in the area called the Inland Empire, but the Angels looked like they might go to the playoffs this year and the Dodgers kind of sucked. Besides, Ryan was a cool guy who threw harder than anyone.

My smallest posters were of Chris Reeve as Superman and Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman. I stared at Wonder Woman. Would I grow up to look like her? Probably a better chance of that than looking like Chris Reeve. But wow.

"Maybe take the baseball poster down?" Dad suggested.

"What do girls hang on their walls?" I asked.

"Not a clue," he admitted, and we both laughed, our faces red.

The rest of the room was probably problematical. All blues and browns and kind of somber at that. The walls were a pale off-green that, now that I thought of it, I had never really liked.

"We could repaint," Dad suggested.

"But not pink," I said.

Dad chuckled again. "Got it," he said. "I can't imagine what you're going through, uh, hon."

I shrugged. I couldn't either.

Mom pushed past us and started hanging my new stuff up. Dad really took a look at me and nodded as if he approved. Oh, God.

"You should wear some jewelry," Mom commented.

"I don't have any," I said reasonably.

"Yes, you do," she said, putting two items on my dresser. One was a bracelet with a porcelain-like unicorn charm and the other a necklace with a star and a blue stone set in it, both still on the Penneys store cards. "I got those when you were shoe shopping."

"Uh," I stammered. I knew I should thank her for being thoughtful and careful as well but was I really going to wear them?

Dad picked up the jewelry and began removing them from the cards. He handed me the bracelet and then stepped behind me, holding the necklace. "I'll fasten this for you, Punkin," he said. He took a look at where it fell on my chest then shortened the chain a bit, so it didn't disappear into my shirt.

"Nice," he commented, looking at me in my mirror.

I took a deep breath and put the unicorn bracelet around my left wrist loosely, so it dangled enough to show off the charm which was really quite pretty with painted blue eyes and gold hooves and horn. Cute. Argh.

Mom clapped her hands and beamed at me. Then she looked at Dad and said, pointedly, "It's crowded in here with all three of us."

Dad smiled. I could see him in the mirror behind me. He turned me around, and I looked up at him. "You know we love you, Punkin, no matter what you decide," he said.

Then he kissed me on the forehead which was a pretty good indication of what decision he would prefer, I thought. When he left the room, he closed the door behind him.

"Now," said Mom. "I got you something else to wear that you really need, honey."

I knew what it was before she took it out of the package — a bra.

Mom was more specific. "A training bra," she said. "I saw how irritated your nipples were from wearing your shirt when you were changing clothes in the store."

"Mom," I said. I couldn't think of a protest that amounted to more than me just refusing to wear it for reasons related to having been a boy for eleven years.

She motioned at me. "Take your shirt off but be careful of your necklace and bracelet."

I did so, and Mom showed me how to put a bra on, fastening it behind me and adjusting the straps. "You'll be so much more comfortable," she said. Then added, "Oh, I should have got the 26-inch band. You are just so skinny!"

"What size is this?" I asked.

"Twenty-eight, double-A slash triple-A," she said.

"Are the next two sizes single-A and short-A?" I asked.

"What? No, silly," she laughed. Mom had been a jock in high school herself, so she got the joke. "It's not baseball. It's padding." She showed me the thin pads, two for each cup. "I didn't think you wanted enough to take you up to a full A-cup, but these are removable as you grow."

"Oh, God," I said out loud, staring at the girl in the mirror, wearing just a bra from the waist up. The first time I had really seen myself as a girl.

"Audrey," Mom warned me. "No taking the Lord's name in vain, honey."

"I wasn't," I said. "That was a prayer. Oh, God, take this A-cup from me."

Mom smiled but finished the real quote. "Yet not my will but thine." She blinked. "That makes me think, we really should have gotten you something to wear to church."

I looked straight at her. "We don't go to church that often," I said, knowing that Mom liked to dress up for church, it being one of the few times she would actually wear a dress herself. I was so glad we had gotten out of the mall before she thought of this.

She patted my hand. "It's such a relief to find out you don't have something life-threatening wrong. We should be thankful, and I think that God has given you this opportunity to correct a mistake."

"It wasn't my mistake," I muttered. I took my little teddy bear polo and put it back on, careful again of the jewelry. The bra made noticeable tents in the fabric. I could die of embarrassment wearing this stuff, I decided. What the heck would I have to wear to church if we ever went again?

Mom laid some other things she had purchased on the bed. Another training bra, "For when you're doing laundry. You know undies need to be hand washed." A purple hand mirror, with a matching comb and brush. A bottle of clear nail polish, "We'll do your nails at home," she said. A tube of what looked like pale pink lipstick but Mom insisted was just tinted lip balm, "Like strawberry-flavored ChapStik."

Then the billfold she had mentioned, a cloth one in denim with blue paisley inserts, just skirting our restrictions. And a purse to match the pocketbook. A purse. If anyone saw me carrying a purse, I knew I would die. Just die and be out of my misery.

I almost looked forward to it.