Following Robin's gender reassignment surgery, life has begu to return to normal - or as normal as life in Alpine Springs ever gets. Two new neighbors have moved into the area, and Robin's taking on even more projects.
Will she be able to balance her new comic book? How will the other girls at school react when she enters the locker room for the first time? And what's Jessica, of Heedless Despair, doing with that contract?
Read Book 1: A Tale of Self-Discovery
Read Book 2: Robin Smith: Lady Tiger!
Read Book 3: Cheer's the Thing!
~* Take it Easy *~
Chelsea grinned as she hugged me. “Hey you!”
Brittany smiled and hugged me next. “So this is where you’ve been hiding, huh? We heard you were in the hospital. How are you feeling?”
“Sore, but getting better. I um... I had surgery to correct my birth defect,” I answered, blushing softly.
“Oh wow,” Chelsea answered. “So does this mean no more hiding in the coaches’ office?”
Allison giggled as she sat down beside me with a freshly popped bowl of popcorn. “You so don’t have to thank me. You know that.” She smiled broadly. “It’s been fun reconnecting. I can’t believe it’s been a year since you came here.”
“God I know. So much has changed in such a short time.” I had to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” Allison started to giggle too. Laughter is contagious.
“I just realized this all started with a hospital visit - granted it was Mom’s. And now a year later... I just can’t believe this is real. I feel like a real girl now.”
Allison shook her head. “You were always a real girl, goober.” She paused and grinned. “But I know what you meant. Kelly was the same way. It was like there was this tension about her that wasn’t there anymore after her surgery. She seemed happier. Part of that could be no more private school though,” she added with a giggle. “God, those ugly uniforms!”
“I couldn’t do it. I’m not shallow or anything, but my sister is a fashionista. It runs in the family. I’d die if I had to limit my wardrobe to the same thing five days a week.”
Allison laughed as she tossed a piece of popcorn at me. “Y’know, that’s one thing I’ve always been secretly jealous about.”
I stared blankly back at her, causing her to giggle.
“I’m talking about your fashion sense. I mean, the heels were a little extreme - of course I don’t wear heels at all because of my damn height. Chelsea’s the same way though, but yeah, you have a talent for finding cute stuff.”
“So that’s why you always drag me along on your shopping adventures, huh?” I teased.
“Darn right. Well, that and you’re great company, of course!”
I took a sip of my soda as a calm silence fell over the room for a moment. “So how are the renovations going?” I finally asked.
“Nikki’s managed to talk Trent into helping with the heavy lifting. He and Laura are both really excited to help out, from what Nikki’s said. But we’re kind of holding off on doing anything major right now. There’s so much that needs to be done that we really need to do a full walk through and evaluate it.”
“Doesn’t your dad have a nice HD camera? It might be easier to either borrow it or ask him to film for us. And I wouldn’t have to physically be there to pitch in ideas.”
“Yeah, but it’d be so dark... Hey, wait a minute. I think it might have a night vision mode! Robin, you’re a genius!” she giggled and hugged me, nearly knocking the popcorn out of her lap.
I had to laugh. “Glad I can help, I think.”
I suddenly and abruptly squealed as I felt a pair of cold hands on my neck. Nicole giggled and leaned over to kiss my cheek, and I reached up to wrap my arms around her as she nuzzled my shoulder. “Hey cutie,” she giggled. “Sorry I’m late. Didn’t the doc tell you not to overdo it?”
“It’s fine. And she did,” I started, pointing at a pair of lightweight aluminum crutches propped against the wall beside the TV, “But I cheated. Plus Ally and Kelly helped.”
“It helps that Robin’s in such great physical shape,” Allison added with a grin.
“I just needed a change of scenery really badly. I wish I could go with you guys to check out the old asylum. I really feel okay to walk - provided I keep my crutches handy, but Jen would kill me.”
“That’s why I’m gonna talk to my dad about using his camera. This way we can all meet back here and talk about what we need to do.”
“Hey, why not video phone conference it?” Nicole asked. “I mean, in addition to doing the HD cam thing, so we can drag Robin along without having to drag her out of the house?”
Allison giggled. “Oh, that could work. Does your phone do video?”
“No, but I have a tablet that does. It doesn’t do HD or anything fancy though, but it does have 4G unlimited.”
“Sounds good to me. Call me when you get there so I can get to my laptop for the link?” I asked
“Sure thing,” Nicole answered. “Need any help getting back to Margie’s?”
I smiled sheepishly. “Um, yeah if you don’t mind. Kelly had to help me down the stairs earlier, but it was so worth it.”
Nicole smiled as she sat down beside me, with Allison on the other side. I wrapped my arms around their shoulders as each put an arm around me. “Count of three - one, two, three,” and we stood together. Allison grabbed my crutches as they helped me upstairs.
“Man what I’d give for an elevator in here,” I giggled as we reached the top of the stairs, and Allison handed me my crutches. “Thanks guys. I’ll be okay from here. Luckily my laptop’s downstairs at Margie’s.”
I had only just gotten in the door when someone knocked. I shook my head. “Guys, you know you don’t ever have to--” I started, but stopped myself after opening the door to find Chelsea and Brittany standing on the other side. Chelsea had on a bright blue tank top from Margie’s teen style collection that she’d modeled awhile back, and carried a large flower arrangement. Brittany had a big plush bear wearing an Alpine Springs-style basketball uniform, with a balloon tied to its wrist that read in big cursive red letters on a white background, “Get Well Soon!”
Chelsea grinned as she hugged me. “Hey you!”
Brittany smiled and hugged me next. “So this is where you’ve been hiding, huh? We heard you were in the hospital. How are you feeling?”
“Sore, but getting better. I um... I had surgery to correct my birth defect,” I answered, blushing softly.
“Oh wow,” Chelsea answered. “So does this mean no more hiding in the coaches’ office?”
“May be,” I replied with a bit of a giggle. “I kind of hope so, but it depends on how the healing process goes. Anyway,” I quickly changed the subject, “Do you guys want to come in? I’ve got fresh iced tea, soda, juice... I’m going to be doing a video conference with Nikki and the others in a bit too. They’re going to tour the haunted asylum to see what kind of work we need to do.”
“What’re you guys interested in that place for?” Brittany asked.
“Well, I was going to let it be a surprise, buuut... The girl scouts are helping renovate it in exchange for permission to put on a haunted house this Halloween. It’s going to be huge! The owners also want to turn it into a general youth center.”
“Oh, that’s so cool,” Chelsea answered. “Sure, we can stay awhile. But may I get the drinks? You look like you can barely stand,” she added with a slight frown.
“That’s fine. The kitchen’s through here. I was over at Allison’s earlier so I’m a little drained. The doctors want me to rest as much as possible, but being stuck inside all day for two weeks straight was getting a little old.”
“Considering how active you were last semester,” Brittany responded dryly, but grinned. “But if it wasn’t for you my dad wouldn’t even know I existed so I can’t really say too much.”
I laughed a little as I sat down on the sofa. “Yeah, well, I’m planning on taking it easy this semester.”
“What did you guys want to drink again?” Chelsea called from the kitchen.
“I just had a soda at Ally’s - just water for me, thanks,” I called.
“Nothing for me,” Brittany added.
“So, um, can I ask you a really personal question?” Brittany asked. I kind of expected this sooner or later, and had already prepared a simple, mostly true response, so I nodded.
“Sure. Go ahead.”
“Are you still trying out for cheer this year? I heard some rumors that … well,” she trailed off. Brittany, the biggest loud mouth on my basketball team, was completely speechless.
“Yeah, I’ll probably try out. I thought about just doing basketball though, and maybe doing volleyball in the Spring.”
“Aw, you should totally try out,” Chelsea answered. “But I know how hard it can be. Just balancing work and cheer has been kind of a challenge for me to be honest. Mostly getting my work schedule set around cheer camps. I’m thinking about quitting basketball.”
Brittany frowned. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”
Chelsea nodded. “I’m burned out, Brit. You and Katelyn would make fine captains - or you, Robin,” she added with a grin.
“Oh, heck no,” I balked and shook my head. I had just finished setting up my laptop to accept the live video feed, and glanced up at her. “I love basketball. It’s so much fun, but I’m not captain material. I think Brit and Katelyn should do it. And you and Sasha for cheer.”
“Speaking of Katelyn, I heard she’s back in town for awhile?” Brittany asked.
“Yeah, she has been for awhile. I think she’s going to stay here when Sarah goes back to Ireland, and then surprise her - but you didn’t hear that from me!”
“It’s weird, how much you’ve affected our lives,” Brittany replied thoughtfully as she lay her hand on my shoulder. When I looked over, she smiled. “Sorry again for how I acted when we first met.”
“Brit, would you stop apologizing? It’s water under the bridge; I mean it. Nothing you, or even Katelyn, said to me was any worse than the crap I went through at my old school. Jason’s the only one I had any real problems with, and even then, I can kind of understand where he was coming from. I mean, you guys know about his parents right?”
“Yeah,” Chelsea answered. “Maria’s one of my best friends. I know all about the rather messy divorce, and his mom getting sick.”
“Wait, divorce?” I asked. Chelsea frowned. “You didn’t know? Crap. Don’t get the wrong idea. They divorced before she found out she was sick. They just couldn’t make it work. Jason took it pretty hard, and then his mom having cancer made it even worse. He told Maria that he even thought about taking his life at one point, before he met her.”
“Wow,” I whispered. Chelsea nodded.
“She really turned his life around.” She paused to smile. “I mean don’t get me wrong, you helped too.”
I giggled. “Honestly I’d rather think that she had everything to do with it. All I did was introduce him to Kenpo, and the girl scouts worked together to get his mom out of her slump and get some help before it was too late. Oh, hey, the video feed’s live. I wonder why they didn’t call-” I started, but my cell phone started to play ‘Kiss the Girl’ from The Little Mermaid - Nicole’s private ringtone.
I quickly answered it, blushing as my houseguests looked over at me, both of them grinning. “Hey vampire.”
“Hiya cutie. Did you get the video feed?” She stepped in front of the camera and waved.
“Yeah, but there’s no sound.”
“Oops! Hang on a sec.” She stepped closer, giving us a nice close-up of the black tank top she had worn that day, as she fiddled with her tablet PC. A moment later we could distinctly hear Trent in the background.
“... the big trash bins you asked me to pick up. I’ve got to go meet Laura, but we’ll be around to help next time, I promise.”
“Hey, before you go say hi to Robin,” Nicole called, pointing the camera at him.
“And Chelsea and Brittany,” I added. Nicole giggled.
“Oh! Hey Chels, Brit!” she responded.
“Hey Nikki!” Chelsea answered.
“Hiya Nikki,” Brittany added.
“So here’s what we’re going to do. Jen, Ally, Kris and me are going to walk through once. We’ve got our flashlights and stuff, and Ally’s got her dad’s camera,” she paused to turn her own camera on Allison, who waved and grinned, “So we’ll have a proper high def video to show you later, but right now you’re seeing what we’re seeing.”
“Also remember,” Kris added, “This place housed criminals as well as mental patients, according to the few records that survived. Some of the old locks will need to have a locksmith look at them, so try not to get locked inside anywhere.”
“Has anyone actually gotten locked in here before?” Allison asked as they began walking down the first hallway. Graffiti lined the walls - everything from pencil marks to spray paint. Papers seemed randomly scattered, and Jennifer nearly tripped over the remnants of what was once a wooden chair, and they’d only gone fifteen yards.
“Actually yeah. Heh. Some dumb kid took on a bet to come in here with his buddies, and they took it a step further. They dared him to crawl into one of the corpse drawers in the morgue, and the door got stuck. Poor kid was locked in there for two hours while firefighters worked to pry the heavy door off.”
“Jesus,” Brittany whispered.
“Yeah, you can say that again,” Chelsea answered.
“Hey Robin, how’s it look on your end?” Jennifer asked.
“Dark,” I answered. Nicole had apparently put me on speaker because I heard my answer follow over the video feed, and Jennifer’s giggle a second later.
“Yeah it’s definitely dark down here. Ally’s got the HD camera in night vision mode using the viewfinder to see - cheater!” she teased. Allison laughed.
“Darn right. This is an expensive piece of gear. I don’t want to trip over a chair and drop it,” she shot back playfully. Suddenly everyone stopped, as a loud banging, like a heavy door being slammed shut, resounded from further inside.
“What was that?” Allison asked at the same time Chelsea and Brittany did.
“Hello?” Kris called, shining his flashlight further down. Allison squealed.
“There’s someone there!”
A moment later, Marry called from the darkness. “Sorry! That was my bad!”
“Marry? Give a girl a heart attack!” Jennifer laughed. “What are you doing back there?”
she held up a flashlight as she approached. “Looking for something. But my batteries went dead so I’ve been stumbling around trying to find my way back out.”
“Sure you weren’t just trying to sneak up on us?” Kris teased causing Marry to laugh and shake her head.
“No, if I was trying to sneak up on you I wouldn’t have walked right into that big ward door.” She had a fresh bruise on her forehead to prove it, too. “Anyway, let’s continue with the tour. I want to show you guys the morgue.”
“Yeah Kris was just telling us about someone getting locked in there,” Nicole answered. “I’d love to set up some kind of cheesy boo scare in there, like someone banging trying to get out, and then anyone who gets too close, there’ll be someone else waiting to jump out at them, maybe dressed like a surgeon in a bloody lab coat.”
“Wielding a dull scalpel,” Allison added.
“And a severed head,” Jennifer concluded.
“... Your friends are so weird,” Brittany responded.
“Aren’t they just the greatest?” I teased, causing her to laugh.
Chelsea and Brittany sat rather enthralled by the video feed and the discussion as we watched my friends tour the asylum. I’d occasionally toss in ideas, but I wanted to wait until I could see the video before getting too deeply - or better yet, seeing the place for myself, once my body healed enough to let me.
A couple of hours had passed since they left, when Allison, Jennifer and Nicole appeared in the doorway. Jennifer approached first, holding something behind her back. She grinned as she produced a Burger King bag and a tall cup. “We brought you something! Actually our burgers are in here too, but we didn’t want to eat without you. Here, this’ yours too - chocolate milkshake!” she announced, handing me the cup.
“Aww. Thanks guys!” I giggled and accepted the cup, as Jennifer opened the bag, passing out burgers.
“Extra pickles no onions, extra lettuce no pickles, double-cheeseburger extra mustard,” she went down the list while Allison hooked up the video camera to my laptop.
“Okay, I had Robin on speakerphone the whole time,” Nicole added around a mouthful of burger, “So her comments should be recorded too. I’m kinda excited because even with our flashlights, we couldn’t see CRAP down there.”
Allison laughed. “Well, you couldn’t see crap. I could see just fine,” she teased, sticking out her tongue.
Jennifer quickly tore open one of those little self-contained packets of mustard and squirted it on Allison’s tongue.
“Ack! Hey!”
“Well you did want extra mustard,” she teased. Allison giggled and threw a french fry at her, which she caught between her teeth and crunched down on with an innocent grin.
The difference between what I saw on webcam and what Allison recorded was literally like night and day. We could see every crack in the drywall, every pencil scratch, and every speck of dust in the air that they had kicked up, and despite knowing it was coming, we still jumped when Marry bumped into that door causing it to slam shut.
“Gawd, I knew it was coming and it still scared me,” Nicole giggled.
“God me too,” Allison added. “I’d SWEAR she did that on purpose if I didn’t see the bruise myself.”
Jennifer rolled her eyes, “Heck, I still think she did it on purpose. There was just too much force behind that sound to be an accident. Plus I know Marry. She can be worse than Nikki about practical jokes like that when she wants to be.”
“Hey!” Nicole laughed, “I’ll have you know I haven’t pulled a prank in...” she paused, counting on her fingers. “Three weeks!”
“There’s so much that needs to be done. We’re definitely going to have to clear out that debris that’s all over the place, clean the walls and floors, and that’s before we can even start talking about setting up the scares.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you’re completely recovered, Missy,” Jennifer replied, but smiled. “We’ll handle the cleaning. This was just to give us an idea what we’re dealing with. Kris says they’ll have the power back on in a week or two, once they can get someone to inspect the wiring and make sure everything’s up to code.”
“I thought about whether we should take down the boards covering the windows,” Nicole added thoughtfully, “But isn’t that part of what gives the place its charm? I mean sure, it’s dark as all Hell without any natural light coming in, but it makes it creepy.”
“I agree. Plus we can start earlier and not have to wait for the sun to go down for a good, proper scare. And once Kris and Marry get the power sitch straight,” Allison reasoned, “We won’t have to think about lighting anyway.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Nicole started as she wrapped an arm around me, “Since we’re going to be renovating the place for our own needs, maybe we can do something to help them after it’s all over too.”
“Like what?” Jennifer asked.
Nicole smiled. “Well, they want to turn it into a youth center, but as it is right now, with all the cell-like rooms and junk, they’re going to have to knock down a lot of walls. Contractors could get expensive.” She turned to look at me. “So Pinky, are you pondering what I’m pondering?”
“I think so, Brain,” I answered without missing a beat, “But how would we get the cows into the space suits?”
Jennifer giggled as Allison threw her arm around me. “God, you guys and your P-and-B references. But I couldn’t agree more. Besides, what’s more relaxing after a stressful day at school than breaking down walls with giant sledgehammers? Oooh, there’s a Freudian metaphor in there somewhere - I just know it!”
Jennifer tossed her wrapper into the Burger King bag and nodded. “It’s a great idea. I mean they’re letting us use their building completely free. We should do something for them besides just cleaning the place. I’ll go talk to Marry about it.”
Nicole grinned. “And I’ve got to see a lady about a car soon. LeAnne knows someone with a 1969 Shelby Mustang. She swears it’s in good condition too.”
“Aww,” Allison frowned. “You’re not getting rid of the one you have are you?”
“My baby?” Nicole balked. “Gawd no. I’ve been looking for a ‘69 for my Dad for his birthday, but the ones I’ve looked at so far were either unsalvageable rust piles, or the owner wanted ten times what it’s actually worth. Money’s not a big deal, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
Allison glanced at me with a grin. “I guess it’s just you and me girl.”
“So, Monopoly?”
Allison fake-groaned. “Oh fine. I guess I can drive you into bankruptcy again.”
“Hey,” I laughed, shooting back, “Don’t forget the game before that where you landed on three of my hotels in a row.”
“Ooh, now you’re so not getting a discount to ride my railroad,” Allison giggled. Jennifer and Nicole looked at each other and started to laugh as they left us to our rivalry.
~* A Daughter's Love *~
“I want to pick up some aromatherapy candles,” Mom replied, rubbing her protruding belly lightly. “I should have known better than to marry a martial arts instructor,” she added, as we walked out to the parking lot.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
She giggled. “Because I think one of your siblings just roundhouse kicked my bladder. You go on ahead. I need to go to the bathroom again.”
No, my sense of pride came from finally being able to move about without crutches or a limp. It had been two weeks now since the initial walkthrough on the old asylum, and I felt great!
“I’ve got a great teacher,” I giggled, mopping the sweat from my brow with a soft towel. She shook her head.
“No, I mean it. For someone who’s been laid up for a month, I expected you’d at least need some time to get your groove back, so to speak. I’ve got something harder for you and Jenn, but I’ll save it for tomorrow.”
I nodded as Mom waddled out to us with a tray of lemonade. She was already seven months in, and really starting to show it. Jennifer immediately rushed over to take the heavy tray.
“Here, let me help,” she offered. Mom smiled.
“Really it’s not that heavy!” she insisted.
“Yeah, but you know what your doctor said,” I added. I’d always heard nurses and doctors made the worst patients, but Mom at least relented whenever I reminded her.
“I suppose you’re right. Anyway, how’s practice coming along?” she asked as if she hadn’t just spent the last thirty minutes at her laptop in the kitchen, keeping one eye on us - probably to make sure I didn’t overdo it either.
“We just finished actually,” Alice answered with a warm smile, lifting one of the glasses. “Ohh, this is really good. Linda is this fresh-squeezed?”
Mom grinned. “As if there’s any other kind. Organically grown lemons too.”
“So would you two like to stay for lunch?” I asked, before Mom could. At least this way I could take care of the cooking without her feeling obliged.
Alice smiled as she shook her head. “Wish I could, but I promised my sister I’d go with her to New Haven. I’ll see you tomorrow though?”
“Can’t wait!” I answered, glancing at Jennifer. “What about you, Dances-with-Coconuts?”
Jennifer giggled. “Only sometimes!” she shot back, but nodded. “Sure, I could go for a sandwich maybe. Mind if I dunk my head in your bathroom sink first?”
I had to laugh. “Sure, go ahead. There’s shampoo in there if you need it.”
Jennifer shook her head. “Nah. I just need to cool down a little. That’s why you’ll never hear me complain about a wipeout when I’m out on the waves - even when the wave wins, there’s sweet, cool solace in losing.” She giggled, giving me that zen smile of hers as she bounded off to the bathroom.
“Oh hey, did you hear?” I asked, turning to Mom. “That house on the corner finally sold. I haven’t seen anyone move in yet.”
“It’s about time,” Mom answered and shook her head. “That house has been on the market for as long as we’ve lived here, maybe longer. I just hope the neighbors don’t mind all the noise,” she teased.
“Probably not. We can always tone it down if they do complain though, but I think they’re far enough up the cul de sac to only really hear Nikki’s bass.”
“Well, yes, but in fairness I can hear that over across town here,” she shot back with a teasing grin.
“What’re we talking about?” Jennifer asked as she returned, her long, wavy hair now absolutely dripping with water and matted against her neck and back.
I couldn’t help laughing as I looked up. “Oh um, we’re getting new neighbors over near Margie’s. That big house on the corner finally sold.”
“Wow. Really? That thing’s been empty for four or five years now. I’m kinda surprised you and Ash didn’t buy it, Linda.”
Mom smiled as I got up to start making our sandwiches. “We talked about it, but we like the extra storage space we have here, plus it’s not like we’re on the other side of town anyway.”
“And I can drive now, so it’s even easier,” I added. “Hey Jen, what do you want on yours? Lettuce, tomato, tabasco sauce?”
“Don’t you dare,” Jennifer giggled. “You know I have a tomato allergy!” She tried to keep a straight face, but Mom’s sideways glance caused her to crack up laughing. “Lettuce, tomato, and any kind of cheese you have handy is fine,” she added. I already knew how Mom liked hers. Though with the pregnancy her tastes had certainly changed.
“Ketchup and mayo on whole wheat with extra pickles,” I announced as I passed Mom a saucer with her sandwich. Jennifer wrinkled her nose.
“What, no honey?”
“Oh!” Mom exclaimed. “Honey would be perfect!”
Jennifer and I both giggled, and I set a bottle of honey on the table as I passed Jennifer her sandwich, sitting down between the two. “If there’s any good that can come from me never being able to get pregnant, it’s that I won’t spend my entire adult life regretting nine months of questionable food habits.”
Mom couldn’t help laughing. “Oh, you wouldn’t believe the kinds of cravings I had when I carried you. Honestly it’s a miracle you don’t have a permanent chocolate-covered-pickle craving.”
“I do have a thing for ice cream-covered french fries though now that you mention it.”
“Goofball,” Jennifer laughed, eyed the honey warily, and then picked it up, squirting some on her ham sandwich. “Ooh... Oh wow. That actually is pretty good.”
Mom grinned wide. “See? I’m not completely crazy.” We all laughed.
“Anyway, after lunch I’ve got to get a shower and go see my surgeon. She’s supposed to be flying in for a follow-up again.”
“Again?” Jennifer asked. “They must really be paying her big bucks.”
“Well, it’s partially that, but I also agreed to undergo an experimental procedure. I mean don’t get me wrong; it’s completely sanctioned by the medical community, but they want to know long term effects. On the short term, well,” I trailed off and grinned. “You saw me out there this morning. I feel great.”
“So like, will you be appearing in any medical journals?”
“Nah, nothing like that. The most I’ll get is an anonymous mention in a med student’s research paper I think,” I giggled. “But she seems nice, and I think she’s friends with Sarah’s sister LeAnne.”
“Oh, Michelle?” Jennifer asked, nodding. “Yeah, they’ve been dating a couple of weeks now. Nikki bought that cherry Shelby Mustang off her, remember?”
“Oh yeah! That’s the same person? Wow, talk about spooky.”
“There is no coincidence. Only the Force, there is, young padawan,” Jennifer replied in her best Yoda voice, causing me to crack up again.
“Cupcakes can lead only to the dark side. Well, that and my thighs,” I replied with a giggle as we stood to hug.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, hey?”
“See you then. Tell your Mom I said Hi.”
“Oh I will,” she replied and hugged Mom. “Linda, you take it easy.”
“I’ll try,” Mom answered, smiling teasingly back at her.
“I’m just going to go grab a shower really fast. Did you want to come with me?”
“I’d love to, dear. We can get some mother-daughter bonding in,” she answered. I giggled and hugged her.
“I can’t wait.”
“So, how did it go?” Mom asked as I stepped into the waiting room.
“Doc says everything looks great. There’s still some scar tissue, but she says that should heal with time.”
“Hey, Robin,” Michelle called after me. Michelle was, so far as I knew, a med student, but an incredibly intelligent girl. Despite being my age, she had some amazing insight into transgender treatment and surgical techniques. How she didn’t have her doctorate already was a mystery to me. How she withstood having all those piercings in her ears and navel was an even bigger one.
My appointment had actually been with her though, with my surgeon meeting with us via satellite, since she couldn't make it after all.
I turned back to smile at her. “Did I forget my purse again?” I teased. She laughed and shook her head.
“No, I just forgot to tell you one last thing. You’re officially cleared to start getting active again, if you haven’t already. Just remember not to push yourself too hard, too fast okay?”
I couldn’t help a small giggle. “I actually just had a cheer practice this morning. No acrobatics but we did work on some more athletic ground moves. Hey, how’s Taylor doing by the way?”
“She’s great. Just got her cast off this weekend. The first thing she did when we got home was change into her swimsuit and dive into the pool.” Michelle giggled.
I couldn’t help smiling. “Sounds like she’s really bounced back. She’s as strong as her sister,” I teased, giving Michelle a hug. “Tell LeAnne I said ‘hi’ when you see her.”
“In about thirty minutes,” Michelle answered with a broad grin as we parted ways, and I turned to Mom.
“So, where to now?”
“I want to pick up some aromatherapy candles,” Mom replied, rubbing her protruding belly lightly. “I should have known better than to marry a martial arts instructor,” she added, as we walked out to the parking lot.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
She giggled. “Because I think one of your siblings just roundhouse kicked my bladder. You go on ahead. I need to go to the bathroom again.”
I tried not to laugh as I watched her scurry back inside. On some level I think I felt a little relief that I’d never have to go through all that. I thought about the trade-offs as I sat in the driver’s seat of my car with the top down. A nice, cool breeze picked up, rustling the leaves of a nearby tree, and I smiled as Mom sat down in the passenger seat.
“Is everything okay?” she asked.
I slid my amber lens sunglasses down over my eyes, smiled, and nodded. “Great. Just trying to decide if I’m actually lucky that I’ll never have to deal with pregnancy.” I giggled as we pulled away from the hospital. Mom smiled.
“I suppose motherhood is motherhood either way. The morning sickness, the 3am races against the bladder clock, the inability to look in a mirror without feeling like a beached whale... It’s all temporary. And this too shall pass.” She groaned after that, adding, “The sooner the better.”
“What did the doctor say anyway?” I asked as we rolled to a stop at a red light. I’d forgotten how relaxing it could be to just take a day trip to New Haven.
A whole year had passed since her car accident, and in that time I think we both changed a lot. It seemed like life constantly challenged me to be more than myself here, but at the same time getting to transition, to live as the girl I knew I was made me feel more confident to face those challenges.
“Everything looks good. I know everyone’s been worried about lingering side-effects from my accident - especially me,” she added with a sheepish smile, “But so far everything looks great. All my tests have shown a complete recovery.” She paused and squeezed my hand as we pulled away again. “I think a lot of that has to do with my wonderful daughter.”
I couldn’t help giggling. “And after a year, I still never get tired of hearing those words. I love you Mom.”
“I love you too sweetheart,” Mom replied warmly.
I forgot how much fun shopping with Mom could be. We spent the better part of the afternoon just window shopping, exploring New Haven. I did find a really nice present for Nicole though. I had a dinner date with her that evening, and she had apparently just pulled up whenever we got back to Mom and Ash’s house.
“Hey you,” she called as she stepped out of the car. “I’m not too early am I?”
“Never,” I answered cheerfully as we hugged. “Could you help us with the bags? We’ve been shopping.” I grinned. “Oh, but I’ll carry this one,” I added, holding up the bag from Wicked Wicks, the nice little new age bookstore we had stumbled across while we were out.
“Oh Gawd,” Nikki laughed, “You didn’t buy a book of spells did you?”
I giggled. “No. You know I’m not into that sort of weirdness. It’s a present for you.” I grinned at her and gathered a couple of shopping bags. Mom tried to get the rest, but Nikki shook her head.
“I got it, Mom.” She grinned innocently.
“I wondered how long it would take you to finally start calling me that,” Mom giggled, wrapping an arm around each of us as we walked to the door. Nikki and I both paused at the door to let Mom go through first.
“Robin told me to,” she answered honestly, sticking her tongue out at me.
“Well, technically I said you could.”
Mom giggled again. “It’s fine. I like it. Nikki you’re practically part of the family anyway. You and Allison and Jennifer. Now, if you girls will excuse me, I’m going to go soak my ankles before dinner. Just put those things anywhere, and I’ll put them away later.”
“Okay Mom,” we answered in unison, looked at each other, and started giggling.
“So what’d you get me? You better not have spent too much,” Nikki mock-glared.
I held up the plain white bag, and already the strong scent of blackberries wafted under both our noses. She quickly opened the bag to find the large black pillar candle. “Oh my Gawd,” she almost cackled, hugging me. “Robin! You nut! I love it!”
“I thought you would.” I kissed her softly as she hugged me. “When I saw it, I thought of you, and I just had to buy it. So where are you taking me for dinner?”
“I dunno. Where’d you want to go? We can swing by my house if you want to do the ritzy thang, or McDonalds is good too.”
“Ooh, McDonalds sounds good to me. I’ve been craving a chocolate milkshake for a couple of days now. Let me just change my shirt and I’ll be ready. C’mon up with me?”
“You want me to watch?” Nikki teased, tickling my sides.
I couldn’t help the squeal that escaped as I goosed her right back. “No, goof. I want to show you what I’ve been working on with Sarah! But you can watch if you want,” I added teasingly and kissed her cheek.
Upstairs, I had a makeshift storyboard like the ones Margie made for Aria Blade, with pictures drawn by Sarah. They were only black and white, and only some of the conversation bubbles had any text yet, but it was coming together a lot faster than either of us expected.
“Oh wow. Robin these are amazing!” Nikki exclaimed as she admired the different storyboards in the set. I stepped into my walk-in closet, taking down one of my Heedless Despair concert t-shirts.
“Thanks. I’ve had so much time on my hands with my recovery time,” I answered, stepping out into the hall. “Hey, do you mind swinging by Ally’s on the way home? I need to pick up my cat.” I giggled. “Ally’s catsitting for me since I knew I’d be in New Haven today.”
“Awww,” Nikki giggled, adding, “Hey, what’s this?” She pointed to my open notebook.
“Oh, that’s just a poem I’ve been working on. It’s nothing really.”
Though I seek you out eternally
through greater darkness lies,
I find no solace, no respite.
My pain, my struggle,
urging me on,
With no guiding light.
Encompassing shadows,
pulling me toward inevitable fear,
I will slay the macabre death
which longs to stay so near
“Creepy. Is there something you need to tell me?” she frowned.
I giggled. “Oh, God no, it’s not like that! It’s just, I love Heedless Despair’s music, so I wanted to try and write something in that same vein. It’s not anywhere near as good as the stuff they do though.”
“Oh cool!” Nikki practically bubbled. “You should show it to Moira!”
“No way,” I laughed. “It’s really not that good.”
“Yes it is!” she insisted. “I could so see Scarlet singing something like this like, with a Grim Reaper stalking her on the stage. Oh my Gawd that would be so cool!”
“Anyway,” I changed the subject, and she stuck out her tongue.
“At least let me snap a copy on my phone?”
“Sure, go ahead. This is just a hand-written copy. I have another one on my hard drive too that’s a little further along on being edited. I’ll email it to you when we get back,” I replied cheerfully as she snapped a picture of my poem with her phone.
“Yay,” she answered. “Oh, I think it’s my night to buy dinner,” she added as we walked downstairs. “I know what you’re thinking. Yes, I did pay last time too, but you bought me that awesome candle, so don’t even think about trying to pay tonight!”
“Fine fine,” I laughed, “But I’m buying the popcorn at the movie.”
~* Chaos Theory *~
““Eep?” Nikki asked.
“That was Moira. She said she loved my song and wanted to lay down some music backing.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nikki answered quickly. “It was an accident. I printed off a copy of your lyrics when you emailed them to me, and Moira dropped by unexpected. I couldn’t just lie to her when she asked me who the author was. Please don’t be mad?”
“I brought donuts and coffee,” I called a little louder, figuring that might get their attention. I really had brought donuts and coffee though - I’d just left them in the front seat of my car for now.
“Mumfmfumf,” a male voice said behind me, causing me to jump. I spun around to see Kris with a half-eaten donut in hand. The other half had caused his cheeks to pooch out, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Shut up,” he said with a half-grin. “I’m hungry!”
“I knew I shouldn’t have left the top down,” I teased. “So where’s everybody?”
“Nikki and Jenn left to get some more supplies. Allison’s gone to track down her boyfriend. He’s got access to three-quarter ton truck for us to haul trash with. Marry’s... Well I’m not actually sure where Marry went.”
“I feel like I should make a lamb joke here since there’s no one else around to, but the second I do she’ll walk up behind me and frog my arm.”
Kris started laughing. I’d never actually seen him laugh before. I mean, in the short time I’d known him, I’d seen him chuckle a few times, and that cool guy smile, but never a full-on gutbusting laugh like what I had just witnessed.
“I can just imagine the look on her face now,” he finally managed to get out.
“Whose face?” Marry asked, stepping around the corner. She glanced at me with an innocent grin, raising her fist. I flinched, and she laughed. “Ah. Two for flinching!” Instead of punching me though, she punched Kris.
“Ow! What did I do?” he asked with a chuckle.
“You laughed,” she replied cheerfully. “Once everyone gets back we can really get down and dirty, metaphorically and literally. Some of the rooms are worse than others, but most of it’s just trash. There’s some old furniture that needs to be taken care of too.”
“Can that stuff be recycled?” I asked thoughtfully.
“You read my mind,” Kris answered. “I mean some of the old desks and stuff are completely useless, but they’re all hardwood so they could probably be salvaged either by a woodworker who’s into that sort of thing, or as sawdust. I’ll post an ad on Craigslist about it. Meantime we can just start piling it up somewhere and throw away anything that’s too far gone.”
As if on cue, two sets of loud, distinct motors outside signified the girls’ returns - Nikki and her Mustang, and what sounded like a diesel engine - probably Josh’s truck.
As I stepped out to greet everyone, I stopped at my car, pulling out the large box of mixed donuts. I held up the thermos of coffee next, calling, “If someone doesn’t mind getting the food, I’ll get the styrofoam cups.”
Ally grinned as she hugged me, taking the box off my hands afterwards. “Robin, you rock in stereo.”
Josh peeked through the clear window of the box. “Oooh, I was gonna pass, but those bear claws look great.”
“So do we have a plan of attack yet?” Jenn asked as I walked alongside her back inside.
“Just a tentative one so far. Kris is going to post on Craigslist for woodworkers interested in salvaging some old hardwood furniture to recycle. Other than that, I think we’re just kind of starting at the front and working our way back.”
“I brought heavy duty gloves for everybody,” Nikki added from my other side. “Plus enough cleaning chemicals to suffocate an elephant, so remember to open a window.”
“Actually the windows don’t open,” Marry advised. “But we do have air conditioning working, so as long as you don’t close the door you should be fine.”
We had only just begun cleaning when a horn honked outside, scaring me about half out of my wits. Nikki and Jenn giggled.
“You okay there?” Jenn asked, completely unable to keep a straight face.
“Peachy,” I answered, setting my broom aside. “I’m going to go see what that was about,” I said, and as I left the room, Marry poked her head out of the next room over.
“I heard a horn and a squeal. Everything okay?”
I didn’t answer. I did stick my tongue out though, causing her to laugh.
“I’m going to see what’s going on. You’re not expecting anyone are you?” I asked. Marry, apparently curious as well, shook her head as she followed.
“No. Just you guys.”
Several new cars sat parked outside, and over half the cheer squad piled out of them, including Chelsea and Sasha. Sasha raced over to hug me.
“Hey girl!” she cheered happily. “God we missed you at cheer camp. How are you feeling?”
“Sasha! What are you guys doing here?”
She giggled. “Can’t let you four have all the fun! When Chelsea told us what you guys were planning we decided to pitch in and help out. I mean, we’re not girl scouts, but we are a team, right?”
Tracy, a cheerleader and fellow senior scout smiled wryly as she waved, even as the others filed inside. “I know this is like, you four’s ‘thing’, but I figured you could use all the help you could get.”
“Our thing?” I asked, confused, and pulled Tracey into a hug. “I hope you didn’t think that just because we’ve been doing a lot of the planning, that we didn’t want any help. There’s no way we can do all this by ourselves. We haven’t really talked about it with the younger girls yet because we wanted to get all the glass and stuff cleaned up first, but we so didn’t mean to exclude you either. Heck, even Trent and Laura are coming out later to help.”
Tracy smiled and returned my hug. A few stray tears rolled down her cheeks. “Thanks. I’m just going through some rough crap right now, and I’m trying not to get in anybody’s way. Sorry for pushing that off on you guys.”
“What’s going on?” I finally asked, realizing we were alone now. She shook her head.
“Don’t want to talk about it,” she answered gruffly, but bit her lip. “Not right now anyway. Maybe later. I just need to get my mind off it.”
I nodded after a moment. “All right - if you’re sure. Want a donut? There’s a few left.”
She laughed a little. “Um, sure. So uh, what is the plan anyway?”
“Well right now we’re just cleaning, but we’re going to start discussing what the owners want to do with the place when we break for lunch, so we can start talking creative ideas for scares. Like there’s a morgue here, so we’re definitely going to do something scary with that, maybe a recording of someone banging, trying to get out.”
“Oh God,” Tracy actually giggled, her eyes and smile brightening noticeably. “You know what we should do? Like if there’s a courtyard or something we can turn it into a swamp. Use dry ice to create mist so nobody knows there’s solid ground underneath it, some paper mache dead trees...”
“Tracy you’re a genius,” I replied as we walked back inside. She shrugged.
“Nah. I’m a theater geek. I live for these kinds of special effects,” she answered casually.
It surprisingly didn’t take long for us to get the worst of the old asylum cleaned up and looking presentable. We still needed to clean off or paint over the graffiti, but by around noon we had a good three fourths of the place trash-free.
Kris and Marry surprised us with a free lunch of pizza from the local pizzaria. We didn’t have any tables, so we piled together a few of the old desks and chairs that weren’t rotted out or covered in dust, and Josh found a stash of metal folding chairs.
While returning with my third slice of supreme, I sat down by Tracy. She smiled up at me around a large bite of pepperoni and sausage.
“How are you holding up?” I asked quietly.
She smiled a little more, staring down at her pizza. “I’m okay. I just had a really big fight with my dad this morning.” She sighed as she raised her styrofoam cup of soda, taking a long, drawn-out sip before finally continuing. “I told you this morning, theater’s what I love. It’s as much a part of who I am as goth is to Laura over there.”
Laura glanced up at hearing her name, and Tracy giggled. “I’m not gossiping about you. Just drawing a comparison.”
Laura giggled as she stood, bringing her chair over and sitting daintily. “What’d I miss?”
“I was just telling Robin what’s been bugging me lately.”
Laura frowned. “That’s not fair. I’ve been trying to get you to talk about it for a week, and then you go and spill your guts to the school’s advice columnist?” She grinned broadly at both of us. “Kidding! Go ahead,” she added, poking Tracy’s arm. I tried not to laugh, not wanting to interrupt.
“It’s just... Ever since Mom died my dad’s had a stick up his ass about me getting a good education. He wants me to go to law school, and he thinks theater’s a waste of tuition.”
“Wow. So not,” Laura answered. Tracy smiled a little.
“I knew a fellow theater geek would understand.” She glanced at me and added, “Theater geeks. heard about your performance of The Raven in Mrs. Ellis’ AP English class.”
I blushed deeply. “I actually thought about trying out for drama, but with everything else I had going on, I just didn’t have any room for it. But if that’s what you want to do, you should go for it. I mean, look at Heedless Despair.” I drew on the only real analogy I could think of. “The kind of performances that they put on isn’t just music, or a concert. It’s like some kind of macabre musical.”
Both Laura and Tracy looked at each other for a moment then started to giggle. “Oh my God,” Laura responded first, “Robin, that’s brilliant. I never even thought of them like that, but I think I just became an even bigger fan.”
Tracy nodded. “I agree. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. Theater is no more ‘dead’ than music or film. It’s my passion. It’s what makes me want to get up in the morning.”
“You should have seen her as Lady MacBeth,” Laura added. “I get chills just thinking about it.”
“Hey, don’t knock your performance in Romeo and Juliet.”
“Even though you played Juliet?” Laura teased, grinning as she leaned over to hug her friend. “You should do what makes you happy though. If your dad can’t understand that, that’s his problem. It’s your life sweetie. You’re the one that has to live it.”
“She’s right,” I heard myself say. I couldn’t believe I had spoken up, but now that I had, I had to find a way to say what was on my mind without exposing myself. Crap. “I mean, I was a nobody at my last school because I was trying so hard to live up to everyone else’s expectations of me, and you know, I was completely and utterly miserable.”
“I have a hard time ever believing you weren’t Miss Popularity,” Tracy teased, but smiled.
I laughed. “Are you kidding? I was the biggest loser in school. But here I have friends, two sports that I enjoy-”
“I thought you just played basketball?” Laura teased. “When did you take up another sport?”
Tracy mock-scowled. “You know cheerleading is a sport too!”
Laura cackled. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. I know I could never do half the crap you two do. Sorry Robin, go ahead,” she added, still giggling.
“What I’m trying to say is, I wasn’t truly happy until I started living my life for me first. Everything else fell into place from there. It hasn’t been easy by any means, but I have something now that I never had back then.”
“What’s that?” Tracy asked, genuinely curious. I smiled brightly as I looked her right in the eye.
“I have a reason to get up in the morning.”
She giggled. “I walked right into that one.”
“Yeah, you did,” Laura shot back with a smile, “But she’s right. The only way you’ll ever be happy is if you life your life for you and only you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a boyfriend to get back to,” she added with a giggle.
Tracy rolled her eyes as Laura stood, but she smiled. “Thanks guys. I really do feel better. I’m not going to be rude about it, but the next time Daddy starts with his ‘You’re not going to get into law school’ speech I’m just going to lay it down and tell him the truth. I’m a senior this year, and I need to start looking at colleges with a good theatrical program.”
“It won’t hurt to have a solid degree under you either,” I added, “But don’t sacrifice your dreams in the process. If you really hate law, why not compromise and find a field of study that does interest you, in addition to theater?”
“Well, I do love working with kids,” she trailed off.
“You’d make a great teacher. You’d make an even better actress, but still.”
Tracy giggled. “I’ll remember to thank you in my awards speech,” she teased, hugging me. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Hey, it’s what friends are for,” I whispered back.
I had just finished my pizza when my cell phone’s ‘generic incoming call’ ringtone beeped. I checked the caller ID before quickly answering, “Hey Moira, what’s up?”
“Hi Robin!” she answered warmly. “Listen, I know yer busy, but is there any chance you and I could get together sometime? I LOVE your song, and I’d really like ta lay down some music backing.”
“My... song?” I asked a little surprised.
“Yes! Your lyrics are brill! They’re a little rough, but we can work on that. Just let me know when you’re free, aye? I’ll be in touch.”
“Eep?” Nikki asked.
“That was Moira. She said she loved my song and wanted to lay down some music backing.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nikki answered quickly. “It was an accident. I printed off a copy of your lyrics when you emailed them to me, and Moira dropped by unexpected. I couldn’t just lie to her when she asked me who the author was. Please don’t be mad?”
I shook my head and hugged her. “I’m not mad. Just stunned. I really didn’t think it was that good.”
“She called it brill when she saw it,” Nikki giggled. “I told you, it’s good. I think she wants to show it to Jessica.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered slowly. “I think I need to sit down and let that one sink in.”
I didn’t really think anything of the sweet, sweet 50th anniversary Mustang parked in front of Margie’s place when I pulled into the driveway. After all Michelle only lived a short distance away, and our families had become pretty close, with LeAnne and Michelle apparently dating now.
Of course, you can imagine my surprise when I found them in the kitchen laughing at an old family photo album. It never once dawned on me that Michelle and Margie both having the last name ‘Evans’, and Margie moving here from California, had any connection to one another.
“Hi Robin,” Margie called cheerfully as I stepped into the room, carrying my storyboards. I quickly set them aside though as I approached, wrapping a hug around her from behind. She giggled a little and kissed my cheek.
“This is Michelle and me when she was five, before I moved out to San Francisco. I must've been ... twelve or thirteen?” She pointed to a picture of the two, and there was definitely a striking family resemblance. It didn’t hurt that both were dressed in matching Disney Mickey Mouse t-shirts, and both had shoulder-length hair.
“Even back then I wanted to be JUST like Margie,” Michelle laughed.
“Wait a minute, you guys are related?” I blurted, staring blankly.
“We’re cousins,” Michelle answered with a giggle. “On my dad’s side, and Margie’s Mom’s side.”
“That’s so cool. Why didn’t either of you mention it sooner? I mean technically that makes us step-cousins.”
Michelle smiled sheepishly. “That’s why I never mentioned it. I was worried that you might feel weird about your cousin being involved in your GRS procedures. I promise it wasn’t anything sinister or weird,” she added. Margie started to giggle.
“My cousin the mad scientist!” she cackled, causing Michelle to start laughing too.
“You know I was in a pretty dark place back then. Dad throwing me out was the best thing that ever happened to me. My dad’s sister took me in, and she took me to a therapist in New Haven.”
“Doctor Ketz?” I asked. She smiled and shook her head.
“No, but I did meet with a Doctor Ketz for my second opinion on starting hormones. I was lucky I started when I did. The stress of living at home had triggered an early puberty for me.”
“Ouch. I got extremely lucky there,” I answered. “I still don’t know what caused me to hit puberty so late, but I’m happy I did. Oh, I brought the storyboards you wanted,” I added, glancing at Margie. “Sarah’s such an amazing artist. I’m not sure my story’s doing her work justice.”
“Hey, don’t sell yourself short, kiddo,” Margie replied as she stood to kiss my forehead then turned to pick up the poster board pieces. She only flipped through a few of them before Michelle spoke up.
“Wow. You really wrote this yourself?” she asked. I nodded sheepishly.
“I based the characters off Katelyn and Sarah, kind of like how Aria Blade was based off … Err, someone I know,” I caught myself, but Margie giggled.
“It’s okay. Michelle knows I’m the creator of Shadowcraft.”
“It wasn’t really hard to figure out once I saw the autographed poster, ‘Aria Blade’,” Michelle added, grinning at me. “So is Aria Blade going to make another appearance this Halloween?”
“I’ve been talking to the girls about that actually,” I answered. “Our schedule’s going to be pretty tight with school, cheer, and running the haunted house on weekends, but I’m pretty sure we can pull off a visit to the kids’ wing of the hospital this year.”
“Robin, these are amazing. With your permission I’d like to talk to my publisher and show them your and Sarah’s work.”
“What, seriously? I mean we were just going to print a few copies for ourselves to give out. The only reason I brought it up with you is because Shadowcraft is your universe. It’s just something we’ve been working on together while I was recuperating.” I was dumbfounded. I knew Sarah’s art quality was really good, equal to some of the people on Margie’s art team even, but I never dreamed she’d want to take it to her publisher for approval.
She smiled and nodded. “They’ve been pressuring me to consider expanding the Shadowcraft universe, to do another Villain themed comic, or to let another artist take a shot at it. I have exclusive ownership over who can and can’t work on the IP, and I think you and Sarah would be a great addition. Besides, the CEO already knows you because of your modeling experience as Aria Blade.”
She had a point. Check and mate.
“Okay, you can talk to them about it,” I finally relented. Margie giggled and hugged me. “I promise you won’t be under any pressure to finish this until you’re ready. You’re not under contract, so you have all the time you want.”
“Sarah wants to color it in, and I still have a lot of dialogue I need to translate from the original story. We’d love to do this as a full, one-shot graphic novel ideally. Anyway, I’m going to head up to my room and clean out my closet then head over and see if Ally’s home. I’ve got a bunch of stuff that just doesn’t fit anymore so I’m going to donate some of it.”
“We’ll be down here if you need any help,” Margie replied cheerfully. “Kelly’s coming home for lunch so I’m going to fry some hamburgers.”
It was hard for Margie and Kelly to keep the fact that they’d been living together for awhile now a secret from me, now that I’d been spending most of my recovery time at Margie’s. Besides, having a nurse in the house who knew the pain of GRS recovery was really helpful as well.
“Sounds great,” I called, poking my head back around the door from the hallway and grinned at her. “Your burgers are a lot better than when I first moved here,” I teased, causing her to laugh loudly as I headed upstairs.
~* Making Waves *~
“My lawyer advised me that it would be okay if I provided you with all the documentation, since you all are able to independently confirm with the gynecologist that she did indeed file everything.” I reached down, opening the briefcase Max had loaned me, and handed over the documents for the three present to review, as a few more, as well as Principal Rochelle, entered.
The principal smiled and nodded. “Hello Robin. Staying out of trouble?”
I laughed. “Hey, I haven’t been down to your office since Homecoming! I gave up trying to stay out of people’s way though. When you try to be nice to everyone someone inevitably thinks you’re up to something.”
It’s funny how much things had changed in just a year. Back in San Francisco, when I was still masquerading as a boy, I loved to go all out and dress as femininely as I possibly could whenever possible. I dreaded inevitably having to change back to my plain old jeans and oversized t-shirts, knowing it meant a return to ‘Robert’.
Now, here I sat waiting for the school board to convene, and it was probably the first time since Prom that I had worn a dress. I wanted to look nice, but more than that I wanted to present a professional appearance so I’d chosen a simple business-like knee length skirt with a nice, comfortable sleeveless top, since it was still summer, after all, and a low heel.
The funny part to me was, I found myself wishing I’d just worn shorts. I actually couldn’t wait to get back home and change! Talk about a striking difference from a year ago. The school board members seemed to notice as well. At least the ones who had arrived so far had.
“Robin, I barely recognized you,” one of them commented with a respectful smile.
“I can’t believe it’s been a year already,” the other added. “Congratulations on your placement in the cheer competition last Spring.”
“Oh, thank you,” I answered warmly. “You know we were originally going to do a big Martial Arts-themed routine, but one of the judges shot it down. That judge doesn’t work there anymore though,” I added with an innocent grin.
The pair laughed. “Sounds like someone overstepped their boundaries, eh? It wasn’t because of … what this meeting is about, was it?”
I shook my head quickly. “No, they had no idea about me being transgendered. They thought that it went against the spirit of the competition somehow. Alice, my private cheer coach, told me that the school’s going to be receiving a formal letter of apology on the matter.”
“Well, for what it’s worth I don’t think you have much to worry about.”
I smiled at that and nodded. “I hope not. I’m just so tired of having to lie to my friends. I didn’t have this done for them, don’t get me wrong, but it did influence my decision. I was ready to quit basketball, and cheer, and just find a hole to hide in until I graduated. The pressure was getting to a point where I was almost physically sick.”
A third, female voice spoke up behind me. “Well, that’s all I needed to hear. I’d just like to read the affidavit for myself - you know, crossing t’s and dotting i’s,” she added as she stepped closer and sat down across the table from me. I nodded.
“My lawyer advised me that it would be okay if I provided you with all the documentation, since you all are able to independently confirm with the gynecologist that she did indeed file everything.” I reached down, opening the briefcase Max had loaned me, and handed over the documents for the three present to review, as a few more, as well as Principal Rochelle, entered.
The principal smiled and nodded. “Hello Robin. Staying out of trouble?”
I laughed. “Hey, I haven’t been down to your office since Homecoming! I gave up trying to stay out of people’s way though. When you try to be nice to everyone someone inevitably thinks you’re up to something.”
He grinned. “Now that is the story of my life,” he teased. “I’ve heard you and your friends are trying to renovate the old asylum on the outskirts of town. What’s going on with that, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, yes sir,” I answered warmly. I remembered my first school board meeting, and how incredibly nervous I felt. I was still getting used to presenting full-time, and it felt like these strangers held my future in the palm of their hands. This time though, looking around at each of them, I could see them more as human beings who just had the best interest of the other students at the school in mind. I couldn’t help feeling Principal Rochelle was making a point to remind them of my extracurricular activities, though.
“We’re helping the people who own it to get it cleaned up. In exchange for letting us use it as a haunted house this Halloween, which we’re probably just going to run on weekends through October, we’re going to help them turn it into a youth center. Ultimately it’s going to have its own basketball court, volleyball court, and hopefully a swimming pool, if they can get the zoning in order.”
I noticed one of them gave me a sidelong glance at that comment, but I continued. “What they really want to do is arrange with our local public transit so that they can get a charter bus just for kids, and I’ve got a contact on the police force that I’m going to speak with about arranging for a minor police presence in the area for their protection. After the incident with the guy who tried to kidnap me and my friend last summer...” I trailed off, and Principal Rochelle frowned.
“I’d completely forgotten about that incident.”
“I wish I could,” I sighed. “I still have nightmares about that day sometimes. And I know Allison does as well. She just doesn’t like to talk about it.”
“Well,” one of the school board members finally spoke up, “It looks like everything is in order. Frankly, I see no reason why we should bar this young lady from either using the appropriate facilities, or showering with her teammates.”
“From what I’ve overheard from my daughter over the last year,” the woman added, “It actually sounds like forcing her to do otherwise has been even more of a disruption. I feel that now that her ‘birth defect’ has been corrected, that we’d only be hurting her, and the other students, if we continued to enforce these kinds of limits. She’s obviously an outstanding student.”
“She’s an outstanding girl,” Principal Rochelle responded. “A star athlete and an excellent student. I don’t mind saying that, if she keeps her grades up, she could well be Valedictorian of her class when she graduates.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I quickly shook my head. “I don’t know about that sir. My friend Chelsea is so much more deserving. She’s an even bigger perfectionist than I am, too,” I added, causing the gathered adults to laugh.
“Really, I just want to be able to spend time with my friends. The breaking point for me, was back at the cheer nationals. Sasha asked me to help her with her stage makeup since we had already changed at our hotel. She made the comment that it was nice to finally have me around, and I know she meant it as a compliment, but it still hurt pretty badly.
“I realized that our locker room time is like any other time we spend together. We’re not just a bunch of girls in short skirts. We’re also not just athletes. We’re a team. We spend more time together than I do with my own mother or sister, and almost more time than I spend with my other friends.”
“Or with your girlfriend,” the woman answered with a smile. “I have a teenage daughter. These things get around. But your sexual orientation has no bearing on these proceedings. Besides,” she continued, and I finally remembered where I had seen her before. That was Eleanor Derrick, Katelyn’s mother! I hadn’t seen her in quite awhile, and she had definitely done something new with her hair. I had no idea she was on the school board now.
“You helped me reconnect with my daughter. You’ve been a good influence on her Robin, and I believe you when you say that you have your teammates’ interests at heart. I don’t want to see you quit doing what you love. So with that said,” she looked to the left and to the right, then continued, “I believe I speak for all assembled when I say, permission to use the women’s facilities, and full recognition as a female student are hereby granted.”
Part of me wanted to cry as I stood to shake each member’s hands. “Thank you. You don’t know what this means to me.”
Eleanor smiled warmly. “I know you won’t make us regret this decision. Now go enjoy what’s left of your summer.”
“Yes ma’am,” I replied warmly, gathered my briefcase, and turned to leave.
The first day of school was fast approaching, and I still needed supplies. I talked to the girls, and we all agreed that we would hit the Alpine Springs mall together, and if we still needed anything, we could head into New Haven. I had cheer practice with Jenn that morning, but practices ended early since Sasha had a dentist appointment.
After a quick shower, I left Margie’s to head next door and check on Allison. She seemed a bit apprehensive when I called her that morning. Shortly after I knocked on the door, Carol’s smiling face appeared as she opened it.
“Hi Robin!” she said cheerfully. “You’re looking for Allison, right?”
“Yeah, she seemed kind of upset when I called her this morning. Is everything okay?”
“Oh yes, dear. She had another nightmare - first one in quite awhile though. She’s down at the gun range with her father,” Carol continued.
“Gun range?” I asked, confused. She stared blankly back at me for a moment.
“You mean she never told you? Oh dear...” She frowned. “I’m sorry Robin. I assumed you knew. Why don’t you come inside and I’ll pour you a nice, cold glass of your favorite red cream soda, and we can talk about it?”
I smiled and nodded. “Sure, that sounds great. And for what it’s worth I’m not mad or anything. Whatever’s going on I’m sure she has her reasons for not telling me about it.”
I followed Carol inside, and after she poured our drinks, I sat down at the kitchen table with her. She sipped her iced tea thoughtfully for a moment before continuing.
“You know Joe is an ex-Marine, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, he’s told me a few of his war stories. Before Ash he was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a real father figure,” I added with a smile.
Carol chuckled a little and nodded. “Well, he’s a munitions expert and certified marksman. He’s also a certified trainer. Prior to the … incident a year ago, he hadn’t spent nearly as much time as he wanted to with Allison. He felt so guilty when you girls were attacked, over not spending enough time with her mostly.
“One day, she came up to us and asked if it would be okay for her to learn to shoot. At first I was against the idea, but Joe convinced me that this could be good for her. Not only would it give her a way to channel her frustration, but it would also give them a chance to really bond.”
“That’s so sweet,” I replied, pausing to take a sip of my soda. “So that’s where she goes on Saturdays when I’m doing piano with Katelyn, or when I’m at cheer practice?”
Carol grinned, nodding. “Joe says she’s a natural. I don’t know exactly what they’re doing today, but I saw him carrying the big rifle case.”
“Do they ever go hunting?” I asked. I just couldn’t picture Allison shooting an animal, but I had to ask. Carol smiled and shook her head.
“No. She prefers paper targets.” She chuckled. “I don’t think she’d have it in her to shoot an animal, even if she believed Joe’s talk about it being more humane than letting them starve. I think she’s too much like her mother there,” she added with a soft laugh.
“I still can’t believe I hit that tiny target,” I heard Allison laugh from the foyer as the front door opened. “I swear that old guy’s jaw was going to fall off-” she stopped in her tracks at seeing me. I smiled back at her, she, dressed in a gray t-shirt and cut-off jean shorts with a rifle slung by a strap over her shoulder. Her cheeks turned bright red.
“Hey Ally,” I said casually as I stood and approached, hugging her as though nothing were wrong. “Sorry I’m a little earlier than we planned, but Sasha had a dentist appointment, so we cut practice short today.”
“Oh, um, err,” she fumbled, her cheeks turning even redder. “I’m sorry Robin. I didn’t mean to keep this from you or the others. It’s just I didn’t want you guys to think I was some kind of gun fanatic or something.”
I had to giggle. “You mean like how freaked out I was that you guys might find out I was into comic books?”
She blinked, and started to laugh. “Oh my Gosh. You’re so right. I guess Mom already told you, huh?” she asked, motioning for me to follow her.
“Yeah,” I answered, as we headed toward the stairs. She led me up and to their parents’ bedroom. I hadn’t really noticed it before, but in the far corner, a large gun display case sat. “Like I said, it’s okay. It’s like me and Kenpo. You have to do what you have to do to cope. I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t still affected by what happened last summer.”
She carefully placed her rifle back in the case and closed it again before turning back to pull me into a hug. Tears ran down her face as she held onto me.
“It’s like, literally the one thing that makes me feel secure. When I’m out there on the range, sighting down that barrel, it’s him I see. Does that make me a bad person?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “I see his ugly face every time I snap an oak board in half. Every time I kick the practice dummy. The only time I try not to think about him is when I’m sparring because you’d kick MY butt if I hurt your boyfriend,” I teased, causing her to laugh.
“I love you Robin,” she whispered, hugging me again before wiping her eyes, just as Joe appeared. He smiled at us.
“Don’t mind me; just putting away the 50 cal.” He patted the hard-shell case in his hands and approached us. “Allison’s a natural out there, and that’s not just me being proud papa,” he added, and we both giggled.
“Oh Daddy,” she smiled. “I want to finish my handgun certification. It’s not because I want to carry. I just really want to move on to the bigger guns.”
“You will,” Joe answered, placing his hands on her shoulders before pulling her into a hug. He kissed her forehead. “I’m really proud of you. Now, if you girls will excuse me, I need to get a quick shower.” He smiled, patting my shoulder as he passed. “Good to see you again Robin. You need to stop by more often.”
I giggled. “Yes sir,” and turned back to grab Allison’s hand. “C’mon you. Shopping awaits.”
“Hey, what did the school board say anyway?” Allison asked as we headed back downstairs.
“Oh yeah, I never did tell you guys did I? I guess I just got distracted, what with Moira wanting to work with me on that song and Margie approaching her publisher about the comic.”
Allison giggled. “I thought you were going to take it easy this semester?” she asked, shooting me a grin.
“This is taking it easy,” I shot back and laughed. “If I wanted to push myself I would’ve taken a couple of college credit courses.”
Words could not accurately describe how great it felt to be back in the Dojo again. I hadn’t told anyone, but it was my Kenpo training that allowed me to get back into cheerleading so quickly. As soon as I was able to comfortably stand, I had begun testing my range of motion - carefully - but improving it slowly but surely each day through practicing my kata.
Now, standing in the empty training hall, I finally felt whole again. Ash had some things to take care of in his office, and Nikki had gone to get a bottle of water for me. With no other students arriving yet, I had the place to myself. I noticed Ash had set up his board breaking stand, but I couldn’t have known what he had in mind for my triumphant return to the Arts. Instead I occupied my time practicing with one of the practice dummies.
One of the lessons I took to heart from day one was that the force of a strike was only half the equation. Precision and speed were equally important, and together created a kind of trinity. I wasn’t trying to break the training dummy, after all, so instead focused on the speed of my strikes, the precision, and, since this particular dummy had a swivel motion that allowed to in effect ‘fight back’, on not getting clocked by it as I moved and struck. Granted my speed had nothing on the advanced students. I had a long road ahead of me.
“I never get tired of watching you do that,” Nikki giggled, offering me a towel as I turned back to her.
“You should see Josh,” I laughed. “It’s going to take years before I can even teach. I do want to teach someday though, sort of pass on to others what Ash’s given me.”
Nikki smiled as I wiped the sweat from my brow, offering me the bottle of water in her hand in exchange. “Ally told me you found out her big secret. Well, um, our big secret, sort of.”
“Our?” I asked, giving Nikki ‘The Look’. I couldn’t hold it though, and started to giggle, causing her to laugh too.
“Yeah. Unlike Ally I’m not ‘just’ learning. I’ve known how to shoot since I was a kid. Grandpa taught me, but I hadn’t really thought about it until recently. I didn’t even know Ally was keeping it a secret.”
“It’s hard for her. She doesn’t like to talk about what happened. And I have martial arts to focus my energy. I mean I have to be careful not to get carried away, but the guy’s more of a distant memory to me anymore. Ally bottled it up though. She’s only just starting to cope with it.”
“I know the feeling,” Nikki replied. “It took me years to come to grips with what that monster did to me, and I’m still kinda broken.” She sighed softly, and I wrapped her in a hug. She smiled, resting her head on my shoulder. “I love you,” she whispered.
“I love you more,” I whispered back, kissing her cheek. “You guys should go to the shooting range together sometime.”
Nikki giggled. “I was actually just thinking about asking if you’d want to go with me and Ally this weekend. I haven’t fired a gun since I was like, ten, but since her dad’s a certified instructor, I’m thinking about talking to him.”
I shook my head, but smiled. “Jenn and I are going to be doing one last focused cheer practice with Alice, but you should go. I think it’d be good for her to know we’re all behind her, that it’s really not a bad thing for her to have a focus for her feelings too.”
“Who are we talking about?” Josh asked, causing us both to jump. Allison giggled.
“You are sooo bad,” she teased as she leaned up to kiss him. He smiled innocently.
“Oh, we were just talking about our plans for this weekend,” Nikki answered, grinning.
“Did she say yes?” Allison asked, looking at me. “I mean I’ll totally understand if you don’t want to, but it’d be so cool.”
“Jenn and I are doing another cheer session with Alice tomorrow morning. That’s usually when you go isn’t it?”
Allison grinned. “Usually. But we’re going in the afternoon tomorrow. I know friends don’t have to do like, everything together, but I knew Nikki used to enjoy it when she was younger, so I wanted to extend the invitation.”
“Actually,” I answered, “It sounds like fun. I mean I’m not big on guns - honestly they terrify me, but I’d love to come and watch you guys, if that’s alright?”
Allison giggled and hugged me happily. “Yay!”
“Looks like a few more people are starting to show,” Nikki said, glancing back over her shoulder. She snuck a quick kiss before stepping over beside Allison. “Good luck tonight,” she added. The pair raced off to the side and sat just as Maria approached them.
Josh grinned as he turned to me. “So, are you ready for your test?”
“My test?” I asked. He nodded.
“Sure. If you’re ready, you can test for your next belt tonight.” He pointed to the board breaking stand, “And we’re going to have some fun tonight in honor of your return.”
“What are you guys up to?” I asked, eyeing Josh. He laughed.
“I wanted to wait until you got back. I’ve been practicing the three board break. I want to try five tonight. They’re pine boards so I think I can do it.”
“That’s sweet, but why wait for me?” I asked, a little confused. His smile brightened.
“Because you’re next,” he replied simply.
“Uhm... This isn’t one of those Wuxia ‘I will destroy you’ things is it?” I asked teasingly, and he started to laugh.
“Oh, God no. I just meant that it’s tradition here for students graduating to Purple belt to test their striking power.” He paused and lowered his voice. “It’s actually a test of how well you listen to instruction. You’ll see what I mean.”
“Ohh.”
“Excellent, Robin,” Ash said proudly as I stood to position and bowed to Josh, my sparring partner. He hadn’t gone easy on me, but as we were both restricted to purple Kata, I managed at least to keep up with him. Josh bowed in return and then stepped away for a moment, handing something to Ash, who stepped forward next, facing me. “Your reward for completing your test: your new belt, and a demonstration.”
We had saved my test for last since I was the only student eligible for advancement at that time, which also meant Josh would have the spotlight for the ‘demonstration’ portion. Unfortunately that also meant anyone who wanted to stick around would get to watch me next.
After tying my belt into place, I carefully folded my old one and offered it to Ash with a proud smile. “Thank you Sensei. Would you honor me by giving this to another student?”
“Robin, are you sure?” he asked. “I know you chose to pay for your belts yourself.”
I nodded. “Yes sir. I know not everyone can afford their gi or belts. Besides, I got a great discount for being the daughter of an instructor,” I added with a grin. He laughed at that.
“Okay, if you’re sure,” he replied. “Now, everyone, gather around for the final demonstrations,” he called, getting everyone’s attention. The myriad students all clustered in a semicircle around Josh and Ash. I tried to join them, but Josh caught my arm and grinned, as Ash set up the five boards.
“Board breaking is a useful tool to gauge one’s progress.” He paused to grin. “It’s also a great recruiting tool.”
A chorus of laughter erupted from the class.
“But at its heart, one must always remember that with strength comes responsibility. Because you can do something, doesn’t mean you always have to, but it also doesn’t mean you should be ashamed. As you know Josh completed his second degree testing last week. Whenever a student completes a belt requirement above Orange, it’s tradition to have them break a number of boards. Can anyone tell me what this represents?”
The students looked at each other and murmured quietly, but no one spoke: at least, not at first. Finally someone asked, “Because it looks so cool?”
Again, a chorus of giggles erupted. Even Ash chuckled. “Not quite. No, the breaking of boards represents you as students, breaking through the challenges set before you. It takes strength, concentration, and precision to make a clean break. These same principles apply to your studies here, and to life.
“Purple belt requirement for example,” he continued, glancing at me now, “Is more than simply the Kata that you learn. You must also demonstrate concentration, coordination, perseverance, precision and timing, and mental discipline. You must be willing to work and to listen, to focus not just on the lesson, but on the meaning behind the lesson. As you progress, the color of your belt means less about what you can do, than about what you’ve learned.”
He turned to Josh and nodded.
“Breaking a single board requires all those things. That’s why we reserve its instruction for Purple and above. You must be able to focus and clear your mind. You must strike with precision, and you must have the coordination and strength to strike repeatedly, but you must also have the foresight, the mental discipline, to recognize where to strike.”
He inhaled, slowly exhaling. Three times, he lowered his closed fist over the same section of the topmost board. On the fourth swing, he let out a mighty shout, and all five boards snapped cleanly. The class erupted in cheers as he bowed to Ash, and then to me, as Ash set up a single board.
“Remember, precision, discipline, focus.” He winked at me, and I nodded and stepped forward.
I stared at the board for a second or two and reflected on what they had both just said. I raised my hand, and set it on the board, feeling the grain beneath my open palm.
“Do you feel the grain beneath your hand?” Ash asked. I nodded, and he continued. “If you fight the grain, you have an uphill battle. Strike with the grain and the board will do half your work for you.”
I raised my hand and closed my fist. I knew where I thought the best spot to strike would be, but I measured it up a couple of times just to be sure. On the third, I brought my fist down with as much force as I could muster. To my surprise, the board shattered cleanly. It definitely hurt a little, but not as much as I expected.
‘Wow!” one student cheered.
“Nice!” called another advanced student.
As they dispersed, Nikki and Allison raced over. Nikki threw her arms around me and giggled. “Robin that was awesome! Did it hurt?”
I giggled and hugged her back. “A little, yeah, but not bad.”
“I keep rebreakable boards on-hand,” Ash commented, “for my advanced students that are interested in practicing. You can develop conditioning that way or against a punching bag.”
“I’d like that,” I answered. “It feels amazing. It’s quite a rush, even with the board doing half the work.”
Ash laughed. “Don’t diminish your own accomplishment though. It still requires proper stance and focus. Oh, are you staying at your sister’s this weekend?”
I nodded. “With school starting Monday, we’re going to be sleeping over at Allison’s. It’s sort of a tradition to pig out on junk food and watch bad horror movies, then pass out around midnight. Plus I’m giving Ally a ride while Nikki continues her search for ‘the car that speaks to her’,” I added, grinning at Nikki.
She giggled. “Hey, matching the right car to the right personality is a fine art. Plus Ally wants to learn to drive stick, so there’s transmission to think about,” she added with a grin.
After I changed back into my street clothes, I walked with Nikki out to her car. “You know, I’m really excited about tomorrow now.”
“About going down to the shooting range?” Nikki asked as she sat. I nodded.
“Yeah. Did you see the look on her face when I said yes?” I giggled. “I imagine she gets the same rush from it that I did tonight breaking that board.”
“Or that one time I filled in for Moira,” Nikki admitted, adding, “Except for the part where I almost got sick all over a security guy on the way to the stage.” She giggled. “But I’m excited too. I haven’t seen Ally this happy in awhile.”
“I think we’re all finally approaching ‘normal’,” I answered and squeezed her hand. “So, where to?”
“Oh, I thought we’d celebrate before I took you home. Milkshakes, on me?”
“Sounds great,” I replied and leaned over to kiss her. “I love you.”
She grinned. “Love you more!” she shot back.
Author's Note:
Some of you might have noticed that Becoming Robin is officially caught up her eon TopShelf. I've been having trouble getting any writing done lately due to massive sleep problems, and an oppressive heat wave that's only just broken today.
That doesn't mean I'm not working on anything though. I should have something new up on Robinverse in the next day or three :-)
~Zoe
~* The 'A's Have It *~
“Robin said she’s never been to a tea party. I think we should have one this afternoon.”
Amanda’s eyes lit up. “Really?!”
“Absolutely. After lunch I’ll help you set everything up. How’s that sound?”
This chapter is dedicated to my dear friend Piper, who's going through some rough stuff. The Robinverse wouldn't be what it is without you, sweetie. :-)
“Mew!” Sunny, my ginger tabby kitten squealed happily as I darted the fuzzy cat toy around in front of him, letting him practice his hunting skills on something other than my toes for a change. I giggled as I batted his little paws playfully, causing him to jump back and take another swing at it before pouncing it, just as someone knocked at the door.
I was expecting Andrea some time that day, but I didn’t know exactly when. I scooped up Sunny in my arms and gave him a playful nuzzle before carrying him to the door with me.
“CUTE!” Andrea squealed as I opened the door.
“Isn’t he?” I answered, hugging her with one arm.
“The pictures just didn’t do him justice,” she answered cheerfully, scratching his ears. “God it’s great to see you again. I wanted to do this sooner, to you know, make up for what happened before-” she tried to apologize, but I shook my head and hugged her again.
“You were hurting, and scared. I’ll be honest - you were the last person I ever expected to see again. I’m glad you came though. Come on inside. I was just getting Sunny his morning exercise.”
Andrea smiled wryly as she picked up her suitcase and followed me inside, setting it by the door as we walked into the living room.
“It’s great to hear you say that. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that day, and what a stupid decision it was to run away - almost as stupid as...” she trailed off, holding up her arms. The scars were still visible, but much, much less pronounced now.
“I take it the procedure went well?” I asked, adding, “And can I get you something to drink? Tea, soda, juice?”
“Bottled water if you have it. And yeah, they said that I’ll always carry the scars. Medical science’s only come so far, but I can cover them up with good makeup for school stuff. I was going to get into cheer again, but I’m thinking about drama instead.” She paused to giggle. “I guess I’ve caused enough of it that I might as well, right?”
I laughed. I couldn’t believe this was the same girl I knew a year ago. I grabbed a couple of bottles of water, and returned to find Sunny had taken to batting at Andrea’s shoelaces now. She giggled as she watched him. “Everybody makes mistakes. I’m just glad you’ve come through it all okay. I knew there was a good person underneath all that insecurity.”
“I still have problems sometimes, but once I stopped trying to be the queen bee I started really having fun. I’m kind of becoming noticed around school again though. I swear I’m not trying to be popular again.”
“Sometimes it just happens. I sure as heck don’t want to be popular,” I replied, giggling a little. “It just kind of happened. As long as you’re just trying to have fun and get through high school with your GPA intact, you’ll be okay. Hey, what happened with that guy - you know, the...”
“Oh Gawd, him. Um, it didn’t last,” she answered, giggling. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s a nice guy, not like the human bulldozers I used to date, but... Erm, well...” She started blushing.
“He’s gay?” I asked, half-jokingly. She nodded, and I covered my mouth, causing her to laugh.
“It’s okay. There wasn’t really any spark there, and after he finally told me, it was like this huge weight was lifted off my shoulders because I knew it wasn’t something I’d done. We’re actually closer than ever now.”
Sunny clawed his way up the side of the sofa, hopping into Andrea’s lap and nestling down. She laughed and scratched his ears lightly, eliciting a contented purr.
“Just don’t take it as a sign. I was TG before I met you. I’ve known my whole life that I was really a girl, and I’m sure it’s the same with him - um, knowing he was different I mean, not the girl thing.”
She giggled. “Yeah, he’s got decent fashion sense, but I don’t think he’s really a girl. Speaking of which you mentioned in your last email that recovery was going really well. Have you gotten back into cheer yet?”
I nodded. “Practices twice a week, and I’m even doing aerial stunts again. Victoria’s mom is generously letting us use her backyard - and their full-size trampoline even though Victoria’s going to college this fall.”
“Wow, that’s epic. I guess that’s just the kind of place this is though.”
I giggled. “You have no idea. I just found out the other day that the med student who observed my surgery - the one I’ve been working with on follow-ups, is Margie’s cousin. But it finally solves the mystery why Margie moved here after college.”
“Oh wow. Talk about six degrees of separation,” Andrea giggled. “Next you’re going to tell me your next-door neighbor’s related to a pop star.”
“Well... Um, actually-”
“I know,” she answered with a laugh. “I’m just messing with you.”
Suddenly my phone rang, causing me to jump. I reached over to grab my purse, quickly retrieving it.
“Robin’s phone, Robin speaking.”
“Hi Robin,” Angela, my cheer coach, answered cheerfully.
“Oh hi Angela. What’s up?” I asked as Andrea busied herself playing with Sunny.
“I know this is really short notice, but is there any chance I could get you to watch Amanda for a few hours? Steve’s sister is in the hospital, and we’re going to go see her.”
“Oh no. Is everything okay?”
“Oh, she’s fine,” Angela answered happily, almost bubbily. “She’s having a baby, and her husband is deployed overseas for another week. He was supposed to be back before she went into labor, but the baby had other plans.”
“Oh, wow. Sure, I’ll come right over. Is it okay if I bring a friend from out of town?”
“I trust your judgment. Any friend of yours is welcome in our home,” she answered. “Steve’s gone on ahead, but I’ll meet you here. Thanks Robin. I owe you a big one.”
“Everything okay?” Andrea asked, glancing at me as I stood, putting my phone away.
“My cheer coach’s husband’s sister is going into labor, and they need an emergency babysitter for their daughter. Feel like coming with? Amanda’s really well-behaved.”
“Sure! As long as she’s not one of those little hellraisers - you know, the ones like I used to be when I was a kid.”
“Used to be?” I teased, causing her to laugh.
“Hey!” She stuck her tongue out as she carefully lifted my sleeping cat off her lap and set him down. “Will he be okay? Like, he won’t run out the door or something as soon as we try to leave? Because that didn’t go so well for my cat. He was okay thankfully, but it took a fire crew to get him out of that hole.”
“Yeah, he hates going outside for some reason so he’ll be fine until Margie gets back. Wait, fire crew?”
She giggled. “I never told you about that? He was just a kitten, maybe fourteen weeks old at the time...”
Since it was getting close to lunchtime anyway, I called in a pizza order while we waited at a traffic light. We had only just pulled into the driveway when the pizza delivery car rolled to a stop on the curb. I flagged down the driver and, after paying for the pizza plus a hefty tip for getting it there so quickly, headed for the door. I was just about to knock when the door opened, and Amanda’s eyes lit up.
“Pizza!” she giggled.
“Nice to see you too,” I teased, handing her the box. She giggled.
“Sorry. Mommy said we could have pizza if I asked you nicely, but I didn’t know you’d be bringing it!” she paused, looking up at Andrea just as Angela approached us, slinging her purse over her shoulder.
“Robin thank you so much. There’s some money pinned to the refrigerator for pizza, which I see you already took care of,” she added with a soft laugh. “I’ll pay you for your time when I get back since I’m not sure how long I’ll be. But either Steve or myself will try and alternate out so you won’t be here all night.”
“It’s okay. I love spending time with Amanda,” I insisted, and gave Angela a hug. “Besides, this is a family emergency. I couldn’t not help. My mom’s a nurse - and expecting, too. I completely understand.”
“I’ll call you and let you know what’s going on soon, either way.” She turned to Amanda and smiled. “You be good, sweetie.”
“Yes Mommy,” Amanda answered a little drawn-out and giggled, carrying the pizza box into the kitchen.
“Uh oh,” Andrea laughed.
“Nah. She’s a great kid,” I answered as we followed her. “Amanda this is my friend Andrea. She’s from San Francisco like me.”
Amanda paused with a slice of pizza just inches from her mouth, staring at us. “You guys are from San Francisco? That is SO cool! How come you never told me?”
I giggled a little. “I guess I thought you knew. I mean half the girl scout camp knew.”
She paused, wrinkling her forehead just a little. “Oh yeah! I guess I forgot.” She shrugged, and went back to her pizza slice, as Andrea and I sat down to join her.
“So um,” she trailed off. “I um,” she fumbled nervously.
Andrea smiled warmly. “What is it sweetie? I can step out of the room if it’s something you need to ask Robin.”
Amanda shook her head. “No it’s okay. It’s just there’s something I wanted to ask you the next time I saw you. Do you um, do you think tea parties are dumb?” she flinched, as if she expected me to laugh in her face. I shook my head.
“Heck no. I think tea parties are awesome. I never got to do that kind of thing when I was your age.”
Andrea frowned a little. “Did someone tell you they were?”
Amanda nodded sheepishly. “One of my friends said we’re too old for stuff like that.”
“I still have my old dolls,” Andrea replied. “Some of them are in a box, but a lot of them are on a shelf in my room back home. You’re … what, seven? You should enjoy being a kid while you can. I know I wish I had. You know what?” she added, grinning.
“What?” Amanda asked hesitantly.
“Robin said she’s never been to a tea party. I think we should have one this afternoon.”
Amanda’s eyes lit up. “Really?!”
“Absolutely. After lunch I’ll help you set everything up. How’s that sound?”
Amanda practically leapt from her chair to hug Andrea. It caught her a little by surprise, but she laughed and hugged Amanda back. She glanced at me, and the look on her face told me what I already knew: I wanted a little girl just like her, too.
A short while later, I found myself blindfolded and being led, carefully, up a flight of stairs to Amanda’s room. I knew this was just part of the ‘game’ for Amanda’s sake, but part of me felt really excited too. This was after all, my first tea party. I felt like a giddy little girl, and judging by Andrea and Amanda’s giggling on either side of me, I wasn’t alone.
“Okay, you can look now,” Andrea announced, removing my blindfold. I have to admit, I was impressed. A cute miniature tea set sat as the centerpiece to a small table with four chairs - one of which had a big white teddy bear in a pink tutu and oversized floppy hat. Each chair had a little saucer and cup. Amanda led me by the hand to the seat across from the stuffed bear.
“Ms. Robin, this is Mrs. Bear. Mrs. Bear, this is the bestest babysitter in the world, Robin!” she announced with a giggle.
“How do you do, Mrs. Bear?” I asked, giving a little curtsey. Andrea giggled under her breath as we sat down, and Amanda pretended to pour the tea. She picked up a small platter that I hadn’t noticed before, but instead of cookies or other sweets, she had filled it with celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins - ants on a log! She offered it to me, and then to Andrea, though Andrea seemed hesitant to actually try the concoction just yet.
“She says these were your idea?” Andrea asked. I giggled.
“Ants on a log. They’re really good, and easier to make than using apple slices,” I answered, taking a big bite to emphasize the point. Andrea hesitantly took a bite, her eyes widening.
“Oh wow. That is pretty good, especially with the raisins.”
“Told you!” Amanda giggled loudly.
Before long, there was little left of the green snacks. Mrs. Bear hardly touched hers, but Amanda was happy to take care of the leftovers in short order.
As we stood, I bowed graciously. “Well, Ms. Greer, thank you for a lovely tea party.”
She giggled and hugged me. “Thank you Robin - and thank you Andrea for helping me!”
“You’re welcome sweetie,” Andrea answered with a soft grin. “So, what’s next?”
“Can we watch a movie?” she asked. “The Little Mermaid?”
“Sure. I haven’t watched in awhile,” I answered, causing her to giggle again as she gave a delighted cheer, bounding out the door.
Andrea shook her head and giggled. “She is sooo cute.”
“Now you know why I said yes without even thinking to ask you first. Amanda is a doll, and her mom is the second-coolest adult I know. But when you consider that I know a couple of rockstars...” I trailed off, giggling as we headed downstairs after Amanda, and before long the three of us sat nestled on the couch with a big bowl of popcorn between us.
The movie had only just ended when the front door opened and Angela stepped inside.
“Mommy!” Amanda cheered as she leapt from the sofa and raced over. “Andrea helped me throw an amazing tea party!”
“She did, did she?” Angela asked, sounding a little surprised, but extremely enthusiastic. “That’s wonderful honey!”
“How’s your sister-in-law?” I asked as I stood to hug Angela.
“You won’t believe what happened,” she answered. “Steve’s still there, but so is her husband. He managed to get his leave moved up, and he was planning to surprise her. I can only imagine the look on his face when I told him over the phone why the house was empty.”
“Wow. So do you need me to watch Amanda a little longer?”
“Nah, it’s okay now. Thanks so much girls.” She added in a whisper, “And thanks for lifting her spirits. She was pretty upset about what her friends had said.”
Andrea frowned a little. “Let’s just say I know what peer pressure’s like from both ends. And her friends are really missing out because I had a lot of fun today.”
“I did too,” I added, grinning, and shook my head when Angela tried to pay me. “I told you already, you don’t have to pay me. I enjoyed it.”
Angela sighed. “What am I going to do with you?” She smiled and hugged me, and then Andrea. “Thank you both again.”
“It’s no problem, really. I’ll see you at the next cheer practice,” I replied.
Andrea smiled happily as we hopped in my car. “So, now what?” she asked. I giggled.
“Ally’s probably home from the gun range by now if you want to go hang out?”
“Sounds cool - wait, gun range?”
I giggled. “It’s... another long story. I’ll tell you on the way.”
~* The Lighter Side (Of Darkness)*~
Trina nodded. “Like I said before, I’m still not ready for Trina to be exposed to the rest of the school like, officially.” She sighed. “Sometimes it still feels like Trina’s taking over my life.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, and finally pulled her into a hug. “Trina, there’s something I have to tell you. I know exactly what you’re going through because … Because I went through it last summer. The reason I was out for surgery is … because I was having GRS.” I frowned. Trina’s eyes widened and her jaw slackened. Annabell just smiled a soft, reassuring smile.
“You’re... You weren’t born a... I mean...” she fumbled, utterly shocked. I nodded.
“I see where you’re going with it,” Jessica - AKA the lead singer for Heedless Despair, commented casually as we gathered around Kelly’s piano. She had very generously offered to let Moira and I borrow it for the day, but neither Kelly nor I had any idea Jessica would be turning up that day - that was Moira’s little secret apparently.
“I’m not convinced it’s stage-quality,” I answered honestly. “I mean the music part is great - I wouldn’t expect any less from Moira though, but the lyrics feel... amateur at best. I’d be embarrassed to have someone sing this in front of a small audience let alone on-stage.”
That caused Jessica to laugh outright. “Writing - especially songwriting, is a process. Think of it like a painter or a sculptor. A painter doesn’t just slap on a few colors and call it done, and a sculptor can’t just tap a marble block and make a masterpiece.”
Moira interrupted her there, holding up a finger and grinning. “Technically, SpongeBob can.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “You and that yellow blockhead.” She grinned now too, causing Moira to laugh out loud.
“Punny, love. Very punny. But y’know she’s a point. It’s a process. That’s why I asked her to stop in and throw in her two quid.”
“My two quid?” Jessica shot back. “I usually charge a lot more than that for my advice.”
I couldn’t help myself and added, “But the girl in the comic strip usually charges a nickel.”
Jessica actually giggled. “Inflation!” she teased as she leaned closer to examine the hand-written sheet music. “The lyrics aren’t actually the problem in this stanza though. See where you’ve got it going da-da-dee-da, maybe elongate this to a quarter note so it sounds more like,” she began to sing, not in the opera-like soprano that I’d become so used to in their music, but as a normal person might - still quite perfectly on pitch as near as I could tell, but without the emphasis, or loudness.
Moira casually nodded as she made a note on a nearby notebook. “That does sound better. It gives it a more haunting quality. I really think this would make an excellent ballad.”
Jessica nodded. “Requiem of a Robin?” she teased, grinning over at me. I quickly shook my head.
“Ohhh no, if you guys want to use a modified version of my poem I’m fine with that, but I don’t want anything out of it, least of all for anyone to know I worked on it.”
Jessica’s face seemed a mix of surprise and contemplation at that, so I decided to change the subject.
“So can I ask why you didn’t sing like you do on-stage? Or does it have something to do with that tea you like?”
She smiled again, which was itself worth the topic shift, I thought. As she continued to scan the sheet music sitting against the piano’s sleek black music stand, she replied, “That’s about the size of it. I have to warm up before I sing very much. If I don’t, I could strain my voice and then we’d all be in the stew pot. That tea you’ve seen me drink helps soothe both before and after a show, too. So now let me ask you something.” She had that “I’m not letting this go” kind of look in her eyes. Moira didn’t seem to notice, or was too engrossed in making changes to the score.
“Um, sure I guess?”
“Why don’t you want anyone to know you worked on a song with us? There’s no ‘wrong’ answer now, mind you, I’m just curious - also bear in mind there’s a reason we keep our real identities quiet, so I think I know the answer already.”
I laughed a little and nodded. “You do. Honestly I’m not that talented. This is the only poem I’ve ever written that I actually liked, and I already put a lot of work into it. I wrote it because I wanted to emulate the amazing work that you all put into your performances. It was actually going to just be a surprise for Nicole, but when she found it I knew trying to hide it would just make things worse, so...”
“So now you’re sitting at a piano with two European rock divas turning it into a song to protect her feelings, aye?” Moira commented with a giggle, wrapping an arm around me. “Yer secret’s safe with us.”
I breathed a relieved sigh and smiled, nodding. “Thanks. That’s the other part of why I don’t want anything. This is my gift to her, one way or another. She’s my best friend, my girlfriend, maybe my lover. We haven’t gotten that far yet.”
Jessica giggled softly under her breath. “You might be too young for that last one, but never let anyone tell you you’re too young for love.”
“Why, Jess, was that an admission of some sordid schoolgirl fling in your distant past?”
Jessica grinned innocently. “Let’s just say when I was a wee lass, I had a … less than savory reputation and leave it at that, shall we?”
“So how did you get into music? I promise not to tell, but it’s something I’ve always wondered. You have such an amazing voice.”
“Probably the only ‘ladylike’ thing I ever did as a child - to hear my parents tell it at any rate - was in my music lessons, primarily piano, but I wanted so much more. I found the classical arts crowd just too stuffy.” She paused and tilted her head. She had that contemplative look cross her lightly painted lips again. “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s really quite boring.”
Moira laughed, elbowing her lightly. “You love telling this story and you know it!”
I nodded. “I’m interested, really. I know Moira’s story, but the rest of you I don’t know anything about.”
She smiled, satisfied. She idly toyed with a small silver diamond engagement ring on her right finger as she sat down on a small stool next to the piano bench I shared with Moira. “Nice, innit?” she added, holding her hand out. “Took him two years to pop the question. I guess he was intimidated by my success... Or Kristen. Not sure which.” She giggled softly. “Anyway, I went through the motions, rose in the ranks, prestigious awards and all that rot, but I wasn’t happy.”
“I’m guessing this is the part where you ran away from home and joined the circus?” I teased, and both women laughed.
“Yer not far off,” Moira giggled. Jessica rolled her eyes.
“Hush you,” she shot back. “Actually it was a punk band, bunch of Londoners. We were O so creatively called ‘Sin’. S’how I met Kristen though. I’ll let you in on a little secret about Kristen. She’s a damn sight smarter than she acts. She has a Masters’ in Physics and a … Bachelors’?” she asked, glancing at Moira.
“Bachelors’, aye, in sound engineering. Now y’know why our road crew’s so small - security aside.”
Jessica nodded. “Exactly. She does all of our stage magic and pyrotechnics. She doesn’t trust anyone else to do it, and honestly I agree with her.”
“So what happened with ‘Sin’?” I just had to ask.
“Our idiot drummer literally pissed away our entire bank account. The fool nearly died from alcohol poisoning after he nicked the PIN and cleaned us out. It was a regular MTV reality TV special after that, complete with infighting and drama. Finally Kris and I couldn’t take it so we retired. I went to teach music at a London uni, and Kris fell back on her degrees. We swore we’d never do this again.”
Moira laughed. “But that didn’t last long. Performing is like its own kinda drug. It gets into you, gets you hooked, and when you’re away from it too long, that’s when ya really start to miss it.”
“Exactly. So one day out of the blue Kris gives me a ring and says ‘Jessie, are you as tired of the kiddie-bopper trash as I am?’” Jessica paused to laugh at that. “Those were her exact words too. I hadn’t spoken to the woman in two years, and that’s the first thing she says to me. God, I missed her.”
Moira just giggled as Jessica continued.
“She had this great idea to combine the stage theatrics of the old guard from the 60s and 70s with our Punk roots and give it a nice, dark edge, and I suppose the rest is history.”
Moira smiled fondly. “I’m so glad you talked me into coming back Jess.”
“Are you kidding?” Jessica balked. “Do you know how many vampire-wannabes and bass superstars who only knew five notes I had to go through before I found you? I wasn’t about to let you walk away so easily, even if I had to deck that fool PR manager personally.”
“Anyway, I’ve made some changes here,” Moira replied, “So tell me what you think. You too Robin.”
The first day of school was rapidly approaching. I still had some last-minute shopping to do the weekend before. The four of us - that is, Ally, Jenn, Nikki and myself, had just gotten back to Alpine Springs after a day trip to New Haven, and after dropping the other two off, we started back for my house when I noticed a big grand opening sign on the old pawn shop across from the pizza parlor.
Beneath the grand opening banner, a more permanent sign, a light plum in elegant text on a dark background read ‘Annabell’s Secrets’.
Of course, I knew about the old building. It was right across from the most popular teen hangout in Alpine Springs. I had also noticed vehicles parked in front more and more over the last several weeks, including Trent’s car, but I hadn’t given it any further thought until today.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked as we sat at the nearby traffic light. Nikki grinned.
“Remember Annabell, the new girl I’ve been talking your ear off about?”
“Oh yeah. I’ve been looking forward to meeting her. I’ve just been so busy.”
She smiled and nodded. “It’s okay. She’s been pretty busy herself. She had a tidy little nest egg saved up so she bought that old pawn shop and converted it into a goth boutique. See, she makes dresses, and she’s really good at it too. Oh, but don’t worry, her clientele are much different from the stuff Margie sells. Hey, wanna go check it out?”
“I’d love to!” I answered warmly. Sure, I’d been all day shopping, my feet hurt, and I wanted to get home, but my desire to finally meet the apparently openly transgendered girl - according to what Nikki had told me anyway - outweighed all that. Plus she sounded really nice to boot.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I saw a familiar face through the shop window. Trina, dressed in a very cute sleeveless black corset dress, her fiery hair up in twin buns held in place with black ribbons, busied herself putting the finishing touches on a window display centered around what looked like a Victorian style tapered sleeve gown.
“Oh, that’s pretty,” I commented as we stepped out of Nikki’s Mustang. She shot me a grin.
“The Victorian, or the one Trina’s wearing?”
I laughed as I squeezed her hand. “Both. But when did Trina start coming out during the day?”
“Annabell hired her as the new manager, and pays her in cash plus, due to government regulations, a dress a month since she’s under-age and can’t be paid what the full position’s worth yet.”
“Wow. Some of these dresses can get pretty pricey. That’s a heck of a bonus.”
Nikki slooowly glanced at me as we walked around the side of the building toward the entrance. “When did you start looking at stuff like this?”
I giggled. “I wanted to find out how much the dress Laura had given me was worth. I don’t want to repeat the number out loud, but I almost returned it to her the same day when I found out.”
Nikki laughed softly. “Funny you mention that. We were talking about it that day Annabell first bought this place. Laura wanted you to have it though. It meant the world to her that you liked it so much.”
I blinked at her as I pushed the door open. “Really?”
But before Nikki could answer, Trina threw her arms around me, nearly lifting me off my feet as she squeezed me. “Robin! Hey!” she bubbled excitedly. “Hi Nikki!” she added.
“Eek! Trina! Oxygen!” I teased, causing her to laugh, letting me go.
“Doing some last-minute shopping, or just came to say hi?” she asked. “Everything’s discounted in honor of the grand opening, if you see anything you like.”
“Mostly just to say Hi,” I answered, eyeing a really cute tiered ruffle skirt though. “But I just bought a new top today that would look amazing with this. It’s like a mini-vest layered over a black top. I was afraid it made me look too young.”
“Maybe if you put your hair in pigtails it might,” Nikki teased.
Trina laughed. “That’s kind of the idea behind some of this stuff though,” she added. “We sell everything from true Punk, Goth, Industrial, Victorian, and EGL - Elegant Gothic Lolita. As a bonus Annabell’s teaching me her craft - I mean, how to sew and stuff,” she corrected herself and smiled sweetly, which, coupled with that dress, and her hair up in twin buns, just looked so cute. I had to giggle.
“You look amazing. So this is where you’ve been disappearing to after work on the old asylum, huh?” I teased. She nodded happily.
“I’ve so wanted to tell everyone, but I’m just not ready for people outside the ‘scene’ to see me like this yet. But I’m getting there.”
A female, and very English - upper class Posh by my guess anyway - voice called from the back room, “Yes, and when you are making $500 on every dress you make yourself, you’ll be the one laughin’ all the way to the bank. I’ll be right out, ladies,” she added a moment later. “Bloody mannequin!” she barked.
Trina giggled. “Ooh oh. I’d better go help her. Be right back!”
Nikki stepped up beside me, holding up an electric blue A-line dress against me appraisingly and grinning. “Sooo, what do you think of the ‘new’ Trina?” she asked.
“Is it just me or does she seem a lot happier here than when she was working at Hot Topic?”
“Trent hated that place, but it was there or the food court, until Annabell moved here with her sister.” She paused to lower her voice. “Trent is going through a rough patch right now.”
“He reminds me a lot of myself,” I answered softly. “He always has to be honest. The first time I met Trina, once she stopped being nervous, she just... seemed so naturally girly, y’know?”
Nikki nodded gently. “He’s struggling with his identity. He finally called Doc Ketz back for a follow-up though.”
I smiled a little. “Good. If anyone can help him - or her - Barbara can.”
“Barbara can what?” Trina whispered from right beside me, causing me to jump, and her blonde-haired companion to howl with laughter.
“God, how do you sneak up on people in those things?” I asked, pointing at Trina’s 1 ½” platform sneakers. She giggled loudly.
“Practice!” she answered warmly. “And I’m going out on a limb and guess you were talking about Doctor Ketz?” she asked rather open and honestly. I nodded sheepishly.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like we were gossiping about you or anything,” I tried to apologize. Trina shook her head and hugged me again.
“It’s okay. I know everybody’s been walking on eggshells around me lately. Everyone except Annabell. Oh! Hey! Robin this is Annabell!” she grabbed my hand as well as the blonde haired girl’s, pulling them together for us to shake.
Annabell smiled warmly. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you Robin. Nikki’s told me a lot about you. And as far as Trina’s concerned, well, she has my full support, even though I won’t be attending classes regularly. It’s some weird thing with UK to American school transitioning that with my credit hours, I just need one class to graduate over here. So I’ll be ‘round when I can.”
Trina nodded. “Like I said before, I’m still not ready for Trina to be exposed to the rest of the school like, officially.” She sighed. “Sometimes it still feels like Trina’s taking over my life.”
I couldn’t take it anymore, and finally pulled her into a hug. “Trina, there’s something I have to tell you. I know exactly what you’re going through because … Because I went through it last summer. The reason I was out for surgery is … because I was having GRS.” I frowned. Trina’s eyes widened and her jaw slackened. Annabell just smiled a soft, reassuring smile.
“You’re... You weren’t born a... I mean...” she fumbled, utterly shocked. I nodded.
Nikki spoke up, “Do you remember when we first introduced Trina, I told you Robin of all people would understand? I wasn’t talking about her being lesbian. I couldn’t tell you that I was talking about her being transgendered though. It’s a secret I swore to never tell anyone.”
“Although I did figure it out on my own,” Annabell added, “Having been there myself.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. The stress from keeping it a secret, as my social life put more and more pressure on me to be this perfect all-star american teenager, was driving me crazy. I wanted to tell you, and it’s not that I didn’t trust you-”
Trina held up her hand for me to wait. She smiled and hugged me more tightly than she had ever done before, and then she looked at me with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I know why you didn’t tell me, and I understand. I don’t know if I’m like you and Annabell. Part of me... yes, part of me wants to stay Trina all the time, but I don’t feel ‘that way’ - you know? Wanting to take the steps you and Annabell have taken.”
“Not everyone does,” Annabell answered. “That’s why I’ve been trying to get you involved in a support group, love. I’ve been here … a couple of months now? And already you’re like a second sister to me. I just want you to do what makes you happy, whatever that is. You don’t have to mutilate yourself - and that’s exactly what you would be doing if it wasn’t what you truly wanted.”
“She’s absolutely right,” I added. “I wanted to have the surgery done too. I was going to wait until my eighteenth birthday, but I was going to do it sooner or later. I knew without question that it had to be done. It honestly doesn’t make you any less you if you don’t. I learned a lot about gender from working with Doctor Ketz. That’s the whole reason I suggested her specifically.”
Trina smiled a little as Annabell and I hugged her. “I love you guys,” she whispered. “I don’t know … I don’t know what I feel. Sometimes both... Sometimes neither. But I know that I’m happier when the world sees me as Trina. What does that mean?”
Annabell giggled a little and kissed Trina’s cheek. “That’s a question you’ll have to answer yourself, but I can tell you, your circle of support just increased, right Robin?” she asked, smiling at me. I nodded.
“It’s been killing me inside not being able to share this with you. The worst part has been being on the basketball team and the cheer squad, though. I’m not sure how they’re going to react now that I’ve been cleared by an independent gynecologist to change with the others.”
This time, Annabell reacted with surprise. “Jesus girl. How’d you manage that so soon after surgery?”
“It’s a new experimental technique that’s apparently been in development awhile. I don’t know how it works exactly, but combined with the combination of drugs they have me taking, the scar tissue heals much faster. More importantly I don’t have to... Erm...” I started to blush, and Annabell laughed again. “...as often.”
“Ohh, visit from a little friend, huh?” she asked. I blushed even deeper, nodding. Trina looked confused between the two of us, and Annabell leaned close, whispering in her ear. Her cheeks turned bright red as she covered her mouth.
“Seriously?”
Annabell and I both nodded, the former adding, “It takes getting used to when you prefer the fairer sex, but my girlfriend back home had a fine-”
Nikki cleared her throat.
“What?” Annabell asked. “I was just going to say ‘sense of understanding’.” She grinned innocently.
Trina shook her head. “Well I don’t know about all that... I... I’m having trouble fathoming the idea of surgery. I’m still dealing with the fear of catching hell from people at school.”
“That’s why I’ve been so careful,” I answered. “Not telling anyone but Ally and Nikki - Jenn figured it out on her own. It’s called ‘stealth’ for a reason after all.”
Trina giggled a little. “Besides, it’s not like it’s anyone else’s business. But I don’t have that luxury. If I did this, everyone would know.”
“And they’d know you make a fortune making dresses on commission for me, too. Government can’t take THAT away from you,” Annabell reminded her. “But this seems a pretty understanding community. I know not everyone’s so nice as you all, but even the rabble run for cover when I flash my MI-6 badge.” She laughed.
“Um... MI-6? As in...” I started to ask. She nodded.
“Oh yes. My sister’s an active field agent over here on some... collaborative deal with your Homeland Security. Me? I don’t dare ask what it’s about. I do some work on the side for them, when they need something to look designer-quality on a government military issue budget. I’m not even combat-trained, but nobody else has to know that, y’know?” She grinned innocently.
“Oh,” she added, almost as an afterthought, “if you still want that skirt I’ll knock another 25% off - call it a friends and family discount.”
“Wow. Thank you. I love it. And Trina, if you ever need to talk, please don’t hesitate to call me okay? Nikki, Alli and Jen have been through this with me too.”
Nikki laughed. “Yeah, her getting on hormones was fun. We’ll conference call, or if you really need it we’ll all come over with some ice cream.”
Trina smiled happily as she nodded. “I’ll let you know around October,” she shot back. “I’m planning on wearing one of Annabell’s Halloween costumes to school to kind of see how things go. One day at a time.” She sighed in what at least to me sounded like a happy tone, as she rang up my purchase on her tablet PC. “One day at a time.”
Trina is a very special character for me. I've always said that she's more like me than Robin. I've struggled for years with being TG, questioning my identity and where I "fit in" on the spectrum, and I wanted to shed some light on Trina's struggle.
There's another, unpublished, story Ashleigh and I are working on that deals with Annabell and Trina. In many ways it's a spiritual successor to "Becoming Trina", and it goes over in more detail what Robin's missed while she was out of commission, but hopefully this was enough to whet the appetite in terms of Trina's struggle. Now that Trina knows about Robin, both her, and Robin's, support groups have gotten a little bigger.
NEXT CHAPTER! First day of school, and the long-awaited shower scene ;-)
~* Back to the Salt Mine *~
“Wow. You’re really being considered for Captain?” Nikki asked as she approached me at my locker following second period English. I hadn’t breathed a word of it to her yet since in my mind, I had already decided I wouldn’t accept nomination.
“Oh, yeah, but it’s just Chelsea. She doesn’t want the Captain slot this year so it’s up in the air,” I answered as I closed my locker and pulled her into a hug.
She grinned. “Mmm. That was nice. What was that for?”
“I need a reason to hug you?” I teased, leaning up to kiss her. “C’mon vampire. Walk me to the gym? You’ve got Chem this hour so it’s on the way.”
Nikki giggled, wrapping her arm around my waist. I lay my head on her shoulder as we started down the hall together, but she suddenly stopped and whispered. “Hey, who’s the new girl with Jenn?”
The first week of school last year, I had managed to completely embarrass myself on multiple occasions, starting with the first day, when I had completely gone overboard, expecting the same kinds of silly traditions that I’d watched other girls go through back in San Francisco. I thought I had it figured out this year. I wore my favorite pair of comfortable jeans, a cute purple top, and paired the silver ring Nikki gave me with a celtic knotwork pendant on a chain: simple, elegant.
Imagine my surprise when, as Allison and I rolled into the parking lot in my convertible, everyone else looked like they were dressed for school picture day - the girls, at least. Allison giggled as I turned to look at her.
“You started something,” she teased. I laughed and rolled my eyes.
“At least this year I won’t have to deal with anyone calling me-”
“Valley girl!” Brittany called teasingly as she walked up behind me. I turned to face her, and she grinned. At least she hadn’t dressed like she was attending a wedding. “I’m kidding. Jeeze,” she said as she walked with us toward the main building. “So can you do me a solid and talk to Chels? Please?”
“Um, sure, but what about?” I asked. Allison frowned.
“You haven’t heard?” she asked.
I glanced between the two of them, shaking my head after. “The last time I talked to Chelsea was when the cheer squad came out to help work on the asylum.” And then suddenly it hit me. “Oh... So she’s really refusing the Captain position this year?”
“Worse,” Brittany whined. “She’s not even going to play.”
“What?!” Allison and I both asked in unison. She nodded.
“Don’t get me wrong; I think we have a strong team this year, but we need Chelsea’s leadership skills.”
“She’s like the tallest girl in school!” Allison added. “Katelyn’s awesome on D, but Chelsea was the heart of our offense.”
I heaved a sigh as we entered the main building. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a girl wearing dark sunglasses, struggling with her books, but before I could go talk to her, Brittany exclaimed, “There she is!” and pointed to Chelsea, coming down the opposite hall.
She froze in her tracks and tried to duck into the girls’ bathroom, but Brittany followed her, dragging me along in the process. Allison helplessly followed, trying not to giggle.
Chelsea stood by the mirror, lip gloss in hand, pretending not to know why Brittany had just barged into the room. She smiled brightly. “Hi Brit, Robin. What’s up?”
“Don’t ‘what’s up’ me!” Brittany whined. “I heard from Maria that you’re not playing this year!”
Chelsea blinked, stunned. “What? No, I’m not going out for the VOLLEYBALL team this year.”
Now it was Brittany’s turn to look stunned. Chelsea giggled.
“You didn’t even know we had a volleyball team did you? Tryouts are in the Spring, but since we’re probably going to get invited back to Cheer nationals again this year, I just don’t have time for three sports. Volleyball’s fun, but it’s not my passion.”
I glared at Brittany, but only playfully, before asking Chelsea, “So what about the Captain position?”
Chelsea grinned. “I was thinking of putting your name forward.”
“Me?” I asked, surprised.
“Her?” Brittany asked, just as surprised. “No offense,” she added.
I laughed. “None taken. I’d sooner pick Ally over me, but Maria and Katelyn are our real star players.”
“Katelyn wants to go out for cheerleading this year,” Chelsea replied. “I’ve been talking to her about it, and she doesn’t feel she can keep up with basketball, cheer, and choir plus teaching piano and taking singing lessons. We need to think about who our cheer captains will be this year, too.”
“Don’t. Even. THINK about it,” I replied, causing her to laugh.
“I was thinking about Jenn, or one of the seniors. Maybe Tracy?” Before I could answer, the first bell rang, and she sighed.
“We’ll pick this up later. I really want you to think about the basketball captain position though. If not you, then who you think would be a good captain.”
Allison lay her hand on my shoulder as we walked to our first class together. “Don’t. Even. Think about it,” she echoed my comment with a broad grin. “I love you, but if you tell Coach Wilson to consider me for captain, I will kick your butt.”
“Wow. You’re really being considered for Captain?” Nikki asked as she approached me at my locker following second period English. I hadn’t breathed a word of it to her yet since in my mind, I had already decided I wouldn’t accept nomination.
“Oh, yeah, but it’s just Chelsea. She doesn’t want the Captain slot this year so it’s up in the air,” I answered as I closed my locker and pulled her into a hug.
She grinned. “Mmm. That was nice. What was that for?”
“I need a reason to hug you?” I teased, leaning up to kiss her. “C’mon vampire. Walk me to the gym? You’ve got Chem this hour so it’s on the way.”
Nikki giggled, wrapping her arm around my waist. I lay my head on her shoulder as we started down the hall together, but she suddenly stopped and whispered. “Hey, who’s the new girl with Jenn?”
Jenn was standing by the dark olive-skinned girl wearing sunglasses that I had seen struggling this morning. Curiosity piqued, we walked over to say hi and welcome the new student.
“Hey Jenn,” I called cheerfully. “Who’s the new girl?”
“Speak of the devil! Robin, Nikki, this’ my new friend Shelly,” Jenn answered cheerfully. I hadn’t seen her smiling this much since camp. Something was definitely up, but I decided not to ask. I’d swear the girl was staring daggers at me from behind those dark glasses, though, as she grabbed a white cane from her locker.
“You didn’t come to laugh at me too did you?” she snapped.
“Um, no? Why would we? Just ask Jenn. Outside cheerleading I’m kind of a clutz.”
“Like that time you walked right into your locker door because you forgot to shut it first,” Nikki chimed in, giggling.
“So, are you new here?” I changed the subject. She shrugged.
“Yeah. Just moved here last month.”
“Oh, well if you need anything just ask Jenn or me. I was the new kid last year, but Jenn and my other friends really made me feel welcome, so I try and pass it on.”
“You know I don’t need you to feel sorry for me,” Shelly snapped, scowling at me again.
I didn’t really know what to say to that. I was just trying to be nice, but it seemed this girl just wanted to be insulted. “I’m sorry if it came out like that. It’s just when I transferred here, I was kind of terrified of reliving life like my last school so I try to be nice to new people. Anyway, I’m obviously making you uncomfortable, so I’ll leave you alone, but I meant what I said, if you change your mind.”
Nikki started to say something, but I squeezed her hand and shook my head. Jennifer frowned apologetically as we walked away.
“What a cow,” Nikki growled. “Some people just look for persecution.”
I shrugged, trying not to let it get to me. “Maybe Jenn’ll calm her down. She’s obviously pretty rattled about something.”
“Y’think so?” Nikki asked. “Yeah, maybe I’m just being overprotective.”
I giggled, stopping and turning Nikki around to kiss her again. “Can’t fault you for that,” I teased.
“We’d better get to class before we draw a crowd,” she answered. I looked around at the empty hallway and blinked.
“Oh. Nikki speak?” I asked. She laughed as she pulled me along toward our next class.
“Nikki speak,” she answered. “I haven’t used it in awhile.”
The rest of the day progressed fairly normally. Jennifer apologized for the way Shelly acted. Apparently I was right, that something had rattled her pretty badly. I talked to her at lunch to let her know there were no hard feelings. She was actually a really sweet girl, and Jennifer seemed to like her.
I wasn’t really surprised to see Trent, instead of Trina, at school that day, and I couldn’t help noticing he seemed absolutely miserable. He barely said two words to anyone, but it was a decision that I knew he had to make for himself. All I, all anyone could do, was to support him.
After school, last year’s cheerleaders - those who wanted to be on the squad again this year anyway, met in the gym for an informal meeting to discuss the year’s schedule. If we were going to be attending competitions this year, we wanted to start on our routine as soon as possible.
“Okay, so here’s the deal,” Chelsea stood up in front of the rest of us, gathered on the gym bleachers. On the basketball court, a couple of boys were playing a game of one-on-one. “As you guys all know, we had to scrap our first routine last year due to one egotistical judge.”
Stacey interrupted her, “Who, by the way, is no longer in the employment of ESPN.”
That raised a giggle from all of us as Chelsea nodded. “Yeah. Don’t feel too bad for him though. I heard he’s taken a job reporting for some local news station in Ohio. Anyway, because of that our routine wasn’t as good as it should’ve been. That’s not any of our faults, but this year we need to start early.”
“But isn’t practice before tryouts like, major bad mojo?” Tracy asked.
Chelsea nodded. “Yeah. That’s why we’re moving cheer tryouts to next Monday. In the meantime, we’re going to work on fundamentals during our tumbling class tomorrow night.”
Coach Greer stepped out of her office. Apparently she had been listening the whole time. “By the way, for those of you who haven’t heard, our sister school and former rivals, Sunshine Academy, are finally fielding a full athletics program including cheerleading. I’ve invited them to hold their cheer tryouts here after we have ours so their girls can get a feel for how it’ll go.”
A few girls whispered among themselves, but for the most part the announcement was met with indifference, until I asked, “Who’d they get for their cheer coach?”
A chorus of gasps followed Angela’s response. “Elizabeth Esquirer.” She grinned. “I knew that’d get your attention. If anyone can whip those girls into shape, it’s Liz. Don’t worry. They’re not a direct threat to your chances at going to Nationals. I expect you to treat them as equals. Victoria will also be teaching their tumbling classes, if anyone wants to volunteer to help.”
“Do we get extra credit?” Stacy teased. Before Coach Greer could answer, she held up her hands “It was a joke.”
“Does this mean we can’t practice at Liz’?” Chelsea asked.
“You’ll have to talk to her about it, but I don’t see why it would be a problem. If both squads meet at the same time, you could probably help each other out.”
“Like a mini cheer camp,” Jenn giggled, flashing a grin at me.
“Exactly,” Coach Greer replied cheerfully. “I’m glad you girls are on board for this. Strictly off the record, I’ve been talking to Liz, and she regrets ever leaving for that Platinum’s Gym job. Anyway, unless there’s anything else you girls want to discuss, you’re free to go.”
Chelsea held up her hand before anyone could get up. “Actually there is one thing. We need to discuss Captains. I like the two co-captain system we tried out last year. It worked great for basketball, and even better for cheer.”
Coach Greer nodded. “I agree. I’ll be honest. I don’t want to accept anyone who hasn’t had at least one full year of cheerleading experience for captain, but if you can make a strong enough argument, I’ll take it under advisement.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “That leaves me out.”
“Not necessarily,” Chelsea answered. “She did say ‘strong argument’. I’m pretty sure the fact that you helped me and Victoria with two very different Nationals-level routines counts for something.”
I quickly shook my head. “No, seriously. I’m trying to take it easy this year. I’m taking a bunch of AP classes, including Trig, plus cheer and basketball. I nominate Tracy.”
“Bwah?” Tracy exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. Everyone giggled.
“Yeah, Tracy’s the most experienced girl on the squad,” another girl added.
“I agree,” Chelsea answered, winking at me. “That still leaves one slot open though.”
“What about Jenn?” Tracy asked.
“I nominate Chelsea,” Jennifer shot back. Chelsea shrugged.
“I’m willing to take the position if no one else wants it, but I don’t mind stepping aside either. Like Robin, I’m trying to take it easy this year.”
“Well, we don’t have to decide right now,” Coach Greer replied. “Nominations will be open until next Monday. Remember though, that being captain doesn’t just mean you tell everyone what to do. It means you lead by example in all aspects of your life. I’m looking for girls who can show their confidence in and outside school and in competitions, who can really show the judges something special.”
“Robin,” Tracy answered. I stuck out my tongue at her.
“No,” I shot back, causing another chorus of giggles.
“Hey,” I asked, as we stood to leave. “Anyone seen Sasha?”
Tracy nodded. “Dentist appointment. She checked out at two. I promised I’d let her know what we discussed.”
“Oh, coolness. So, ready to go work on the asylum?” I asked, glancing at Tracy. She grinned.
“You know it girl! I’ll meet you out there. I just need to check on Trent first. If you see Laura, give her a hug, okay? They’re... having problems.”
I frowned, grabbing Tracy’s hand and pulled her into the Coach’s office. I didn’t even notice Coach Wilson sitting at her desk.
“What’s going on? They were at the mall Saturday, and everything seemed fine.”
“You saw Trina at the mall,” Tracy answered with a frown. “Laura’s upset because she acts like a completely different person at school, and it’s starting to scare her because he won’t even talk to her.”
“That’s... not good.” Sure, it was stating the obvious, but I didn’t really know what else to say. I sighed softly. “I’ll talk to Nikki. Maybe she can talk to him and find out what’s going on.”
“Thanks Robin,” Tracy answered, hugging me. “Laura’s like my best friend. Us theater dorks gotta stick together, y’know?” she winked, turning to step out again.
“Everything okay?” Coach Wilson asked, causing me to jump. She laughed. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, just high school drama,” I trailed off, approaching Coach Wilson’s desk and sitting across from her. “You know Trent Scott?”
“Sure. Quiet kid. Great dodgeball arm,” she answered with an amused smile.
“Trent’s … kinda like me.”
“Like you-” she started, but realization dawned, and she nodded. “Oh...”
“Yeah. Trent lives part time as Trina. I think he wants to transition, but if he did, he’d have to deal with the problems that come with it, like everyone knowing who he is already. I had the luxury of stealth.”
“That would be a problem,” she answered quietly. “Does he - sorry, she - have a therapist?”
“The best,” I answered. “And a small circle of support. Everyone in the GLBT student alliance already knows Trent cross-dresses, plus she knows I’m transgendered.”
“Then the best thing you can do for her is continue to be there for her,” she replied with a reassuring smile. “Ultimately it’s Trina’s decision to make, but what you can do is let her know that you’ll shoulder the burden. In the end, it’s which set of consequences she’s willing to live with.”
“At least I won’t have the stress of having to change in the coaches’ offices anymore,” I answered with a wry smile, causing her to laugh.
“Yeah, I read the school board’s report. Personally I thought it was kind of crass for them to ask, but I understand their intentions, trying to protect other students as well as yourself.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I should get going, but thanks for listening, Coach.”
“Anytime,” she answered as I stood. She waited until I got to the door to add, “Do me a favor though?”
“What’s that?” I asked, glancing back.
“Reconsider the Captain position?”
I sighed. “Okay, I’ll THINK about it, but no promises.”
She grinned. “You and Katelyn would make a heck of a team,” she called after me as I left, shaking my head.
“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled, but chuckled quietly as I left the gym, heading out to the parking lot to head home. First day of school, and I already had homework.
Author's Note:
Sorry this took so long to get out. Long story short, I had plans this summer that didn't involve being near a computer, and other drama happened that left me seriously considering just stopping altogether.
But I'm back now :-)
~* Patient Zero *~
“Hey, are you okay?” the contractor suddenly asked me. All three of them were staring at me now. I could feel my cheeks burning as I shook my head.
“I’m not sure. I’m not feeling well,” I trailed off.
“Nikki!” Marry shouted. Nikki stepped around the corner, laughing at something, but she suddenly stopped laughing when she saw everyone’s serious expressions. “You need to get Robin to the hospital.”
Work had been progressing really well on the renovations inside. Outside it still looked like an imposing, run-down old building, which was exactly what we wanted it to look like. Inside though, even the owners hardly recognized it.
We had managed to clear out all the old debris, rotted ceiling tiles, and old furniture, and knocked down more than a few walls under the watchful eye of a hired contractor, to ensure we didn’t hit a load-bearing wall.
“Whoever designed this place,” the contractor commented at one point as Marry, Kris and I reentered carrying some supplies, “Didn’t work from any known architectural designs of the period. If I didn’t know better I’d say this place was a prison.”
“You’re not far off, but it was upgraded several times as well,” Kris commented. “The only thing about the building that’s original is the outer facade. Some of the rooms are the same dimensions as the original cells though.”
Marry chimed in, “They tried to sterilize and legitimize the asylum as a hospital back in the 1940s as well. New tile, new room designs, better locks...”
“More toxic paint,” Kris chuckled, holding up his paint scraper.
The man tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, you can say that again. We’re gonna have to get in here with an industrial strength vacuum just to make sure we get all the paint chips. Probably cover the building in plastic and fumigate it too just as a precaution.”
I tried to listen to the conversation, but to tell the truth, my mind was elsewhere. Through most of the day I’d been noticing some mild pain in my abdomen. It seemed to be getting worse though.
“Hey, are you okay?” the contractor suddenly asked me. All three of them were staring at me now. I could feel my cheeks burning as I shook my head.
“I’m not sure. I’m not feeling well,” I trailed off.
“Nikki!” Marry shouted. Nikki stepped around the corner, laughing at something, but she suddenly stopped laughing when she saw everyone’s serious expressions. “You need to get Robin to the hospital.”
“What?” she asked, dumbfounded, as she rushed over to me. I shook my head as Allison and Sasha came running.
“What’s going on?” Allison asked.
“It’s probably nothing,” I tried to reassure them. “But could someone drive me to the hospital and call Michelle?”
“I’ll make the call,” Allison answered. “Nikki, you drive.”
“You should take her car, Allison,” Sasha added as I found myself summarily escorted to the nearest exit. “Even if it is nothing, and she’s able to make it to practice tonight, she’s been working way too hard here. We’ll pick up the slack.”
Allison smiled as she nodded. “Thanks Sasha. We owe you a big one.”
“No you don’t,” Sasha answered seriously, but smiled and hugged me. “Just make sure you’re okay. That’s all that’s important.”
Nikki waited until I was in the passenger seat of her Mustang before asking, “How bad is it?”
“Honestly?” I answered quietly, “Feels like I’m going to pass out. It might be complications from the surgery. It’s in my lower abdomen.”
“What kind of pain? Is it sharp, dull, ache, stabbing?”
“Sharp I think, like a really bad cramp.”
Nikki slammed on the gas as soon as we had left the asylum behind. How she avoided running anyone over, or getting a ticket, I have no idea, but we quickly found ourselves at the hospital.
Michelle and Kelly were waiting with a wheelchair for me, but neither seemed particularly concerned.
“Hi Robin,” Michelle said cheerfully as she helped me to sit. “Don’t worry. This is just for your comfort.”
“My comfort?” I asked, a little stunned by her nonchalantness. She nodded, and I quickly found myself wheeled past the front desk and into an elevator. Kelly stayed behind to wait for Nikki and Ally.
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked. She simply grinned.
“Hopefully, nothing. But we’re going to do an ultrasound to see what’s going on in there.”
“What’s this?” I asked, as Kelly brought me a small paper cup containing two white pills, and a glass of water. Michelle, who had by now changed into a lab coat, looked positively giddy as she replied, “It’s Midol - teen formula. No caffeine.”
“Umm... Why would I need to take Midol?” I asked cautiously. I felt Nikki squeeze my hand as Michelle rotated the ultrasound monitor for me to see the images it had captured.
“Because what you’re experiencing aren’t complications, sweetie. They’re your reproductive organs kickstarting - growing pains, in other words.”
“What?!” I nearly shouted. It wasn’t as though I were upset at all: quite the opposite! I just couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“With Doctor Ketzowski’s and your mother and step-father’s permission, I’ve had you on a new clinical trial of a drug called Purplaxis. In simple terms, combined with surgical vaginoplasty and the implanting of preprogrammed stem cells, Purplaxis has reprogrammed your body to produce estrogen naturally.”
“But that doesn’t explain the cramps, Doc,” I answered, “Or that... um... patch of... Um...”
Michelle nodded reassuringly. “Uteran growth. If everything goes as planned, we won’t need to bring you in for another surgery. It looks like everything is growing and connecting as it should.”
“Wait a minute,” Nikki interrupted. “Are you telling me that Robin is... becoming a genetic female?!”
Michelle nodded again. “Exactly. Purplaxis isn’t a simple hormone replacement regimen. Scientists in Britain accidentally cracked the gender genome while attempting to develop a treatment for postmenopausal women.
“It’s the Holy Grail of gender research,” Kelly added. “It may be too late for girls like Michelle and I, but this is a whole new era for everyone else.”
I slowly swallowed the two pills, drank down the water, and lay back on the examination table.
“So, wait,” Nikki started again, “Does this mean she can have children? I mean, she could carry to term?”
I felt Michelle squeeze my other hand as Allison lay her hand on my shoulder. “In theory, yes. Robin is essentially patient Zero for human clinical trials, but all signs point to her being indistinguishable from a natal female. There will be some scar tissue inside, but frankly only her gynecologist should ever see it. And even that should heal in time, given her age.”
“I’m … a real girl,” I whispered. Nikki turned, leaning down to kiss me.
“You’ve always been a real girl,” she whispered. “It’s just science’s finally caught up with what we’ve known all along.”
I couldn’t help giggling as I wrapped her in a hug. Tears rolled down both our cheeks as I sat up, hugging her again, more tightly. I grabbed Allison’s hand and pulled her closer as well.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said through tears as she kissed my cheek.
“I can’t believe this is real. I feel like I’m going to just wake up any minute now.”
“This means you’re going to have to get ‘the talk’ from the girls’ perspective though,” Michelle added. I blushed, causing the girls to giggle.
“We’ll handle that,” Nicole answered.
“I always keep spare pads,” Allison added, which for some reason caused me to blush even more deeply.
Michelle smiled as she hugged me. “Take it easy if you can. It’s going to take you some time to adjust to these new feelings, but believe me, it’s something every natal female goes through. It’s just yours is coming a few years later. Luckily you’ve been on HRT long enough that you at least don’t have to go through puberty again,” she added teasingly.
“Thanks Michelle. I’m starting to feel better already. Do you think I’m okay for cheer tonight? It’s just a warm-up class, to gauge athletic levels. I promise to take it easy.” I slid down off the examination table and into Nikki and Allison’s waiting arms. Michelle squeezed my hand, motioning for us to follow her out after.
“You should be just fine. You won’t actually begin menstruation this month, but mark this date on your calendar for next month. I’m going to send you home with a bottle of Midol Teen. Take two in the morning as soon as you get up,” she instructed, as we reached the elevator.
“Why didn’t you tell me all this was going to happen before?” I asked. “I was led to believe you were just a med student. Now you tell me you’ve been working on a... a sex change drug?”
Michelle giggled under her breath as we stepped onto the elevator. “I’m sorry for the deception. I AM a med student, technically, but with some massive pharmaceutical backing. Further, Doctor Ketzowski felt that it would be best if you believed you were undergoing a normal operation because you were stressed out enough before. We wanted you to be able to recover in a comfortable, natural environment.”
Allison giggled a little. “Would you honestly have gotten any rest if you knew you had undergone a surgery to become a genetic girl?”
I had to shake my head at that. “Honestly? No, I wouldn’t. I’d have been anxious, excited, and terrified the entire time!”
“Precisely,” said Michelle with a confident smile. “I can’t wait to publish our findings. Of course you’ll still be listed as Patient Zero to protect your identity and stealth status, but as far as the rest of the world is concerned, you’re as genetic as anyone else, with just a birth abnormality.”
I had to laugh. “For the longest time I’ve been telling people I had a birth defect. Now I have a doctor’s backing on that.”
When I arrived at the gym only a few other girls’ cars sat in the parking lot, and none of them were present, so I walked into the locker room to dress out for practice. After pulling on my sports bra and fuchsia gym shorts, I sat down to lace up my sneakers. Nikki gave Allison a ride home, and I called Kris and Marry from the hospital to let them know I was okay, so now I just had to focus on cheer.
Ordinarily I’d worn a loose t-shirt over my sports bra like Katelyn, but I’d begun to notice lately more and more that the other girls, during non-intensive training, preferred to wear just their sports bras. Mine covered more than most bikini tops, and thanks to staying in shape over the last year, my midriff was, while not washboard, at least flat and trim, so I decided to try it without the shirt.
As I stood to leave, the door opened. Sasha, Chelsea, and Stacy stepped through, and all three had serious expressions on their faces until they saw me. I suddenly found myself surrounded as they hugged me and asked me what had happened.
“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Sasha concluded though. “I mean, you are okay right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I’m great. It was just, um...” I blushed furiously, but had resolved to tell them the truth. “It was just a really severe menstrual cramp.”
“Oh God, it’s not a cyst is it?” Stacy asked seriously. It was farthest from the response I expected, but somehow made me feel better. At least they didn’t laugh at me for not knowing
what a cramp felt like.
I shook my head. “No. My gyno did an ultrasound to make sure everything was okay.”
“Your gyno?” Sasha asked. “But you said you thought it was complications?”
I nodded again. “Yeah. I had surgery over the summer to correct a birth abnormality that had to do with my ovaries. It’s a long and really gross story. But I’m okay now. She gave me some Midol, and I’m feeling better already.”
It was now or never. I sat back down again as they started to change. At first they didn’t even notice, as Stacy commented, “I’m glad you’re okay. The way Sasha talked, it sounded pretty serious.”
Sasha stuck out her tongue. “Well Marry did tell Nikki to take her to the hospital. I didn’t know her G was there,” she answered with a giggle. She glanced back at me with a sheepish smile, but paused. She was midway through pulling on her sports bra, and I couldn’t help laughing. She pulled her bra into place and sprinted over to sit beside me. “You’re still here!”
“Yes,” I answered, trying to keep a straight face.
“But I thought...”
“Like I said, everything’s okay now,” I answered, and grinned, just waiting for it.
She squealed. “OH MY GOD!” She wrapped me in a hug, giggling loudly as Stacy and Chelsea ran over, apparently only just realizing the same thing.
As if on cue, Jennifer stepped through the door. “Oh, hey Robin,” she commented casually, as though I’d always belonged there, as she began to undress at her locker. “Sorry I couldn’t make it to the asylum tonight, but Ally called and told me what happened. What’d Michelle say?”
My evening progressed pretty normally from there. Jenn and I got some stretching done, and played a couple of rounds of one-on-one while we waited for more girls to arrive. We were right in the middle of helping some girls new to the cheer tumbling program, teaching them to stretch when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that Coach Greer seemed to be watching me.
“Excuse me a second?” I asked. The girl quickly nodded. “Just keep practicing that stretch. Hold it for another five-count and then release it slowly, and do the same for the other leg,” I called over my shoulder as I raced over to see what was going on.
“Everything okay?” I asked. Coach Greer smiled as she shook her head.
“I expect you girls to tell me when there’s a problem, Robin.”
I blinked, confused. “Um, problem?”
“You were in the hospital not an hour ago?” she asked, folding her arms, patiently waiting for an answer.
“Oh! That! No, it’s not what it seems. I’m okay, really! I just thought it was something more than it was. I’m okay now, really,” I tried to remain calm, but just that she had asked made me unbelievably nervous.
She grinned. “Yes, I know. Actually I was more impressed with the fact you’re even here. Sasha told me you were nearly doubled over in pain when you left, and then I come here to find you instructing the freshmen?”
“Err, well, she asked for advice so Jenn and I offered to help.”
“You realize what you’re doing is the kind of thing a Captain would do, right?”
I quickly shook my head. “No ma’am. We’re a team. We help each other out. I don’t need a C on my uniform for that.”
“Well, if you change your mind, please let me know, okay? I would love to have you as our co-captain this year, with someone like Chelsea or Stacy, one of the girls who’s been through football season before.” She smiled as she placed her hands on my shoulders and hugged me.
“I know you’re going through a lot though,” she added. “As your Den Mother and as your coach, I won’t ask you to do anything you don’t feel up to doing, but with the renovations on the asylum finished-”
“Wait, finished? When I left we still had to strip off the paint before we could let the younger girls go inside.”
Coach Greer shook her head. She motioned for me to follow her, leading me back to her office. She took her purse from a locked desk drawer, and from that produced a piece of paper. “I took the liberty of having some of the paint chips analyzed. There’s no trace of lead. Apparently the place was repainted one last time before it closed for good.”
I stared, wide-eyed, at the report. “Do Kris and Marry know about this?”
“They do. I called to let them know before coming over here. I only just found out myself, but this means that this weekend we can start decorating ahead of schedule.”
“That’s great!” I cheered happily. “That’s going to be a LOT less stress for me to deal with. I’m thinking of swapping Anatomy and Physiology for AP Chem. If I do that I can get Nikki to take AP chem with me, and we can study together and make even more free time for me.”
“Ew. I honestly could never take A and P when I was in high school. I hear they use a lot of computer models now though.”
“Yeah, but even a simulated dead frog is still gross,” I answered, as we started back for the main gym again.
Coach Greer blew her whistle to get everyone’s attention. Once everyone had settled, and I had taken my place again, she said, “Okay ladies, let’s get started. First year orientation, over here. The rest of you, over there. You’re already warmed up so I’ll join you in a moment. Tracy, Robin, Sasha, you’re with me.”
“Uh... Okay,” I answered, blinking. Sasha and Tracy just shrugged and followed Coach Greer, pulling me along gently in the process.
“That’s what happens when you try too hard,” Sasha whispered playfully. “You show initiative, and you show you know what you’re doing, and you’re rewarded for it.” She winked.
Tracy giggled. “Don’t scare her Sasha. She probably just wants us to demonstrate a stunt.”
After class, I desperately needed a shower. I had never showered with anyone before, and while I really wanted to show my teammates that I was okay, normal, and one of them. Steam billowed from around the tile half-wall leading to the shower area, and I stood just beyond it, wrapped in nothing but a towel.
For all that I really wanted to do this for them, I was terrified. Suddenly I felt a soft hand on my shoulder. It was Claudia, the freshman Jenn and I helped out at the start of practice. She smiled up at me.
“I heard you’ve never showered with others before either?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I had a … birth defect that I was really embarrassed about, but I had it surgically removed. But now I’m terrified of going in there.” I sighed, and I could feel my cheeks burning brightly. Claudia nodded.
“I know how you feel. Everyone in my family has small breasts, and I’m practically flat-chested. I was like, so scared they were going to laugh at me.”
“Were?” I asked. She nodded.
“Yeah. Jenn told me what you’ve been through, how you spent an entire basketball season and then cheer in the Spring, showering alone. It kind of made me feel better about myself though.” She paused to frown. “Don’t... take that the wrong way. I just mean that it made my situation feel a lot less scary.”
“Unite to move forward,” I said thoughtfully.
“Wha?” she asked, blinking.
“Well, the actual proverb is...” As I struggled to remember, Jenn stepped out of the shower with her towel wrapped around her, her wet hair stuck to her back.
“Pupukahi i holomua,” she said casually. “It means that we work together to progress.”
“I like Hakuna Matata better,” Claudia giggled. “Come on, Spirit. We’ll face this together.”
Jennifer giggled. “Truthfully there’s so much steam in there, you can’t see anything anyway. You’ll be fine.”
I nodded, and glanced at Claudia. “May as well get it over with. Try it to end the panic.”
“Another proverb?” Claudia asked, following me. I paused to nod. “Yeah. Jenn’s full of them.”
“E ho'a'o no i pau kuhihewa,” Jenn replied over her shoulder as Claudia and I disappeared into the steam.
~* Momentum *~
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said as we hugged. “So I’m not going to lie; I’m way out of my element here,” I teased. Allison giggled as she led me over to where Joe and Jane were standing.
“Oh, I don’t expect you to shoot unless you want to take a gun safety class first,” she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “I just wanted you to come down so you wouldn’t worry about me going all gun crazy or anything. Actually, I was hoping to talk to you first, before I talk to Nikki and Jenn. I’m glad Jane’s here too though because I could use her input.”
It had been eight months now since she and Dad were wed. On some level it still felt strange calling my sensei “Dad”, but in other ways it felt very right. I’d come to love him as a father and as a mentor, and I knew he would take care of Mom and me, and the bundles of joy to come.
After breakfast, I sat up in my room at my piano keyboard, waiting for Katelyn. I really looked forward to getting back into my piano lessons again, and naturally when Mom called up the stairs that I had visitors, my first assumption was that Katelyn must have brought Sarah with her.
Imagine my surprise when, halfway down the stairs, on the mid-stair landing, I very nearly literally bumped into Moira and another woman. Moira grinned. “Robin, hey!” she cheered as we hugged.
“Moira! The heck are you doing here? Who’s this?”
The other woman almost cackled. “Oh come now dearie, you don’t remember me?”
“Kristen! I didn’t recognize you without the stage makeup. Can I get you something to drink?”
They glanced briefly at each other and nodded. “Sure. Nothing hard,” Moira teased. Kristen laughed.
“What she said. Tea would be lovely if you have it.”
I nodded as I walked downstairs with the pair, glancing over my shoulder. “What brings you here?” I asked, setting a kettle of water on to boil. Kristen leaned against the island bar. She stared me up and down for a moment before replying, “I was in New Haven visiting Mo.”
Moira interrupted her, “She was going stir crazy back in London so I invited her out.”
Kristen smirked. “She was working on a new song. I thought it was something Jessica wrote, and I was getting ready to yell at her for not telling me so I could start working on the riffs.”
I of course had no idea where this was all going until Moira concluded, “And that’s when I told her who the real author is.”
I could feel my cheeks burning. I shook my head. “It was just supposed to be a gift for Nikki - a poem, originally, but Heedless Despair were my inspiration. Well, that and The Raven.”
As I set out five mugs - three for myself, one for Mom, and one for Katelyn, who I expected any minute - I just had to ask. “What did you think?”
Kristen shrugged thoughtfully. “Like I said, I thought it was one of Jessica’s.”
“She really did. She came in gripin’ about how Jessica never remembers to fax her copies of new pieces.” Moira laughed again as she accepted one of the mugs. “Thank you.”
Kristen added some sugar to hers as she continued, “It’s rough sure, but so’s every song at the beginning. I wanted to ask your permission to start working on a guitar part,” she said matter-of-factly as I picked up two mugs. As if on cue, Katelyn entered the kitchen.
“Hi Moira!” she called warmly. “Who’s your friend?”
I grinned, passing one of the mugs to Katelyn as I stepped into the living room to deliver Mom her tea. She sat with her swollen ankles propped up, smiling up at me.
“Oh, thank you honey. Who was that with Moira?”
I tried hard not to giggle as strains of Katelyn’s excited squeal drifted in through the closed kitchen door..
“That’s Kristen, one of Moira’s band-mates. She plays guitar for Heedless Despair. Katelyn’s now met everyone without their stage makeup, I think. Anyway, she liked my song,” I added, practically bubbling. “They want to work on it. I think they want to use it.”
Mom smiled proudly as she took a slow sip, the steamy black swill fogging her reading glasses just a little bit. “That’s wonderful, sweetheart!”
“I’d better go make sure Katelyn didn’t faint,” I said cheerfully as I stepped back into the kitchen. Katelyn was still upright, but quite giggly.
“-met Jessica when she gave me a ride over to the UK to support Sarah in the big dance contest. Well I mean I met you guys when Nikki subbed for Moira that one time, but never got to really talk to you off-stage.”
“I’m jealous,” Kristen teased. “Mo and Jess get all the awesome adoring fans. I get the thirty somethings who can’t keep their hands to themselves.”
Moira laughed. “Well dear, that’s what you get for making your persona a succubus.”
“Oh shush you. Anyway, I was in town to get fitted for my new stage costume and figured I’d stop by with Mo. I swear, every time we stop here, I’m reminded more and more why she comes back.”
Katelyn giggled, “The nachos right?”
Kristen stared at Katelyn for a second or two, and started laughing. “Damn it. Now I want nachos.”
Moira rolled her eyes. “Hey, Kate, you play piano. What do you think? Lucia thinks the song needs an organ intro. I’m playing an old woman in the final scene, so it would give me a reason to stay stationary until I’m scared off-stage.”
Katelyn and I both looked at each other, confused, and Kristen giggled.
“Well, since it’s Robin’s song that we’re viciously usurping...” She paused to grin, and Moira laughed.
“We’re putting your song to a kind of Little Red Riding Hood theatrics. You can guess who Jessica’s playing.”
Kristen giggled even more. She looked positively giddy. “I get to be the Big Bad Wolf!”
“Wait, so Moira’s Granny? Oh that’s priceless,” Katelyn giggled. “And Robin played a little of what she had so far for me. I love where all this is going. What kind of keyboard are you using?”
“Keyboards,” Moira answered. “I’m usin’ two Rolands stacked on a stage bracket to hit a slightly different tone at the start, and then transfer to a more hollow sound as the ‘story’ progresses. Only instead of a reaper, it’ll be Kris in this amazing wolf costume. She doesn’t look at all herself.”
“We should get going though. We have to be back in London tomorrow to make final preparations for the tour. By then we’ll have your song set though. We work good under pressure like that, aye?”
“One of these days,” Kristen snickered, “We should hire another publicist. I promise not to date the next one either,” she added sheepishly as she wrapped an arm around Moira.
Moira smirked as she shook her head. “I’m just glad Jess talked Regina into being our official tour photographer. Oh that reminds me! Kate, Robin, let us know how many people you want to bring to our last concert, hey?”
“Sure!” we both answered in unison. “It’s October 30th right?”
“Sunday before Halloween, aye,” Moira answered as we hugged. I had to laugh as Kristen offered her hand.
“What, no nug?” I asked, grinning before she could answer. “Just kidding. You take care of Moira. Keep her out of trouble.”
“Oh aye, I’ll keep her on the straight and narrow if only by setting a bad example,” she shot back. They both laughed as they left, and Katelyn shook her head.
“God, girl, you get around don’t you?”
“Technically, this one’s on Nikki,” I answered. “I imagine they’re heading over to her house next.”
“Sure, sure,” she teased. “You’ve been practicing your scales like I told you - at least five minutes a day right?”
“Just before bed,” I answered, as we walked upstairs together.
“You’re working on the haunted house this afternoon right?” she asked as we sat down at my keyboard. “Sarah asked if I’d come help a bit. It sounds like fun.”
“Yeah. I’m hoping Trina makes an appearance. I’m so worried about her.”
Katelyn blinked a couple of times. “Trina? What’s going on?”
“Her relationship with Laura’s getting kind of rocky from what I heard. Trina wants to live full-time as a girl, but she’s scared to death of coming to school as Trina and making ‘official’ what we all know already. She’s much happier as a girl.”
Katelyn nodded somberly. “I can’t begin to imagine. I mean, I’m attracted to guys and girls both, but that’s kind of “tame” in today’s society. Guys especially are bad though; it seems like as soon as someone starts talking about having his parts reshaped, it’s their gut instinct to assume the guy is insane, instead of the more obvious one - that he’s not a guy.”
“Wow. That’s really insightful,” I answered, smiling at her. She shrugged lightly.
“After I accidentally found out about your past, I did some research, talked to people like Sarah’s aunt Zoey. I learned a lot. Trina’s never going to be happy until she accepts herself, and the way I see it, that’s not going to happen until she realizes that Alpine Springs, even if we are a small town, are pretty progressive, especially our school.” She paused in thought for a moment as I started working on my scales.
“For me, it was a matter of being anonymous mostly, but I also learned how to defend myself after that maniac chased Allison and me. I flipped Jason on his ass when he touched me, as a complete reflex. Believe me, if I’d been thinking about it, I wouldn’t have done it.”
Katelyn laughed a little. “Hey, you know what? Maybe all Trina needs is a little self-confidence. Robin don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re freaking beautiful, and you know it. But you also know how to defend yourself. So maybe that’s what you need to show Trina?”
“That she’s beautiful? She’s an absolute doll.”
Katelyn nodded. “She so is. But I meant maybe you should teach her to defend herself. I know she’s not all into martial arts like you and Jason are, but if she had the skills to protect herself, she wouldn’t be so afraid to be herself?”
“That’s a great idea. When I first started taking karate, I was taught a purely defensive throw. Sensei Dad said it was-”
“Wait, ‘Sensei Dad’?” she asked, barely able to keep a straight face.
“Sure. He’s my step-Dad, and my Sensei. Anyway, he taught me a throw to protect myself. Even without any training I was able to pick it up. I don’t know what discipline it’s from, but I could ask him to teach it to Trina.”
“Well, there you go,” Katelyn answered. “Just between us, I’m kind of jealous. She makes those super cute dresses look so good. With my figure I just can’t pull that stuff off.” She laughed as she produced a new piece of sheet music. “Anyway, this week I thought we’d try something a little more advanced...”
Work wasn’t scheduled to continue on the haunted house until the afternoon, but I had plans to meet with Allison down at the gun range, so after Katelyn left, I took a quick shower, made sure Mom didn’t need anything, and hopped in my car.
I’d never fired a gun in my life. It just wasn’t something that crossed my mind, but like Nikki and her Dad, it sounded like Allison and Joe had a real father-daughter bonding thing going. I hated to intrude, but Allison sounded so excited about having me there. Plus, it had to be easier than spending time with Nikki working on her car would be.
Still I had to laugh at myself, as I pulled into the parking lot. Of all my friends, I was probably the most stereotypical in terms of gender roles. I wondered as I locked the door to my convertible, if that would change in time, as I settled into accepting myself completely. This was certainly a good first step.
I didn’t know what to expect at first. I’d only seen shooting ranges on those tacky reality shows on cable, so the fact that the one here in Alpine Springs consisted of both a massive, modern-looking facility and a clearly marked outdoor range surprised me a little. The lawn was well-manicured in front, and while I couldn’t really see the outdoor facility because of the protective barriers to keep people from getting in the line of fire, I could only guess it was as well-kept.
As I stepped inside, a friendly-looking, slightly heavyset woman with light brown hair motioned me over. Behind her, a small radio piped along an upbeat classic rock song at a moderate volume. She reached over to turn off the radio, just as the DJ came across with the local news stories - something about a trial ending in New Haven soon.
“Hi there,” she said cheerfully. “Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for my friend Allison?” I asked, adding a little nervously, “She’s supposed to meet me here with her dad, Joe Jones.”
“Oh, you must be Robin,” she said warmly. “Sure, they’re on the indoor pistol range. Head down that hallway, take your first right, about ten yards down you’ll find the door clearly marked.”
As she spoke she reached under the counter, setting a pair of earplugs and heavy duty safety glasses in front of me.
“Safety first,” she added.
Smiling back at her, I picked up the safety equipment and started down the hall.
The pistol range was surprisingly quiet, save for a single pistol being fired. I put on my earplugs and safety goggles before approaching the shooter - Allison. She and Joe were standing next to a woman with blonde hair that I didn’t quite recognize until Allison stopped shooting and put down her pistol. I had to laugh. It had a really cute pink grip along the back of it, with a small breast cancer awareness ribbon etching.
“Hey Robin!” Allison cheered, and as she raced over, the woman turned her head to smile at us; it was Officer Garrett! Her hair looked different somehow - probably because it wasn’t in a French braid today.
“Hey, sorry I’m late,” I said as we hugged. “So I’m not going to lie; I’m way out of my element here,” I teased. Allison giggled as she led me over to where Joe and Jane were standing.
“Oh, I don’t expect you to shoot unless you want to take a gun safety class first,” she said, wrapping her arm around my shoulders. “I just wanted you to come down so you wouldn’t worry about me going all gun crazy or anything. Actually, I was hoping to talk to you first, before I talk to Nikki and Jenn. I’m glad Jane’s here too though because I could use her input.”
Jane seemed to have already been forewarned because she hardly moved, waiting for Allison to continue. I nodded. “Sure Ally. You know you can tell me anything. What is it?”
She looked up at Joe, and he gave her a reassuring nod. “I’m thinking about enlisting after graduation, and following in Dad’s footsteps. I still have nightmares even now. I was completely helpless the day that raggedy guy attacked us. I never want to feel that helpless again. If not for you Robin I wouldn’t even be here. That’s why I want - and I need, to do this.”
Jane lay her hand on Allison’s shoulder, but she and Joe both seemed to be waiting for me to say something. I wasn’t really sure what I should say, so I just hugged her again.
“I understand where you’re coming from. For me studying martial arts has been enough. If you’re sure this is the only way you’re going to be free, then I completely support your decision. You’re still going to college though, right?” I added. She laughed.
“Oh! God yes! There’s a Juniors day college fair every year at Yale. I’m hoping to talk to some professors and figure out what I want to study, and make sure enlisted service won’t conflict with that.”
“Well, I think it’s a great idea,” Jane answered as Allison looked up at her. “And hey, if you decide not to enlist in the armed services, I’ll write a personal endorsement for the police academy for you instead - and for your college applications.”
“Awww,” Allison giggled as she hugged Jane. “Thank you. I actually haven’t decided which branch I’d even want to join yet if I did, so becoming a cop is definitely on the table too. I just want to do something with my life where I’m protecting people: where I’m no longer helpless.”
As Joe picked up a large-looking pistol, I had to ask, “So do you have a permit... thing?” I wasn’t sure what the right word was.
Allison shook her head, but waited until Joe had emptied his clip into the approaching paper target before answering, “No, state law prohibits anyone under 21 from carrying - concealed or open - until they’re 21 unless they’re active duty. I get around it by coming here with my dad. Hey, you want to see something really cool?” she added with a broad grin. “Jane, can you break out the big gun? Pleeeease?”
Jane laughed. “The Remington? Sure. I had planned to get some time on the sniper range today anyway. C’mon. It’s in the back of my squad car.”
Sniper range? This I had to see.
Work on the haunted house had really come along well so far. It turned out that Laura, being a drama and theater “nerd” - her words, not mine - came with a keen sense of set design, and when Allison and I arrived after meeting Nicole and Jennifer for lunch, she was already talking to Marry and Kris, with a large art sketch pad in-hand. She seemed really bubbly and excited, which surprised even Nicole.
“Laura?” she asked as we approached. Laura glanced up, a broad grin crossing her lips.
“Hey guys! I was just going over some of the set designs you might want to try out, like I was thinking we could hang a mannequin in the morgue that drops down as a nice ‘boo’ scare.”
Before either of us could ask, Trina snuck up behind us and covered Nicole’s eyes with her hands. She was dressed in a pair of denim overalls with a cute “Grrl Power” t-shirt underneath, and her face was lightly made up.
“Guess who?” she said in an all-too-cheerful tone that easily rivaled Laura’s.
“Ummm, Sarah?” Nicole teased, spinning around to goose Trina’s sides before she could get away.
Trina yelped a little and laughed, hugging Nicole.
“What’s... going on?” I finally asked. Trina giggled again.
“I made a decision this week,” Trina said more seriously now. “I decided that I can’t live a lie anymore, nor should I have to. If people can’t accept me for who I am, that’s on them.”
Laura giggled. “Yeah, but tell them what changed your mind!” she insisted. Trina nodded quickly.
“Oh that’s the best part. You guys know I’ve been working at Annabell’s goth-punk boutique since the summer? Well she’s been teaching me her craft. I mean, she’s been teaching me how to sew. I put together some dress designs that she showed to a client, and they absolutely loved it.”
“Trina sold three dresses at $500 - each!” Laura concluded.
“And I figured, if I’m making that kind of money doing something I love, then what right do I have to worry about what other people think of me? Most of the kids at school don’t know who I am anyway. Trent just kinda blended into the background, so the worst I’ll get as Trina is an odd stare or two.”
“Plus you’ve got all of us in your corner,” Jenn added cheerfully, and Trina nodded again.
“I had a long talk with Mark this morning too. I’m not really at liberty to discuss what it is we talked about, but... Well, we’re a lot closer friends now. Ally, I think he’s going to want to talk to you soon.”
Allison blinked. “Um... Okay?” she answered slowly. “Not sure what ab- Oh... Valentine’s day right?” she asked.
“Yep,” Trina said. “He still feels bad about breaking up with you so close to V-day. I can only tell you that he had your best interest at heart, but I’ll let him explain it.”
“So anyway,” Laura said as she held up her sketch pad, “We need to talk set design. I’m pretty sure I can direct the girls’ creative energy to make any of these work. I just need to know which ones you guys want to use.”
As discussion turned to design, I decided to take a final look around before we started decorating and building. I felt a small chill up my spine as I rounded one corner, and I couldn’t shake the sensation of someone watching me, but when I looked back, there was no one there. Even with full power restored, this place felt very foreboding, which made it the perfect location for our needs, but it was still creepy.
I found myself in a wing of the asylum that I didn’t recognize. I thought I had been all over, but this area, though as clean as any other part, just felt unfamiliar somehow. I felt compelled somehow to stop outside one room with no windows. At the center of the room sat a rickety-looking wooden chair with worn leather straps.
“This is the dentist room,” Marry spoke up behind me, causing me to squeal and jump. She laughed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”
I shook my head as I smiled back at her. “It’s okay. This place gives me chills. Why does this look more like an execution chamber without the electrodes?”
She smiled grimly. “Patients who tried to bite staff would have their teeth pulled - usually without any anesthetic. We’re told they continued to practice that until the facility closed, but they at least learned to use nitrus eventually.”
I cringed. “God, that’s gruesome. You know we could have a lot of fun in here though. Have someone in the chair screaming with someone dressed like a dentist coming at them every time a group passes.”
Marry laughed. “I like the way you think. With some dark lighting at the right angle it would really sell the effect too. C’mon, the others are looking for your advice on how to set up the entryway.”
I noticed she gave the room a glance as we walked away, and I felt compelled to hug her. She smiled back at me.
“What was that for?” she asked, but not defensively. I shrugged.
“It seemed like the right thing to do. Just walking through these halls, I get a sense of the kind of pain you and Kris’ relatives must have gone through, and even then I can’t begin to imagine what the reality was like. What you’re doing here, turning this into a youth center after Halloween... I think it honors these people’s memories. It’s like a final ‘screw you’ to the monsters that ran this place.”
Marry laughed again, her smile brightening considerably as she returned my hug. “Like I said before, I love the way you think.”
I smiled back at her as we rejoined the others. I still wanted to offer Trina that self-defense lesson - or rather, offer to talk to my Dad for her, but for now, she seemed happy. I still wanted to get more details about when she wanted to transition, but for now I decided to leave it alone. Trina was happy, and Laura was exceptionally happy.
~* Another Extra Ordinary Day *~
“This is so cool,” Allison giggled. “I’ve always wanted to visit Disney World.”
“God, me too,” I answered. “I’m like the biggest Disney freak ever.”
“Yeah, but I love you anyway,” Nicole teased.
Sunday afternoon was our first monthly meeting since school started, and we had a great deal to talk about, not the least of which being our new members.
“I really want to get more involved,” I said as we sat around, waiting for Coach Greer. Jennifer and Allison sat on the edge of the auditorium stage, Allison lazily kicking her feet back and forth as Jennifer lay back with her hands under her head.
“I know what you mean,” Allison added. “Doing the haunted house is great and a lot of fun, but it feels like as senior scouts we could be doing a lot more.”
Suddenly a pair of hands covered my eyes, and I heard an unfamiliar giggle as Sarah whispered, “Guess who?”
“Moira,” I teased, causing her to laugh as she hugged me from behind.
“Nikki you know Trina’s sister right?”
“Sharon, hey,” Nicole answered cheerfully. “Robin you haven’t met Sharon yet have you?”
I shook my head as I offered my hand to the girl. She definitely bore a strong family resemblance, and she even seemed as outgoing and cheerful as Trina.
“Sharon just joined the Scouts last week,” Sarah continued.
“Yeah, my friend Julie talked me into it. It’s great to finally meet ‘Spirit’,” she bubbled. “By the way have you guys talked to Angela yet? She said she had a big surprise for this week’s meeting.”
We all shook our heads. “I tried to get her to spill,” Jennifer added, “But she said she had to wait until she was absolutely sure about it. It’s probably something about the Girl Scouts 100th anniversary beginning this year.”
As if on cue Angela appeared in the doorway off to our right a moment later carrying a load of papers. “Sorry girls,” she said as she came closer, “I had to make some copies. Now as most of you probably know, I’ve been organizing details on a little surprise for our girl scout field trip.”
“The ski trip last year was epic,” Tracy replied, and giggled, “Even though Nikki got her skis up a tree.”
“Ski POLE thank you very much,” Nicole teased. “Are we doing that again this year?”
Every set of eyes watched Coach Greer, waiting expectantly for an answer. She shook her head.
“No, but the place we’re going does have a surfing wave simulator,” she replied, as she began to hand out stacks of papers in transparent binder folders. Girls began to gasp, whisper, and even squeal as they saw the top page - ‘Girl Scouts of Alpine Springs Disney World Resort Guide’
“Now, before we get too excited, you’ll have to do all the fundraising yourselves. There’s not enough in the treasury to cover airfare and park expenses,” she began, and waited for the chorus of groans to die down, “However! I’ve been in contact with the people at the resort, and they’ve given me some information about special group discounts that we qualify for.”
“So when is this going to happen?” I asked. “Because this is going to cost a lot more than the ski trip did even with discounts.”
“Will we have time to raise the money?” Sarah added.
“We’ll have plenty of time. The trip’s going to be in the second week of February during winter break. You can raise the money however you’d like, but I want to go ahead and mention that a local business owner who wishes to remain anonymous, as generously donated two iPads for raffle.
“I have some permission slips ready now, if anyone wants to get their parents’ permission early. Please show these booklets to them as soon as possible as well. Any questions?”
Amanda raised her hand. “Can non-scouts come too?”
Angela shook her head. “I’m sorry sweetie, but this is officially a Girl Scout event. If you have someone you want to come on the trip they need to join by December 1st. That’s the deadline for confirmation on arrangements. If any of your parents or other adults are interested in chaperoning the trip, please have them contact me. The information is on the last page.”
“This is so cool,” Allison giggled. “I’ve always wanted to visit Disney World.”
“God, me too,” I answered. “I’m like the biggest Disney freak ever.”
“Yeah, but I love you anyway,” Nicole teased.
“So, if there are no other questions, I’m going to go ahead and let you go here in just a second. First I want to give everyone a quick update on the Haunted House project. Robin?” she asked, glancing at me. “You’re up.”
“Sure sure, pick on the girl who hates public speaking,” I teased, causing everyone to giggle as I stood.
“Okay, so as you know we’ve been breaking our backs to get the old asylum cleaned up. We’ve had a lot of outside help too, and I’m really proud of the way everyone’s come together to make this happen. Phase 1 is finished, and the place is practically like new. Construction crews are ready for Phase 2. The owners have basically given us permission to do whatever we want here.”
“Why are they letting us have so much freedom with the place?” Sharon asked. “Aren’t they planning on renovating it themselves?”
I nodded. “Well, that’s actually why we get so much freedom. They’ve decided that the easiest way to renovate it, is to just knock it down and build a brand new facility on the foundation. Our Haunted House will be the last event held in the original building, sort of a fond farewell to those that died there.”
Julie shivered. “That’s morbid. But that’s kind of the point, so... I like it!”
“One last thing,” I continued. I was actually getting a lot better with public speaking ever since I performed “The Raven” for my AP English class last year. I found that if I approached it from the perspective of a performer - just like I did with Cheer, that it became much easier to focus.
“As you guys know, October 30th Heedless Despair will be performing their final Halloween Fright Fest concert in New Haven-”
“Say no more,” Tracy interrupted with a giggle. “I’m going to that concert. I know most of the older girls here are too. The concert starts at 8pm, which means we need to be in New Haven by 7. The Double-H is going to take a lot of work to run especially with school to think about too, so I say we do it two hours a night, from 7 to 9 during the week leading up to it with alternating shifts of volunteers, four hours on Saturday - 5 to 9 with two hour shifts, and then 4 to 6 on Sunday.”
Angela nodded. “We’ll meet again to discuss who can work when, once we’ve worked out how many people we actually need. We can even alternate ‘scares’ so it’s a different experience each night, with different girls, so you can attend as a visitor and scare your friends,” Angela added. She was clearly enjoying this as much as we were.
As we left, Tracy walked up behind us and put her hands on Jennifer’s and my shoulders. “So, cheer tryouts are in two weeks. You two ready?”
“Jenn is,” I answered with a laugh. “Me, not so much.”
Tracy laughed as she patted my shoulder. “You’ll do fine. I thought about not trying out, but Chelsea talked me into it. I swear she’s about to crack though,” she added quietly.
Sarah nodded as she spoke up. “I can’t blame her honestly. I mean I’ve just got school and ballet, and scouting, and I’m stretched pretty thin. Chelsea has, what, cheer, basketball, volleyball, and AP courses?”
“Don’t forget she’s the captain of the debate team,” Nicole chimed in. “She’s dropping out of basketball completely I heard.”
I had to sigh at that. I had hoped she would stay on the team. “We’re losing her as cheer captain too. If you guys see her, just give her a friendly hug. I know she’ll appreciate it.”
“See you guys at the asylum tonight,” Tracy said. As we parted ways I looked back over at Sarah and Sharon.
“You guys need a ride? I’m staying with my sister this weekend so it’s on the way.”
Sarah smiled brightly as she shook her head. “No thank you. Sharon’s Mom is picking us up. We’ll def be at the, what did Tracy call it?” she giggled. “Double-H? This evening.”
As Allison and I sat down in my car, we waited for Jennifer, Shelly, and Nicole to get into her Mustang and pull away before we pulled into traffic to follow them. Allison glanced at me with an amused grin.
“You know it’s funny, hearing you talk about Chelsea trying to do too much.”
I had to laugh, and stuck my tongue out at her playfully before answering, “Yeah, yeah. I almost dropped cheer you know. Tracy and Laura have me really interested in theater, but I just don’t have the time to commit to it. I love playing basketball too much.”
“I know what you mean,” Ally answered. “For me basketball is like, my thing. I’m not as pretty as Jenn or as outgoing as you. I’m not good at music like Nikki, but on the court I can shine.”
“What are you talking about? You’re beautiful. I mean sure, you’re taller than me, but so is Chelsea. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re very well-proportioned.”
Ally blushed brightly as she slowly glanced back at me. “You really think so?”
“God, yes. I know you think they’re small, but you have a slender frame so they look natural on you.”
“We are talking about my feet right?” Ally teased, causing me to giggle.
“Um, sure, your feet, yeah,” I teased, pulling into the parking lot of Tony’s Pizzeria.
Admittedly I had a lot on my mind. Our cheer tryouts were coming up in just two weeks, and not only did we have to be prepared, but Coach Greer had just asked us last Friday if the current, existing squad would come to a special weekend cheer camp next week, being held at the old private school across town.
On top of that, the haunted house, and gearing up for the upcoming basketball season, I suddenly found myself extremely thankful to have friends like Ally and the girls. I truly felt blessed, as I sat down at our regular booth. Here, I could forget about things for awhile, and just enjoy being an ordinary non-overachieving teenager.
For awhile, anyway.
Author's Note:
This is a long one so bear with me. If you just want to read the story, hit "Ctrl+F" and type ~oOo~
Okay, so I know it's been WAY too long since the last time a BR chapter made its way here. Actually, it was supposed to be unpublished, but the site hiccupped at some point, republished it, and I took that as a sign towork on another chapter.
Back in February of this year, Ashly and I started it, and by April it was finished. But I was moving at the time, and then a couple of months later my dad passed away suddenly, and my whole world kind of got turned upside-down for awhile.
But as some of you might know, it was a Christmas Eve that I finally created an account on TopShelf and started blogging. That night changed my life in SO many ways. I honestly wouldn't be here today without the friends I made through this site, so it seemed fitting to finally post the next chapter of BR, my very first novel, on that anniversary :-)
I can't promise the followup chapters will be quick, but I can tell you we have a good bead on where we want the book to go. I also can't promise that the writing style will be what you remember. Ashly and I have both changed, as writers and as people, in the last seven years. But there won't be any sudden shock changes like Nikki getting pregnant, etc. I promise ♥
Happy Holidays, whatever you celebrate, and thanks for being the one home I know I can always come back to no matter how dark the world outside my door gets.
~ Zoe
School had been going pretty well all things considered. I decided to go through with switching out Anatomy and Physiology for AP Chemistry after confirming that we would indeed have to operate on an actual specimen - cats. I almost cried, actually.
But I was much happier in Chemistry even though Nikki and I weren’t assigned as lab partners. It wasn’t anything intentional, though, just random luck of the draw from the big fish bowl of names.
I had just stepped out of the locker rooms after changing into my gym shorts: I actually had the presence of mind to wear a tee shirt over my sports bra today since this was tryouts and not a practice. I stopped to tighten my purple shoe laces on my athletic sneakers, when another pair of sneakers stepped into my field of view.
I looked up, and found Rachel grinning down at me. “Hey Spirit,” she said, giggling.
“Rachel!” I squealed and leapt to my feet to hug her. “What are you doing here?”
“Surprise?” Rachel giggled again. “Natalie and I talked it over, and we’re now renting an apartment here in town. Our parents flipped of course,” she laughed, “But once we explained that we wanted to be closer to our friends here they calmed down. Dad’s even paying half rent so long as we go to college.”
“So,” I had to ask, “Are you guys...”
Rachel laughed and shook her head. “Oh God no. I like boys - no offense,” she teased.
“Hey, none taken. So I guess this means you’re trying out? Can I put your name forward for the Co-captain position?”
“No thank you,” Rachel said. “I’m all in on volunteer work, but I’ve got my hands full with a part time job and school. I’m working at this cool dojo, and Natalie got a job waitressing part time at the pizzeria.”
It was at that point that one of the freshmen approached us. “Um, sorry to interrupt but um,” she said nervously as we turned and smiled back at her. “I know this is totally last minute, but can you run through the drills with me one last time?”
“Sure thing Courtney. Hey, Rachel,” I said, turning to her, “Want to help?”
“Sure,” Rachel grinned. “What do you need me to do?”
I laughed a bit. “Just call. We’ve got another twenty minutes before tryouts start so if you can call out a move, I’ll demonstrate it, and Courtney, you try and copy it okay?”
Courtney gave us a nervous smile, but nodded.
“Don’t worry,” I said as we took our positions on the rolled out gym mats. “I was told we won’t be doing aerial stunts as part of the tryouts, to make the playing field more even.”
“Good,” Courtney sighed, “Cause I’m terrified of heights. In junior cheer we’re not allowed to do aerial stunts anyways,” she added, as Rachel began to call out dance moves and cheer maneuvers at random.
“You can always be a base or a spotter,” I said, trying to reassure her, and keep up with Rachel at the same time. As we progressed, more and more girls joined Courtney in front of me, until it started to look like I was teaching an aerobics class by the end.
Sasha came up beside me, handing me a towel. “What did I tell you about overachieving getting you called on?” she teased and giggled.
“I was just trying to help,” I answered honestly, but laughed a little too. “I still think you and Tracy are our best bets for co-captains though. You have the experience.”
“Thanks,” Sasha said. “Part of me really wants the job, but I’ve never led anyone. I can’t even get my dalmatian to sit,” she giggled out, as Tracy made a playful bark noise at her. “If I do get nominated, will you help me?”
“We all will,” Tracy said.
“Yup,” Chelsea added, grinning. “The ‘C’ is a lot of pressure, yeah, but I’ve never once felt like I was going it alone. I had Victoria to turn to for advice, but I had the support of the squad behind me, too.”
“You know,” Coach Greer said, clearing her throat, “For someone who doesn’t want the position...”
“I know, I know,” I laughed. “It wasn’t my fault. Courtney wanted to run through drills one last time.”
“And the rest of us just thought it looked like a good idea,” Jennifer giggled.
Tryouts went pretty well all things considered. There were the expected bunch who had no idea what they were getting themselves into, but Coach Greer gave them a fair chance, and no one hurt themselves - not even me. It was good for the Sunshine girls to get to see how tryouts progressed as well, though they weren’t as strict about technicals since they were largely new to the whole thing.
I was relaxing with a bottle of water, chatting quietly with some of the girls, when Elizabeth, Victoria’s mother and the woman who was now the Sunshine spirit squad’s coach, sat down with us and grinned.
“So, what do you think so far?”
I stifled a small giggle. “Well you can really tell who’s been practicing. They’re pretty rough, but so was I.”
“Yeah, but you’re like Kung Fu girl,” Chelsea elbowed me playfully. “I think they could make it to state easily though, if they put in the work.”
“I’ve been thinking,” Elizabeth said, “I’d like to bring in some professional help, sort of a cheer boot camp, once a month. Would that be something you girls would be interested in doing too? I’ve already talked to Angela about holding combined practices at my house. She loves the idea, and frankly I do too, but it’s up to you, too.”
“Oh hell yeah,” Tracy said. “We’ve been talking about that too. We didn’t want to step on your toes, or make your squad feel like we were trying to show them up or anything, but if they’re cool with it we would love to hold combined practices.”
“I love helping others,” I said before I could stop myself. Jennifer giggled.
“And I get a whole new audience to harass with my proverbs,” she said, grinning.
Julie, who was a freshman last year, let out a playful groan, causing Jenn to giggle a second time.
“Well since you like to help,” Elizabeth said, grabbing my hand. “Come on coconut, you and Tracy are up too. I want to show these girls some aerials.”
“Eep.”
Work on the haunted house had really come along nicely. We even had a couple of robotics experts building special, random jump scares for us courtesy of some connections I had made at girl scout camp. It turned out that Alice had some geeky friends in high places.
We were really going to play up the “haunted asylum” aspect, too. It was funny how much work we put into cleaning up the place, only to make it look old and abandoned again, but it was necessary for both guest safety, and our own. We not only had girl scouts volunteering now, but also the entire drama department, courtesy of Laura and Tracy, and all proceeds were going toward the Disney trip next year.
What I didn’t expect though, was just how massive our little project had gotten. When I arrived at the place, there were two rows several vehicles long of cars, trucks, SUVs, and even a pack of motorcycles parked close together at the far end. A large man, standing at least 6 feet, and dressed in a leather jacket was talking to another man in a polo shirt near the entrance. The more clean cut man had short, graying blonde hair
He turned to me as I approached. “Robin, right?” he asked, extending his hand.
“Yes?” I asked.
“Rob Wilson,” he answered, and it hit me that I was shaking the hand of the mayor of Alpine Springs himself. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
“John Walker,” the biker said cordially as he offered his hand next. “Oh,” he added with a laugh, “I’m Tracy’s uncle.”
“Oh!” I said sheepishly. “Nice to meet you,” I said as Tracy poked her head out and giggled.
“I figured, what’s scarier than a bunch of bikers?” she said as she came outside. “Uncle John’s motorcycle club is going to help us with security and some of them volunteered to actively participate in jump scares throughout the attraction.”
“Oh, that’s amazing!” I laughed now.
“We’ve got a ton of people from all over Alpine Springs volunteering,” Tracy continued. “It’s like once word started getting around, anyone with any kind of building experience wanted to help There’s even a professional contractor from New Haven here. Nobody’s fessing up who hired her though.”
Tracy grabbed my hand at that and pulled me inside. I couldn’t believe how much work had already been done. They had put up new drywall and painted it, not a true, pure black, but dark shades of red and blue in different places that, even with the overhead lights on, felt a little disorienting, and the beginnings of static decorations were laying around here and there.
What truly impressed me though, was it seemed like everything was going according to our original design plan. I had hoped to keep it sort of small and low budget so that we could focus on polishing what little we could afford, and still be able to fund our trip, but it seemed our benefactors wanted to scale it up.
Kris was standing near the dental room, watching a technician wire up some kind of sound system when Tracy and I joined him. He glanced at us, and grinned.
“So I’ve been talking with Mary,” he said. “The asylum really is pretty far off the beaten path for a youth center.”
I nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that too. A charter bus is the best I can come up with.”
“Nah,” he said. “We’ve got a better idea actually.” He winked. “You remember how you said converting this place into a haunted attraction would be the ultimate F you to the monsters that ran the place?”
I nodded, and Mary came up behind us. “Well, we decided to leave it as a lasting memorial,” she said, grinning now, too. “It’s going to be one of those year round things. We’re going to hire full time actors and everything, with a portion of proceeds going directly to the Girl Scouts.”
“Of course,” Kris added, “We’re not going to push you out either. We’re only talking hiring full time actors after Halloween. This is your baby. But we figured since we were planning to tear it down before, that you wouldn’t mind too much if we left it up instead.” He winked, and I had to laugh.
“No, that sounds great,” I said. “What about the youth center, though? If you’re not building it here-” Suddenly, a bone chilling howl of pain rang out from the sound system. Tracy and I squealed, and even Mary jumped a little. Kris, who had seen it coming, burst out laughing.
“Sorry,” the technician said, grinning sheepishly. “How does it sound though? I set it up so that the sound should carry in the immediate area, and once Melissa gets the rockwool insulation in place it should be deadened past the first turn.”
“Might be a little shrill,” Kris answered, adding, “Maybe bring it down just a few decibels, but otherwise it’s perfect.” He turned back to me again. “As for the youth center, well, we got an offer we couldn’t refuse.”
Mary spoke up at that. “Ya know that old armory building near Tony’s? Big 3 story brick building, bit of an eyesore really,” she laughed.
“Kind of like this place,” Kris laughed too. “The city’s going to tear it down. There’s going to be a city council meeting to decide what to do with the land, but the mayor and two city council members want to build a youth center there, since it’s close to Tony’s place.”
“Since teens already hang out in the area,” Mary added, “They figure it’ll be more business for Tony rather than competition if we built it way out here, too, so it’s win-win.”
Evin with all the adult volunteers - which made life much easier for us, allowing us time for crazy things like homework and cheer practice - I still did my share of heavy lifting, and I paid for it. My shoulders stung by the time I got back to Margie’s. I still had homework to do, so I headed over to Allison’s to meet up with the girls.
We were sitting at the dining room table rather than taking over the den, and Nikki had just grabbed a bottled water for me, when we seemed to both notice at the same time that Jennifer was staring blankly at a page in her AP Chem textbook. Allison leaned over and poked her. “You okay?”
Jennifer shook her head. “Just trying to figure this out. If there are four laws of thermodynamics, why do they label them zero through three?”
Nikki laughed a little. “Because it sounds smarter,” she answered, grinning. Jenn laughed now too.
“Oh,” she answered. Nikki shrugged.
“That’s probably not far off though. It’s like “new math”. Math hasn’t changed in 3,000 years or whatever, but in the last like ten years they’ve changed how to write it, made it more complicated.”
“Is that to do with the advancement of scientific fields like quantum physics?” Allison asked. ‘I mean I know quantum physics isn’t exactly new.”
“All I know about quantum physics is that Einstein hated it,” I giggled out. “I like the idea though. I mean, according to quantum physics, a particle can exist in two places at once - it can both be, and not be.”
“Schrodinger’s cat makes my head hurt,” Nikki chimed in. “I mean how can a cat be alive and dead?”
Carol surprised us when she spoke up. “It was a thought experiment meant to illustrate the problems with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.” She paused as we stared at her, and then laughed. “It’s supposed to give you a headache. He was trying to show that quantum mechanics’ rules break down when you go above the subatomic scale - or at least that’s my understanding of it.”
I nodded. “Yeah, that’s the thing. You can’t apply the rules of quantum mechanics to everything else, but you can’t apply the rules of everything else to things at the subatomic level, either. That’s what makes it so fascinating, to me anyway.”
“She’s been binge watching science documentaries on Netflix,” Nikki teased.
“When do you even find the time?” Carol asked jokingly. I couldn’t help laughing too.
“Before bed usually, I like to unwind listening to something like that while I’m doing my kata. I didn’t know you knew about quantum physics stuff though,” I added, realizing that in fact, I didn’t know much about Allison’s mom at all.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I minored in astrophysics for fun in college, but my major was Psychology. I bet you didn’t know that I write a Psychology blog either?” she asked, grinning.
“Really?” I had to ask. “Why don’t you like have your own practice?”
Carol laughed as she sat down with us now. “I’ve been waiting for one of you to ask me that question for years.”
“Now I’m curious too,” Allison giggled. “I just always took it for granted that you were a stay-at-home mom.”
Carol nodded. “Well, remember your father was a military man. Before he retired, when we still lived on the base, I actually worked as a civilian contractor. They figured that since I was already there, and had passed security clearances, they might as well hire me,” she teased. “But retired life was just too much for him so when he took the job with Bob’s advertising firm, I settled down to raise my two girls. I don’t regret it even for a moment.”
“Just another degree of separation,” Nikki laughed. “Like how Margie and Kelly know each other even though they’re from opposite ends of the country. I mean Margie having family here helps, but it’s still weird.”
Carol laughed. “Kelly just really wanted to get away from New England for awhile. Anyway, if you girls need any help with your homework, now that my little secret’s out, don’t hesitate to ask.”
“Yeah, not exactly homework,” Jenn said, “But I got a question. Why are the laws of thermodynamics labeled zeroth through third?”
Author's Note:
Dedicated in loving memory to our brother and our friend, Tim, AKA Zotz Mein, AKA Kagguh, taken from this earth far too soon and too young. We'll miss you more than words.
~ Zoe and Ashleigh
It was never, or at least never intended to be, any secret that I struggled with my spirituality for a long time, and the events leading to my becoming Robin full time made things more chaotic and confusing, not less. Moreover, the only spiritual friend I had was Jenn, whose beliefs were, let’s face it, hard to pin down at the best of times.
Sometimes she was the cool friend full of little quips that just made you smile, and other times, it was like she was someone’s really old grandmother reborn - she knew what you needed to hear before you did. Not gonna lie. She scared me a little on more than one occasion.
I was thinking about death a lot, lately, and what happens when we die. Really, I never stopped thinking about it ever since Mom’s big accident. But I had especially been reflecting on it lately. It was hard not to, knowing how many had died in the very walls we were renovating for our fundraiser haunted house thing.
Most famously, a year ago I helped organize a memorial service for a girl I didn’t know. Everyone asked me at the time, why I put so much energy into it. At the time, I told them that it was to help my fellow campers, but to be brutally honest? I was doing it for selfish reasons, and didn’t want to admit it - not even to myself. I was bracing myself.
I was going through the motions, leaning on Jenn’s traditions and spirituality and trying to cope with the fact that my mom, for all I knew, lay dying in a hospital half a world away, and there was nothing I could do about it. To others it was a memorial, giving them the chance to say goodbye to a girl who had impacted their lives more than she could ever know. For me, it was a practice funeral, and I felt horrible once I realized that. But I didn’t know who to talk to about it.
I brought it up with Dr. Ketz of course. Unlike Jenn, she really was someone’s grandmother. She was also a professional, but somehow her advice just didn’t help me like I had hoped. She told me that it was perfectly natural, that we all develop coping mechanisms when we think we’re faced with death.
That part I understood. That was science: that was brain chemistry. I got brain chemistry, believe me. When your brain and your body are at odds you spend a lot of time learning things on more reliable sites than just Wikipedia.
On some level, the fact that Mom woke up, almost to the hour after that memorial service, shook me to my core, spiritually. A Jedi, if they existed, would say there’s no coincidence, only the Force. That’s the easy answer, in science fantasy or in reality - ghosts did it. But life’s never that easy. It’s easy to ignore, which I had done for a hear and some change.
I worked my butt off, always moving, always doing something, from basketball to cheer to Kempo to volunteering, I was always moving, and no one understood why. I sure didn’t. These were the kinds of things that were increasingly distracting me lately. I didn’t think anyone else noticed. My grades were up, the construction was going by amazingly thanks to all the community outreach.
Ever since we learned that Kris and Mary, the legal owners of the old asylum and descendants of actual residents, were planning to leave our work up and pay professional actors after Halloween, to run the place year-rounds, we made the collective decision to cordon off one small area as a break room.
The younger girls like Amanda and her cousin Danielle painted the walls a pleasant, soothing dark blue color, and we brought in some lovely fake flowers that didn’t really have the desired effect. Coupled with the darkened room and the horrors that awaited on the other side, it almost felt more like a funerary meeting room.
Maybe that was just a side effect of where I was mentally, lately, but I could just picture the folding chairs all in rows for the family rather than the folding tables and padded chairs we had there now, a casket where the coffee counter with donated espresso machine stood. I was getting myself a double shot when I heard the door open behind me.
Jenn walked in, and I laughed a little. She had flecks of red paint on her face and in her hair that looked like blood. I knew it was paint because I had helped her carry two fresh cans into the “red room” an hour ago.
“I know,” she said, grinning. “I look like one of Nikki’s victims.”
“I never understood goth before,” I said. Jennifer giggled.
“You’re dating the high Queen of Darkness, and you never understood it? I’m sensing a ‘but’, though,” she added knowingly as she fired up the espresso maker.
“But I’m beginning to appreciate it,” I answered after a sip of coffee. “I think maybe I always did on some subconscious level.”
“I won’t tell Nikki,” Jenn laughed. “She’ll be measuring you for corsets.”
We sat down at the table, and a comfortable silence fell over us for a moment before Jenn said, “You know it’s weird, but with those flowers, this sort of feels like a funeral visiting room.”
While I sat and wondered how she had so perfectly read my thoughts, Nikki and Allie came in from a donut and bagel run, setting their confectionary treasures near the espresso machine. Nikki brought me a bear claw, no flecks of paint in sight, just some fake blood clinging to the underside of her fingernails.
“I can’t believe this place opens tomorrow night,” Nikki said. She looked over at Allie. “Hey is that thing stocked?” she asked, pointing to the little, diminutive refrigerator in the corner. I hadn’t even noticed it. It wasn’t a true mini fridge, at least not the little square boxes I pictured them being. It stood about 4 feet off the ground with rounded corners.
Jenn spoke up, “I threw some sodas in last night - Pepsi, Coke, Mountain Dew,” she paused to grin and then she and Allie said in unison, “Red cream soda.”
Everyone giggled, even me, as Nikki got up to grab herself one of the laatter. She cracked it open. “I never appreciated these things until I met Robin.”
“Hey,” Allie laughed, “I like them too.”
“Yes,” Nikki teased, “But you like pineapple on your pizza. There’s no accounting for taste.”
“That’s Jenn’s fault,” Allie laughed. Jenn gave her a winning smile.
“I was just telling Robin how the break room feels like a funeral parlor with those new flowers. I guess lilies weren’t the best choice.”
“Yeah,” I said laughing. “I thought it was just me. I’ve had death on my mind a lot lately.”
I suddenly wanted to sink into the floor after I said that because my friends, being my friends, immediately circled the wagons and came closer.
“I don’t mean like that,” I said and shook my head. “I mean... Well for awhile now. Ever since that first girl scout camp, almost losing Mom and everything.” I tried to shrug it off. “It’s just been in the back of my mind.”
“No, I get it,” Nikki said. “That’s kind of what drives a lot of people to go goth, or to “find religion”, for that matter - searching for answers, or for some comfort. For me it was a very real desire for a very long time, to just stop existing. It’s okay to not be okay.”
“Being honest,” I sighed, “I already talked to Dr. Ketz about a lot of this, but it’s just... It doesn’t help, you know? But I don’t think religion can help me either - no offense guys.”
“None taken.” Jenn smiled, “But you should try them out anyway. Maybe you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”
“Hey, isn’t Maryanne over in the dental room?” Nikki asked, looking at Jenn.
“Oh hey, yeah,” Jenn said. “She was greasing the hydraulics on the mannequin nurse that jumps out at you from the blind corner.”
“Who’s Maryanne?” I asked, glancing between them.
“Reverend Maryanne Sullivan,” Nikki said. “She’s the pastor at a little church near Jenn’s house.”
Jenn nodded. “She’s very down to earth. You’ll like her.”
“Yeah,” Allie spoke up at that, “She’s not the Hellfire and Brimstone type. She subbed my AP biology class a couple of times back in eighth grade, and you’d never even know she was a reverend.”
“I guess it can’t hurt to meet her,” I said hesitantly. If all three of them spoke up for her, how bad could she be? So I went to go talk to her. “Hi.” I spoke up.
“Ah you must be Robin?” a woman in her early to mid twenties asked, I had totally thought she’d have been much older. I half-nervously offered her the peace offering I had brought - an ice cold Mountain Dew from the break room fridge. “Oh, I like you already,” she laughed
I laughed a little. “Jenn’s idea,” I said as I helped her move the nurse mannequin back into position. “You’re Reverend Maryanne right?”
“Yup, and to bust the elephant in the room right now, I’m not one of those you’re going to hell type Reverends.” Maryanne giggled. “Actually you’ll more likely hear someone around here calling me The Professor,” she added jokingly. “I’ve got a Doctorate in Theology, which by the way isn’t the study of christianity mainly, but the study of all religions.”
“And a Masters in Biology,” Trina said as she walked past carrying some empty paint cans. Say what you will, but that girl had amazing hearing.
“That too,” Maryanne laughed. “So, what’s on your mind?”
“Just some questions that I’ve been thinking about, but I’m not sure if Religion can help me..” I sighed. “But I’ll try anything at this point. I’ve been... I don’t know, struggling with things for a long time now.”
Maryanne nodded, and walked over to the door’s wall taking two chairs that were leaning against it, unfolded them as she brought them back over. “Have a seat.” she smiled at me. I took the chair facing away from the creepy mannequin strapped to the dentist chair.
“It really started last summer, after my mom’s car accident left her in a coma,” I said. “I mean, I’ve had other struggles before that obviously, but I’m actually really happy with where my life is right now, with who I am. It’s the other stuff that I’m having trouble coping with now.”
“That’s always a good thing, being happy with who you are and where you’re at in your personal life.” Maryanne spoke. “I’m sorry to have just heard about your mother being in a coma, I hope she’s okay?”
“Oh, yeah,” I nodded. “She’s doing great, except for the swollen ankles,” I giggled out. “She’s expecting.”
“Well that’s a blessing.” Maryanne nodded. “Okay so what about this other stuff that’s bothering you?”
“Okay, so lately I’ve been thinking about death,” I sighed. “Like it’s been something I’ve thought about since Mom’s accident, like I said, but it’s really bugging me lately, y’know?”
“A normal thing to think about, since we humans are mortal after all.” Maryanne winked. “Even at your age it’s normal.”
“Especially in a place like this,” I said. “I talk to the owners a lot about what happened here, getting ideas for the haunted attraction. It really makes you think after a while.”
“Yeah, Mary and Kris are good people.” Maryanne nodded. “Did you know that they both attend my church regularly?”
I shook my head. “Honestly I didn’t even know my friends did until literally five minutes ago. I guess they didn’t want me to feel pressured.”
“Jennifer comes every Sunday.” Maryanne nodded. “Nichole comes every so often, but I see her more at other events. Jennifer’s told me a lot about you.”
“Everything or just a lot?” I asked her.
“Just a lot, she says there’s some things that she can’t tell me about,” Maryanne said, “Which i’m totally cool with. I know you’re dating Nikki, which I’m really happy about. She was so excited after you started dating, it was like she was a totally different, happier person.”
“But if you’re a Reverend, doesn’t the bible say, that a woman and woman and man and man shouldn’t lay together?” I asked.
“The bible says a lot of things,” Maryanne nodded. “Mark Twain famously joked that a man could follow the bible, word for word, and lie, cheat, steal, and murder with impunity. He was right, too,” she laughed. “But as a Reverend, and not a Priest, i’m allowed to interpret the word, I don’t have a pope to tell me how to do it. You see, Robin, I believe in the spirit of the teachings - love your neighbor, that sort of thing. Not just ‘love your white male red meat eating neighbor’.”
I couldn’t help laughing at the ‘love thy neighbor’ thing, which caused her to smile too. “You know how everyone depicts Jesus as a white guy on a cross?” she asked me. “Well, not only is that horribly inaccurate, they didn’t even get the cross right. Archeological evidence has shown it was more likely an X design, like something out of a bad bondage porn movie.”
That was it. I couldn’t hold it in anymore and just burst out laughing. “This is really not what I expected.” I managed to get out finally.
“You expected some 50 year old woman, who was a prude and stuck to everything the bible says?” Maryanne grinned. “I’m also a firm believer that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar,” she winked. “But I’m really not out to convert the world. Instead, I’m here to help people along. If they find comfort with my church, awesome. If not, I’m happy to help them find where they are comfortable, be that at a church, synagogue, mosque, or a truck stop in New Jersey.”
She looked over at the door and grinned again. “I see your friends waiting to see how our meeting went. Is there anything else I can help you with before they can’t stand it anymore and bust in?” she teased.
“One of the biggest things I remember about church in California, the pastor used to say that transgender people had a special place in hell.” I sighed.
Maryanne shook her head. “The reality is, I believe, that there’s a very special place in hell for those who act as a stumbling block to others in their own blind, foolish pride. Satan, as the story goes, fell because of his pride. I don’t believe that a God who sent his only son to die for our sins, who made us as his image, could hate us for being who we are. God gave us free will so that we wouldn’t have to be perfect, whether transgender, or blind, or Republican,” she teased.
“Thanks Reverend.” I said, laughing again.
“Call me Maryanne.” she said, and I gave her a hug. “If you ever have any questions, Jenn has my private cell phone number, so you can get it from her, “Also the church doors are always open.”
“There was... one other question,” I said as I stopped halfway to the door, turning around. “Trina said you have a Masters in Biology. How do you reconcile what your faith tells you, with what science tells you?”
“Science is part of religion.” Maryanne said. “I also have a masters in Earth Science.”
“Now I know why they wanted me to meet you,” I said with a laugh. “You’re an overachiever, too.”
“I spent my highschool years and my college years in books, yes.” Maryanne laughed. “I was always searching for answers to the questions my parents, my pastor, and my teachers couldn’t answer. I’m still searching, to be honest, but I’m mostly satisfied with what I’ve learned.”
“Thanks again Maryanne.” I smiled and waved turning back to my friends.
“So?” Jenn asked.
“La ti do?” Nikki added.
“So I just learned you’re not some sort of Hawaiian goddess.” I giggled.
Jenn laughed. “Nope. I just have a Hawaiian upbringing, and a religious dad,” she teased. “Hey! You’ve never met my dad have you?” she asked, as if it only just occurred to her.
“Nope.” I shook my head. “I think I’ve only meet your mom once or twice, she seems to be a lot like you though.”
Jenn nodded. “She stays pretty busy. They divorced when I was young, but they’re still good friends. Dad’s a missionary now so I only see him once or twice a year.”
“That’s got to suck. I never meet my real dad, and from what my mom says I don’t want to.” I shrugged. “I kinda do. But he was killed in an oil field accident when I was young, so.”
“Yeah,” Allie said, “I remember you talking about that once. On the bright side he had a huge life insurance policy to take care of you and Margie.”
“Yeah.” I nodded and smiled. In the end, in his own weird way, he did care a little. “Plus I have Sensei Dad now. He’s pretty cool,” I said jokingly.
“Ash is more than cool.” Allie laughed. “So, hey Robin, since we’re on the subject of religion, and I know Nikki would never ask you herself-” Nikki glared at her.
“What?” I laughed.
“You should come with us to one of our meetings.” Allie grinned.
“I wasn’t going to ask you for the same reason we never talk about Maryanne around you,” Nikki laughed. “You’ve got enough shit on your boots. I didn’t want to make it worse. But Allie’s right. If you want another perspective on religion, you’re welcome to come to the grove with us.”
“Grove?” I asked.
“It’s a meeting place, owned by the Priestess.” Allie nodded. “It’s sort of like that sweet little camping spot we use sometimes, only less prone to flooding,” she teased. “But it’s super peaceful there.”
Jenn coughed. “What they’re trying to say, and doing a terrible job at it, is Allie and Nikki are modern pagans.”
“I didn’t know that.” I looked at Allie, “I thought so about Nikki, but not you.”
“I hide it really well,” Allie giggled. “I don’t go around calling myself Lady Lizard Princess or whatever, and chanting at the moon,” she teased, playfully elbowing Nikki.
“Not all NeoPagan or Modern Pagans are goth, or dark, or evil witches, or even wiccans,” Nikki said, nodding. “There’s a huge difference between the two religions as well by the way.” Nikki said, elbowing Allie back. “Wicca was founded in 1954, where Paganism has been around since man’s been capable of higher thought.”
“It gets confusing because there’s so many pantheons,” Allie said. “We follow the Irish pantheon because we both have a little Irish blood, plus the stories are just so cool. Like there’s a dude who turns into a fish for no reason.”
“Our Priestess talks about all of them though. She’s really cool like that,” Nikki nodded. “Even throws in some other religions into our stuff. Her main goal is education and inspiration, letting us interpret it instead of telling us how to interpret it.”
“So, I gotta ask,” I said, “How do you sneak off to these meetings without me ever knowing about it? Between cheer, basketball, and school,” I laughed.
“We go on Fridays when there’s no activities.” Nikki stated. “It helps that your Kempo is on Thursdays now,” she added. “But even then we’d go when you were winding down after school.”
“Did I mention,” Jenn said, “Free refreshments?”
“Sold,” I said jokingly. “Wait, you go too?”
“Sure, but not all the time,” Jenn said. “I’m pretty comfortable in my faith, but it’s nice to worship in nature sometimes, plus I love to support these two.”
“I’m sorry we kept this from you,” Nikki said.
“No it’s okay I totally get it,” I said, “Religion is one of those subjects that can make or break friendships at the best of times.”
“Exactly,” Allie nodded. “When we first met, you were already pretty freaked out over Linda’s accident - totally understandable by the way. Then after awhile, there just... never came a good point to talk about it.”
“Okay, folks and folkets,” Mary’s voice came over the newly fully functional intercom and speaker system, “All work teams have checked in, and we are ready for a test run! Pizza to be catered by Tony’s afterwards.”