School ended at noon on a Wednesday, and I bounced out of school and into Mom’s waiting car, but to my surprise we didn’t go straight home to our little apartment. She’d told me she’d taken the day off from her job at the county administration office so we could ‘do the end of school right’, which I assumed had meant we’d go celebrate as soon as I got home and dressed.
Of course, I was still in boy clothes; part of the arrangement was that I had to go to school as Thomas but as soon as I got home, I would shower and change into my real clothes and be Mom’s daughter Hannah. Weekends and holidays, I was Hannah 24/7. I could even put on nail polish–not practical during the week–and live my life as it should be. That meant, as a girl. My entire life I’d known that I was a girl but had to play the part of a boy, and the bliss of being Hannah for a whole week at Christmas and Spring Breaks had me anxiously awaiting this afternoon, when I could become Hannah until …well, pretty much until September. And maybe beyond?
But we weren’t celebrating just yet; Mom told me we were on the way to see my doctors. I had two, Dr. Fletcher, my psychiatrist, and Dr. Carroll, the doctor that was working with her. We pulled into the clinic like always, I stopped at the lab as always and gave blood and urine as always, and then we went to Dr. Fletcher’s office and sat to wait. We were informed that Dr. Fletcher had been in a slight car accident but would be coming in but delayed; did we want to reschedule? Mom said no, we’d wait. I wanted to get out of my boy clothes, to stop being Thomas, and the waiting time gave me a chance to think.
I thought about how much I’d hated having to ‘be’ a boy, from the moment the pre-school teachers took dolls away from me and told me I had to leave the girls’ circle and go play in the boys’ circle with trucks and toy soldiers. I didn’t want to; I’d cried and been scolded and then laughed at and then scolded some more. Mom had come down and yelled at them and I never went there again.
Flash forward to the first elementary grades; the only kids I got along with were girls. Not all girls, of course, because some would say I couldn’t play because I was a boy, but others would let me skip rope with them or play house. It wasn’t that I didn’t get along with the boys in my class, it’s just that they were …well, strange. They did things and said things and acted in ways that I just didn’t get. I got girls; we thought the same way and we spoke the same language.
And, of course, it led to problems just like in pre-school. Parents talked to other parents and Mom got called in and I was basically told to play with boys or sit in the classroom. I chose to sit in the classroom. It seemed the logical, simplest thing to do but was exactly the wrong thing to do, I learned. If I’d chosen to play with the boys there was no law forcing me to do anything; I could’ve just stood around and been the quiet one. But choosing to sit in the classroom, reading, rather than play with boys put me way outside the social code. The only saving grace was a dark-haired, freckled girl, Becky, was also sitting in the room; she had some ‘anger issues’ the teacher said, but we got along fine.
One day in fourth grade, Becky and I were walking home, talking about something we’d started in the classroom, and she invited me over for snacks. Her mom was there and kind of half-nodded to me and didn’t seem to mind when Becky took me up to her room after we got some Cokes. It was the first girl’s room I’d ever seen, outside of the Penney’s catalog, and it was gorgeous! I was so jealous and started to cry and then Becky said a single sentence and my life changed.
“You know you’re a girl, don’t you?”
“Wha …what?” I sniffed.
“You’re a girl. Oh, sure, the school says you’re a boy, and I’m sure you’ve got a dick and everything …but you’re a girl.”
Hearing her so casually talk about my ‘dick’ scared me and thrilled me and shamed me all at once. “I don’t …I never thought about it …”
She shrugged. “‘Course not. Girls never stop to think ‘I’m a girl’ because they just are. Boys never look in the mirror and say, ‘Am I a boy?’ because they know that they just are. But there are certain people who …I don’t know how but I know this is true …look like one but are really the other. And that’s you.”
“Me? I …” There was a tremendous feeling of pressure, and then release. I couldn’t believe how stupid I had been, how ignorant. Or maybe it wasn’t me; maybe it was the teachers that told me I was a boy when it was obvious that I was a girl! So I simply said, “Yes …I guess I am.”
She nodded. “I knew it last year, about you. And this year even more.”
“But how did you know?”
“Um …” She actually blushed. “We gotta make a deal. I just told you something special, and if I say anything about me, well, we could hurt each other. By telling our secrets to other people, I mean. So you gotta absolutely swear to not breathe a word of what we talk about to anybody.”
“I swear,” I said with nervous excitement.
“Swear on your mother’s grave.”
“But she’s not dead?” I was totally confused.
“That’s what I mean; if you tell, she’ll die. So, swear.”
“I swear on my mother’s grave to not breathe a word of what we talk about to anybody,” I swore breathlessly.
She looked at me and then nodded. “Do you like girls?”
“Yeah, girls are great.”
“Do you like boys?”
“They’re okay.”
“But you’re not …into boys? You don’t want to …kiss one?”
“Ick! No!” I was shocked at the thought.
“Okay. But you know that when we get older, boys and girls kiss each other?”
“Well, yeah; I mean, everybody knows that like high school kids go on dates and stuff, duh!”
“Most boys like girls, and most girls like boys, right?”
“Yep.”
“Do you know what ‘gay’ means?”
“I think so …like what the guys call faggot or fairy or fruit …” I trailed off, blushing.
“They call you those things, don’t they?” Shamed, I nodded, and she did as well. “Because I’ve heard them call you that. Jerks. Those are mean words, meant to hurt. But gay just means that you’re interested in somebody of your own sex.”
“But when people talking about ‘having sex’ …” I trailed off, confused. I was so naíve!
She waved a hand. “That’s when people act on their feelings for the other person. So gay means a boy that is interested in boys the way most boys are interested in girls. It also means girls that are interested in other girls the way most girls are interested in boys. Got it?”
“I think so,” I nodded, and vague mysteries of life were clearing, as if a fog lifting. “So when the boys called me ‘gay’, they meant they were saying I was …interested in other boys the way older boys like girls.”
“You got it.”
“But I don’t! I’m not! I mean, I’m not …” I was still confused.
She waved again. “You’re not interested in anybody, you mean. Interested that way, I mean. I get it; it won’t come to you–and most of our class–for another two, three years, maybe.”
“So why would they say that about me?”
“Because you’re a girl,” she said, very matter-of-factly. “Anybody that’s not all macho and silly like them must be a girl, and to those jerks being a girl is like second class.”
“But girls are wonderful!” I said, automatically, absolutely certain of it.
She smiled. “See? Okay, I’m going to tell you the absolute truth about me, and then we’ll work on you, fair enough?”
I nodded.
Becky took a sip of her Coke. “I’m gay, I think. I already know that I’m …interested in girls and won’t be in boys. And that’s how I knew you were a girl. I could feel it. If I’m in a darkened room, I can tell if somebody is a boy or a girl, even without them saying anything. It’s just a …vibe, I guess. And you, Thomas,” she gently poked me on my thin chest. “…are a girl. You might grow up to be interested in boys like most girls, or you might grow up to be interested in girls like me. Or …you might grow up to actually get to be a girl.”
Dr. Fletcher’s waiting room came back into focus as Mom nudged me and showed that she had that motherly skill of reading my mind.
“Remember that mess with your friend Becky? What was that, fifth grade?”
“End of fourth. What about it?”
“Sometimes I wonder if things could have turned out differently, you know?” she sighed, and went back to the magazine she was reading.
“Differently how?” I asked. “You mean, without all the ugliness?”
“Just …different,” she said, not looking up from her page.
“Don’t know,” I said, and remembered …
The days after school with Becky had become a habit; we’d become friends. As outcasts, we banded together, and the …sexual differences between us and our classmates drew us together as friends. Inevitably, Becky wanted me to try wearing girls’ clothes, and of course I wanted to, as well. After that first day, her mother never seemed to be around; the few times I saw her she’d just kind of absent-mindedly wave a hand. I was tempted one time to stick out my tongue and see if she noticed, but if I guessed wrong, it could be messy.
The first time was just a top, a shimmery yellow off-the-shoulder top. Becky fluffed my hair and I sat at her vanity and we stared at the two girls in the mirror–one of whom was me. Over time, Becky had me try capris, then super low-cut jeans and a top showing my tummy, and finally …ta-dah! …a skirt. And it was bliss! My legs looked great, it sat perfectly on my hips, and she said I moved naturally in it. I never wanted to take it off, never, never, never!
But of course I had to. That was the downside. I’d have the heaven of dressing and acting like a girl–Becky was coaching me on how to move and how to speak, at first anyway, until I learned how to be ‘normal’ and that took next to no time at all!–and then the crushing misery, the pure hell, of having to take everything off, wash my face and go home dressed as a boy. I washed my face because of course we added makeup, little by little, and we did the exaggerated silly makeup of pre-teen girls and tried things in magazines, and eventually I got so I could put it on myself. But always, always …the depression when I had to put on those Thomas clothes and trudge home, fiercely wishing I had a swaying skirt instead of baggy jeans.
And it was inevitable that we’d escalate. Once we ran downstairs, giggling at something, to refill our Cokes, and ran into her mom. I froze and saw Becky’s face twist with concern, but she waved her head at me and we got our drinks quietly and retreated to her bedroom and worried and giggled about what had just happened. At no point did her mother make any comment that she knew I was a boy or a girl.
The escalation came to a head when Becky made me promise to go out for a walk with her. I was scared to death, but desperately wanted to do it. I wore a ruffled jean skirt and flip-flops, a white camisole and a short jean jacket. My hair had always been long and was almost to my shoulders; Becky had styled it with a barrette and she’d done my makeup and given me a purse. I didn’t know that her plan included a trip to the mall; after the exhilaration of walking the streets–walking with a skirt was every bit as wonderful as I’d thought it would be–I balked and refused. We had a little yelling match; I’ve got to admit that she didn’t call me chicken the way boys would. Instead, she just played on how good I looked and how much I owed her. And she finally said that the cute girl in the skirt was me, she was me–and I realized that Becky was helping me, not threatening me.
So I agreed to the mall, and trembled as we walked into Penney’s. I’d told her one store only, no food court, and no central area. Just walking the corridor to the department store was nerve-wracking, but Becky was determined that I get to spend time in a Juniors section like a normal girl. And then it was glorious! We were just two girlfriends flipping through kicky skirts and giggling and having a fantastic time–a fantastically normal time–and for that time I’m forever grateful to Becky …but it all went bad with a roll of the cosmic dice.
Coming out of the mall giggling and heading home, a car pulled up next to us. There were four boys in it, high school and younger. The driver leaned out and half-sneered, “Hey, Beck. What’s up?”
“Nothing. Beat it, douche-bag.”
I’d never heard that tone in her voice before, the disgust and …hurt?
“Oh, is that the way to speak to your dear, dear brother?” the driver cooed, to the laughter of his friends.
“Douglas, just leave us alone, okay?” Becky pleaded as we kept walking.
“This your new girl friend?” her brother said with a nasty tone. “Does she know you’re a dyke?”
His friends exploded with laughter. Becky’s cheeks were flaming red and I could tell she was fighting tears. I had an impulse to move to her and put my arm around her to comfort her, but instinct told me it would be all wrong under the circumstances.
It only delayed the ugly.
One of the guys in the car, younger, shouted out, “Hey, I know her! She’s a guy! Fourth or fifth grader! He’s a dude!” he screamed as he pointed at me.
Becky turned to me and quickly whispered, “God, I’m so sorry! Run!” and then shouted, “Leave us alone, you jerks!” and she took off in the opposite direction the car was traveling.
I ran after her and thank God the guys were slow on the uptake because they pulled over and scrambled out to chase us, but had done it so slowly that we were far ahead. I was having trouble trying to run with my toes curled to keep the flip-flops on, so I stopped for an instant and pulled them off and ran, holding them, following Becky. We took several turns and went through two backyards before she pulled over, winded. I put on my flip-flops–my feet were burning–and panted next to her.
“I …didn’t know …you had a …brother,” I wheezed.
“Half-brother. Lives with my father. I live with Mom. A real soap opera,” she gasped. “I can’t believe he’s even around …he’s such a jerk …”
“Oh, God,” I said, as I thought about the boy recognizing me. “It’ll be all over school.”
“No, you’ll be okay, I think,” Becky said, putting her hands on her hips and straightening, catching her breath. “He’s older and I don’t think he knows your name. If he confronts you, or spreads the word, just act like you don’t know what he’s talking about. I’ll tell kids about my douche-bag brother hassling me and a girl I know from Catholic school, and that’ll counteract whatever he says. You’ve just gotta play dumb, it wasn’t you, you don’t know what they’re talking about, blah-blah-blah. Just don’t ham it up.”
As it turned out, not a single person at school said anything about me wearing girls’ clothes–but that was after the feces hit the fan. By the time we got home, Douglas had already caused trouble. Becky’s mom was waiting for us and barked, “Get in here, you two!” before we even got to the door.
Meekly, we followed her into the kitchen and sat. She yelled, she cried, she made me feel absolutely terrible and wicked and dirty and the upshot was that she called my mother. We sat there under ‘house arrest’ until Mom arrived, and by the time she got there I’d been crying so hard that my makeup was ruined. Fortunately, when Becky’s mom went to the door to let Mom in, Becky grabbed a kitchen towel, wet it, and quickly wiped my face as clean as she could. It was still obvious I’d had makeup, and had been crying, though. Becky smiled sadly and straightened my hair as her mother entered, Mom in tow.
“Get away from …him,” her mother snarled. She then proceeded to tell a complete fabrication of events, supplied to her by Douglas, about how we’d been kissing in public and then approached his friends for sex.
Becky suddenly slapped the table loudly, startling her mother into silence. “That–all of that–is a complete lie! Douglas always lies and he’s lied to you again and there’s not a word of truth to it! And why,” she slapped the table for emphasis, “do you believe Douglas completely and you haven’t even asked us what really happened?”
My mom said quietly, “I think I’d like to hear what Becky has to say, if it’s alright with you?”
Becky’s mom threw up a hand. “Alright, but she’s just going to spin some outrageous lie.”
Mom, still in the quiet tone, said, “I’ll take that as advice. Becky? What happened?”
Becky told her the absolute truth, from us walking to the mall and the encounter and the run. There was this glaring hole in it, though; it was the elephant in the room. Why was I wearing her clothes? She tried to say it was a dare, she thought it’d be fun, but Mom didn’t press. She looked at me when Becky was done; I just nodded that it was true. I don’t think I could speak.
Mom said, “I’ll take my child home now, and perhaps the children …not see each other outside of school for awhile.”
“If I had my way, they wouldn’t even see each other then!” Becky’s mom sneered.
“Why?” Becky pleaded. “What did we do that was wrong? Douglas and his friends were going to hurt us, Mom; doesn’t that count for anything?”
But her mother was being incredibly mean to her; Becky and I locked eyes and communicated our goodbye. I walked to the car with Mom, my cheeks flaming at wearing a skirt in front of her, and Becky suddenly ran down to us with my clothes.
“God, I’m so sorry,” she said to my mother. “We didn’t do anything wrong, honest. She’s my best friend; I’d never hurt her! It’s not her fault that we–” She broke off, realizing she’d said ‘she’ and ‘her’ about me. Her eyes widened. “Oh, God! I didn’t mean …” She trailed off, knowing the damage was done.
Mom nodded and gently said, “Thank you, Becky. I’m sorry your mother is so upset; I hope things calm down. But now …It’s best we go home now. And we’ve got some talking to do.”
We drove off, and I watched Becky dwindle in the mirror. I never saw her again. She wasn’t in school on Monday–I was alone to dread the ‘Thomas wore a skirt’ catcalls that never came–and I found out that her mother had put her in a different school and within a month they’d moved.
And as we drove home that day, I told my mother that I was a girl.
We went through the whole process, Mom and I. I explained; she denied it. She called it a phase, a passing thing, a childhood fantasy. She’d said variations of ‘grow up’, and ‘be a man’, and then turned it on herself and said ‘this is my fault’, and ‘I should have never …’ and she would finish the sentence with everything from ‘let you play with the girls in pre-school’ to ‘take you to The Nutcracker’. It went on and on for months.
Meanwhile I had no outlet; Becky was gone forever and nobody else would have anything to do with me. Kids were civil, girls mostly, but they had no interest in doing anything with me, whether it be eating lunch or being invited to birthday parties. I understood, but Mom kept coming up with ways I could ‘meet new people’. But ‘people’ weren’t the problem, I told her over and over–I was the problem; I was a girl and they could pick up on the disconnect. We had yelling matches and crying spells and accomplished nothing for most of fifth grade.
The only respite was when I went to music camp during the summer. During the year I took piano lessons once a week and was pretty good, but there was no real music curriculum at our school beyond a lousy marching band. So I practiced at home, dreaming of playing my recitals in a beautiful gown, heels, my hair up ...In the summer between fourth and fifth grade Mom found a music camp that had piano classes as well as band instruments. I went and discovered I loved it.
For two weeks I was alone with my thoughts and dreams. I wore shorts and t-shirts; the girls at the camp wore shorts and t-shirts. Occasionally they’d wear skirts, and my jealousy kicked up when I saw that. Because so many of the kids at the camp were orchestra nerds or band geeks, there wasn’t a lot of the macho horseplay there would be in a typical summer camp. I attended my classes and swam and spent my time alone, often on a hill looking at the camp’s lake, watching the girls in one- and two-piece suits, imagining what it would be like, feel like, to be one of them.
When I came home after camp the summer between fifth and sixth grades, I was so depressed that for the first time, suicide seemed an option. After all, my body was just going to turn into a boy’s, although not much of one. We were Scandinavian and I had white skin–I had to use high SPF sunscreen at camp–and big red lips that got redder in the cold. And straight, straight blond hair. That’s one of the reasons I could grow it long; once it was in a ponytail at my neck, it could go down the back of my shirt and nobody could tell if it was collar-length or went to my butt. But I’d been reading on the internet, and I knew that all-too-soon the effects of that darned Y chromosome would kick in and I’d start to look like a male. True, I was small for my age–‘small-boned’, Mom had called me once–and that worked in my favor. But to never become a girl? I was beginning to feel that Death was preferable.
Mom realized that this depression was very different from my usual moping around. She took me to a shrink–supposedly for teens–who got it right and wrong. He said I had some gender identity problems but that I’d probably grow out of it. He was of the ‘it’s a phase’ school. God bless her, Mom didn’t buy it anymore. The ‘phase’ had gone on too long and was too serious and, I think, she was beginning to realize that maybe it was not a phase but the truth. She took me to a second shrink, at the University, and after many tests, both physical fluids and psychological, said that I definitely had Gender Dysphoria but that it was beyond his specialty and referred us to another part of the University Medical Center and that’s how we met Dr. Carroll and Dr. Fletcher. He was the perfect Hollywood image of a kindly doctor; Mom said there was an old guy on TV called ‘Marcus Welby’ and said that’s what he was like. He was also world-renowned–Mom checked on the internet–and was only at the clinic for three years to get it up and running. Dr. Fletcher was a ‘well-kept woman’–Mom’s words–in her forties or fifties who was full of kindness and was also absolutely relentless at sniffing out and hunting down an untruth. I learned very quickly to trust them both and tell them absolutely everything.
The GD Clinic was in a new wing of the ‘U-Med’ Center and still smelled of new paint. We met with both doctors and their ‘teams’, a revolving door of specialists, and I was subjected to a battery of tests. My last week of August was filled with daily testing of every sort, from blood and urine and cells to Rorschach blot-types to retinal movement gadgets to psychological scenarios. Oh, and they discovered that my testicles had never descended, but heck–I could have told them that. Then we all sat down and they basically said, “Guess what? Thomas is a girl” and on one hand it was earth-shaking and on the other it was a ‘duh!’ But at least Mom knew now for certain that it wasn’t a phase, or a prank, or something she did or didn’t do. I wasn’t going to outgrow it; I was a girl with a penis. Thomas, her daughter. So we formed a plan of action, and first was my name, and that was easy. Apparently Mom had been told that I was going to be a girl at birth, and I was going to be Hannah Sorensen. So, twelve years later, I was Hannah Sorensen, in my mind always, and everywhere but school, where I would still have to be Thomas.
It was too soon to do anything about school, but our plan involved my regular visits, and following doctors’ orders, Mom would allow me to be a girl at home after school and weekends. On the day I was fully diagnosed and we were all agreed, I got a painful shot in my hip and a bottle of pills that were ‘blockers’, to keep from developing any male puberty. They were constantly testing and monitoring my fluids, as well. So every day I trudged to school as Thomas, kept to myself, and came home quickly and became Hannah.
Actually, I was Hannah all the time, but only pretended to be a boy at school. Thomas was a costume, a mask, and no more real to me than a Dracula costume would make me a vampire.
That first shopping expedition with Mom was amazing! It actually started in the doctor’s office. After pretty much everything had been said, and they handed us a thick packet of papers, Mom sat in silence, then nodded.
“Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Carroll …I think I might be different from the parents you’ve encountered. It’s just me; but I think that I won’t consider that I have a transgendered son. I think–”
Dr. Fletcher burst out, “Please, Mrs. Sorensen! There’s no doubt whatsoever that your son is transgendered!”
“We thought you understood that,” Dr. Carroll added, frowning with concern.
Mom held up a hand, smiling. “Doctors, please …yes, I fully accept your diagnosis. I fully grasp that by your definitions–by any definition!–my son is transgendered. What I’m saying is that to me, in my mind, I think it might be better to think of my child as my daughter. I can relate to her better that way. If I thought of my child as a boy becoming a girl, there would always be that odd feeling of watching him act effeminate. If I think of my child as a girl who for some silly bureaucratic reason must attend school as a boy, it will be much easier to relate to her. Much easier to deal with her femininity, and much easier to establish a mother and daughter bond.”
The doctors looked at each other, smiling. Dr. Carroll said, “I think that’s an outstanding point of view. Dr. Fletcher has postulated this very thing some time ago, right?”
“Right, at the MPAA conference last year,” Dr. Fletcher nodded. “For the very reasons you so perfectly stated, Mrs. Sorensen. I think it’s a wonderful idea.”
“Thank you, doctors,” Mom said, and I was so proud of her. Then Mom said, “So we’re concluded here? Yes? Alright, but I have one final request. Do either of you have a cloth measuring tape?”
Dr. Carroll produced one from a pocket and Mom had me stand up and measured me in several places, noting the figures. Then we thanked everybody and left. She drove us straight to Target and told me to stay in the car and read the information the doctors had given. For some reason I didn’t question it or wonder what she was up to; she just needed something and wouldn’t be long. Actually, I had finished the packet and was getting kind of worried when she came out with several bags. Then we drove home.
Mom told me to shower and come out in my bathrobe. When I did, she made a frown of distaste and wrote something down. “Now then,” she said, smiling, “let’s see what I got for you, Hannah. And leave the tags on in case we have to take things back.”
She’d laid things out on my bed. There were three-packs of lingerie! Panties in pastels, and another ‘fun-pak’ with Hello, Kitty and fruit clusters and stripes. Then two packs of camisoles, three in white and three in pastels. And a denim miniskirt! And sand-colored capris! And three tops, green, rust, and yellow. And pink flip-flops! It was all so wonderful that I collapsed on my bed and cried. She sat next to me with her arm around me and handed me tissues. I finally got it together and chose panties with clusters of cherries, a light blue cami, and the rust top–scoop-necked and cap sleeved–and the skirt. But Mom told me to try the capris first; they fit and felt wonderful, and I knew I’d love wearing them, but I really wanted to try the skirt, to which she nodded. To my joy, it fit and I stared down at my legs, remembering Becky’s skirt that I’d worn so long ago.
Then Mom brought me to the vanity in her room, sat me down and began brushing my hair. She had me stand, bend over and shake it, and then sit again while she brushed it out. I always parted it in the middle and wore the ponytail, but she parted it on the side, brushing and brushing, and then took a pretty silver barrette and clipped it. The style transformed my face. Since I didn’t look like I usually did, I could see myself with fresh new eyes, and I saw Hannah. I think that’s why Mom did it–so she could see Hannah, too–because after we stared at the girl in the mirror, she hugged me and I saw tears in her eyes. She put a silver necklace on me and then grinned.
“Piéce de resistance,” she said as she tore open a sample packet of a teen cologne and dabbed my wrists. “You can pick your own scent, of course, but this is what I liked.”
I stood and walked and, again, almost crumbled in tears. I was Hannah.
There was this moment, frozen in time, while I stared at Mom and she at me. At the same moment we let out ragged sighs and it was all I could do to stay standing.
“Hannah, you’re lovely,” Mom said, beaming.
“Thank you, Mom. I …” I drew in a breath. “It just feels so right!”
“That’s because it is right, my darling daughter,” Mom said, holding her arms out.
I rushed to her and hugged her. She stroked my hair, then kissed the top of my head, and said, “If you’re up for it, I have something difficult for you to do.”
Thinking she meant chores or something, I said, “Anything. You name it.”
“I want you to walk to the garage.”
“Walk to the …”
She nodded. “We’re going out. Doctor’s orders. So you can walk with me or alone. If we bump into somebody we know, you’ll have to be introduced as a niece and all sorts of complications can arise. If you walk alone, chances are nobody will say anything and even if they did, you could say your girlfriend was waiting in the garage. Most likely we won’t see anybody, anyway. But it’s your choice.”
“Oh, God …Um …Mom, I want to walk proudly beside you. But we do have to live here …And I do have to be Thomas at school …”
“We’ll be walking together once we’re away from here. Do you have the courage to walk proudly–but alone?”
I thought for a moment, feeling the fullness of my fear. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Yes. I didn’t have a problem years ago with Becky. I’m a girl and I’m walking to my girlfriend in the garage.” I thought about Becky, painfully and forlornly as I always did.
“Good,” Mom said, and kissed me on the top of my head again. “Off you go. Oh, here’s the spare car key.”
Clutching it, I went to the front door, looked through the peephole, and stepped outside. I walked down the corridor to the elevator–the one really scary part–and to my relief nobody was on. And nobody got on, and nobody was waiting in the garage. All that fear for nothing! I’d been so wrapped up in it that I’d completely forgotten to enjoy walking in my skirt! I opened the car and sat the way I knew that girls in skirts did; I’d dreamed of it for so long that I knew what to do. In a few minutes, Mom got in and we took off.
“Shopping time, sweetheart,” Mom said. “And I must commend you for sitting properly, knees together.”
If she’d only known how long I’d dreamed of sitting in a skirt in the car! She was in such a good mood; I hated to burst her bubble.
“Um …Mom? Can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Of course, dear. What about?” She was looking around as she negotiated a tricky intersection.
“Money. I don’t …I don’t want you spending money on me.”
“Honey, that’s what moms do, you know!” she chuckled. “But why?”
“Well, we don’t have much, and you work so hard, and the doctors have got to be costing a fortune, and I’m just so blessed that you want me as Hannah, dressed like this. I’m perfectly happy with what I’ve got. You really don’t need to spend more.”
She sighed deeply. “Hannah, I love you so much, and one of the many reasons is because you’re so thoughtful. I appreciate your concern about money, but let me tell you several things you’re not aware of. You’re a big girl now and it’s time you learned some truths, pleasant and unpleasant.”
I giggled. “I love that! You’re so casual about saying things like ‘you’re a big girl now’.”
“It’s like I told the doctors; it’s best if I consider you my daughter and not my transgendered son. It’s so much easier just to speak with you that way.”
“I understand. It’s just that it’s so wonderful to hear it.”
“I understand that, too, honey. Okay, about money …” She trailed off as she entered the freeway. Once she was up to speed, she began again. “Divorce is awful for everybody. There are lots of reasons why people get divorced. For now, it’s important for you to know that your father and I got married for the wrong reason but you were born for the right reason. We didn’t have to get married, if that’s what you’re thinking. You were very much wanted–you need to know that–and also that you had absolutely nothing to do with why we split up.”
“Thank you for that, Mom,” I said.
“If you hadn’t been born, we still would have split up, and that’s important for you to remember. But the split was …ugly. And there were complications. To make a long story short, your father–actually, your father’s family–paid me to not contest the divorce. He couldn’t get around having to pay alimony, but it was set at a comfortable level by an understanding judge. Your grandparents have more money than manners …or love,” she added softly, “and with my darling baby I needed their money. So it’s been socked away, invested quite nicely.”
“I had no idea.”
“I know. I’m not proud of who I was then, and I’ve tried to make amends. That’s how I got into working for the county. Do you actually know what I do there now?”
“Just …work in the administration office. I mean, I visited you last year on that school trip.”
“That was two years ago, honey. Yes, I work there, but I’m an administrator–a suit–and have a whole wing working under me. I’m paid quite well due to some strikes that occurred before I started. So the whole point is that we are doing pretty darned good, financially.”
“Why do we …well, our apartment is kind of dinky; why didn’t you buy a house? Isn’t that supposed to be a good investment?”
“Ordinarily, yes. But this particular area has very good schools, it’s close to my office, and …well, I got lazy, I guess. It was only supposed to be an interim apartment for me and my infant. Then my toddler, then my pre-schooler, and now that you’re growing I have to admit that, yes, it is kind of dinky.”
“Don’t get me wrong, Mom. I love the place; I grew up there. But I was just thinking about you. I know you wish you had a garden, for instance.”
“I’ve got my containers on the patio; that’s enough to keep me busy. But,” she tapped my knee, “the important thing is for you to not worry about money, okay?”
“Okay.”
“That didn’t sound convincing, so look at this way. And bear with me for the names I use and how I …phrase things. Alright; Thomas cost very little, as children go. He didn’t have any outside interests other than piano, so it was the cost of a spinet piano–I really do wish we had a bigger place so I could get you a grand!–and lessons. Oh, and twice at music camp.”
“That sounds like a lot.”
“Are you kidding? I hear other mothers talk at work. Three hundred bucks for soccer team stuff, five or six hundred for baseball–did you know some bats cost two hundred dollars?–and football! Several moms have spent over a thousand dollars on football equipment.”
“I had no idea. Maybe swimming is best; a Speedo and you’re good to go!”
Mom laughed. “Yes, but if you’re on a team, there are dues and fees and matching sweats and bags and all that adds up. And daughters, besides keeping them in clothes; my God the costs add up! Horseback riding lessons, ballet lessons, cotillion lessons, and on and on. Not that we’re in a debutante’s tax bracket! But being a boy for twelve years who only played piano, Thomas cost–believe me–very little. And he never ate much!”
I had to laugh at that; it had always been a thing between us. “But now …”
“So we’re playing a little catch-up on girl expenses, so what? And besides getting you what you need, there’s something you haven’t considered–how much fun it will be for me to have a daughter!”
I grinned all the way to the mall. But not our mall; while we were talking Mom had driven about twenty miles away so nobody would know either of us, so I wouldn’t have to be nervous. She told me I was just a daughter out with her mother, remember? So the first five minutes, walking across the lot and into the mall, I was nervous, but the feeling went away very quickly and suddenly I was enjoying the swish of my skirt, the slap of my flip-flops, and my hair streaming around my shoulders, since I nearly always kept it in a ponytail.
Mom said, “I’ve got this planned; I’m not taking charge but thought about the most efficient way to shop. If you want to do anything different, let me know.”
“I’m in your hands, Mom. I’m just …delighted to even be here like this.”
She smiled. “We were talking about money, and one way we’ll be saving money is that since Thomas is going to school, we won’t need a couple of weeks’ worth of school clothes. Girls wouldn’t be caught dead wearing the same thing twice, if they can avoid it! But we do have to get you some necessities.”
We went to Penney’s and picked out nightgowns and chemises, robe and slippers, and Mom crossed ‘nightwear’ off her list. Then in their Juniors department, a few more skirts, capris, some shorts, three girls’ jeans, pink and gray sweat pants, and a lovely white lace semi-formal dress that Mom said was for ‘special’. Special what she didn’t specify. A trip to the car to relieve ourselves of bags and then on to shoes, and Mom warned me about male shoe clerks trying to look up my skirt. I could only giggle at that; in all my fantasies of being a girl I’d never thought of boys being interested in me! I got several varieties of flats, skimmers, what-have-you, and some white strappy sandals with a two-inch heel. I really, really wanted some black dress heels, but Mom said ‘we’ll see’. Finally, Penney’s accessories department where I got my first ever purse, a butter-soft dark brown hobo bag, and some belts. And back to the car.
We were both hungry so we went to the food court. I’d put on a pair of flats to start breaking them in and I loved how my feet looked in them. I was completely over my nerves and we had salads and smoothies and talked about what other girls were wearing. Mom said two places were left on her list. The first was Claire’s, the teen girl hang-out. Since I couldn’t wear pierced earrings–yet!–I got some magnetic ones that pinched a bit at first but were quite pretty. I couldn’t help but look at myself in every reflective surface, to Mom’s chuckle. I got bracelets and rings and necklaces and scarves and Mom declared us done at Claire’s. We’d gone nuts because in addition to their low prices, they were having a sale.
Mom hadn’t told me about the ‘second’ place; it was a swimwear boutique, where I started to get nervous again. She told me to relax; she did most of the browsing, holding up suits against me to see my coloring, and bought a blue and white flowered two-piece and a black one-piece. That’ll teach me to bring up the word ‘Speedo’!
We left the mall and to my surprise didn’t hit the highway; instead she swung back to Target. We stocked up on cosmetics, cleansing supplies like astringent and moisturizers, barrettes, hair bands, scrunchies, brushes, and mirrors. Just all the supplies for a girl to take care of herself, including deodorant, talcum powder, and so on. Whew! If we hadn’t had the talk about money before, I would have been freaking by now!
Then we went home and had a fashion show before removing tags, put everything away, and Hannah went to sleep for the first time with her face cleansed and moisturized, her hair in a sleep braid, and wearing a pretty pink satin chemise.
End of Part 1
My life fell into a routine. Monday mornings I woke up depressed, took off my nightie and showered and dressed as Thomas. I went to school and worked hard to get the best grades possible, which was an agreement with Mom. Now that I had a reason to live and a future–as Hannah–it was actually easier to focus on getting through school. I ate alone, spent time in the library, and was ignored by almost everybody. My grades improved to the A- range, and Mom was pleased almost as much as I was. And at the end of every school day I’d walk home a bit faster than I’d walked to school.
I was a ‘latch-key kid’ and always had been with a working single mother. Once inside our apartment, I would go to my room and strip, tossing ‘Thomas’ in the hamper. I always took a quick shower and then would dress as Hannah would at the end of her school day. Maybe jeans and a cami, maybe sweatpants and a tee. I’d play with my hair–over time I did everything possible with it, but favored high ponytails–and some light makeup. Mom had found a nice starter set of makeup in a carrying case, along with a similar nail care kit. I read about makeup techniques and hair styles and tried them, but for no more than an hour at a time. Once I was comfortably female again, I did my homework and any chores that Mom had left notes about.
The other central routine in my life was my piano. I had worked up from ‘the little old lady down the street’ kind of piano teacher to a really little old lady, Madame Berdichev who was Russian and strictly formal, with one exception–she did not use the traditional ruler across the back of the hands!
I absolutely loved classical music, from Scarlatti to Satie, from Chopin to Shostakovich. All of the different eras, composition styles, technical demands–and some were insanely technically demanding!–and best of all for my mother, I needed no prompting or urging to practice. I did a solid hour a day, every day, and often played longer after my self-imposed hour. The feeling of strength and ability in my fingers was amazing and just made me want to practice even more.
The one curious thing was, well, I didn’t play like a boy. Madame Berdichev wasn’t happy with my approach to Rachmaninoff. She kept trying to make me play with greater, uh, masculinity. She’d clench a fist and say, “More force, Thomas! Be manly! Be strong! Rachmaninoff should be masculine!” And, of course, Thomas wasn’t masculine, because ‘Thomas’ was Hannah, who preferred Ravel to Rachmaninoff.
On weekends I could put on nail polish; we’d agreed that I’d use none during the school week. I loved seeing my pretty polished fingers on the piano keys when I practiced and wished it could always be like that. And of course I could put Thomas completely out of my mind for two days. Occasionally we went out, to a movie or shopping, but I’d always been a homebody and didn’t mind staying home. Mom said it proved that I didn’t want to dress like a girl just to wear girl clothes and go flaunt it in public; if I was content to wear sweats at home and still be a girl, I was a girl. And I just said, ‘duh!’
Holidays were special. For Thanksgiving, Mom made reservations for us at a nice hotel restaurant, figuring that nobody we knew would be there, and she was right. I wore a black skirt of hers and a white blouse with a white sweater, and the wonderful thing was that she surprised me with the black heels that I’d liked! And then at Christmas …oh, Christmas was so amazing. She said I needed a Christmas dress, and I got a purple velvet dress–would that be velvet velvet?–with white lace at the collar and cuffs, and black stockings–real stockings with a garter belt!–and my black heels and I felt all grown up as we went to see The Nutcracker and I was in absolute heaven! And at Easter I got to wear my white lace dress and we went to a church service a distance out of town where nobody knew us. The other girls all talked with me and we giggled about some of the cute boys there.
And my breasts blossomed …
I remember the morning when I showed Mom that my nipples looked like little marbles were under them. She smiled and hugged me and we celebrated and I got My First Bra–that was the name of it–and as the months passed, mounds started forming and I couldn’t have been happier. Mom and I had a little ritual with that first bra and from them on Hannah wore a bra but Thomas wore increasingly baggy shirts. By spring I used an Ace bandage to wrap my chest; we’d experimented with a sports bra and while it flattened sufficiently, it still left the outline of a bra. If the bandage was discovered, I could always claim my ribs were cracked or something. One of the real joys in my life was coming home and releasing my little breasts from the bandage, massaging them and then sighing with happiness as I chose a bra.
My birthday came and I was suddenly a teenager–and determined to be a teenaged girl! It fell on a Friday so Mom took me out of school and when I got home I got an early birthday present–she’d gotten me out of Boys’ PE! She’d used letters from my doctors of course, and not only did I not have to spend another minute in the hell of PE, I’d have Study Hall and could finish the school year with my best grades ever!
Early the next morning I opened my presents–all for a girl!–and was in humble tears as we set off on a three-day field trip. We drove to a national park and since it was already heating up I got to hike with really short-shorts, and wear my swimsuit in the lake and we made the joint decision to hell with worrying about tan lines! For the first time, I could let the tops of my small breasts be seen and it was so right and natural and normal and for the first time I began wondering if boys noticed how I looked. Mom and I put Thomas out of mind and we had a lovely, tiring time together, living our lives as we should be, mother and daughter.
But it wasn’t all perfect. Increasingly, Hannah bled over into Thomas at school, and I’d find kids looking at me strangely because I’d answered something in class like a girl, with girlish gestures. I’d feel my hips swaying as I walked and make a conscious effort to ‘butch it up’. But inevitably the name-calling started in earnest, from whispers to murmurs of ‘fag!’ and ‘pansy’ and other things. Of course, I’d always heard those things, but now they increased. Everything escalated. Somebody started shoving notes in my locker asking me to give them a blow job, and there were threats about me ‘taking it in the rear’. Sometimes I wanted to cry from the meanness, but mostly I just tossed the notes, gritted my teeth and put it out of my mind.
Then I got beat up …Well, technically, beat down, by three boys who jumped me after school in April. They knocked my backpack off my shoulder, shoved me to the ground and hit me several times and one even began tugging my pants down around my butt. Thank God they did it in sight of an old lady watering her lawn. She didn’t freak out; she calmly put her nozzle on needle spray and hosed the boys down. I got splashed in the process but didn’t mind it–it hid my tears. The boys ran off, and the old lady was comforting me as she would comfort a girl, and then her face did a funny twisty kind of thing and she stood up and away from me. I realized she either knew I was a boy, or wasn’t sure, but it was enough to make her stop comforting and wave me off. I told Mom about it after getting her promise that she wouldn’t retaliate.
That night I lay in bed trembling at how vulnerable I’d felt, and realized it was the way all girls felt. I was learning that females had tremendous power over males, but always had the fear that the males would resort to physical violence. I’d read about it in a magazine; Mom had subscribed me to Seventeen and some other teen girl magazines. She signed me up as Hannah, while Thomas continued to receive his music magazines.
“The Post Office doesn’t care and our mail boxes are all separate and locked, so why shouldn’t Hannah establish her presence? Besides, you need to learn what’s in these magazines.”
She was right; I was learning so much and so looking forward to school letting out so I could shove Thomas in the hamper once and for all and do my nails and start my summer as Hannah.
And then school let out and Mom picked me up and we didn’t go home …
Mom and I had been sitting in Dr. Fletcher’s waiting room for quite awhile, and the receptionist took several calls from the doctor and relayed the information to us that she was on her way. Finally she bustled in, full of apologies, and Mom said we understood and just hoped she was alright. Apparently she was but her car wasn’t; it was towed and she’d taken a taxi to see us. She unlocked her office and we entered and sat.
Dr. Fletcher took a moment moving things around on her desk and setting a thick file–mine–on the center of her desk. Her intercom buzzed and the receptionist announced that Dr. Carroll would be there immediately. Mom asked her a bit more about the accident and then Dr. Carroll entered; Dr. Fletcher did a quick, ‘I’m fine, car’s totaled, thanks for asking’ and then he sat, carefully extended his long legs, laced his fingers together and chuckled.
“I can tell by your expression, Hannah, that you didn’t expect to see us today.”
“No, sir. I just thought I’d be going home, same as usual.”
“Well, if I understand correctly, school has let out …” We nodded, and he went on, “ …and so we come to two watersheds. The end of your school year, the start of summer, getting you ready for school in Fall …”
I frowned. “Isn’t that three watersheds?”
He laughed again. “I was unclear in my phrasing. Those three were all the same watershed, basically.”
“Oh, I get it,” I blushed a little. I didn’t want to sound too young. “So the first watershed is ‘School’, I guess. And the second watershed?”
“Maybe not a watershed,” Dr. Carroll said, chuckling. “Changing my metaphor; it’s my prerogative. We come to a fork in the road, so to speak. Dr. Fletcher and I have had many and lengthy discussions about you, and also involved your mother in some of them. Dr. Fletcher?” He turned to her with a smile
I glanced at Mom, who looked a little guilty as she nodded. “Just hear her out, honey.”
Dr. Fletcher was smiling, too. “Yours is a very rare case, and a wonderful learning opportunity for our clinic. We only have one other patient as young as you, but even among the older patients, nobody is as fully assimilated as a female as you.”
“Thank you. I’m just …I’m just me,” I shrugged.
“We understand that, Hannah. So we–Dr. Carroll and I, your mother, and the Board of this clinic–have proposed a change of direction for you.”
I seized up. “Oh, no! You’re not going to make me be a boy, are you?”
She laughed and held up her hands. “No, no; please don’t be worried. You see, things are complicated by you being so young, but you’ve adapted so naturally and so normally …”
“I thought we weren’t using words like ‘normal’?” I asked slyly.
She chuckled. “Got me there! I will use it advisedly in the following sentence: You are developing as a pubertal girl in the ‘normal’ category. Granted, you haven’t had–and won’t have–menses, but your breast development, though it may seem small to you, is on par with your physical frame.”
Mom said softly, “I’m not a from a big-breasted family.”
That almost made me blush, but Mom and I had grown so close we regularly talked about breasts, and she had seen mine just last night.
“So …what’s the watershed, or the fork, or the change of direction?” I asked. I suppressed a chuckle at their metaphor mixture.
“Before I go into it, we need to ask you a single question, and I’m going to videotape it.”
To my amazement she went to a corner of the room, to a small camera on a tripod that I hadn’t noticed. She turned it on, framed it, and then reentered the frame, sitting at her desk.
“Now then, we’re recording at 2:47 Wednesday June 6th. Present are myself, Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Carroll, Mrs. Sorensen and the patient Thomas Sorensen, also known as Hannah Sorensen.”
“Sounds official,” I whispered to Mom.
“It is,” she whispered back with a smile. “Shh!”
Dr. Fletcher turned to me. “Now then, do you wish to be Thomas, a boy, or Hannah, a girl?”
I cleared my throat. “That’s a difficult question to answer.”
Both doctors were surprised. “It is? How?” Dr. Fletcher said.
Dr. Carroll said, “We thought we knew what your answer would be.”
I smiled. “It’s difficult to answer because I think it’s worded wrong. Or awkwardly, maybe. I think you meant to ask me, ‘Do I want to spend the rest of my life as Thomas, a boy, or Hannah, a girl?’” Both doctors nodded. I grinned. “Then the answer would be, “I want to spend the rest of my life as Hannah, a girl, because I am Hannah, a girl.’ See? Your question, ‘do I wish to be’ could only be answered that I wish to be Hannah because I am Hannah. Does that make sense?”
The doctors looked at each other, smiled, nodded, and then laughed. Dr. Carroll said, “She really got you on that, doctor; got to watch your syntax with this one!”
Dr. Fletcher nodded and said to me, “Then it is our understanding that you wish to spend the rest of your life as a girl?”
I nodded. “Yes, as a female, absolutely,” I said firmly.
“Never going back to being a boy?”
I shook my head. “No. Never.”
Into the camera, Dr. Fletcher said, “Note that the patient Hannah Sorensen has made her wishes known, without duress and with full understanding of the concepts.” She looked at Dr. Carroll. “Anything else?”
He shook his head and then grinned. “Nope. So let’s get the show on the road!”
As she turned off and stowed the camera, Dr. Fletcher said, “Sorry about the formality. There are legal reasons for it, of course, but also because of the unique case you present. We can learn so much from you. Well, as Dr. Carroll said, show on the road and all that. What we propose to you, now that we’ve got the legal stuff out of the way, is first to begin a regimen of female hormones. Then we–”
“Wait a second, Doctor,” I said, “I’m confused. I thought I was on female hormones. My breasts are starting to bud,” I looked at Mom, who nodded in confirmation, “and my skin’s smooth and soft and I’m getting curvy.”
“Yes, we’re aware of that, Hannah,” Dr. Carroll said, “and that’s part of what makes you so special. I can see where you got the wrong idea about the hormones; simple cause and effect.”
Dr. Fletcher said, “You thought the cause–the shot you had and the pills you’ve been taking–had the effect of feminizing you.” She grinned. “But you have had no female hormones, at least from us. You haven’t by any chance been taking any other pills or supplements of any kind?”
I frowned and looked at Mom. “Nothing. I mean, none that I know of.”
Mom said, “None that I know of, either, doctor. Just your daily prescription and One-A-Day plus Iron, but you cleared those. Oh, and some aspirin for a headache she had a couple of months ago.”
“Yes, we noted that information in her file,” Dr. Fletcher said. “Hannah, we can safely say that you’ve had no female hormones added to your system.”
“So why am I developing breasts? I mean, I love them, and can’t wait for them to get bigger, but …how?”
She smiled warmly. “You’re doing it all on your own. It’s your own body that’s feminizing you. The shots and pills were not hormones, not an additive. They were androgen blockers, to inhibit androgen and testosterone production by your body. In a way, they were subtractive.”
I looked from one to the other. “You mean, you removed the male hormones and my body went to work with female hormones? I mean, that my body made for me?”
“Exactly. As we said, you are special,” Dr. Fletcher chuckled. “Oh, you’re not making medical history, there are reports of this occurring, but you’re the youngest that I’m aware of, certainly with such good results.”
Dr. Carroll said, “Actually, there is a bit of medical history being written insofar as your youth, and it’s causing us to revise our original estimates of hormonal activity, sexual orientation–”
“Identity, doctor,” Dr. Fletcher smiled as she butted in.
“Sexual orientation and sexual identity,” Dr. Carroll said. “I was getting to it!”
From their demeanor this was a long-standing routine between them. Dr. Carroll steepled his fingers. “Now that you’ve stated your desire for the lawyers, Hannah, we can begin administering female hormones. I should let you know that we’re somewhat divided about it. On the one hand we’d like to see just how far your body’s hormonal activity takes you, along the way to normal female pubertal development.”
Dr. Fletcher took it from there. “But as much as we’d like that, you aren’t a guinea pig. You are a patient and we must see to your emotional and physical health first. So we have decided to place you on a hormonal regimen.”
Dr. Carroll nodded. “A regimen of estrogen and progesterone corresponding to the levels of typical female pubertal development. In other words, to catch up to the girls in your class.”
I was excited and amazed. “Doctors, I …thank you. Oh, God, thank you!” Then a thought hit me. “But …it’ll be even more difficult for me in school next year. Up until now I’ve been kind of under the radar. Nobody noticed me; I was just an invisible boy.”
“Not so invisible, honey,” Mom said. “Remember the boys who beat you. There will be more.” Looking to the doctors she said, “Hate and ignorance and fear don’t stop as children get older.”
Dr. Fletcher nodded. “If anything, it intensifies. Your mother is right–actually, you both are–and that leads us to the second proposition to you. Dr. Carroll can perform a procedure–a safe, non-surgical procedure performed here in the office–that can give you the appearance of a typical–I don’t want to say ‘normal’, but you know what I mean–a typical thirteen-year-old girl. Anybody that looked at you naked would only see what genitalia any thirteen-year-old girl has.”
“Being female, the term should be ‘nude’, not ‘naked’,” Dr. Carroll chuckled to Dr. Fletcher, but to me he said, “You will be able to swim, shower with the other girls–”
“Slumber parties, try on clothes together, wear a bikini,” Dr. Fletcher grinned, girl-to-girl. “Basically, unless somebody got six inches underneath you and poked around, nobody will suspect you’re anything but a biological female.”
Dr. Carroll held up a finger. “There is a downside; we will have to check on things down there routinely and may re-do it.”
“Re-do it?” I asked. “You mean, if it doesn’t work or something?” I was worried now.
Dr. Carroll said, “Oh, we wouldn’t let you out of the building if it …didn’t work.” Both doctors chuckled. “What I meant is that the area would need to periodically be …released, examined, cleaned, and the procedure repeated. It’s not a down downside, more of a periodic bother. Think of it as …routine maintenance.”
“Strictly routine,” Dr. Fletcher nodded and then smiled. “But I think the psychological benefits are more than worth the bother.”
I looked at both doctors, at Mom, and back to the doctors. “Are you kidding? Can we do it?” To Mom, I said, “Please, can I do it, Mom?”
She nodded. “We’ve discussed it already, Dr. Fletcher, Dr. Carroll and I. Yes, you have my permission, and if you want to–if I understood correctly–the time is now.” She raised an eyebrow at the doctors.
“Now? Now now?” I gasped.
“Now,” Dr. Carroll said warmly. “To begin, I have a mild sedative that will reduce any anxiety during the procedure. You’ll be a bit woozy, but your mother has been briefed. Okay?” He had a little paper cup with two pills and a cup of water in the other hand.
I took the pills and the offered water and swallowed.
“You and your mother can go into the suite next door, remove your clothes, put on a paper gown, and climb up into the stirrup chair. I mean, you do all that, Hannah; gotta watch my syntax with you!” he chuckled. “Dr. Fletcher and I will join you in five minutes.”
In a daze–of happiness and not from the sedative–Mom and I went and did as he said. Stripped, gowned, and stirruped–if there is such a word–I was trembling with excitement. The doctors came in and gloved up and suddenly my brain was all soft and mushy.
“Good pills,” I managed to say.
“Thought you’d need them,” Dr. Carroll said. “Now, Hannah, we’re going to strap your knees wide, so widen them as much as you can but don’t force them, okay? When you’re about as far as you can go we’ve got padded straps so you don’t have to use your muscles.”
“Got no mussa …muscles,” I giggled.
“Hmm,” Dr. Carroll commented.
I spread my knees as directed and one at a time felt the straps wrapped and then was told I could relax. If women thought they were exposed in a stirrup chair, I thought, wait until their knees are strapped open!
Dr. Carroll’s voice cut though my mental fog. “Alright, Hannah, you’re going to feel a cold spray but just for a little bit; it’s an anesthetic. After that you should mostly just feel pressure and movement but no pain, alright? I’m starting to spray …”
“Tuh–twitched; sorry,” I mumbled.
“Not at all,” he said calmly. “Perfectly understandable. Okay, now then …”
It felt very strange to have him doing whatever he was doing, and at the same time being cut off from it all by the pills that made me mushy. I realized that my penis was being catheterized; I’d read about that and only dumbly put two and two together when it felt like the whole thing was being pushed inside me. I knew that it wasn’t and wished that it was. Then more tugging and pushing and a click-click sound and I realized it was a surgical glue gun. That made me think of those hobby glue guns and I got the giggles; Dr. Carroll had to wait a moment while I apologized and settled down before he resumed.
Suddenly I realized that he’d already finished and was talking to Dr. Fletcher and Mom. I felt ignored on the table and said ‘What about me?’ but they said to rest quietly. Okay, I thought, ceiling tiles are good, too, and tried counting them but always lost count somewhere around twelve.
I must have closed my eyes because it was like I opened them and my brain worked once again. I was still in the chair but my knees were unstrapped and a blue gown was draped over them. Dr. Fletcher noticed I was awake.
“Back with us, are you, Hannah?” she chuckled.
“Yeah. Wow. I was …well, I guess I was stoned.”
“That you were,” Dr. Carroll grinned. “Any discomfort?”
“From getting stoned? No. The thing you did?” I moved slightly, experimentally. “Don’t think so.”
“Good. We’re going to help you to sit up and get off the chair–slowly!–and freeze immediately if there is any discomfort.”
We did that and I seemed fine. Nude below the waist, but fine. Then they had me do some mild calisthenics–bending at the waist, twisting to one side and the other–and everything felt okay. I mean, it felt weird, but there was no pain or tugging. It just felt …different.
“Can I look?” I asked.
“Sure. Sit in this chair,” Dr. Fletcher said, motioning to a regular chair in the room.
She handed me a mirror after I sat and angled the mirror and then gasped–I had a vagina!
“I have a vagina!” I cried. “I mean, it looks like I have a vagina! Oh–um …labial lips, I mean.”
“Correct,” Dr. Carroll said. “I’m glad you’re aware of the distinction.”
“It looks fantastic!” I cried.
Dr. Fletcher chuckled. “And you’ve seen many vaginas to compare?”
“No,” I blushed. “I mean, I’ve seen them on the internet.” I looked at them and snorted. “Oh, come on! Of course I looked at some porn sites. But not to get aroused. You know that, Dr. Fletcher; we talked about it long ago. I studied them. I … I looked at breasts and vaginas because I wanted them.”
I was looking at myself again, and I looked up and grinned. “And mine looks pretty darned good!”
“Yes, it does, if I may say so,” Dr. Carroll said with pride. “You have good skin and your scrotal sacs were perfect. Oh, they’re not really scrotal sacs anymore; they’re what look like your labial lips.”
“And they’re beautiful, Dr. Carroll,” I said. “So, um …what do I do?”
“What do you do?” Dr. Carroll said, with some confusion. “You get dressed and go home. Let us know right away if there’s any discomfort. See you in two weeks for blood and urine. Is that what you meant?”
“Well, yeah, but …I never asked. How long is …” I giggled. “I don’t know how to refer to this, so I’ll just ask, ‘how long is my vagina good for?’”
“Ah, I know what you mean. Well, unless you take up extreme horseback riding or competitive gymnastics, you should hold together until I use solvent to …uh, take things apart, so to speak. That’s barring any problems, infections, and so on. We’ll continue our regular checkups and periodically I might ‘take things apart’, as I said, to check and clean and put everything back properly, but that’s it. Oh, if you have a growth spurt there may be some discomfort, but your growth percentile thus far …” Dr. Carroll looked at Dr. Fletcher, who nodded. “You’re probably not going to grow too much more; maybe an inch or two over the next five years.”
“If that,” Dr. Fletcher said. “And you’ll be about the height that you would have been if you’d been born a girl. We’re miracle workers, but not miracle-miracle workers; we can only work with the genetic material you brought to us. Does that make sense?”
“Yes, doctor,” I said. “You told me that same thing when we talked about breast growth.” I grinned and turned to Mom. “My breast growth!”
“Yes, honey,” Mom said, and for the first time I noticed tears in her eyes, tears of happiness.
“So I guess I should get dressed …don’t want you to think this girl’s a floozy!” I joked.
Mom got me home and we had a quiet–but very happy!–night together. The next day over breakfast she dropped a bombshell.
“Honey, I think it’s time we moved.”
“Moved?” I said, not too smart in the morning.
She nodded as she stirred her coffee. “I’m in line for another promotion and will have all new people to work with. Not a soul knows me or you,” she said, pointing her spoon at me. “So that’s why for me. For you …well, the doctors and I have been discussing it and feel that you should start school this fall as a girl–”
I almost spit out my yogurt. “Of course as a girl!” I protested.
She held up a hand, grinning. “Sorry; I phrased that wrong. But you did kind of cut my head off!”
“Sorry,” I said sheepishly.
She nodded and began again. “You should be a new girl in a new school in a new school district. Fortunately my office is centrally located; pretty much each of the larger districts could be considered close. So what I’m proposing is that we find an apartment in, well, maybe the Hoover District, farthest away from your current school. It’s like this district; four elementary schools filter into two junior highs each and into one high school. If you stayed here, you’d probably blend in with the group, but eventually somebody would remember Thomas and spread rumors.”
“God …” I thought of the consequences and shivered.
“Exactly. So we look in the Hoover District; they don’t even compete in the same Conference games as your current district.”
“Sounds good. And I …” I trailed off, realizing it was a sad thought. “And I don’t have any friends, really. Just some classmates that probably don’t even remember my name.”
“You’d be surprised what they’d remember; that’s why I think it’s important to get you out of there. And you’ll truly be the new girl, but since everyone in your class will be dumped into junior high, any shyness or awkwardness will go unnoticed. And besides,” she gave me a raised eyebrow and knowing glance, “I think that Hannah is going to have more friends than Thomas ever dreamed of!”
“God, I hope so!” I prayed fervently.
“And something else,” Mom said, pursing her lips. “This is not a deal-breaker, but just a thought I had …couple of thoughts, really. We’ll have to find a new piano teacher for you, of course.”
“Omigod; I hadn’t thought of that!” I said, open-mouthed, then giggled. “But it would be kind of fun to go to my lesson with Madame Berdichev with me wearing a dress!”
We both laughed at that, especially because the Russian-accented woman was so formal. We settled down and Mom continued her morning of surprises.
“Something else …” She paused as she sipped her coffee and put it back on the saucer. “I’m also thinking you might like to go to music camp again.”
“But I …” I frowned. “But I can’t go; Thomas went there twice!”
“I’m aware of that. Two options. One is that you go to your old camp but as Hannah and we’ll come up with a new last name just in case anybody begins to wonder.”
“But kids from all over go to that camp; there might be some kids from my new school in the Hoover District that will wonder why I have a different name.”
She shrugged. “You could always tell ‘em that I was in the middle of a divorce. So you’d be …” She grinned. “Hannah Fletcher! I just made that up, stealing your doctor’s name, of course.”
“It’s not bad, actually, and then in my new school I’m Hannah Sorensen, Daughter of Divorce!”
“Don’t be so melodramatic! But …yes,” she smiled.
“Okay, and the second option?”
“There’s a new camp being offered with more …well, different courses. Or curriculum, I guess. For one thing, they have jazz and improvisation classes in addition to the more formal classical studies.”
“Sounds great! But why do you sound hesitant?”
“Well, it’s a new camp so nobody knows how good it is, musically, or even what the living conditions are like. At least with your old camp, you’d already know the layout.”
“Good point,” I said, sucking the last of yogurt off my spoon. I rose to clear the dishes. “Can I read the materials on the new camp?”
She nodded and later I sat on the couch and studied the brochure on the camp. I sat with my legs tucked together next to me and no discomfort at all and sent yet another prayer of thanks to Dr. Carroll.
Mom and I talked it out over the next day and I decided to take the chance on the new camp. Just on the off chance that there might be somebody I knew from my old school and old music camp, we decided to stick with her suggestion and I was signed up as Hannah Fletcher, soon-to-be a Daughter of Divorce.
There was a nice added benefit to our plans for the move; the clinic’s lawyers arranged for my old school district to turn over all records to us directly. Then we would in turn hand them over to the new school district. There was less chance of somebody who knew somebody making a connection between the boy Thomas leaving and the new Hannah arriving. Once they were entered in the new district database, they’d be considered as trustworthy–Hannah Sorensen had always been a girl because her records in the system said so. It was similar to how the government operated with their Witness Protection Program.
In the meantime, before camp started, we began the serious task of finding our new home. I’d dress nicely in a skirt and top or dress and we toured neighborhood after neighborhood. Mom wanted to stick to an apartment at first but didn’t rule out a house if we found the perfect one at the perfect price. It was fun watching the demeanor of the realtors showing us around, nice mother and daughter that we were, and I idly wondered how they’d have been treating us if I was an almost-teenage boy. Well, I didn’t want to find out.
We narrowed it down to five, then three, then two, then settled on a small, older apartment complex built around a central courtyard with a very nicely landscaped pool. Balconies overlooking the pool area were festooned with hanging baskets and flowerboxes and even heading into summer it was lush and tropical and peaceful. Older also meant bigger; the apartment had 300 square feet more than the more modern buildings, and at the same price. It was easy walking to the library and park, and the junior high was only three blocks away. The high school was farther, but there was a bus stop at the end of the block that was shared by the high school and the public transit system, and the mall was only two stops away. Mom even suggested that when I was old enough to get a job at the mall I could get a monthly bus pass. The thought made me smile.
“And what would I be doing at the mall?”
“Well, at first you’re going to be hanging at the mall with your girlfriends. Then you’ll meet your boyfriend there, walk around with him. Then you’ll get a job in one of the boutiques; I’d rather you didn’t go into fast food, working at the food court like so many of your classmates will. No, I see you in a nice leather goods store, or maybe a bikini boutique …I know! A job at the music store! That would be perfect!”
“While you’re planning the next five years of my life, what about the next five weeks?” I grinned.
“See how businesslike and practical you are?” she said proudly. “Okay. We’ve finalized our new home. We don’t have much, and some of what we have I don’t want to keep. So we–”
“Like what? Sorry to interrupt, but not keep what?”
She pursed her lips. “Well, where are we going to put your vanity?”
“What vanity?” I said, bewildered.
“The vanity that every girl has, and you’re going to get, silly!”
“Oh …that vanity,” I chuckled.
“I don’t know if we could get anything for your old bureau and desk. I told you before, you were very cheap to raise, and, well, your father wasn’t really too interested in buying quality furniture to last …”
She’d trailed off, and I knew it was in part because from what I’d heard, my father hadn’t been interested in anything to last. Not furniture, not his marriage, not any relation with his child. He’d walked out on us when I was three–too young for me to feel guilty about having anything to do with their breakup–and largely disappeared from our lives, other than monthly checks from different parts of the country and impersonal Christmas and birthday gifts. Fine with me …but there were times when I wondered if he knew–or cared–that he had a daughter, and what he’d do if he knew.
So …furniture. We went to a huge warehouse discount furniture place and found a lovely set in white, a typical girl’s set with posts for the bed and a vanity and a longer bureau. They threw in a matching hat rack and tilting full-length mirror in a stand. I couldn’t wait to set up my bedroom–but I had to, because of the music camp. The scheduling called for me to leave for the two weeks and Mom said she’d handle the move to our new apartment, having my new furniture delivered directly there and assembled. After I packed for camp, everything else that I owned was boxed up and ready for the movers, a college-student outfit used by many in the county offices. The boy clothes and anything that belong to Thomas was donated to Goodwill; only Hannah’s things would be delivered to our new apartment. I felt like I was deserting Mom during the move but she said it would work out quite nicely and I could focus on my piano.
End of Part 2
As for packing for camp, I knew from experience that it was basically shorts and tees, with a sweatshirt for colder nights, maybe one pair of long pants, and a swimsuit. Translating that now into Hannah’s wardrobe, it meant mostly shorts and a couple of skirts, tees and tank tops and camis, a hoodie and sweatpants, low-cut jeans, and a swimsuit. I knew I could wear a bikini now with no fear of discovery, so one bikini and a one-piece. Lots of toiletries, which now included makeup. And my music portfolio. I was luckier than other students that played instruments and had to lug them around as well as their personal gear. Could you imagine lugging a string bass around? Or a tuba?
On the first morning of camp, Mom got me to the rec center parking lot where we’d board our buses. I wore khaki shorts, a white tee and a green Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt. I had socklets and short hiking shoes (Mom’s, actually, but they fit great!) and a canvas rolling duffel. My hair was, as usual, in a high ponytail. I looked as genuine as any other girl there, and better prepared than some of the boys. One boy actually had his belongings in a black trash bag, which ripped, of course, spilling underpants on the parking lot. With all the attention he drew, I was safe from notice.
A counselor called our names, lining us up in columns according to the cabins we’d be in. That way, we could start getting to know each other on the ride to camp. A separate truck very carefully carried our instruments. While we waited to board, I felt a tap on the shoulder.
“Hannah, right?”
I turned to see a smiling Asian girl with short, choppy black hair and thin black glasses. “Yes; Hannah Fletcher.”
“I’m Hannah, too,” she said, extending a hand. “I heard them calling out cabins. I’m Hannah Cho. Violin.”
“Piano,” I said, shaking her hand and smiling back. “So we’re cabin mates?”
“You bet. Is this your first time at camp?”
“Well, the first time to this one,” I smiled, but didn’t entirely answer the question.
“For all of us, ‘cause it’s so new,” she laughed, “But I’ve been to other camps.”
“Where?” I asked, wondering if she’d attended camps with Thomas Sorensen.
“In California. We just moved here last month, from San Jose.”
“I’ve only been to LA …you know, Disneyland,” I smiled. “But it was so long ago I don’t really remember it. San Jose’s near San Francisco, right?”
She nodded. “Great, great symphony in the city. And San Jose’s not too bad, either. And there’s a lot of jazz around. Do you play jazz?”
“Not really but I hope to learn. I mean, my teacher’s Russian and just hammers the classics over and over. She would never stand for me studying jazz.”
“Russian teachers are the strictest, I’ve heard. And, yeah, they don’t get jazz at all. And there’s a whole lot of jazz studies out there now; it can be every bit as hard as formal Russian classics.”
“I know; I looked at some jazz books at the music store and was amazed. And as cool as jazz is supposed to be, I hear it can be really tough to get the concepts.”
“Well, I heard it’s tough, too, but a lot of the top jazz players all had formal classical studies. Let’s hope the camp’s jazz teachers will take pity on a couple of classical girls!”
“That’s us,” I grinned, “the Classical Girls!”
“Classical Hannahs!” she giggled.
After a two-hour bus ride, everybody was cranky. I’d experienced one of the downsides of girlhood when we took a restroom break halfway through the drive. There was a long line of girls waiting to get into the bathroom, while the guys seemed to stroll in and out in seconds and were off playing Frisbee while we were still in line! But with the downside was the upside of chatting. Hannah said she was surprised we were both in the same cabin; at her last camp they’d tried to keep one name per cabin and would have split us up.
A girl in front of us laughed. “Yeah, well, that wouldn’t work with me. I’m Heather,” she said with a smile to us. Then nodding to other girls in the line, she said, “And she’s Heather, and she’s Heather …”
“Don’t forget the Jennifers!” one of the Heathers laughed.
“Tell me about it,” a girl–a Jennifer?–playfully grumbled. “They make us choose. One Jennifer, one Jenny, one Jen, and so on.”
“Yeah, but what are we gonna do?” a Heather shot back. “One Heather, one Heth, one …Heh?”
We were all laughing and in good spirits. But after the second hour back on the bus, the crankiness showed. Hannah had been sitting with me and whispered, “You can really tell about a person when they get this tired. Who can keep it together and who can’t?”
“Will you stop?” I playfully growled. “I’m keeping it together! I’m keeping it together!” I couldn’t keep from laughing, though, and she laughed along.
When we settled, she said, “You have any nickname?”
“Um …no. Kind of like Heather, you know? Never shortened my name. Why?”
“Well, we’ll have some confusion with two Hannahs.”
“I could drop the H. Like the way Cockneys speak? I could be Anna.”
Hannah shook her head. “Naw. Too weird.” She sighed. “I’ve got a nickname I was trying to discard but I guess I’ll have to use it.”
“If you don’t like it, don’t do it, Hannah,” I said seriously.
She smiled. “I like you already–and not just because you’ve got a great name! Okay, I’ll tell you if you promise not to laugh.”
“I promise.”
“It’s Lulu.”
“That’s a cool name!” I said, surprised. “Really! I mean it! It kind of fits, because you’re petite, and cute, and it’s got …I don’t know …it’s got a twinkle to it!”
She frowned at me for a moment and then broke out in a radiant smile. “I love you, Hannah! You don’t get the joke, but you made me feel better about the name. Okay, I’ll tell the counselors to call me Lulu.”
“Um …what joke didn’t I get?”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m Chinese but a lot of Hawaiians look like me. And California’s closest to Hawaii.”
“Um …nope. Nothing. Still don’t get–omigod! The city?”
She nodded, pretending to grind her jaw. “You got it–the kids thought I was Hawaiian and called me ‘Hannah-Lulu’!”
My hand flew to my mouth to stifle the involuntary laugh. “That’s awful! It’s almost …”
“Racist? Sort of. State-ist, maybe,” she said, thoughtfully. “But I don’t mind it now, because you said I was petite and cute.”
There was the usual chaos at the camp itself. Getting everybody sorted out and lined up and checked off was messy, but a couple of parents had driven up with forgotten items–one boy had actually forgotten his trombone!–and there were a few latecomers that had come up separately.
Finally we met our counselor and cabin boss, Becky, and assigned six to a cabin. Besides we two Hannahs, we had Lauren (viola), Roxanne (flute), Gabrielle (alto sax), and Teresa (clarinet). Or, as we introduced ourselves, Lulu and Hannah–I told Lulu to go first so we didn’t make the ‘Hannah-Lulu’ thing obvious–Lauren, Roxy, Gabby, and Terri. Only Lauren and I had names that weren’t shortened. There was the usual jockeying for bunks, with Lulu taking the one over me, and Roxy and Terri the other uppers.
Once we moved in we opened windows, but Becky led us outside once we were reasonably unpacked and said we’d walk the grounds while she went over the rules with us. It was better than sitting in the hot cabin like other groups seemed to be doing. Lulu murmured to me that we’d scored an experienced counselor.
The camp was brand new, so there was a trade off from the older camps: While things weren’t falling apart or disgustingly dirty, some things weren’t hooked up yet. But it did look as if the people who ran the camp had taken other camps into consideration. Lauren and Gabby were music-camp veterans like Lulu and me, and we agreed that a lot of the usual hassles had been avoided. And at least nobody from my cabin had been in camp with Thomas!
All the campers gathered at ‘the fire pit’, the central arena for announcements and skits and stuff. There we sat, checking each other out, while the camp bosses were introduced and general announcements made, swimming rules, medical notices and so on.
And there were groups of boys …
Terri leaned over to me. “Babes down there; check ‘em out.”
Lulu nudged me. “Dibs on whoever’s funniest.”
Gabby snorted. “Dibs on whoever’s richest!”
We laughed and they looked at me. “Dibs on whoever’s nicest.”
They groaned and Lulu playfully slapped her forehead. “God; I bet you read romance novels!”
“Cool if they’re bodice rippers,” Gabby snickered.
“Somebody’s bodice getting ripped?” Roxy contributed, and we all laughed and got a hiss from Becky, then a little grin. We all pretended to hunch our shoulders as if beaten.
Somehow, as if by magic, I was one of the girls.
Everybody seemed to get along, and it was my first chance to really observe girl society up close. There were loud girls and quiet girls, conservative girls and sexy girls. And odd combinations …for instance, Lauren would be considered a quiet, conservative girl. She smiled mildly at jokes but didn’t seem to put herself forward. She wore longer, slightly baggy plaid shorts and sometimes a t-shirt and a tank top, and always a ball cap with her thin blonde hair pulled through the back. Roxy, on the other hand, dressed sexy in skimpy tops, tight things that seemed to accentuate her bust, and tight short-shorts. She always wore makeup and jewelry and cologne. And yet, in the security of our cabin, Roxy always covered up, changing under her blanket or in the tiny bathroom–a nice change from the outdoor plumbing of other camps–and I realized that not once had any of us seen even the swell of flesh of a breast. Lauren, on the other hand, nonchalantly stripped totally nude to put on her panties and bra, and often sat on her bunk or walked around massaging her bare breasts after a day of constriction from her bra.
I fell somewhere in the middle. I didn’t flaunt my body; I watched the others–without being noticed watching–and might turn away when I put on or removed panties, but I wanted everybody to know without question that I looked every bit as female as they did, so occasionally I’d expose my breasts, like if I was talking with one of the girls and was getting dressed. No big deal. They’re just my breasts. Oh, you got ‘em, too? See? No big deal …
We all went to breakfast together in the Commissary, with set-up and cleaning on a by-cabin rotating basis. Then back to the cabins to get our instruments–or my music–and off to our ‘sessions’, as if that was a cooler name than classes. And there we all separated, depending on our schedule, like high school or college. I had a Conducting class with Gabby and Lauren, Roxy and I had Choir, and Lulu was in a Jazz Theory class with me. That was one of the specialized sessions; everyone had to take Conducting and Choir to give an appreciation of what was involved, musically. It didn’t matter if you could sing or not. The Jazz Theory session–and one that I took in Jazz Improvisation–were unique to this camp and were electives. Others, like Lauren, stayed focused on classical studies.
Lunch at the Commissary, then more sessions and done by 2:00 and, as it said on the schedule, Free Time–which prompted Lulu to mutter, ‘Gee, they usually charge for that!’. We could sign up for lessons in swimming and boating, there was archery, and a ropes course, and some other things. I mainly wanted to swim or float around; Lulu, Gabby, and Nikki, a girl from another cabin, and I made an aquatic foursome. There was this feeling of camaraderie, of belonging, that I’d never had in my life, that was intensified by the four of us, down at the shore of the lake, strutting in our bikinis.
And I could wear a bikini! Nobody had the glimmer of an idea that I wasn’t born a girl, and I wasn’t going to dispel that. I got appreciative glances from boys–usually with an elbowed nudge from Lulu–that I was unprepared for, and Lauren said a couple of the boys in a session of hers had been asking about me. I wished I could’ve returned the favor to her, but she was so meek and unassuming–if she wasn’t naked in the cabin!–that no boys asked.
There was one boy in Jazz Improv that I could tell was interested in me. His name was Michael Delaney and oh, my God could he play! After being dazzled and shamed for two days, I asked him and he said he’d been studying jazz for two years. For several reasons, I asked him for advice. First, because I wanted to try out the girl equipment, so to speak–the lowered eyes, the quiet voice, the submissive hopefulness. Worked like a charm. Secondly, because I really did like his playing …and him. And third, because I really, truly wanted to know about jazz improvisation on the piano. Across the room I got a burning look from a blonde named Heather (!) and realized I was learning something else about girlhood. Sisterhood, yeah …but if a girl’s interested in a guy and the guy’s interested in you …watch out!
And Michael did seem interested in me. I even skipped the foursome at the lake to stay in the piano room with him–and two others and an adult–and study. And we did study; this class was opening a whole new world to me and I was introduced to ‘altered’ chords. These were chords that were …well, to avoid using ‘altered’ in the definition I thought of them as reconstructed along chromatic lines. The solid classical chords that I’d learned to love and depend on now seemed stodgy and blocky. By altering the chord, you changed the fifth and ninth notes, raising or lowering them a semitone. They ‘led’ to notes within the next chord change. You could invert the chord, too, stacking the chord’s notes in different orders, and alter those as well, and it was all so overwhelming to me!
It also seemed sort of …‘loosey-goosey’, in the sense that you didn't have those dependable classical triads. You could do anything–within musical reason, of course–with the ‘tools’ of jazz. Suddenly I was hearing voices in the middle of the chords, leading to other voices, as chords flowed one into the other. And then, when actually playing the chords, feeling the chords and the notes themselves shift and take on new meanings under my fingers, new colors, new tones …
Then Michael played me something on his iPhone; part of two versions of the same tune. It was a ‘jazz standard’, he told me; the Bill Evans tune Waltz for Debby. One version was by Oscar Peterson and one by Evans himself. Michael showed me the song’s structure, and then showed me ‘lead sheets’, with just chord symbols against the melody, instead of the ‘grand staff’ notation that classical music uses, with every note transcribed. With just the chord written, you had to figure out the voicing and phrasing that seemed appropriate to you. The chords could be as simple as ‘G’ or as complex as G7â™5♯9, which you’d call ‘G-seven-flat-five-sharp-nine’. And you’d use that altered chord because you wanted the flatted-fifth or the raised-ninth to move you–to lead you–to the next chord’s notes.
A whole new world to me!
We fooled around with the song, playing from the lead sheets, and I would struggle with the chording as I told my fingers to go places they’d never been before. I had to think in terms of the melody line, chords that would harmonize and support the melody, and notes–the voices–within each chord that would not only lead to the next chord but also support and harmonize that melody. It was primarily my left hand that was struggling, that I was using to ‘comp’, to play the chord, as opposed to my right hand, which would play partial, supplemental chords, or single-note runs or fills and flourishes and grace notes with and against the melody and the chord. The left hand would deal with the unfamiliar, altered chords, and the right hand would suddenly find new avenues, new pathways between and through the notes of the basic melody, that suddenly opened up with the altered chords.
All the while, my brain feeling like it was being thrown in two or three different directions at once!
As I grew a little more used to the strange new world of jazz improvisation, Michael and I then tentatively began ‘trading eights’, as they call it when one person solos for eight bars and the other follows, comping underneath. It was so bizarre to not be following every printed note on the grand staff; it was only my own ability and musical taste that dictated what notes to play–and what notes to not play!–and only having a few chord symbols and the single melody line to work with was frightening and liberating at the same time.
Then we took a break and Michael produced actual transcriptions of Evans and Peterson’s playing! First we looked at Evans’ transcription and I was in awe of his chording. There was a classical rightness to the internal movement of his voicings, his voice-leading. Peterson’s version was dazzling with single-note virtuosity, although I wasn’t as taken with the richness of his chords. But that phenomenal left hand of his was staggering, supplying both bass notes and chords in a variation of ‘stride’ piano that didn’t feel forced or metronomic like ragtime. Then Michael suggested we improvise on it again, trying different things. Some block chords here, octave runs there, and so on. It was exhilarating, and after one section I found myself giggling as I was playing. It just felt so free!
The adult, Mr. Shipley, laughed and told us to knock it off; it was time for dinner already! I was embarrassed for some reason, and blushingly thanked Michael. He walked me part of the way to the Commissary but I had to run to my cabin to dump my music and run to the Commissary, sitting just before they began the evening announcements. I saw Michael come in at the far end and join his cabin’s table. Suddenly I could feel several pairs of eyes turn to me.
“What?” I asked.
“You and Mr. Delaney …” Lulu grinned, wiggling her eyebrows.
“We were in Improv, playing jazz …” I started, then my involuntary blush gave me away.
Lulu chuckled. “He was trading eights and you were wanting to trade more!”
My blush burned my cheeks now. “It was about the music.”
“For now,” Gabby grinned.
“He’s really nice,” Lauren said. “I’ve got him in Choir. Sings well, too, but …really nice.”
“I learned a lot,” I said, and then wished I’d kept my mouth shut, for the girls sniggered and Roxy tossed a crouton at me.
“No throwing,” Becky said automatically. Then she looked at me and winked. “And be on time.”
Days became a routine; sessions and then I’d do jazz piano with Michael for an hour and then meet my girlfriends at the lake. People stopped complaining or joking about the food; we’d chat and then head back out to our day. Nights were different, though.
The third night, Becky had us each stand up and talk about ourselves. She started and we learned that she was in pre-med, had a boyfriend named Drake that might join the National Guard, and she wanted to be a pediatrician–and wife and mother–when she was older. Oh, and she said to add what she called ‘the Culture Corner’; she announced that her favorite movie was Shrek, her favorite TV show was old reruns of Friends, and her favorite band was My Chemical Romance. Then she was open to any questions for five minutes, and sat down. So that was the pattern for each of us.
We learned about each other; Lulu told about her nickname and wanted to be a jazz violinist like Stephane Grappelli, she said. She’d already played him on her iPod for me and …wow! Lauren wanted to teach music therapy and have a big family. Roxy wanted to travel. Gabby joked that if she couldn’t win the Miss Hawaiian Tropic Bikini Contest, she’d like to cure cancer! Then she said, softly, that she really liked to paint and had hopes of becoming an artist. And Terri said she wanted to train show horses–she lived on a ranch. Clarinet and Arabians …interesting combination! Favorite movies ranged from Titanic to Breakfast at Tiffany’s; TV shows included Gossip Girl, American Idol, and The Simpsons; and bands ranged from old rock like The Rolling Stones to pop things like Jonas Brothers to ‘I don’t know any bands. I listen to classical; Mozart and Prokofiev, mostly. Oh, and Delius,’ from Lauren.
My turn was just before Terri, and I stood and had this sudden out-of-body feeling. Here I was, at last, a girl being accepted by other girls and it felt so good that I almost choked back a tear, and then used that as my starting point.
“I’ve got to confess that I really like you all.” That brought catcalls and shouts of ‘Suck-up!’ and Roxy tossed a sock. “No, really,” I laughed. “You see, I …I don’t have any friends back home. Oh, I’m not going all ‘boo-hoo-hoo for me’; it’s just that all I did was study and …keep out of the way of my parents’ divorce.”
That brought gasps and a knowing nod from Roxy and Becky. Terri reached a hand out and squeezed mine; I squeezed back and released it. The divorce line was something Mom and I had discussed and planned, but wasn’t a total lie–just several years out of date.
“Anyway, I guess I was a drudge at school and yada-yada-yada. But things have changed; I’m going to be living with my mom in a new town, and start at a new school with all new kids. I was terrified at that, but in the really short time we’ve been here, I’m finding that new people are great! I like all of you, like I said, and I think my new year is going to be the best yet. Oh, and I sort of discovered jazz, thanks to Lulu.”
“And Michael!” snickered Gabby.
I blushed.
“Questions?” Lauren asked, looking at Becky, who nodded. “Um …Hannah, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to …but have you kissed a boy?”
“Michael!” mock-whispered Gabby.
“No,” I sighed. “I haven’t …I haven’t had the opportunity. And not even Michael,” I grinned at Gabby.
“The opportunity …” Terri looked confused. “But you’ve dated, right?”
I shook my head. “No. Not even gone to a school dance. Nobody asked me.” That much was true.
That brought a chorus of sad ‘aws’ from the girls. Becky said, “Geez, Hannah, way to bum out the room! Oh, grown-up and Culture Corner!”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I think I might want to be a psychologist, learning ways to make unhappy people …happy. And my favorite movie is …well, Lulu picked two, can I?”
“No,” Lulu said matter-of-factly. “I only got to do that because it was one for each ‘Lu’!”
It took a second for the room to realize what a goof she was and they burst out laughing and Roxy aimed a pillow at Lulu’s head. Lulu winked at me and I remembered her telling me that for some reason, people don’t think Asians have a sense of humor and it took them a moment to realize how funny she was.
“Well, my name is a palindrome,” I said, loftily. “That should count!”
“Well done!” Becky laughed and clapped her hands. “Okay. Two movies.”
“Okay. I’m basing this on movies that I loved and if I switch the channel and find them on, I have to watch them all the way through.”
“Just the opposite of the Adam Sandler effect,” Terri said dryly.
All the girls groaned and agreed.
“The worst!” Roxy yelled.
“What’s up with boys and Sandler?” Gabby agreed.
“Kiss of death if a guy likes that jerk!” Terri added.
“And they all do!” Lauren rolled her eyes.
“I don’t know …” Lulu said, which brought the groans to a screeching halt.
“You …like Adam Sandler?” Roxy said, fingering another pillow.
“No,” Lulu grinned. “But they pay him like twenty-five million a picture, you know? So I sometimes study the things if they’re on to try to figure out just how stupid some guys can be.”
“Got that right!” Roxy said, releasing the pillow.
“Okay,” I seized control to end my stand-up. “Favorite movies are The Princess Bride and Rear Window.”
The first brought yelps of agreement and there was puzzlement over the second, but I could see Becky smiling and nodding.
Gabby said, “Is that the one with the guy in the wheelchair spying on his neighbors?” I nodded, and she clapped her hands. “Oh, yeah, I like that one, too! Dad was watching it and–oh, God, who’s the girl? She’s gorgeous!”
“Grace Kelly, later Princess Grace of Monaco,” Becky said. “One of the most beautiful women in the world–ever.”
“TV shows,” I said. “Well, I don’t dance, but any of the competitive dance shows. And Grey’s Anatomy.”
That brought calls of ‘McDreamy’, ‘McSteamy’, and ‘what is in the water at that hospital that makes everybody screwing all the time?’.
“And bands …Beatles–”
“Too easy. Pick another,” Lulu grinned.
“Okay. Midnight Oil.” Uncomprehending faces, but a grinning nod from Becky. I explained, “They’re Australian and all their songs are about the environment and human rights …” I shrugged. “And I’m listening to jazz pianists now, Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson and Ahmad Jamal.”
I stopped there because only Lulu had a clue who they were. I shrugged and sat down, blushing again for some reason. I got a pat on the shoulder from Gabby and Lulu snaked a hand out and pinched me while looking the other way. I felt glorious; I felt accepted; I felt I was a girl among girls.
It was as it should have been my whole life.
Aside from the occasional flesh show when we changed, there were two other new experiences. The first were the showers; we’d put on our swimsuits and use an outdoor shower to wash off before going to the pool and after leaving the pool and the lake, but we usually went from there to the girls’ showers. I was so nervous I was shaking the first time I stripped completely in front of other girls, Lulu and Terri from my cabin and three girls I didn’t know. I had this nightmare that the glue would undo and my entire male genitalia–in my nightmare, I was now hung like a horse–would plop out and the girls would shriek.
It didn’t happen.
I got naked and discovered that one of the other girls was even more embarrassed than I was and for some reason that made me feel immensely better. I lathered up and rinsed and toweled, watching out of the corner of my eye to see how the girls handled the towel around their breasts and crotch, and then I followed suit. It was the same way I did it at home, so it just reaffirmed I was doing things right–part of that socialization my doctors were always talking about. And part of my socialization was overhearing conversations among the girls.
“I swear to God, Angela, your boobs are bigger than they were a month ago!” one girl said, who obviously knew the other from before.
“That’s what’s supposed to happen, dummy!” Angela snickered.
“No, I mean it. Oh, crap; Mr. Sanders?”
That confused the hell out of me but was answered in a moment.
Angela said, “Yeah. Just my dumb-ass luck to get my period in summer camp.”
So Mr. Sanders was their code for ‘period’ …Wasn’t Mr. Sanders the sign over Winnie-the-Pooh’s house? Oh …maybe because her reaction to getting her period would be ‘oh, pooh’? The mysterious world of girls deepened.
Periods were frankly discussed and the first time I saw a girl inserting a tampon I almost ran into a locker. I had to take everything in stride and realized how important this camp was for me, to initiate me into the world of girls and prepare me to be a girl in my new school without making my ignorance obvious. In our cabin, Terri and Roxy had their periods the second week. Terri took it in stride–hardy ranch girl?–but Roxy turned into a whiny bitch for two days. At one point Becky told her to knock it off and Gabby told her she wasn’t the only girl who had bad periods; just have the good grace not to share her misery because it wouldn’t make her feel better.
I learned about pads and tampons and mishaps and the inevitable white-pants nightmare stories and logged everything into my memory for my own use later in school. One of the things that I’d discussed with Dr. Fletcher was what I’d do about my absence of a menstrual cycle; she’d told me not to worry about it because girls generally didn’t talk about it when they weren’t having their period, and took it as a natural occurrence. She did tell me that I might get ‘menstrual indicators’ as a result of my hormone regimen. Obviously, I wouldn’t bleed or cramp, but to be aware that I might get as bitchy as Gabby, or even bloat. If I did have ‘indicators’, I should note the calendar and be prepared for the same a month down the line. She also recommended that I always keep a tampon or two in my purse since all girls carried them for emergencies or to give to friends in need.
The other new experience was …boys. It was obvious that my piano sessions with Michael involved more than music making, but he’d yet to make any move. But the other girls in the cabin freely discussed crushes on boys in their sessions and Roxy and Gaby already had boys they’d meet after dinner. I didn’t know if anything was happening between them or just playful flirting, but I’d get nudged about Michael and would just smile. It seemed the best response and turned out that way, too. It made it look like we were getting romantic but I wasn’t telling.
There was a Skit Night at the campfire we had most nights after lowering the flag and Announcements. And yes, we did that silly ‘Announcements, Announcement, A-noun-ments!’ yell thing–only we did it in harmony! We decided to do a fake boy-and-girl flirting scene full of double-entendres. Becky figured we could get away with it because we were the youngest cabin there, or ‘First Years’; if anybody was embarrassed or didn’t get it, it would have been us. So as we worked on the ‘script’, some of us became boys to flirt with some of us as girls. As luck would have it, I was paired with Terri, with her as the boy! The girls-as-boys wore jeans and work shirts, greased their hair back and used eyebrow pencil to stipple on fake beards. Roxy even put a banana in her jeans but Becky said that was going too far.
The girls were supposed to dress extra-sexy; since Roxy was the only one that had actually brought sexy styles, we ripped up some t-shirts and contributed our less-than-favorite clothes to be altered for ‘the girls’–of which I was one. So I found myself wearing a lacy red bra (padded) that kept peeking from my ripped-shoulder, skimpy tummy top, and a micro-mini skirt–one of Lulu’s, with the hem cut up–low on my hips. Lauren produced some fake-tan lotion and I rubbed it all over–and I mean all over; I went into the bathroom and rubbed it in everywhere. Roxy did my makeup and sprinkled me with sparkly dust and Lauren did my hair, showing a flair for hairstyling if she ever wanted to work with hookers.
I was a sex bomb. I was a babe. I scared the hell out of myself!
Lots of pictures were taken in the cabin, with me primping and posing, one hand on hip and the other behind my head. Then we went to the campfire and I couldn’t believe the whistles and screams we got–that I got–when we entered the area. I looked around at the faces and saw something I’d never seen before–lust. Even some of the girls seemed …interested in me. It was frightening. My eyes found Michael and I couldn’t read his face; there seemed to be conflicting things going on. That made my fear amp up but there was now an element of something else that I realized was shame. I knew that this was a part I was playing, and that it would all be over in an hour, but I’d learned something about myself. I loved being a regular, normal girl more than being a sex kitten or fantasy object. Somehow I felt a bit better then, but I was still troubled by the look on Michael’s face.
Our skit was a smash, with gales of laughter and groans from lines like one of mine. I spoke in a breathy Marilyn Monroe-type voice to my ‘conductor’, a leering Terri, playing a macho stud to the hilt, and asked innocently, “Do I make your hemi-semi-demi …quaver?”
We came in second, behind one of the older kids’ breakdancing and rapping routine. Becky was thrilled; she said of all the camps she’d worked at, First Years never even came close to winning. Part of our prize was cake and ice cream at the Commissary, where we were this close to a food fight because our spirits were so high. I was laughing at something Gabby said, holding my hand over my mouth–Dr. Fletcher had already noted that I had ‘typical female responses’–and through the open door I caught a glimpse of Michael, who then vanished in the shadows. I returned to the merriment a little subdued.
Later, I was allowed a long, hot shower to get the tan stuff and glitter dust off me. I took extra long because nobody else needed the hot water. I slowly soaped my body, and as my hands slid smoothly down my breasts, I quivered and thought that I had a lot to talk about with Dr. Fletcher! I also sent another prayer of thanks to Dr. Carroll for the ‘little procedure’. I dried carefully and just threw on a t-shirt, shorts, and flip-flops, my damp hair trailing down my back. I made my way back to the cabin, but just as I entered the clearing where our cabin was, Michael stepped out of the trees. He stood with his arms straight, hands plunged into his pockets, obviously nervous.
“Hi,” I said. “You …um, startled me.”
“Sorry. I just …I wanted to tell you that you were really good tonight. I mean, your skit. You were really funny; you should have won.”
“You mean, my cabin should have won,” I said, slowly, testing.
“Yeah, your cabin, of course ….” He looked away. “But if they gave an award for Best Individual Performance, it would have been you.”
“It was a performance, you know.”
“Yeah.”
“I mean it! Michael, that wasn’t me. I mean, I didn’t even write the lines; I just had to say ‘em.”
“And you were funny. The guys in my cabin are still repeating things you said.”
“Things my character said,” I clarified.
“Um …yeah,” he said, clearly not getting it.
There was a fallen tree near our cabin; I headed toward it and sat down. Knees and ankles together, hands in my lap, head down. He joined me, sitting a distance away.
“Michael, I, um …I learned something about myself tonight,” I began.
“That you love acting? Because you were really good.”
“Thanks,” I smiled. “But, no, that wasn’t it. Um …you know Roxy–Roxanne–in my cabin?”
“Short blonde?”
“She’s not short! Okay, petite,” I grinned. “But, yeah. She wears sexy things all the time. Not as outrageous as we were for the skit, but, still …tube tops and minis and fishnets and makeup all time.”
“Oh, the orange glitter?”
I nodded. “Well, the orange came from Lauren’s tanning lotion, but, yeah, the glitter was from Roxy. Anyway, Roxy wears those things all the time and it’s just her, you know? But to me, it’s like a costume. Like Halloween. I don’t normally dress like that.”
“I like how you normally dress.”
I chuckled. “You can’t tell anything from that! It’s summer camp! Let’s see …shorts and a t-shirt, shorts and a tank top, shorts and a t-shirt …”
“You wore a skirt once. You have nice legs.”
I looked at him, puzzled. “Why is that? You see more of my legs when I wear shorts, but you compliment my legs from when I wore the skirt?”
He shrugged uncomfortably. “Don’t know. I guess it’s just a convention. But skirt, shorts, whatever …nice legs.” Then he blushed.
“Thank you,” I said, feeling my own face get warm. “Michael …” I pursed my lips and began again. “Michael, when we came into the fire pit, everybody was looking at me.”
“Well, yeah …”
“I mean …” It was my turn to shrug. “I got a dose of looking kind of like a slut. From the looks on the guys’ faces. And I didn’t like it.”
He was silent and seemed agitated.
I went on. “But you didn’t look at me like that. You looked at me like …well, sort of like I felt. That it was a slutty costume, but it wasn’t me, and I was uncomfortable in it, and you were uncomfortable watching me in it.”
He nodded and swallowed. “Yeah, kind of like that.” Then he grinned, wickedly. “But you were sexy as hell!”
I blushed. “Thank you, but …anyway, the fact that you were as uncomfortable as I was?”
“Yeah?”
I stood up and leaned over to him and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”
I smiled, turned, and went into my cabin. There was a rustle inside and I knew that somebody had been watching and I didn’t care. I felt feminine and I felt a strange sense of power and I felt a great warmth about Michael.
The next night it started raining while we ate dinner so any campfire activities were cancelled. For us girls it meant …makeover time! I didn’t know if they’d been laying in wait for a rainy night, but the girls produced makeup kits and other items as if by magic. We were all in sleepwear, ranging from Roxy’s baby doll to Terri’s long white cotton gown. Most of us wore boxers and a t-shirt; I had a lacy yellow sleep set of shorts and a sleeveless top. I folded my legs under me–I’d gotten used to sitting like that, and after Dr. Carroll’s procedure it was much easier–and waited expectantly since I had no makeup to contribute.
Gabby saw that and declared, “Newbie! Okay, you’re the mudpack girl.”
I was confused. “I don’t …I don’t have any of that stuff …”
“No, but we do!” she cackled, and tossed me a jar of brown masque. “That’s for later.”
For right now, it was makeover time. The girls applied their brushes and wands and colors flew and we did each other’s eyes, lips, and faces, often wiping off and applying something else. Probably the two funniest were when Lauren made herself up like a hooker, and Roxy–of all people–went for a kabuki white with her eyebrows up in the middle of her forehead and the tiniest lips imaginable! I’d been trying makeup at home but was really an amateur, but I listened to the girls coach one another, as well as what I was told, and learned a lot of application techniques. And I found that I liked the smoky colors on me rather than blue or green, and then learned how lipstick could change the shape and size of my mouth. It was a lot of giggles and personal stories and I felt incredibly close to the girls.
Then it was masque time. It was my duty to gently apply the mudpack to any girl that wanted the facial; everyone did so I did them all and my own face last. It was gooey and drippy and I realized that’s why ‘the newbie’ had to do it. Once we had the masques on–and I’d washed my hands–we began doing each other’s nails. Some were extreme–Gabby had a different color on each finger and toe–and some were subdued–Terri went for just gloss. As much as I loved wearing nail polish, I hadn’t brought any, thinking that it would be impractical at camp; then I thought, what the hell! I tried a couple of colors on different fingers and then wiped them off with remover and did all my fingers and toes with a plum red, or a reddish plum, that was called ‘Breaking Curfew’ and I loved it. I’d been taking care of my nails and they’d grown a bit since school let out, but not enough to clack on the piano keys. And they looked lovely!
Meanwhile the masques were tightening and hardening. We did popcorn–Becky had the only camp-acceptable appliance, a hot-air popper–and Gabby produced a surprisingly large laptop and some DVDs, so we crowded around and watched The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, which everybody but me had seen. They said lines from the movie, shouted out rude things to the characters, and we had a great, giggling time. The giggles turned to groans as we peeled and washed off our masques, and then moisturized like mad, but my face felt and looked great after. Then we slept deeply.
End of Part 3
The next-to-last day was clear and sunny and hot and gave no indication there’d been rain. In Improv class I told Michael that I wouldn’t be hanging around after. He got such a hang-dog expression, but I told him that a bunch of us were going to ‘the cove’, a prized swimming place that had a rock to jump from and a rope swing. He nodded and I almost relented, but I was feeling close to my girlies and Becky had scored the cove, so that was that.
After sessions we all changed quickly and trooped down to the lake and along the shore to the cove, and some of us dove in and some of us–Lulu and I–spread towels and applied sunblock. I planned to catch some rays and listen to my iPod until I got too hot and then go in. I was wearing my skimpiest bikini, since it was just us girls in the cove; it was a peach string-tie that made me feel sexy just wearing it. Lulu was in a tankini with a really neat famous painting on it; she said it was a Renoir. In between bursts of iPod listening, we chatted about this and that and just felt close. I thought that boys didn’t have anything to compare to the closeness of girls.
Finally I was so hot that sweat had pooled in my belly button and run over, trickling down my waist. Off with the iPod, I stood uncertainly, getting my balance, and then walked down to the water and kept walking. Some of the girls were out sunning themselves but Roxy and Terri and Becky were still splashing around. Suddenly there was a yell above us.
“Cowabunga!”
Of course it was the only phrase boys knew …
Two guys came zooming overhead; one had leapt from the rock and other must have gotten a running jump on the rope swing because he swung way out before releasing. They cannonballed into the water with great splashes, but as soon as they came up Becky lashed into them, yelling that this was our cabin’s beach for the day and to leave now. Roxy told her that Gabby was seeing one of the guys, and the other was kind of cute, so …could they stay a little, as long as they didn’t roughhouse too much? Becky relented and Gabby was alerted and joined them in the water. I noticed Lulu paddling along next to me and we grinned at each other.
Around the tip of the cove I could see the edge of the big floating dock in the middle of the regular swimming area. It was huge and had ladders to climb up onto it and a slide at one end, where half a dozen kids clustered. I asked Becky if I could go there for a little bit; she knew I was a strong swimmer but didn’t want to have to keep an eye out for me, but finally relented. Terri said she’d join me; she told Becky that she did laps in a pool at her ranch and was itching for some straight-ahead swimming. If we were boys we would have raced each other to the float, but it was a leisurely swim out there. We hoisted ourselves up and streamed the water from our hair. The float had Astroturf so we laid out on our tummies, chins on hands, and looked at the world.
It seemed like the whole camp was in the water, frolicking because of the heat and being cooped up last night.
Then, out of the blue, Terri said, “You know, I was scared of you at first.”
I had to laugh. “Of me? Why?”
“Because you’re so …cool. You play jazz piano, you know who you are and carry yourself like a woman of the world. I feel like a little girl around you, like Roxy.”
“God, Terri, I’m so not cool!”
She nodded. “That’s part of your coolness; you don’t think you’re cool. And you’re really pretty and curvy, not a straight up-and-down board like me.”
“Terri, you’re too hard on yourself. You kind of remind me of a young Katherine Hepburn, slim and with an elegant bearing.”
“You’re crazy. I’m a flat-as-a-pancake ranch hand, more boy than tomboy.”
I made a face, squinting my eyes as I looked at her, and then shook my head. “Nope. Don’t see it. Slim elegance, yes; more boy than tomboy? Nope.”
She wasn’t truly buying it but I could tell she was pleased. “Anyway,” she said after a moment, “I just thought you were out of my league to …you know, to hang with. But you’re not. You’re just a regular girl.”
“Terri …” I sighed. “That’s all I ever wanted to be.”
“Was the divorce really rough?” Then she laughed with shame. “I’m sorry; of course it was; they all are.”
It took me a second to remember my cover story. “It’s …roughest on Mom. Not just for the usual reasons between a husband and wife, but because of me. Um …I think she feels more of a failure at not providing a stable family for me than she does about the failure of the marriage.”
Terri looked at me sideways and smiled. “You’re going to be a great psychologist.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re just good with people; you get them. I don’t. But I get horses. They’re way more complicated than most people think but they’re not mean. Well,” she chuckled. “One or two are. But none that I’ve raised …but you see into people and want to help them feel better and I think that’s great.”
“Thanks, Terri. I just wish …”
After a pause. “What?”
I took a deep breath. “I just wish I’d had you all in my life earlier. It would’ve made things easier.”
As she had in the past, she reached out and squeezed my hand and then released it. I rolled onto my back and she did the same awhile later. The gentle rocking of the float, with the small waves splashing against it, lulled me and I may have dozed, but then I heard a male voice.
“Two-five-one in A flat major.”
“B flat minor, dominant seventh optional, E flat dominant seventh. And A flat major seventh. Hey, Michael.” I shaded my eyes and turned; he was in the lake, holding onto the edge of the float next to my head.
“I thought you guys got the cove today?” He used a hand to wipe water from his face.
“We did. We do. They’re all …” I vaguely pointed. “Terri and I wanted some straight-out swimming so we came here.”
“Gotta go back,” Terri said. “I’m heading for Lobster-ville!” She looked down her front, frowning.
Michael pulled himself onto the float effortlessly and I couldn’t help but look at his body. It was muscled and more mature than the boy slumped over the piano would indicate. He sat opposite me, leaning back on his hands.
“Hey,” he grinned.
“Hey,” I grinned back.
“Yeah …right,” Terri snickered. “Hey, listen, I’m heading back to the cove.”
“We’re not supposed to separate, remember?” I said, rising slowly.
There was a moment, a pause, and Terri said, “I think I see a girl I need to talk to in my …Conducting class. Um …can you wait a bit before we swim back?”
Knowing full well that she was allowing me time to talk to Michael, I nodded and said, “Yeah, I suppose so. I mean …Conducting …yeah, go talk to her.”
She gave me a look of ‘why-I-oughta!’ and then grinned and went over to the group of kids on the end of the float, near the slide.
We watched her go and then looked at each other. I was amazed again at how fit he looked, and suddenly realized I was staring, and then realized that he was staring at me, and that my breasts were rising and falling with my breathing and were only barely covered by the skimpy bikini. And my bikini bottoms just covered my crotch. Instinctively I put my ankles together, touching knees, too.
“You didn’t think I got the two-five-one thing?” I asked, for want of anything else to say that wasn’t embarrassing.
It’s one of the standard chord structures that popular music–and many jazz standards–use. Like the opening of As Time Goes By; the lyrics ‘You must remember this’ are built around the minor chord built up on the second note of the scale the song’s written in. ‘A kiss is just a kiss’ uses the chord built on the fifth note of the scale, written in Roman Numerals as V, with a dominant seventh note, meant to flat the seventh note of the scale, and then ‘A sigh is just a sigh’ brings you back home to the tonic, the key the song’s written in, the base. Home. For Sound of Music lovers, it would be ‘re-so-do’. In jazz the minor chords are written in lower case, so Michael’s little quiz were the chords I’d told him, and would be written as ii-V7-I in A flat.
For someone coming from a classical background like I had, it was Brave New World. With classical music, I never had to bother with the interior structure of the music I was playing; all I had to do was read the notes and my fingers went straight to them without thinking–thank you, Madame Berdichev! But in jazz, I had to learn the scalar notes in all twelve keys, and visualize the chords built upon every scalar note in each key, as well as the structure of each chord. I mean, really learn them, by heart, like I’d just recited to Michael. I learned a lot in my Jazz Theory and Improv classes, but it was those after-class sessions with Michael that really drilled this stuff into me.
“I know you got it; but it seemed like a nice conversation starter,” he grinned.
I liked his honesty. I liked his strong body. I liked his intuitive creativity at the keyboard. I liked his maleness. I liked him.
And I blushed, but it probably wasn’t noticeable in the late afternoon light.
We sat next to each other, facing each other, legs outstretched and leaning on our hands. I looked from his chest to his face and into his eyes, and we locked eyes. I could feel something between us; I knew it wasn’t my imagination.
He cleared his throat. “Thank you for …” He lowered his voice, glancing around. “Thank you for the kiss.”
“You deserved it; you were sweet,” I said, with a little voice in my head thrilled at how easily I took to girlspeak.
“Still …” He looked off, and then back to me. “It was very nice.”
“Michael,” I began. “I know the rules say that girls aren’t supposed to let on that they like a boy …”
“Um …” he said with a noncommittal nod of the head.
“…until the boy makes the first move. But we’re only here two weeks.”
“That’s true,” he said.
The rat! He was going to make me do all the work! Alright, then, I thought …
“So I’m suspending the rules for a bit. Michael, I like you. I’m having trouble concentrating when we work together in session.”
“Me, too. To both. I like you, Hannah. Not just because you’re a very pretty girl, but your mind, your …playing …” He shrugged. “And I have trouble concentrating around you.”
“Could we …” I looked over at the group of kids and saw Terri watching us, an eyebrow raised. I turned back to Michael. “Could we maybe get together later to …you know, to talk?”
“You mean like tonight? I think it’s Stupid Counselor Tricks,” he said, referring to the scheduled event.
“After. I gotta cheer Becky on, but there’s an hour after that …”
“Piano lab?”
“It’s locked at that hour.”
“No, no; I meant meet at the piano lab. Maybe take a walk?”
I felt a burst of happy anticipation. “Yeah. Um …see you!” I said and got up quickly, motioning to Terri who was already moving toward me. I said to her, “Ready?” and we both dove–taking care to secure our tops!–and headed back, this time swimming strongly as if we were racing. But not racing; we were just enjoying the strong feeling of moving fast. Halfway to the cove I turned and looked back; Michael was still sitting there but shielding his eyes with one hand and watching me. I smiled, turned, and followed Terri.
Either Terri told the other girls or they knew by some chick-radar, but everybody knew I was going to take A Walk In The Woods with Michael later that night. They bustled about, deciding what clothes I should wear and what makeup I should wear. Becky pulled me aside and reminded me of the camp’s policy on PDAs–Public Displays of Affection–which was loosely upheld in practice, but walking in the woods …well, something might happen, and though Michael seemed a decent guy, she gave me some tips for self-protection.
“Becky, he’s a nice guy and he’s not gonna jump me,” I grinned.
“You never know; you never know,” she said vaguely.
“You never know what?”
Becky grinned wickedly. “You never know who’s gonna do the jumping!”
It was decided I’d wear a tiered denim skirt of Gabby’s with a poet’s blouse that Lauren had, oddly enough. Roxy did something with my hair and a ribbon and I thought I looked like a young Judy Garland, sort of. I wore more makeup than I normally would to a campfire (‘normally’ equaled ‘zero’) and had lipstick in a pocket of the skirt. And finally, like a benediction or something, a small spritz of some fantastic perfume from Becky. The girls clustered around me, loving the scent, and then off we went, arm-in-arm-in-arm, to support Becky, who would be playing guitar and singing.
The campfire was raucous once more, and we sat and yelled and laughed and clapped and cheered. Some of the counselors were musicians and some obviously weren’t; their job wasn’t music instruction, it was to take care of us. Becky surprised me, though. She came at a point where everyone was tired from laughing, and she played a guitar figure over and over, gentle and hypnotic, until everybody settled, and she began singing an early Joni Mitchell song, “For Free”, in a clear soprano. By the time she got to the lines, “But the one man band, by the quick lunch stand; He was playing real good, for free” the entire camp was absolutely silent, in awe, carried along by the purity of her voice and the poignancy of the song. And since some of us might become big stars like the woman in the song, and some of us might be playing on street corners like the man in the song, it meant more than almost any other song could have.
She finished and there was a lingering moment as we all savored the last ringing chord and then a thunderous applause caused Becky to blush, bob her head, and rejoin our group. The applause didn’t die down; now campers were standing and looking at her; she bobbed her head again and waved like it was just a little thing. We all stood, facing her, clapping and cheering loudly. Terri hugged Becky, and whispered in her ear, and whatever she said got Becky to stand as the applause washed over. The bonfire gave a particularly loud ‘pop!’ of cracking wood that startled everyone; then they laughed and the applause ended and we all sat. If Becky could have smiled any bigger her face would split. We were all so proud of her!
There were no prizes or places announced; it was to be a night of fun but everybody knew Becky had contributed something special and after the final camp song we all headed back to our cabins with a glow of happiness from Becky’s singing.
Making my way through our girls, I hugged Becky and told her how incredible she’d been. She waved it away but was blushing and then looked me in the eyes. “Thank you, Hannah. Hearing it from you …it means a lot to me. Okay,” she drew a deep breath. “I’m going to send you out into the wilderness. Come back in one piece? Please?”
I hugged her again and felt a tear in my eye. All I said was, “You bet.” Then Becky turned and led the girls toward our cabin; one by one they turned and looked at me. Roxy gave me a thumbs-up, Lulu gave me a jumping wave, and Terri gave me a deep, deep smile and a sigh. Then they disappeared up the trail and I followed other clumps of people in the direction of the piano lab.
And Michael was there at the steps to the lab, wearing a jean jacket, black t-shirt and jeans and not looking like James Dean or anything but looking very cool.
“Hi,” I said brilliantly.
“Hi. Um …I’m glad you could come,” he said, and then blushed, at least as far as I could tell in the mercury lamps.
“Locked?” I gestured to the doors.
“Yeah. I knew they would be …but I knew that you knew where it was.”
“Do we sit, or …”
“We could walk …”
He started walking slowly and I fell into step with him, conscious of how light my blouse was, the slight jiggle of my breasts with every step, the swishing of my skirt, and my light scent in the breeze. I was intensely conscious of how feminine I felt. And I was intensely conscious of how male Michael was. Walking one of the paths toward the lake, we were alone, and I had this fleeting feeling that there was nobody else on earth, like we were the only male and only female …and I don’t think I’d ever felt less male than that moment.
Michael led me off the path through the trees. He seemed to know where he was going but wasn’t familiar with it; twice he stopped, looked at the trees and slightly changed direction as we moved uphill.
“A guy in my cabin told me about this place; he said it should be right …about …”
We came out onto a slight promontory overlooking the lake. I recognized the cove off to our left, but hadn’t noticed this place from the water. There was a nearly-full moon out, reflecting on the lake. A tree had fallen close to the edge and Michael sat. I sat next to him, smoothing my skirt under me and folding my hands in my lap.
Michael slightly cleared his throat. “Um …I wasn’t sure why you stayed after, the first few times. I mean, you didn’t seem to …know anything about jazz. Sorry if that sounds snobby or something.”
“No, no; you’re right. I didn’t know anything about jazz. I mean, I’d heard some, you know, Dixieland and Big Band, and that Charley Brown stuff.”
“Vince Guaraldi. Great guy. Died too young.”
There was a moment of silence. I said, “I really didn’t know. So, yeah, I didn’t know anything, but I liked what I was learning, and I liked …”
He looked at me questioningly, but I frowned trying to put into words feelings that I’d only discovered recently. “I love playing piano. I love the physical feel of it and I love the music. The precision of Bach and Scarlatti, the emotion and passion of Debussy, and, omigod–Mozart …but lately I’ve been feeling that it’s all …I don’t know …retreads.” I giggled a little.
“Retreads?”
“People have been playing Mozart for over two hundred years. So when I play a C sharp at measure 156, I know that over two hundred years of people–thousands and thousands, millions of people, probably–have played that C sharp at measure 156. There’s a really neat …continuity about it, like passing the torch through the generations, sort of, but …”
“You’re just retreading the tire?”
“Well, I thought of it as walking where they’d walked, but, yeah. But with jazz …sure, you’ve got standards in jazz, too, but the looseness of it, the ability to have ten different people play the same song–the same structure–with ten different interpretations …it’s scary and exhilarating at the same time.”
He grinned at me in the darkness. “You’re converted.”
I grinned back. “Yeah, sort of. I mean, during lunch today I slipped into the lab and cranked out some Bach and it felt great, you know, but then the seat-of-the-pants thing with jazz …” I shook my head with wonder.
“I don’t think you were seat-of-the-pants; from what I remember, you were wearing a skirt today. And now.”
I blushed for some stupid reason and turned away. “You know what I mean. So I don’t want you to think I’m …dabbling or anything. I want to keep studying jazz when I get home.” I chuckled at a thought. “I’ll have to find a new teacher; jazz would give my teacher a heart attack. Russian.”
“Yeah, I know teachers like that,” he said, nodding. “But, where is home? That’s kind of why I wanted to talk with you tonight. You know, to find out things about you. I don’t even know where you live.”
“I’m not sure where I live right now.” I knew I’d have to stick to my camp story, so I told him the general details that I’d worked out, about the divorce, with the new info from Mom’s recent letter. “I think I know where I’m going to be living,” and I told him about the apartment. It wasn’t important where I’d lived before, so we glossed over that.
Michael told me about his town, about an hour’s drive from our new apartment, and some funny stories about his quest to learn about jazz.
“You’re dedicated,” I said, admiringly.
“You’re pretty dedicated, yourself,” he smiled.
“I love the piano but I don’t think I can make a career of it.”
“And what do you want to do?”
I told him about wanting to study psychology, and he told me about a famous jazz musician–like another Bill Evans, Michael said!–in San Francisco, named Denny Zeitlin, who was also a practicing psychiatrist. I realized, why does it have to be either-or? I was living, walking proof that there weren’t as many limitations as people thought.
“You’re an amazing girl, Hannah,” Michael said.
I stifled a laugh. ‘You don’t know the half of it’, I thought. Instead, I said, “Um …just a girl. But thanks.”
I was embarrassed and sheepishly looked at him. The light from the moon overhead, and reflected off the water, made his face glow slightly. I realized he was leaning slowly to me, and without thinking I inhaled as I tilted my head, rising to meet his. Our lips touched, pulled away, and touched again, more firmly. His lips were soft but strong and I found my lips moving on their own and there was a catch in my breath and I pulled away, looking into his eyes for a moment, and then my right arm went around him as my left gently touched his cheek and I leaned in to kiss him again. It was sweet; it was amazing; it was all I’d ever dreamed a kiss could be …
When that kiss ended, he put his arm around me squeezed me gently, then kissed the top of my head and we sat there, holding hands and gazing at the view as a slight wind came up, rippling the water and the moon’s image, rustling my hair and my blouse. I shivered involuntarily and Michael took his arm away, stripped off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. My arms crossed, holding it closed, and I looked up at him again and we kissed again and his arm draped around me.
We sat there, rocking slightly to some unknown music.
The last day was filled with mini-closing ceremonies. The instructors in each session had little ribbons or certificates to hand out to everybody, serious or humorous, from ‘Best Fingering’, to ‘Best Friend to Dog’s Hearing’, for a particularly squeaky clarinet. There was no indication from Michael that we were anything other than classmates; we’d discussed this and had it planned. Still, the thought of no more after-session sessions with him–and no more kisses–brought a lump to my throat.
Most of us had done our packing before the day started, but there was this flurry of activity after the last session and before the final flag-lowering ceremony. Everything we’d brought was tagged and placed in piles in front of our cabin for pickup, and we went to the flag ceremony. These girls were so important to me; they were my initiation into girlhood, without their knowing it, and while a part of me felt terrible for having deceived them, I knew now–beyond any dispute–that I was a girl through-and-through. I had fully, completely, become a girl. So I was proud and humbled to stride into the campfire area for the last time, holding hands with Becky, Lauren, Roxy, Gabby, Terri, and Lulu–my girlies.
We heard some speeches and sang the camp song for the last time and then walked slowly to the parking lot area where the buses were being loaded with our color-tagged belongings. Every cabin group clustered around itself, hugging and crying if they were girls, or high-fiving and shouting ‘yo!” if they were boys. Then kids that had made friends with other kids from other cabins drifted off to say goodbye. I was standing with Lulu, giving her a special hug, and then she tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to Michael in the distance and gave me a gentle shove in his direction.
I walked slowly to him, shyly at first, and then with more urgency the closer I got to him. The next thing I knew I had walked right up to him, flung my arms around his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. It was heaven, but when it ended, I grinned at him and dimly heard some yells of approval from some of my cabin mates. We’d already exchanged emails and phone numbers–I couldn’t give him one yet since we were moving–and the buses all did a group honk and it was time to go. I stood on tiptoes to give Michael one last kiss, squeezed his hands and turned to run to my bus.
The bus ride home passed as in a dream; I was tired and happy beyond words. We pulled into the parking lot and there was Mom, waiting with the others, and I got off the bus and flung myself into her arms. She pulled me back and held me at arms’ length.
“I can’t believe you’re the same girl!”
“I’m not, Mom,” I grinned.
“So tanned, and so …so …”
“So happy to be a girl, Mom,” I said softly.
She hugged me again. “Oh, my lord, honey, camp seems to have agreed with you.”
“Oh, it did, it did; although you might discover that I’m into jazz now!”
“Oh, my lord, jazz …well, I always liked it. Have you heard of Bill Evans?”
“Mo-ther! Have you been holding out on me?” I teased.
She grinned. “Part of my checkered past. But enough about my past, you can tell me all about your past two weeks while we drive home.”
“Home …and where is home, now?”
We started walking to the car, her arm around me. “Well, it was a close thing–somebody else wanted the apartment–but we got that lovely one around the pool. And I paid a bonus and got your room painted.”
“A bonus?”
“Yeah, like a cleaning deposit. So your room is a light lavender color with white trim, and they delivered your bedroom set. I put all your clothes away in a …you know, a general way. You can rearrange them, of course.”
“I’m in your hands, Mom,” I grinned. “God, my own room …”
She chuckled. “Honey, you’ve always had a room!”
“Not a girl’s room!”
She hugged me. “And you’re a girl; so why wouldn’t you have a girl’s room?”
The End
“Waltz for Debby”
Bill Evans Trio (1965)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH3GSrCmzC8
Swedish television, I believe. Chuck Israels on bass; Larry Bunker, drums.
Solo with Tony Bennett (no video) (1975)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsb8mYrYycE&feature=related
Yes, it’s Evans with weight and a beard. He didn’t accompany singers, but did two great albums with Bennett.
Oscar Peterson Trio (1964)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBvf30C_x-8
With Ray Brown, bass, and Ed Thigpen, drums.
Oscar Peterson Solo (starting at 3:30) (1983)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02ogyvI5GM8
JATP All Stars in Japan, playing “’Round Midnight” and “Waltz for Debby” (prodigious technique!)
“For Free”
Joni Mitchell live on BBC (1970)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmzN1p5q2sY
Denny Zeitlin On Psychiatry and Jazz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKN_yHX0frk