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Summer Secrets By Varian Milagro http://varianm.blogspot.com/ Chapter 17 In the morning Cindy told us that we should make waffles so that I could be included in the club. "What club?" I asked. "Ancient Chinese secret," Brenda said in a bad Chinese accent. She and Cindy started laughing "We're going to need a new band name," Jill said as she cracked open an egg. "Why don't we use the same one as before?" Brenda asked. "I don't want to be 'Glass Sabbath' again." "How about Flower Blossoms?" Cindy said. "Sassy Mouth?" Brenda countered. Once the waffles were ready they had me sit at the table and close my eyes. I could hear them doing something to the waffle on my plate, but I couldn't tell what. "Open wide," Cindy said. She pushed a bite of waffle into my mouth. As I chewed I tasted honey instead of the usual syrup. It was pretty good. I opened my eyes to see the girls staring at me in anticipation. "It tastes pretty good," I said finally. "Welcome to the honey club!" they shouted in unison. "The what?" "The honey club," Cindy said as if stating the obvious. "Years ago, when Cindy's mom first made waffles with honey for Brenda and me she said 'welcome to the honey club'," Jill said. "Now when anyone has waffles with honey at my home they become part of the honey club." "What do you think of Cherry Busters for a band name?" Brenda said. Before anyone could reply she said, "Never mind I already hate it." After breakfast while I was gathering my stuff to take into the bathroom the girls started changing into their clothes for the day. I was really jealous. I wanted to be able to change with them and not have to hide in the bathroom. As I left for the bathroom Jill was in just bra and panties and I could see the tops of her breasts. I felt another pang. Once I made it into the bathroom I stripped to my own bra and panties. I looked at myself in the mirror. I placed my hands on the cups of my bra and tried to imagine that they were filled with real breasts. I pushed on the cups and tried to duplicate Jill's cleavage. I didn't have enough spare flesh to get close to hers, but if I pushed in and up it looked like I was over flowing my bra. I smiled at first, but I got sad quickly because I knew it was fake and I was never going to have real cleavage like the girls in the other room. I wished I could be a member of the boob club. I decided to leave my hair in a braid. I figured that I should probably wash my hair if I was going to remove the braid and there was no way I was showering at Cindy's house. The idea of stripping completely naked in her house terrified me. I changed into jeans and a cute peasant blouse, brushed my teeth and reapplied my makeup before venturing out to the girls. "How about Golden Baby?" I heard Jill ask as I entered the room. "Would you pierce my ears?" I asked Brenda. "Sure," Brenda said. Jill jumped off the bed and pulled me out of the room. She led me to the other side of the house. "What are you doing?" she asked. "How will you explain pierced ears when you aren't Stacy?" "I don't care about that. I hate wearing clip-ons all the time, plus I'm Stacy pretty much all the time now." "But what about when summer ends? It's not like the holes are going to just disappear once you go back to school." "I know." She studied me for a moment. "Okay, it's your life. But, if they ask, please let Grandma and your mom know that I tried to talk you out of it." We headed back to the bedroom and I sat on the bed while Cindy left the room to get the supplies. "Don't worry, I've done this lots of times," Brenda assured me. "It will hurt for a moment, but it passes pretty quickly." Cindy came back with a needle, a small potato, a bag of cotton balls, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and a bowl with ice in it. She had me hold an ice cube to my right ear while she put some rubbing alcohol on a cotton ball. I removed the ice cube and she rubbed the cotton ball on my earlobe. Next she held the potato behind my ear as Brenda lined up the needle. "You should do it a little higher," Jill said from behind Brenda. "Do you want to do it?" Brenda asked, annoyed. I felt her move the needle up a little higher. She looked back at Jill who nodded her approval. Brenda pushed and I yelped. They quickly switched ears before I could change my mind. Jill handed me a dry cotton ball and I held it to my right ear while Cindy quickly prepped the left before Brenda stabbed me again. Cindy removed a pair of small golden studs from her earring stand and slid them into my ears. Jill handed me a small mirror so that I could check out my new earrings. I felt kind of proud; it was as if I had made it through a rite of passage. I was now part of the pierced ear club. "We should call ourselves Honey Club," I said. Scott was pretty happy with the new band name; he said that it fit since we had four honeys in the band. He was also pretty happy that we didn't have an audience that day and could focus on the music. We started out by playing through the eight songs that we already had down before moving on to a new song. I was enjoying practice even more than usual. It kept my mind off Daniel, the teddy bear and the two goons. By the time we stopped for a lunch break I had put them so far in the back of my mind that I'd pretty much forgotten about them. "Don't take this the wrong way, but why do you play your solos the same way every time?" Brenda asked me while we made sandwiches for the others. "I play the solos just how the original band played them," I replied. "If I have a live version of the song I play that one." "You know that you don't have to play it exactly like they do, right?" "How else would I play it?" "However you want to. Live in the moment and play what comes to you." "I don't know if I could do that," I replied. "You've played around on the guitar and made up your own music before, right?" I nodded. "Same thing." She looked at me for a moment. I think she could tell I was unconvinced. "You won't know if you don't try." We stopped talking while we finished making the sandwiches. Once they were completed she cut them into triangles and I arranged them on a couple plates. I was just about to carry them to the garage when she stopped me. "Stacy, you are a great guitar player. Technically you are better than anyone I've ever met, but you aren't playing with heart. If you want to be one of the true greats someday you've got to put yourself into your music and play from within." I thought about what Brenda had said all through lunch. I still played the solos like I had learned them during the second half of practice though. Once we finished practice Cindy announced that we she would be gone the following Saturday so we couldn't have practice that day, but we could still practice on Sunday. After practice Jill handed each of us a bunch of photos from last week's sleepover and some from the practice on Wednesday. The pictures from the sleepover looked really cool; Jill had a good eye for composition. The ones from practice were fairly standard and a couple of them were out of focus. I guess Troy could use a few more lessons. Once home I dumped my guitar, suitcase and sleeping bag in my room. The teddy I put in my closet. I then went to the living room to I hug my mom hello before heading to the shower; I needed to get clean. As I pulled my hair out of the braid so that I could wash it I wished I knew how to braid my own hair. I really liked it in a long braid; it was much cooler in the summer. I thought that I might see if Heidi would braid my hair on Monday. Once I was done with the shower I headed to my room to get dressed. I looked at all of Stacy clothes and realized that I could dress as Gary. In fact tonight would probably be my only chance until Friday night. I found that I had no desire to dress as Gary. I knew that I would have to stop dressing as Stacy once school started, but that was a long time off and in the meantime I was going to be Stacy all the time. I suddenly got a little giddy. The thought of being Stacy all the time made me incredibly happy. With my decision made I put on one of my dresses and headed into the bathroom to put on my makeup. When I emerged from my room and my mom saw me she didn't make a comment about me wearing a dress and makeup, it was probably pretty normal for her at this point. I decided that I would give my mom a break and make dinner for us tonight. I ended up just making grilled cheese with tomato soup, but my mom was pretty ecstatic that I volunteered to make dinner for her and she said it was the best grilled cheese she had ever had. I knew that she was exaggerating, but it felt really nice all the same. After dinner I retreated to my room. I looked through the photos that Jill had given me. They made me smile. The ones from the slumber party looked like four girls having fun together, not three girls and one guy. It looked like I belonged. I tacked all of the photos Jill to the wall just above my headboard, even the out of focus ones that Troy had taken. Chapter 18 The next day I had a whole lot to tell the ladies at the salon. I told them all about the carnival, but I glossed over Daniel for the most part. I told them all about the two creeps though. It looked like Heidi and Luanne were ready to hunt the guys down themselves. I saved the best for last. "Look at my ears," I said as brushed my hair behind my ears so they could see my earrings. "Aren't they pretty? Cindy gave them to me after Brenda pierced my ears." "You pierced you ears?" Heidi asked. "Why did you do that?" She didn't sound pleased. "I don't know," I said sheepishly. "The other girls have their ears pierced so I kind of felt left out." "The other girls?" She stressed the word "other". "Yeah Jill, Brenda and Cindy," I said. Heidi seemed bothered by what I had said, but I wasn't sure why. "Is something wrong?" "No, everything is fine," she said. "Your earrings look lovely, Stacy. I'll be back in a moment." Heidi walked toward the back of the salon. As she passed Patricia she whispered in her ear. A minute later Patricia headed into the back as well. I think they were talking about me. I decided that I needed to pee so I headed to the bathroom, but Luanne stopped me and said I should wait up front for awhile. When Heidi returned a few minutes later said that I should tell my mom about my pierced ears if I hadn't already. I told her I would. They had me practice painting nails a lot that day. Luanne was being promoted and starting next week she would cut hair in addition to doing nails and manicures. I wouldn't be able to do manicures, but they said that I could paint customer's nails next week if I got good enough by then. I started by practicing on myself. I was getting bored with my present color and wanted to try a frosted pink. After I'd done my own nails Luanne produced a book with nail design ideas. She had me practice on the dummy's hand in between washing customer's hair and running errands. I showed my mom my pierced ears at home that night and she said that she wished I had talked to her first, but since it was already done there wasn't much to do about it. She didn't look very pleased. After dinner I headed to my room to practice my guitar. I put the album "New! Improved!" by Blue Cheer on my turn table and then played along on my guitar. When it came to the solos I tried to make it up as I played instead of just playing the same thing Bruce Stephens played. It felt weird and I quit several times. I finally made it through side one of the album, but it took me and hour and a half. On Tuesday Patricia had another private talk with me. "I want to have a talk with you about being Stacy," Patricia began. "Now that you have been dressing up as Stacy for several weeks now, how do you like it?" "It's pretty fun," I replied. "This is a bit awkward, but is Stacy a boy or a girl?" "Stacy's a girl," I said, a little confused by the question. "When you are dressed up as Stacy do you feel like a girl?" I hesitated for a moment. "Yes," I replied feeling a little embarrassed. "Does Stacy ever wish she were a real girl?" I was really embarrassed now. "Yes," I said, looking at the ground. "This question is for Gary. Do you wish you were a girl?" I looked up at her. I was terrified and my face was burning, but I said, "Yes." "One more question and I will leave you alone," she said "Have you noticed any changes down below?" I wanted to hide, but I answered. "There are some darker hairs now." She hugged me and told me that I was brave and that she was going to try her best to help me. I found I had a hard time looking at Patricia for the rest of the day. I felt so exposed whenever I was around her. On Wednesday Daniel, Mark and Troy all showed up at practice. Daniel gave me an awkward hello and I responded just as awkwardly. I wanted to say something nice to him, but I was afraid of encouraging him. So, we didn't say much to each other. Once the band started playing he cheered along with Troy and Mark. I noticed that he looked directly at me the whole time. Seeing Daniel, reminded me of the concerts he had been to. I could not imagine playing for thousands of people like my idols did. I was happy to be playing for just three people. After practice, while Mark and Jill kissed goodbye for fifteen minutes and the other two couples disappeared into the house, Daniel and I were left to ourselves. "You're really amazing at guitar," Daniel said. "Thanks, that's really sweet of you to say," I replied, feeling pretty bashful. "Look, I'm sorry about Saturday night, I should have been there for you." "I'm the one who should be sorry," I relied. "You tried to come with me, but I walked off by myself. It was all my fault." "I still feel bad," he said, looking glum. I smiled. "Yeah, well don't or I'll squirt you with water again." He responded by bumping me with his hip. On the ride home Jill asked me if it was weird having Daniel show up at the practice and she even offered to tell Mark that Daniel couldn't come anymore. I told her not to say anything. I was fine with having him come. He was nice and he made me laugh. The following day Luanne not only showed me how to do classic French, Dutch and a sailor's knot braids, she also showed me several alternatives. I forgot half of them before the day was over, but I remembered how to do the French braid and that was the one I liked the best. On Friday Gloria showed up just before noon to sign checks. After a couple minutes in the office with my mom she came back up front, handed Luanne some money and told her that she was treating me and Luanne to lunch. The weird thing was that she didn't join us and after we left I saw her turn the open sign around so that it said 'closed'. After we ate our food at the Stardust Diner Luanne didn't want to leave right away, she said she wanted to enjoy her coffee. She sat there and drank coffee and smoked. After a few minutes I asked the waitress for another coke. One thing that always annoyed me at restaurants, coffee drinkers get as many refills as they wanted, but soda drinkers have to buy a new one every time. Finally after about thirty minutes she was ready to go. As we neared the salon I noticed that the sign was still showing closed. I found this really strange that Gloria would close the shop at lunch time. When Luanne spied the closed sign she said wanted to do some shopping. She led me to Yeager's Music. Normally I am not one to balk at browsing in a music store. Today, however, something strange was going on and it involved me. "What's going on at the salon, Luanne?" I asked as we walked to the music store. "They're having a store meeting; they shouldn't be too much longer." "Are they talking about me?" I asked. She stopped walking and stared at me for a moment. It looked like she was trying to make a decision. "Don't tell them I told you, but yes they're talking about you." "What about?" I was horrified that they were talking about me behind my back. "I don't know all the details, but it has something to do with you being Stacy all the time." "Oh," I said. "Should I be worried?" "No, they care for you a lot and they want the best for you. They are just trying to figure things out." After twenty minutes in the music store we headed back to the salon and the sign was turned back to 'open. Gloria was sitting in the waiting area smoking a cigarette when we entered. She stood and handed me an envelope and then pulled me into a hug. "I'm very proud of you, Stacy," she said while she held me tightly. Then she whispered, "Don't tell your mom how much is in that envelope." She released me and then left the store. I opened the envelope to find four hundred dollars. I was shocked. I could now buy the amp and probably have money left over. It was busy at the salon for the rest of the day. I was running between sweeping, washing hair, setting up ladies on the hair dryers and making coffee. I did not get a chance to practice painting nails for the rest of the day. Chapter 19 There was no sleepover tonight since Cindy was out of town so I rode home with my mom. Even though I had access to my guitar and four hundred dollars in my purse, I still wasn't looking forward to a whole Saturday at home with my mom. I decided to call Jill and see what she was doing on Saturday. "Are you doing anything tomorrow?" I asked once we got past the normal pleasantries. "I'm going bowling with Mark," she said. "Oh." It looked like a boring Saturday at home for me. "You can come too." "I don't want to be a third wheel," I said. "It's just bowling, it's not like he's taking me to dinner or anything," she said. "Come on, it'll be fun." I agreed and then headed to my bedroom to figure out what I should wear to go bowling. The next day I spent most of the morning practicing on making up my own solos to 'Heartbreaker' by Led Zeppelin. At noon I started getting ready for bowling. I decided to wear my jeans that had the embroidered flowers running up the flared legs. It was warm so I decided to wear my tank top with the large pink heart on the front; it matched my nails. I had just finished my makeup and hair when the phone rang. I thought it might be Jill. "I'll get it," I yelled to my mom. "Hello," I said as I picked up the phone. "Is Gary there?" Nick asked. He sounded unsure of himself. "You have the wrong number," I said and hung up. The phone started ringing a few seconds later. I didn't answer it. I was filled with panic. "Are you going to answer the phone?" my mom called from the living room. "It's Nick, what do I do?" "I'll tell him you aren't here," my mom said as she walked over to me. "He'll just keep calling back." I tried to remember how I used to talk. I lowered my voice and said, "Do I sound like Gary?" "You sound like a girl trying to sound like a boy," my mom replied. "Be more monotone." "Hi I'm Gary, nice weather we're having," I said. "Better," she said as she picked up the phone. "Hello?" She paused for a bit. "Oh hello Nick, how have you been?" I could hear Nick's voice talking to my mom, but I could not make out what he was saying. "No, no girls here. It's just me and Gary." She shrugged at me. "Yes, Gary is here. I'll call him for you." She pulled the phone away from her face. "Gary the phone for you," she shouted and put the receiver on the counter. I took a couple deep breaths and picked up the receiver. "Hello," I said in my best Gary voice. "Long time no see, man. How's it hanging?" "Not bad. What's going on?" "Just wondering what's going on with you. I haven't heard from you in two months, man. You aren't still pissed are you?" "Just a little bit." I didn't try to hide my annoyance. "Do you know how much trouble I got in?" "Driving without a license is a serious crime, man. You should know better." He started laughing. "You think it's funny?" I snapped. "Mellow out, man, I'm just joshing. Hey why don't you come over? I'll call Barry and we can jam again." "I don't think so," I said. "Please don't call me again." I hung up the phone as Nick began to reply. "That was probably a wise thing to do," my mom said. "He is a bad influence." Jill arrived a little later and I was still a little pissed. She asked what was wrong, but I told her I'd tell her about it on the way to the bowling alley. She greeted my mom and I grabbed my purse from my room. I ducked into the bathroom and checked my makeup before joining her in the living room. A few minutes later we were in her car and on the road to the Big Alley Lanes. I let her in on my conversation with Nick and she agreed with my mom that it was wise to stay away from him. When we arrived we found that Mark had not only beaten us there, but he had also brought Daniel with him. "You didn't tell me that Daniel was coming," I said. "I didn't know," she replied. "I didn't even tell Mark that you were coming." We greeted Mark and Daniel and then headed over to the counter to get bowling shoes. Both Mark and Daniel had already gotten theirs so they started picking out bowling balls from the racks. "This is so awkward," I said to Jill when we got out of earshot. "It's just bowling," she said. "It's a double date, that's what it is." "You making this more than it needs to be," she said. "Look, if it gets too weird for you, let me know and we can split." While I was still a little anxious about Daniel's presence I resolved to make the best of it. Jill had been nice enough to invite me along I could be nice enough not to ruin her day. Once we started bowling I started to relax. Daniel did not try to make any moves on me and Mark and Jill kept the public displays of affection to a bare minimum so it was just four people bowling. Daniel and I were similarly skilled in bowling meaning we both sucked at it. Mark seemed to take great pleasure in his brother's lack of skill. "You are such a spazz," he said after Daniel almost fell over while throwing a gutter ball. It was my turn next and I threw a gutter ball, my third in a row. "What, no comment?" I asked Mark. "You're a girl, it's okay if you suck at a sport," he said. Mark's derision was obviously getting to Daniel so I tried to make a game of it. We had a competition to see who would be the first to break a one hundred point game. When it became clear that neither of us were going to come close we decided to see who could get the fewest gutter balls in a game. We ended up having a lot of fun and laughed at our lack of skill. After two games Jill and Mark wanted to keep bowling, but Daniel and I were getting sick of Mark's rude comments and both Mark and Jill's smoking. Jill seemed to smoke a lot more around Mark. Daniel and I headed into the game room to play some pool and pinball. Luckily the bowling alley wasn't very busy. Summertime is short in the Pacific Northwest and bowling isn't high on peoples to do list when it's actually sunny outside for a change. Personally, I'd always been more of an indoor person so a sunny day wasn't as much of a draw to me. We had the game room to ourselves. While Daniel checked out the pinball machines I browsed though the selection on the jukebox. I picked out a bunch of songs and then joined Daniel at a pinball machine called "Dodge City". As he dropped in a couple quarters the juke box started up and The Who started singing "Pinball Wizard". This made Daniel laugh. He laughed even harder when I called him "Tommy" whenever he made a nice save with the flippers. After an impressive run Daniel finally let the metal ball past his flippers and it was my turn. I'm no slouch when it comes to pinball, but it wasn't going to be easy catching up to Daniel on my first ball. I was playing pretty well; I had my rhythm down and was getting some multipliers going when Daniel mentioned my nails. "Your fingernails look really cool," he said. I glanced at the fingers on my right hand. Under Luanne's tutelage I had painted yellow happy faces on all of my fingernails. Doing my left hand had been pretty easy, but creating the design on my right hand had been tough. I was pretty happy with how they came out and Daniel's compliment made me smile. "Thanks," I said and promptly lost my ball. "I see how it is. Distract me with compliments so you can win." I laughed and punched his arm lightly. "I play sneaky," he said. After that, every time I started getting close to his score he would start telling me how good I looked. While I laughed at his playfulness it also made me feel pretty good. We played all of the pinball machines they had a couple times while we listened to the music I'd selected. We were pretty evenly matched and we both won our share of games. It was a lot of fun. Next we turned our attention to pool, a game I rarely played, but Daniel had clearly played many times. He won the first couple games easily. The second game I had only sunk one ball by the time he had won. "I can teach you how to play better if you like," he said as he racked the balls for our fourth game. "Okay." He shot the break and the balls scattered all over the table. A stripped ball fell into the side pocket so he took another turn. He proceeded to sink three more balls. "The only thing I'm learning is that you are much better at pool than I am," I said. He missed the next shot; I think he did it on purpose. I started to line the stick up to hit the cue ball. "You might want to go for the five," he said. "It's not as close to the pocket, but it's closer to the cue ball so it'll be easier to hit." I turned the cue stick so that I was aiming the cue ball toward the five. I looked up at him for approval. "A little to the right," he said. "A little more. Here let me show you." He came up beside me and pulled gently on my arm, guiding my aim. "Now hit the cue ball with a nice, easy stroke." He stood right beside me. I sank the ball. For the next two shots he stood right up against me and guided my arm to where he thought was the best aim. I felt my pulse quicken when he did it. I could smell him as leaned over me to help me line up the cue stick. He was having strange effect on me. I was uncomfortable with how much I was enjoying him being so close to me. I missed the third shot on purpose. After he missed his next I still let him show me how to shoot. Daniel still won, but this time I only had one ball left when he sank the eight. "We probably should see what Mark and Jill are up to," I said as I fished my lip gloss out of my purse. "You girls sure seem to like lip gloss a lot," he said. "I guess." I applied a fresh coat on my lips. "Why do you put it on all the time?" "It makes my lips look pretty, plus it tastes nice. This is cherry lip gloss, want to taste it?" I held out the lip gloss, hoping to tease him. "Sure." He leaned in and kissed me on the lips. I stared at him. I was stunned. He smiled "You're right, it does taste nice." His smile faded when I did not return it. "Sorry," he said sheepishly. "Uh...we should probably find Mark and Jill." He agreed. We found them sitting by the bowling lanes, cuddling and talking. They broke apart when we showed up. We decided to call it a night and made our goodbyes. Daniel and I gave each other an awkward wave. After we left Big Alley Lanes Jill drove me to Hock It pawn shop. Scott had suggested it as a good place to buy a Marshall amp. I could have had my mom take me, but then she would have seen how much it cost and Gloria's secret would be out. After buying the amp I still had a little over one hundred and fifty dollars left. I thought about asking Jill if she wanted to do some clothes shopping, but it was getting late so she drove me home. I didn't tell Jill about Dan's kiss. When we arrived at my place Jill grabbed a couple Fotomat envelopes from the back seat she opened them and quickly sorted them into two piles and then handed me the smaller stack. She let me know that she'd pick me up early the next morning for practice and then we hugged goodbye. I dropped Jill's photos on my bed once I got in the apartment and then went to say hello to my mom. I found her in the kitchen working on dinner. While I helped her finish I thought about bowling and I figured that I should probably ask Jill to have Daniel stop hanging around practices. He obviously liked me and that freaked me out. After dinner I headed to my room and looked through the pictures that Jill had given me. There were a few of me giving Cindy and Brenda makeovers and one of me trying a waffle with my eyes closed. There were several from the carnival, a few I remember her taking and several candid photos of Daniel and I when we thought that we were alone. In each of them we were either laughing or smiling. I felt a flutter in my chest as I looked at his smiling face. Did that mean that I liked him too? I didn't know, but the idea of liking another guy that way scared me. I felt more like a girl these days, but I knew that I wasn't a real girl and never would be. I wondered for a moment if I was a real girl if I would like Daniel in that way. I stopped wondering because I was afraid of the answer. I tacked a bunch of the photos to my wall with the others. The ones of just Daniel and me I put in my dresser under the concert t-shirts my mom had given me. I then went to the closet, pulled out my teddy bear and put it on top of my dresser. Chapter 20 Daniel wasn't at practice on Sunday. I was afraid that I'd hurt his feelings by freaking out after he'd kissed me, but then I realized that Mark wasn't at practice either so maybe it wasn't my fault that he wasn't there. I lugged my new amp into the garage and once I'd finished setting it up Scott said he had an announcement. "I scored our first gig," he said. "A friend of mine knows this guy who's having a large party at his house and he talked him into live music. We'll play two forty five minute sets and then we can hang at the party if we want." "Far out!" Cindy said. "How much are they paying us?" "We aren't getting paid," Scott said. "But we can eat and drink during our break and after we're done." "That sucks," Brenda said. "We don't have to do it, but I thought that it would be good exposure." The idea of performing in front of a lot of people frightened me, but the others all said they wanted to do it so I went along. Scott said that if they helped us haul our gear and setup that Troy, Mark and Daniel could come as official roadies. Troy said that he was sure that Mark and Daniel would be willing to help out. We ran through all of the songs we'd been practicing. Scott thought that we probably had enough songs for the two sets, but wanted us to learn a couple more just to be safe. "How about 'White Rabbit'? Jill asked. "I don't know that one." The only Jefferson Airplane song I knew was "Somebody to Love" and we were already playing that one. "I could learn it though." "While I'm sure that you could master your part in time, I doubt we'd have enough time to practice it as a band as well," Scott said. "How about 'Smokin' in the Boy's Room'?" "I want to sing that one," Brenda said. "But I want to change it to 'Smokin' in the Girl's Room'. "We should probably have a couple songs ready for an encore," Cindy said. "Encore?" Scott said with a laugh. "I'll be happy if we don't get booed off the stage." "Booed off stage?" I asked in horror. "We're not going to get booed, Stacy," Scott said reassuringly. "I was just joking." I wasn't reassured. We started working on "Smokin' in the Girl's Room" and after several run-throughs it started to sound decent. We ran through all of our other songs again before taking our lunch break. Scott took notes on which songs needed the most work and we decided to play those after lunch. Scott had us work on three songs after lunch. Once he was satisfied with our progress Brenda said that she wanted to go over the solo section of "Smoke on the Water". "Okay, Princess, I'm going to play a riff and then you copy me. Then you play a riff, it can be anything you want, and then I'll copy you. We'll go back and forth until we get tired of it." Brenda started out easy and played only one bar. After I copied her note for note it was my turn to play something. I drew a blank. "Play whatever," Brenda said into her microphone. "It doesn't have to be right, just play what you want." I played a simple trill. "There you go," she said as she copied me. It was Benda's turn to lead and she played a couple bars. I found it pretty easy to copy Brenda. Reproducing music by ear is how I learned most of the songs I knew, but making up music on the fly, especially in front of others, was very new and scary. For my turn I ran up and down the scales. After we'd each gone back and forth a few more times I started getting into it and by the time we quit fifteen minutes later I was having a good time. Brenda had Scott record a tape with the band playing the solo section of our entire set list without me actually playing the solo. After we finished she gave me the tape so that I could practice throughout the week. That night I put Brenda's tape in my tape deck and then connected it to my amp. I slipped on my headphones and began improvising solos. It was hard since I'd spent so much time learning to play them a certain way. I tried to focus on playing in the moment as Brenda had suggested, but it was so easy to just play it the way I'd learned. I kept at it. After I'd practiced for an hour I took a short break. I gazed at the teddy bear sitting on my dresser. I hoped that the reason Daniel hadn't shown up at practice was because he had other things to do and not because I was a spaz and had freaked when he'd kissed me. The next day at the salon Patricia pulled me aside when Heidi went to lunch. "I'm going to be blunt Stacy," Patricia said. "I believe that you are a transgendered person, do you what that means?" "No." "It is a person who has been born in the wrong gender," she said. "There are many people, myself included, that were born one gender, but feel very strongly that they should have been born a different gender." I looked at Patricia and wondered why she would want to be a man. Then it hit me and I felt really stupid. "You used to be a man?" She smiled. "Yes and it does my heart good to know that you thought that I was born female." "How did you become a woman?" "Do you know about hormones and how they control puberty?" "Kind of, we had to watch a film about it in health class last year." "Well, simply put, if a boy receives female hormones instead of male hormones during puberty he will develop breasts and curves very much like a girl does. There is also a surgery that will make a boy a girl down below too. Is that something you would like to have happen to you?" "Yes." "You will need to go to a doctor to get the hormones and surgery and he will want you to talk to a psychologist and that will take a lot of time and time is not something we have a lot of. You are entering puberty and your body is sending male hormones throughout your body. These hormones will make you more like a man and make it harder for you to look like a girl. I will continue to try to convince the others that you need to see a doctor about this. In the meantime I have something that will buy you some time, but you have to promise me two things. First, do not tell anyone about this. Second, you need to take just as much as I tell you, no more. Taking more will not help." "What are you going to give me?" She pulled two pill bottles from her purse. She held one up. "This is an anti-androgen which will block male hormones." She held up the second pill bottle. "This is estrogen, which is a female hormone. Ignore the dosage on the bottles and only take one half of each pill a day." "What will they do to me?" "They will diminish the masculine effects of puberty and promote the feminine effects. You will become more like a girl if you take these. After a year or so you will even grow real breasts." "Cool." I started to get excited. She handed to pill bottles to me. "Remember, not a word to anyone. Once I convince Gloria and your mother to take this seriously we can get you to a doctor and have this done right." "I promise." I put the pill bottles in the bottom of my purse. That night, while my mom was watching television, I took a pill from each bottle, went into the kitchen and used a knife to cut them in half. My hand shook as I poured myself a glass of water. I swallowed the half pills and took the remainders back to my room and put them back in their pill bottles and then I put the bottle back into my purse. When I joined my mother in the living room I did not talk for a little bit. I was so nervous that I was afraid that if I said anything my voice would shake and she'd instantly know that I'd been up to something. I knew that what I was doing was wrong, but I also knew that I did not want to become even more of a boy than I already was. Chapter 21 On Tuesday I had my very first fingernail painting customer. She was a regular and they gave her a discount for letting the rookie work on her. She was really nice and I did most of her nails right the first time. I was a pretty nervous, but eventually I got the other nails painted correctly. Luanne offered to take over at one point, but the lady said she was not in a hurry and she liked my attitude. The ladies at the salon had been bummed that they would not be able to attend my first concert so on Wednesday I let them talk me into giving them a little concert of my own. A little after ten the salon was clear of customers and no one had an appointment for twenty minutes. I was a bit more comfortable playing in front of others, but I still made my mom lock the front door. It is not easy to hear an electric guitar when it's not plugged into an amp, but they did not seem to care. They cheered after every song and it felt awesome. I felt really close to Luanne, Patricia and Heidi. It was almost as if they were part of my family. Daniel was at practice that night. I burst into a smile once I saw him. I tried to hide my excitement, but I didn't do a very good job. "I see that you're much more comfortable with Daniel being here than you were when you first saw him on Saturday," Jill said, eyeing me a little suspiciously. "Well, we had a lot of fun playing pool," I said defensively. I greeted Daniel enthusiastically and this seemed to remove his initial hesitation when he saw me. I showed him my new amp. I explained how the different dials affected the guitar's sound and how I setup presets and showed him how I could switch form one preset to another on the fly using my foot switch. He seemed genuinely interested. I played him a little 'Smoke on the Water' while the others were still setting up. He patted me on the shoulder when I finished and said I was amazing. I burst into another smile. Scott shooed him away so that we could practice. I alternated playing my solos the old way and making it up on the fly. Making up a solo on the fly with an audience stressed me out so I played the next couple of solos the original way. Once I was relaxed again I'd try to make up another solo. By the end of practice I found that it was getting a little easier to play from the heart, but it still felt kind of unnatural. After rehearsal Daniel helped me take my equipment to Jill's car. "I have some pictures of my car, if you'd like to see them," Daniel said as he slid my guitar into the backseat. "I'd love to see them." Daniel ran over to Mark's Chevy Chevelle and pulled a handful of Polaroid's from the glove compartment. "It's a '68 Plymouth Road Runner and my dad has been helping me rebuild it. This is how it looked when I got it a year ago." Daniel handed me a photo of a rusted lime-green muscle car without wheels or an engine, but with a lot of body damage. The mention of his dad's help reminded me of playing guitar with my dad. I found that I was kind of jealous. I wished my dad was still around to do things with me. "I took this photo yesterday." Daniel handed me a second photo. Most of the body damage was gone from the car, but it was still without wheels. The rust was also gone and it looked like it had been sanded down to bare metal. There were large peach colored patches all over the car which Daniel said was Bondo. He handed me photos of tires, engine parts and seats. Every penny that he earned from his paper route went into auto parts. He was very excited and it made me excited too. I handed the photos back to him and he put them back in Mark's car. He suddenly became serious and looked pretty nervous. "Look, I'm sorry about what happened at the bowling alley," he said, not looking at me. "I'm sorry I freaked," I said. "You took me by surprise." "Yeah, I shouldn't have done it." He looked pretty embarrassed. "It's okay, really," I said. I found that I felt sorry for him. I really didn't want to hurt his feelings. I really liked hanging around with him. "It is?" He looked up at me. He had a hopeful look on his face. "Um, yeah I guess." It was my turn to look away. "Would it be okay if I maybe did it again sometime?" he asked hesitantly. I looked over to the garage where the others were standing and talking. "Yeah, I guess." I turned and walked back toward the garage before Daniel tried to kiss me in front of everyone. As the week progressed my anxiety about our upcoming show intensified and Scott's "joke" about getting booed didn't help. I feared that I'd screwed up royally just after someone shouted "hey that guitar player is actually a guy" and then everyone would start booing and throwing tomatoes. Troy, Mark and Daniel seemed to like us just fine, but they were a little biased too. I continued to take the pills Patricia had given me and I checked my body each morning to see if there were any changes. Patricia said that I'd probably notice my skin becoming softer first, but that it would take a month or more before there was any change. I still checked every day just in case it happened sooner. Whenever I thought about growing real breasts like Jill or Brenda I'd get giddy. I was so ready to be able to fill my bra with my own breasts and not some fake pads. Heidi highlighted my hair again, but this time it wasn't temporary. My mom was resistant to the idea; she said school was right around the corner, but Heidi assured my mom that she could fix my hair before school started. My mom's mention of the looming school year made me realize that my time being able to dress up could be limited. I could wear jeans anytime as Gary so I decided to wear skirts and dresses as much as possible for the rest of summer. We'd had a practice Friday night; Scott thought we needed the extra practice and Cindy had begged her neighbors and they relented. Scott banned Mark, Troy and Daniel from Friday's practice. He said we didn't need the extra distraction. That didn't stop him from making out with Brenda on each break. The guys were invited to the gig though. They were going to be our roadies and help haul all of our gear. That night as we readied for bed the other girls all wore skimpy nightwear. It was really hot out and Cindy's house didn't have air conditioning. I was really hot in my flannel nightgown, but it was the only sleepwear that I owned. "Aren't you hot in that?" Cindy asked me as I lay down on top of my sleeping bag. "I'm fine," I said. "Sure you are, Princess," Brenda said. "And that's why you're sweating so much." "You can borrow something of mine." Cindy opened a dresser drawer and held up a pink nightie that looked see through. "I'll be fine, really." I had a hard time falling asleep due to the heat. I really wanted to wear the nightie that Cindy had offered, it looked pretty and kind of sexy, but there was no way I was wearing something that skimpy around anyone else. --Continued in part 5--