Note: This story is a sequel to Blue Nails, so you might want to read it first, if you haven't already. I am posting it in several parts as I have time to work on them, since Mark/ Annie and Sarah Beth just keep sneaking back into my imagination when I’m not looking, and doing things that I had never expected them to. Please be assured that it is a work of fiction, the product of my febrile little imagination! Thanks for all your encouragement. Emmie

The Ring, Please

Okay, so I'll take Julie and Sarah Beth's advice (well, my mom's and Mrs. Holding's, too), and tell more of our story. That's what I get to showing it to people, I guess. But Julie had to see it, because she had to know what she was doing earlier this summer, in case anybody asked her. Well, not actually what she was doing. What I was doing, while pretending to be her. Now you're really confused, and the more I explain it you will become totally confused. Is it worth the risk?

Last spring, Sarah Beth Holding, my girlfriend, lost her right leg to bone cancer. She was invited to live for 6 weeks at a place called Hope Haven, so she could have outpatient physical therapy and chemotherapy at our state's children's hospital, near the university. The only catch was, she needed a family member to be a "healing partner" and roommate. Her mom and dad both worked, and were too strapped with medical bills to take off. Julie, her sister, had to work at summer sports clinics to keep her work/athletic scholarship at Westview College, the only way she could afford to go. So they convinced me (wore me down) that I could pass as Julie, and be Sarah's healing partner. So with a lot of help, I became Annie—the name came from the fact that Julie's middle name is Annette and mine is Andrew. So my slender bicycle racer's physique was covered with padding, my beard with makeup, my hair with blond curls, and my body with a feminine wardrobe that had to be seen to be believed.

It was only for 6 weeks, I kept telling myself. But our lives became involved with the lives of other people at Hope Haven and the hospital, and we wanted to stay involved with some of them. And Sarah Beth told me that she didn't want Annie to just disappear, that there would be times it would be comforting for her to have Annie around. And, to tell you the truth, I became rather fond of the old girl myself. So when we returned home, I went back to my guy clothes, my jeep, my bikes, and my short hair, but I knew that Annie would never be far away.

My plan had been, the next day after we got back to Fort Russell, to ask Sarah Beth to marry me. Thanks to Mrs. Cameron, a wealthy rancher's wife, I even had a solitaire diamond ring to give her. (Her son, Roger, only 14, was dying of brain cancer, and had never been out on a date. So as Annie, I dated him, and she financed the whole operation.) Anyway, Sarah Beth was too tired to go anywhere that day, so we postponed it. The next weekend was rainy and windy, rare here in the mountains. So finally, two weeks after we came home, I drove her up to old Fort Russell, a beautiful historical park up in the foothills above our town. We had a picnic, sat on benches, and strolled along the paths, with her leaning on her cane to help balance her and keep some pressure off her stump and prosthetic leg.

At one point she stood in front of me, took my hands, and said, "Mark, I know what you want to ask me. And I know how I want to answer. We've been thinking about it for years. You were great to be with me at Hope Haven. I couldn't have made it without you. I love you more than ever."

The lines of her face told me that she wanted to say something that she didn't really want to say. "Is there a but coming after all that?" I asked.

"BUT…" she continued, "a year ago, even early last Spring, we would have bicycled out here. Or we'd have climbed the steep trails up the ravines. I wouldn't have been hobbling at about one mile an hour along the paved flat nature trail. You're a natural athlete. I'll just hold you back."

"Hey, beautiful," I replied. "We've talked about this. I wish that you could be strong and two-legged again so we could do more of that stuff together, but it doesn't change the way I feel about you. I have more fun every time I'm with you than I do when I'm racing or climbing or whatever."

"Beautiful?" she asked. "Under this wig, I'm bald, and I'm missing a major body part and walk like Donald Duck, and you still think I'm beautiful? Have you had your eyes checked lately?" I decided to respond to that one with a major kiss.

After we unpuckered, I said, "You're bald and beautiful right now, and your hair will grow back soon enough, anyway. And you'll always be beautiful to me."

"You're not just saying that out of pity?" Another kiss. Long. Slurpy.

"I admire you."

"You're crazy," she grinned.

"I know."

"Yes," she said.

Now I was confused. "Yes what?"

"Yes, I'll marry you, silly."

"But I haven't asked yet," I pouted. "And I can't ask here. It has to be over at that bench." So we made our way up there, to the overlook. I asked. She said yes again. I put the ring on her finger. We hugged. We cried. We talked.

Neither set of parents went ballistic, but both were concerned. We explained that we weren't getting married right now, that we wouldn't elope, that we hadn't set a date, and that it wouldn't effect our plans for our senior year of high school or of going to the university a year from now. We both have a reputation for being smart, level-headed, trustworthy, and boring, so they finally hugged us and gave us their blessing.

As the summer finished, I raced a lot, did odd jobs to make some money, and brought school clothes. Guys' school clothes, thank you, Sarah Beth and Julie. I had a few good races in me, although I had missed too much of the summer season. At least I could continue in the fall. It looked doubtful that I would get to Category 2 as a racer this year, as I had originally planned. But maybe next year. I knew that I didn't have the potential to ever become a category 1 or a pro, at least without being able to train and race full-time or have a personal trainer. And both the Holdings and the Jansens were on the lower end of middle-class salary brackets, so there was a fat chance of that ever happening. At least, I got to spend more time with Rick Cousins. He's a bicycling buddy and a school friend, the kind you can just relax with and not have to pretend you're something you're not. Rick is interracial, with a white mom and African-American dad. That keeps him out of all sorts of in-groups of both colors. We're both athletic, although not much into school sports—we both run track in the Spring, and that's about it, so we're not in with the jocks. Rick, Sarah Beth, and I are all good students, but we don't try to impress others with it, so we don't fit in with the self-proclaimed "brains." We're not really considered geeks. We're not druggies. We go to church, but aren't fanatical about it, so we don't hang with the super-pious crowd. We just try to blend in.

"Rick, whenever the wedding is, I want you to be the best man, okay, bud?" I asked when I told him about our engagement.

"Sure, Mark, if you want me." I could tell by his face that he was uncomfortable.

"What do you mean, if I want you?" I asked.

"I've not come out, because of the homophobia in this town, but…."

"Come out? Homophobia?" I repeated.

"Yeah. I'm gay. Definitely gay."

That was a little bit of a surprise—not a shock, but it caught me off guard. I know he didn't date much, but he seemed to enjoy looking at foxy girls as much as anyone. I guess that was all he enjoyed, though. My favorite aunt back in Ohio is a lesbian, so our family has never been prejudiced against gays. But it was still a surprise.

"You're sure?" I asked. "Duh. Sorry." I reached out and touched his arm. "It's okay, that doesn't change our friendship or how I feel about you. And yes, I still want you to be best man." It would be an interesting wedding party. Sarah Beth's sister, the jock on basketball scholarship, would be maid of honor. Kelly Cassidy, a young woman we met at Hope Haven who was disfigured with scars from horrible burns in a trailer fire, would be the bridesmaid. The bride would have one leg. The groom has a history of looking like the maid of honor. The best man was gay. I don’t know who the other male attendant would be yet, but he would have to be flexible to fit in with this crowd.

Two days later, Rick drove over to my place after bicycle racing practice. We were checking out a new CD he'd picked up. "Mark," he started. "I know you said that you wouldn't tell anybody about me being gay until I'm ready to tell folks. I really appreciate that, because it really scares me to think of what might happen."

"No problem, bud," I answered. I realized how tough it was for him to tell me, and the courage it took. I had felt uncomfortable knowing that I had a secret life of my own that I hadn't been able to tell him about. It would feel good to be able to tell someone else about it. I went to my dresser and pulled a photo out of my sock drawer. It was of Annie, taken the night of her date with Roger Cameron. I handed it to Rick.

"Wow!" he said. "Julie looks great. I've never seen her so dressed up. But her hair looks darker. I thought she was a natural blond."

"She is," I said. "I'm not. Let me tell you about Annie. It's kind of a hostage exchange thing. Since I know your big secret, I'll tell you mine, then we'll both have to trust each other." It would have been neat having a videotape of his facial expressions as I told him the adventures of Annie, especially about the date.

"Wait a minute. You really kissed him?"

"Yep. It was probably the only romantic kiss he was ever going to get from a girl, so I just had to. It wasn't passionate or anything," I explained. "Then three of us girls took him out one evening just for fun, and I gave him a little peck on the cheek."

"Three of us girls, huh?" he said. "You really do get into this Annie thing, don't you? But do you know what really frustrates me?"

"What, Rick?"

"I'm gay, you're not, and you've kissed as many guys as I have. By the way. Will I ever get a chance to meet Annie?"

"Maybe," I smiled. "Annie is Sarah's personal trainer right now. She's usually at the Holding's house late on Wednesday and Friday afternoons. Let me know ahead of time, and you can come by."

 

The Dungeon

During the time at Hope Haven, I discovered what I hope will be my vocation—physical therapy. Working with Kevin, the head of the PT department at the children's hospital, I discovered that I have a gift for helping people doing physical rehab, and that it brought me special joy. Kevin had invited me to enter the academic program if I met all the qualifications, and hinted at scholarship help.

The week after we returned home, we took Sarah Beth to a physical therapy clinic and set up a program. Mrs. Perkins, the chief therapist there, evaluated Sarah and told her, "As you know, you're not feeling very good right now. The chemotherapy course has weakened you, and makes you feel tired all of the time. Physical therapy at the hospital was forcing you to use muscles in a new way to make up for the loss of your limb. Even after the chemo is a distant memory, doing the normal things you have to do each day is going to take much more energy and stamina than it did before. It will be tempting to just give up, and do as little as possible. A lot of people do. But I don't think you are going to let that happen. Basically, you need to go into training, just like an athlete, to build up your general strength and well-being, and to work on those muscle groups that you will need to call upon for special duty. I understand that Mark is willing to help you with that. So what I propose is that you come in here twice a week, Mondays and Saturdays, for specific work with a therapist, and that on Wednesdays and Fridays, you spend at least an hour working out at home, with Mark's help. Will you do that?"

Sarah Beth agreed. Mrs. Perkins helped us make arrangements with a medical rental place to rent an exercise machine that would help her strengthen her hips, leg, abdomen, and upper body. I talked a school coach into lending us an old floor mat. Together with the Holdings, we cleared out a corner of their basement, put the mat down, and made an exercise area for Sarah and me. I moved in an old exercycle so I could work alongside her. The work was hard for her, especially since she hadn't flushed all the chemo poisons out of her system, and it was hard on me to keep pressing her and encouraging her to go on when she felt miserable.

On about the second day, I was telling her, "Come on, Sarah, just fifteen more minutes. Let's sprint, okay?"

She interrupted. "Wait a minute. I need a new personal trainer."

"Come on, now, Sarah. I really want to help. And who else could you get that would know what I do?"

"Annie," she said. "I'd be much more comfortable being miserable with another girl around, than with my fiance. Besides, I'm used to her from back at the hospital."

I paused. She had told me that there would be moments she would want Annie back, but I hadn't really realized it would be on a regular schedule. "Okay," I finally said. "I just talked with Annie and she agreed to come coach you, if that's what you want. But don't think she'll let you lose exercise time when she's getting dressed."

So two days later, I was back in my blue Tigger bib shortalls, my favorite Annie outfit. Some of my Annie clothes had gone to Julie, but I still kept a wardrobe, wig, and makeup at the Holdings. I didn't do much with my makeup this time, just enough foundation to cover my light beard, and, of course, Annie's trademark light blue nail polish that matched the bibs. Tigger earrings and white athletic socks with little blue tufts on the back completed the look. Sarah Beth still grumbled about me torturing her in the dungeon, but she did seem a little more cheerful.

The routine became settled. Some days I wore the bibs, others sweats, and other days shorts and tee tops. A few days after I revealed Annie’s identity to Mark, I went over to the Holdings and changed. This time I went early and did it up right, while Sarah was out shopping with her mother. I put on my bandana skirt and an embroidered blouse with a Peter Pan collar, sandals to reveal my painted toenails, earrings in all 5 holes in my ears, a butterfly pin, red ribbon in my wig to accent the red in the skirt, and carefully added foundation, blush, a soft eye shadow and eye liner, and brighter red lipstick than I normally wore, hoping it would go with the skirt. I knew that the skirt was too long for me to exercycle, but I wanted to look really good, since Sarah Beth had really liked to see me as Annie lately. Sarah Beth and her mom came back, and were both impressed. (Yes, Mrs. Holding and my mom knew that I would still be Annie from time to time, as Sarah or other friends from Hope Haven needed me to be.)

Going down steps isn’t easy for Sarah, but the basement was the only place in their small home that we could fit the exercise equipment. So we went down and into our routines. I slid my skirt up enough so we could do stretching exercises sitting on the floor (and yes, this gave her the opportunity to see that I was Annie clear down to the white panties with red trim). Then I helped her up and onto the "torture machine." I munched on an apple as she worked, so she glared at me. "You’re wearing that skirt just so you can get out of working too, aren’t you Annie?" she asked.

Just then the doorbell rang. Sarah stopped working the machine so she could hear her mother’s voice through the open door. "Oh, hi, Rick. Come on in. I think it’s great that you’re going to be best man at the kids’ wedding, whenever that may be. Mark or Sarah Beth? Well, Sarah Beth is downstairs. You can go on down, if you like."

Sarah and I looked at each other with panic written all over our faces. "Just play it cool," I said. "We’ve fooled lots of people before, okay?" She nodded. Rick came clumping down the stairs.

"Hi, Sarah Beth. Hi, Julie. I didn’t know you were home from Westview this week." We both waved and said hi back. Rick came up closer. "Wait a minute. You’re not Julie, are you? I’m sorry. Have we met?" He reached his hand out toward mine.

"Uh, Rick?" Sarah started. "This is Annie, a dear friend I made at Hope Haven. She’s visiting and helping me to work out. Annie, this is Rick, and he’s going to be best man at our wedding—he’s Mark’s best friend."

"Nice to meet you, Annie," Rick smiled, shaking my hand. Then his expression clouded. "Wait a minute—you look an awful lot like—Mark! That can’t be you in there, can it? What in heaven’s name are you doing dressed up like a girl?"

"Well, Rick, it’s just the way I am. Like Clark Kent and Superman. Sometimes I’m Mark, and sometimes I’m Annie." We glanced over. Sarah Beth was white as a sheet.

Rick said "What a scoop for the school newspaper! Let me get my camera!"

I turned to Sara Beth and said, "He knows! We’ll have to kill him!" and started to reach up to put my hands on his neck.

Then Rick started laughing. Then I started laughing. We were howling.

Sarah Beth looked confused, then furious. "You two set me up, didn’t you? You told Rick about Annie, and you planned this, just to scare me out of my wits!"

"Not just us two, hon, your mom was in on it, too," I laughed.

"Just you wait," she started to threaten. Then her lips spluttered. Then she giggled. Next we were all three laughing like loons. Mrs. Holding came downstairs with some open cold cans of cola on them, and she was chuckling, too. She came back with a photo album, with all my Annie pictures. So then Rick got to visualize what Annie looked like in all the stories I had told him about our 6 weeks at Hope Haven.

It was a little mean, I guess, to trick her like that, but it got Sarah laughing. Sarah used to laugh a lot. Even at her sickest, she would make sly little jokes. It had been a long time since she had a howler like that, though, so I guess she forgave us. I’m still going to watch my back, though.

 

Roberta

Roberta is a little girl waiting for a new heart. We became friends with Roberta and her mom during our weeks at Hope Haven. Sarah Beth and I, as Annie, had promised that we would come see her again. Once every week or two we would call her mom and sometimes get to talk to Roberta, too. It was one of those scary waiting games. Roberta was high on the list to receive a transplant, because she was so seriously ill. Nobody knew for sure whether her tired little heart would last long enough.

We had promised Roberta a bicycle after she got her new heart, since she enjoyed my bicycling antics so much. It became a symbol of hope for her, something to hang in there for. So on a Saturday soon after we got home, garage sale day, Sarah Beth and I rode around in my battered old Jeep, hoping to find a nice girl's bike that somebody outgrew. We didn't. We did find a hulk of a small girl's bike, missing a front wheel and lots of other parts, and a bent frame from being left in a driveway once too often. "This has possibilities," I told Sarah Beth, carrying it to the Jeep door so she could see it. "And it's only a dollar. There are rust spots, but none are deep enough to weaken the metal."

"That old wreck?" my freckled fiance asked. "By the time you restore it, it'll cost as much as a new one."

"Probably so, but it will be more fun. And we can personalize it—make a custom machine for our little Roberta. We can work on it together," I pleaded.

"Well, okay," she grinned. "Maybe that will be a true test of compatibility." Then she frowned, and I could almost see a tear start to form. "But what if Roberta—uh—never needs the bike?"

I touched her arm. "I've thought about that, too. And I'm sure that we can find another little girl, either in the hospital, or really poor, who could use a bike built by love."

"You're on, then," Sarah responded. "The funny thing is that I could hear two people talking just then."

"Two? What do you mean?"

"I heard Mark, a good guy enthused about this big mechanical project, and Annie, who is so thoughtful, and has so much love to give." Now my eyes were moistening. I went to pay my dollar, loaded the bike in the Jeep, and we drove off.

I worked part-time in our town's bicycle shop since I was sixteen, and the owner let me come back, filling in for vacationing help. When I told him of my project, he agreed to supply parts to me at cost. Of course, parts weren't the big thing. Time was. Cleaning, sanding, straightening and welding, replacing bent spokes in the one wheel it had, repainting, took a bunch of hours. As much as possible we worked together on it. It was fun, though, and it gave us something else to focus on, something outside ourselves. We thought about how that had been true at Hope Haven and the hospital. People thought we were so wonderful for helping the other clients there, but we helped us as much as we helped them. It took our minds off ourselves. As we neared the end of August, we were nearly done with the reclamation.

We were outside on a Sunday afternoon, adding a coat of wax to the bike. We heard the phone ring and ran inside. Sarah answered it. It was Mrs. Cameron, Roger’s mother. I heard Sarah say, "That’s wonderful news!" and my first thought was that Roger’s cancer was better. "She’s having the surgery now?" Then I thought it might be Roberta. Sarah Beth confirmed it to me by mouthing "Roberta" and touching her chest.

I jumped into the air and pumped my arm. "Yes!"

Sarah said, "We’ll try to come as soon as we can!….Oh, yes. That’s right. Well, by Thursday she should be able to have visitors, shouldn’t she? We’ll try to get there Thursday, then. I think Annie can come." She looked at me. I nodded. "Yes, she can. As a matter of fact, she’s right here. Yes, she’d love to talk with you."

Mrs. C filled me in. Sadly, a little boy had been declared brain dead after a traffic accident in Kansas. Roberta was the closest matchup for him, and they flew the heart in. I grieved for the parents in Kansas, but was so glad that they had given permission for the organ donation. I had checked that box on my driver’s license a long time ago, and now I was glad that I had.

"How is Roger?" I asked in my Annie voice. "I know that he didn’t want us to come back and see him, but both of us would love to." I could see Sarah nod yes. It would be tough, because we know he had gone downhill, but we both cared tremendously for the lonely 14-year old boy, so blessed by wealth but doomed by the growth in his head that the surgeons hadn’t been able to remove. I put my free hand over my face and my chin quivered as she described his deterioration. "I see," I said finally. "And we’re both so sorry for you and your husband. Is he there? Can I talk to him?" She agreed. I heard an "Uuuh" noise. Like he was trying to say hello. Mrs. Cameron told me that he couldn’t talk clearly anymore, but that he understood what was being said. "Roger? Hi! It’s Annie, remember? Your date?" Another grunt, higher pitched. "Roger, We’ve been thinking about you so much! Praying, too!" A softer grunt. I went on to tell him about how things had been going since we had gotten home, and about rebuilding the bicycle for Roberta. "Roger? I was telling a friend of mine just the other day about the wonderful date we had. I showed him pictures of me in that beautiful blue gown, and you in your tux. He was impressed, let me tell you! I’ll never forget it." I was having trouble talking by this time. "Sarah wants to say hello, so goodbye for now, Roger, but we’ll call you, okay?" Sarah talked with Roger too, and then back to Mrs. Cameron.

After she hung up, Sarah passed on to me the message that we wouldn’t be able to see them when we drove over to see Roberta, because they were going home in two days. There was no more treatment they could give Roger. He probably only had a few months left. We both cried. What a roller coaster! Joy for our young friend Roberta, grief for our friend Roger.

We decided what to take with us when we went, and on a plan to get me out of town looking like Mark and to our destination looking like Annie. Later in the week, we talked with Roberta’s mother, and told her about the bike. "She’ll be delighted!" she said. She reminded us though that we couldn’t bring it with us on this trip, since Roberta would still be in the cardiac care unit, and her immune system would still be suppressed. So we snapped a roll of film of the bike. I dressed up as Annie for some of the shots, devoutly hoping that the neighbors would assume I was Julie, who had come home for a two-week break between sports camps and college. I put a bandana on over my wig to cover my darker hair, and went out in a lavender short and top set. Once we were done with the pictures, I turned back into Mark and Julie put on the lavender set and the bandana. (Yes, I shot film. No, I don’t have a digital camera yet—missing most of my summer paychecks put that on hold.)

Julie made the trip with us—we rode in her old Honda. We still didn’t want the people around Hope Haven or the hospital to see me and Julie together, so we were going to all share a motel room, Julie would go to hang out with some friends, and we would go to visit Hope Haven and Roberta. I left in gray shorts, cross trainers and white socks, and a big gray knit shirt that I had borrowed from my dad (monochromatic splendor). My hair was growing out since its last shave the night we had returned home, still short and bristly. In another week or two I’ll have to trim the sides. (Thank heaven, my eyebrows were starting to return, as well—they looked like charcoal smudges, but that was better for being Mark than delicately arched or shaved clean off.) About 35 miles from Fort Russell, we pulled off into a National Forest recreation area to eat our picnic lunch. We found a totally empty area. After our PB sandwiches (mine with jelly, both girls’ with bananas), we worked on me becoming Annie again. I had left home in my Annie undies, which were covered by my baggy shorts and shirt. Julie put my makeup on for me, since there wasn’t a good mirror for me to do my own. Then I forsook my gray garb for a yellow flowered sundress, slipped off my trainers long enough to replace my athletic socks with ones that had little yellow balls at the top rear, put on my wig, and inserted hoop earrings with Sarah’s help while Julie pinned a yellow ribbon into my curls. At my insistence, Julie and Sarah were also wearing flowered sundresses and ribbons—red for Julie, light green for Sarah. We looked silly, but we looked silly together. We passed around a bottle of light red nail polish—it was time for Annie to try something different.

On the road again, we had an easy trip into the city and to the hospital, getting there before afternoon rush started. Julie dropped us off and went to get our room at the hotel. We took the elevator to the cardiac care unit, and with the nurses’ instruction, donned sterile gowns, masks, and caps. We turned the corner, and through the window saw Roberta, still tiny, laying in bed, attached to enough tubes and monitor wires to make me think of the Borg, but she still looked better. Vickie, Roberta’s mom, had her back turned as we entered the cubicle (roomlet?). "Mommy! It’s Annie and Sarah Beth!" Vickie turned around and we hugged. Then we all leaned over to kiss her cheek through our masks.

Even with all the hookups, Roberta looked better than she had before—it was her color, now pinker with her improved circulation. Under the sheet and gown, we could make out the bulk of the padding over her carved chest. But she still had that Roberta twinkle in her eye, and that Roberta giggle She gasped when she saw the bicycle as it was when we first brought it. Her eyes grew wide when she saw the pictures of the bicycle after we refinished it. "You’re going to give that to me? I’ll love it! And it’s pink, just like the helmet you gave me! Will you come teach me to ride it, Annie?"

I couldn’t even remember where Roberta and Vickie lived, but I said, "Sure, I will. But you have to work hard at getting strong, first. And take all your medicine, okay?" A nurse came in and smiled at us, but told us we would have to leave for an hour so Roberta could rest. Vickie walked us to the elevator and thanked us. "Our pleasure," I said. "See you in an hour." I didn’t want to go down to Physical Therapy, because Kevin was uncomfortable with my gender switching. We did go over to Hope Haven, where Mrs. Berdugo was delighted to see us. Most of the kids that we had known had left by now. We were saddened to hear that Wendy, the girl with Leukemia, had died. She and her mother never related very well to us. They were kind of withdrawn. It must be tough to die without friends. Mrs. Berdugo introduced us to a few kids and parents, and so we stayed around and visited awhile. We went back over and got Roberta giggling as I told her really, really corny jokes, and funny stories about what a silly little girl I was. That got Sarah Beth giggling, and she told some more about silly little Annie!

Julie came by around 6:30 to pick us up for a late supper. We grabbed gyros at a Greek place, and prowled some of the funky stores near the campus. The next morning after breakfast, we made two visits to Roberta, and spent a little more time at Hope Haven. Then we went back to the motel, I changed back into being a guy, making sure that all the makeup and polish was removed. I went back to the hospital, by myself this time, while the girls went their own way, and went in to meet Kevin.

I knocked on his door. He was seated at his desk, clipboard in hand, making notes. "Sir?" I asked. "I’m a senior in high school, and am interested in going into physical therapy. I understand that you’re the person I should talk to."

"Certainly, come in, uh….?"

"Mark, sir, Mark Jansen."

"You look a little familiar," he said. "We haven’t met, have we? Wait! It’s Annie, isn’t it? I hardly recognized you!" We had a good conversation, and he made some recommendations for courses that I should take in my senior year, and contacts I should make in admissions and scholarships. Later, we were on our way back to Fort Russell, two girls and a guy. For the time being, anyway.

 

Seniors at Fort Russell High

As the school year began, Sarah Beth and I both had the same feelings—or was it lack of feelings? This was supposed to be our last year of high school, right? The climax, the end product of all those years that began when we were rugrats, right? Seniors rule, right? So why were we so unexcited? Why did we feel it was just an interlude to get through before we got on with our lives? Part of it, I guess, was the chatter of our friends, about how they'd just die if we didn't win the big football game, or if the didn’t get asked to the dance by the right boy, and all that stuff. When you spent the summer with people who really were dying, or struggling to live, or having their whole lives redefined by catastrophic illness, suddenly it doesn't feel worth it to get worked up over whether Muffie gets elected class treasurer or Eric gets a zit just before senior photos.

I guess that maybe part of our feelings of blahdom was caused by the reality that some of Sarah Beth's closest girl friends were not close friends anymore. Since her cancer, a few (now former) friends ignore her completely. Other friends try, but it's just so awkward. Do they feel guilt for not being able to hang in there with her last spring when everything was so terrible? Or just awkward, not knowing the right thing to say? Or afraid, thinking that hanging around Sarah Beth might bring to them some kind of catastrophe? Oh, a lot of girls (and boys) were nice and friendly, but by and large she felt pretty lonely and isolated. I guess that I don't mind being Annie every now and then, since Annie seems to be her closest girlfriend.

There are some other disabled kids at our high school. Or kids with disabilities, I guess I should say. Some of them have a lot of friends, but I guess the difference is that these kids have been disabled for a long time, or all their lives, and they've always been accepted (or rejected) for who they are. But when somebody enters into the world of disability unexpectedly, it scares people. This could happen to me, they think. As my dad pointed out, kids my age don't like to admit that they are vulnerable, that they could die or be crippled. So anyway, I wasn't too surprised on the first day of classes when Joanie Stephenson, a girl with spina bifida who uses a wheelchair, smiled at Sarah Beth and said, "Welcome to the club." Her hand waved between her wheelchair and Sarah's four-pronged cane.

Sarah Beth said, "Thanks, Joanie. I can't say I was crazy about the initiation process, though." It looks like maybe Joanie will become the kind of friend that Sarah Beth needs, one who will accept her and understand what it's like to be physically different in a school society where wearing the wrong brand of shoe can force you into social exile.

The one thing we did take seriously was our schoolwork. We already had good grades, but we wanted to keep them that way. The only way we could afford the university was on scholarship. The only way we could afford to get married in less than five years was to get really good scholarships. So we really focused on our schoolwork, even the dull courses from the boring teachers. In the late afternoons and evenings we would study together. Most of the time when we would study at her house, I would be Mark. But once in awhile when we would take a break, she would hang some earrings on my ears just to see how they'd look and to keep the holes open, or she’d try a new nail polish on my fingers as well as hers. It was kind of a semi-Annie-al appearance. Of course, sometimes we would play kiss-and-grope, too, but with Mrs. Holding just around the corner from us, we couldn't get too loud about it.

 

Mobility

I was still working out with Sarah in the dungeon. A few days after Rick’s visit, we were in her room changing from school clothes. I was slipping into some Annie clothes—solid yellow shorts and a yellow-and-white striped top—when she said, "Mark, I'm sorry. You don't have to become Annie every time you help me with physical therapy. I think that I was just angry enough at all the PT torture that I took my anger out on you."

I paused. I wanted to be careful how I said things. "You don't think you need Annie anymore?"

Her pretty freckled face screwed up like it does when she's concentrating. "There will be times when I think I will really need Annie around. There will be times when Annie and I will have fun together, like we did when we went to visit Roberta. But I don't want you to feel like you have to be Annie. I love you as Mark, and that should be good enough."

I still wasn't sure how I wanted to respond. I slipped my cross trainers back on. Then I went to the makeup table. Spreading foundation over my light growth of beard, I said, "Annie's with you now because Annie wants to be. Annie will be with you whenever you need her, whenever you want her." I traced a little color on my lips and pressed them. "I'm glad that you said that I don't have to change every time we do therapy together, because there are some days it will save me time just to stay Mark, or I might be too tired to bother, or whatever." I set my wig in place. "But right now, I’m glad to be Annie. And now, it's off to the dungeon with you."

We had assumed—Kevin, her physical therapist and I—that Sarah Beth would be more comfortable using a wheelchair to get around campus at our high school. Sarah Beth had no intention of doing so. She was going to walk. We worked with the school nurse and the assistant principal to set up a schedule that would keep the trips between classes as short as possible. Whenever possible, we would have classes together or nearby, so I could run interference for her in the hallways from one to another. (Of course, that had a side benefit—I got to be with her more.) When I couldn't travel with her, we had made arrangements with other friends to do the job. We always knew that there was a wheelchair in the nurse's office in case Sarah felt week some day or had to travel a really long distance in a short time.

It worked, at least for the first couple of weeks. She wore a backpack to free her hands, and she swung along with her prosthetic leg and cane, determined not to let a little thing like an upper-leg amputation slow her down. I don't know if I said this before or not, but it fits here so I'll say it anyway. Many people with disabilities can do just about anything they want to, but it takes a lot more planning and a lot more energy. They don't want to be excused from life. And Sarah was determined to live as normally as any other teen.

On Wednesday of the third week of September, though, it stopped working, at least for awhile. At 10:15, we were nearing a corner in the hallway when Randy Amos, a scrub end on the football team, came charging past the corner, looking behind him to receive a pass from a friend, and smeared right into us both. We all three went down. Sarah Beth had fallen a lot in therapy, and a fair number of times since. She never wants help, although sometimes she'll accept my arm to help her balance and pull up. She doesn't want anybody to panic or make a fuss. She just wants folks to stand back or to go about their business while she goes about hers.

This time, though, I heard her cry out in pain as she went down. As she started to roll over to get up, she cried out again and flopped back. I scrambled to my knees. "Sarah, what's wrong?" I asked.

"My back—my hip—I pulled something really bad. I can't turn over. I can't get up. This is so STUPID!" I called for somebody to call 911, that we'd need some professionals to be able to move her.

Amos just stood there, shaking, saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

I looked back up at him, angry, but wanting to focus on Sarah. "That was really dumb, man, but right now I don't want to deal with you being sorry. Just go on, okay?" Out of my peripheral vision, I noticed a teacher leading him off, as he looked back at us with pleading eyes.

The nurse came with a cell phone, and completed giving instructions to the ambulance crew. We helped Sarah get as comfortable as possible. By eleven, she was at the hospital on her back on a gurney, with her leg unattached, unable to move without wincing. They took her to x-ray and moved her around for pictures, which didn't help her pain level any. Her mom rushed from work and tracked us down as she was being moved into a bed. I tried to sum up what we had found out so far. "They say it's nothing that won't heal with time, but that it will take some time. There are muscle tears and strains in her lower back and hip, some compression damage in her vertebrae and in some other joints from being jammed so hard, and her ankle is badly sprained. They removed the prosthesis in the ambulance, so it wouldn't be pulling on her sore hip and back. I wasn't there when she actually lost her leg last spring, but I don't think I've ever seen her hurting this bad."

Sarah moaned, and squeezed her mother's hand. "Actually, I've hurt worse, but just not in so many places as right now," she corrected me. Sarah stayed overnight at the hospital until Thursday afternoon, with some pretty heavy painkillers. I stayed in her room. Sometimes she'd wake and mumble, "Hi, Mark." Sometimes, she'd mumble, "Hi, Annie, would you get me some crushed ice?" I didn't have the wardrobe, but I was fitting the role.

I went to school Friday and the next Monday and Tuesday, while Sarah stayed home. She didn't wear her prosthetic at the hospital or at home. I spent the weekend at her house, sleeping in Julie's room, and wearing Annie clothes. On Saturday, it was my Tigger bibs. I started to put a yellow sundress over my head on Sunday morning, and she just shook her head and said, "Annie, what am I going to do with you? It's nearly the end of September, and you're still dressing like it's summer. We're going to have to improve your wardrobe."

By the time she was ready to return to school, she insisted on wearing her prosthetic leg, even though she would be using a wheelchair. She didn't want people to stare. It took nearly two weeks before she was strong enough to try walking again, and then she ended up in the wheelchair before day's end and at home. Through it all, I worked with her as I could, massaging the sore muscles, and helping her exercise as much as she could endure. Well, Annie and I did.

 

Same Song, Second Verse

"This is a bitch. Really a bitch." Sarah Beth was usually squeamish about using even such mild language, but she was depressed and angry. She was just starting to get where she could walk again, and the ugly c-word was about to reenter her life. Chemotherapy. Her hair had started growing out, and it was nearly an inch long. Although she wore her wig to school, she didn’t mind it if people saw her crewcut look around home. But it was going to be back to bald in a few weeks. And back to barfy. This round promised not to be so bad. It wouldn’t be as potent a combination of drugs, so the side effects wouldn’t be as awful. She could receive it as an outpatient at the local hospital, instead of going back to the children’s hospital 90 miles away. She wouldn’t have to miss school (except for time lost for feeling yucky), since the hospital had already scheduled her for late afternoon appointments. The treatment was to keep the cancer out of her system, not to stop cancer that was already there. But it still would be no fun.

"And the worst thing about is that you can’t take me, Annie," she pouted as she brushed her short hair. I hadn’t planned on being Annie that afternoon, but she found this maroon party dress that Julie hadn’t taken to school, and wanted to see how it would look on me. Not too bad, actually.

"Mark can take you, though," I replied, as I sorted through her lipsticks to find one that would go with the maroon dress. "I mean, it’s great that they scheduled things so your mom can take you after she gets off work, but I want to be there, too, as Mark, I mean."

"But Mark, you’re spending all your time taking care of me. I’m not sure it’s healthy for you and for me to have my fiance be my nurse all the time. Your love might just become—well, just a sense of responsibility. You have a life and you’re not living it." I nodded. In a way, I had to agree with her.

"I love being with you anytime, anyway, anyhow," I said. "But you might be right. I guess it might not be the best thing for either of us for me to be right on top of you all the time…." I started to blush.

"It would be fine for you to be on top of me one of these days, Mark," she giggled. "But we sort of promised that we’d try to wait." We heard the back door close.

"And your mom’s coming in from the garden, anyway. But, back to our previous discussion. On nice days when you think you’ll be okay at the hospital without me, I’ll go biking or whatever. But I might come and hang around from time to time, if it’s okay—as Mark, that is. If people around here found out my secret identity as Super Annie, the forces of evil might triumph." I did a Superman (Superwoman?) pose as much as the party dress would permit, and she giggled again.

The Saturday after her first week of chemo treatments, she felt good and insisted that we go shopping to improve Annie’s fall wardrobe. "But I thought that Annie wasn’t supposed to be seen around town," I protested.

"You can come as Mark. You’re about Annie’s size, I think," she giggled, "and I promise that you won’t have to try anything on. We’ll just pretend we’re looking for stuff for Julie."

So we go to the biggest thrift store in town, and I (without much acting) look like the pained, bored boyfriend waiting for his teenaged girlfriend while she power shops. I hoped that the clerk didn’t notice much when she would lift blouses and skirts off the rack, hold them in my general direction, and say, "hmmm."

Unfortunately, the clerk, an older lady with her back in a bun and a sensible dress, was looking right at us when Sarah Beth laid right up to my chest a pair of lilac twill bib overalls, with embroidered flowers on the bib. I stepped back. "Sarah!" I said. Sarah saw the clerk and grinned.

"I’m sorry," she said. "I’m shopping for my sister and my boyfriend is just her size—well, not just her size, if you know what I mean," as she made straight up-and-down motions with her hands to illustrate my boyish figure. "I didn’t mean to embarrass you, or him." The clerk smiled and said it was okay. After the clerk walked away, she whispered, "Annie, you know how you love the Tigger bib shortalls. You need something informal to replace them for the Fall and Winter, don’t you?"

I whispered back, "I’m sorry, Sarah. Those just don’t grab me like Tigger did." We did leave with two long-sleeved blouses of a smooth, silky material. One had autumn leaves on it, and the other was a solid color that Sarah described as taupe. At her home later, she showed me a pair of black silky pants that Julie had left. They bulged out loosely toward the bottom before they came back in to form cuffs just above the ankles. She asked me to try them on, and try on each blouse with them. I didn’t have to go the full makeup route, she just wanted to see how they looked. They looked fine, although maybe a little old for Annie, and the soft, smooth material felt great on my skin. I was generally comfortable in women’s clothes, but I rarely felt excited. This could get me aroused. Sarah asked how I like them.

"I like them fine, Sarah, they look good and feel great. But I thought that I was just going to be Annie around the house here. Why do I need a new wardrobe?" I asked, glancing at myself again in the mirror.

Sarah looked incredibly sad. "Because Annie will need something more seasonal to wear to Cameron, besides the white blouse and maroon skirt that Mrs. C asked you to wear. These are the kind of clothes that will be appropriate when the time comes."

When the time comes. She was referring to Roger. The day before, as we had every Friday afternoon for the past several weeks, we had called collect (at Mrs. C’s invitation) to talk with Roger. He and his mom listened over a speaker phone. He was totally bedfast and helpless, his mother told us. She still thought that he understood us, and that he seemed content and happy when we talked to him, and less agitated the rest of the day. He wasn’t on life support except for IV fluids, and the doctors didn’t give him many more weeks. We had promised to come for his funeral, and Mrs. C. had promised to provide the transportation to get us there.

 

The Invitation

On a Saturday morning about the middle of October, Sarah called and asked me to come over. Julie had come home the night before, and wanted to talk with all of us—nothing earthshaking, she said. She just felt that since I was family now, or almost, that I might like to hear, along with Sarah and their mom, how things were going at college. She also had an invitation for us. That part I couldn't figure out. She wasn't going steady, so it must not be a wedding invitation.

"Hi, Mark, come on in!" Julie greeted me on the step. She looked lean, happy, and fit. Her blond hair was even more curly than usual, so she must have gotten a perm since I saw her last. It made me remember the bleach-and-die job and perm that I received four months ago that had transformed my straight brown hair into a clone of her blonde bubble. The four of us made ourselves comfortable in the living room. (Mr. Holding was driving his semi rig somewhere in Pennsylvania.) I lazily scratched Mr. Jones behind the ears as he plopped his big head on my lap. (Okay, I'm leading you on. Mr. Jones is their old golden lab mix dog named for a third-grade teacher for forgotten reasons.) He grunted in appreciation as Julie gave us the lowdown on life in the athletic wing of the women's dorm at Westview College, her cross-country running that had kept her on campus most weekends and helped get her in shape for basketball, her scholarship sport, and sly descriptions of her professors and the courses they taught. Her happiness made me happy, because my becoming Annie for the summer had freed the way for her to go to college. Otherwise, she would have been taking a nail tech course at the local beauty college and working at her friends' nail parlor, the same place where my long blue nails had become my six-week companions.

Julie reached into a bag and pulled out two long-sleeve tee shirts with Westview printed down the arms. Mine had a picture of Tigger on the front, and Sarah's had Piglet. "These are unisex, Mark, so Annie can wear the Tigger shirt, too. The color will look great with a denim skirt." Evidently, the family had kept her up to date that Annie still came around from time to time.

"Now for the invitation," she said. "I want the three of you to be my guests on campus over the Halloween weekend." Oh, oh. Even before Annie had come along, I had agreed to let the girls dress me up as a female on Halloween. I had hoped that with Julie being away at college, they would have forgotten. "It's a parents and prospective students weekend. My first freshman women's basketball game is late Thursday afternoon, and I'll be starting at guard. I'll also be on the bench but may get to play a little during the varsity game that evening. Friday evening, the women's athletic association is having its own Halloween party, and on Saturday there will be lots of fun booths and activities. You can go to church with me up there Sunday, and then head home."

Mrs. Holding looked concerned. "That would be great, honey. I'd love to come watch you play in your first game there. But it sounds a bit expensive, with motel rooms and all, and Sarah Beth and Mark would miss school."

Julie smiled. She had done her homework. "College visits are fully excused absences for high school seniors," she explained. "I know that you two are planning to go to the university," she said, looking at us, "but you can still come and see what Westview has to offer. And as for lodging, I've already signed you up for a guest room in the athletic wing."

My brow furrowed. "The guest room in the athletic wing of the women's dorm. Halloween. Is it really Mark that you’re inviting?" I asked Sarah giggled. I had the feeling I was being set up again, as this pair had done so often in the past.

"You're right, Mark," Julie said. "I do hope that Annie will come. If you want to come as yourself, you are invited also, but you'll also have to stay off campus at a motel. And your Halloween costume won't be nearly as much fun."

"I suppose you have the costume all planned out, too," I muttered.

"I do, and I think you'll enjoy it a lot. It's very appropriate. And Sarah Beth's costume will work with it really well. It's nothing embarrassing or cheap. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. Trust me."

Sarah Beth nodded at me. Evidently, she had already agreed to this plan. "I guess that I trusted you when I became Annie, and that worked out okay," I said to Julie. "All right. If it's okay with my folks to go with you that weekend, I'll go. But at Hope Haven, I was supposed to be Annie Holding. Won't there be people there that know you only have one sister?"

"You'll be Annie Jansen," Julie explained. "Your own imaginary sister. I promise you that I haven't told anyone at college, even my best friend, how you as Mark became Annie last summer. I have, however, told them how Annie Jansen, my bicycling buddy, saved my neck by taking my place at Hope Haven. That's part of the reason I asked you to do this, actually. They were impressed, and asked if they could meet you—Annie—some day."

"I guess that'll work," I said. "But what if I don't get into the PT program at the university? Westview was my second choice as a school. This could get really confusing, if I visit there as Annie and want to come later as Mark."

"I don't see why that should be a problem. We'll just say that there's a strong family resemblance between you and your sister, and that she ran off with a carnival or something," Julie said.

"Annie wouldn't run off with a carnival," I protested. "But okay, you win, as usual. I’ll go as Annie."

Julie smiled and pulled something else out of the bag. It was another Westview Women Power tee like she had given us last summer, this one white with lavender silhouettes of woman athletes on it. But when she turned it over, it had "Annie Jansen" printed across the back. Of course, there was another one for Sarah with her name on it, too. Julie doesn't do things on the spur of the moment. She plans them out like a military campaign. I took the shirt and waved it above my head as a white flag of surrender. Lots of guys I knew would love to spend a weekend in a women's dorm. But not many would want to do it in the outfits, makeup, and wig that I would be wearing, nor would they want to do it staying with their future mother-in-law. Oh, well. I would look resigned. I would sigh a lot. I wouldn't let them know that it sounded like fun.

 

Halloween Happenings

The school gave its blessing to the trip, and my mom and dad did, too. Dad didn't know that I would be going as Annie. He still has some discomfort around the fact that his son so easily slips into a female mode. Sarah Beth was still using her wheelchair most of the time at school, although she would get up and walk short distances. Annie didn't make any appearances in the week-and-a-half, but Sarah Beth did buy me a pair of girl's jeans (zipper on side) for the trip. Her mom cleaned and styled my wig. By this time, my own hair was growing out to where I got the sides trimmed. Sarah's hard-won inch growth was already thinning from the new round of chemotherapy. Two nights before we left for Westview, she got out the clippers and asked me to repeat my barber role. Between her and Mr. Jones, she said, there was too much hair being shed in the house. Her hair was just a little darker than Mr. Jones' fur, but they were both nearly the same length. I offered to shave mine off again, as I had done during the summer, but she insisted that I not. "Every time people saw your bald head," she explained, "I knew they were thinking about my bald head under my wig and feeling sorry for me. I'm really tired of people feeling sorry for me. Besides," she giggled, "you don't shed as much as Mr. Jones or me."

We left town very early Thursday morning to head for Westview. I was dressed in the jeans that Sarah had brought me, and the "Annie Jansen" Westview shirt from Julie. A large bandana covered most of my wig, so if anyone saw me they would be more likely to think that I was Julie. Sarah had suggested "Perfectly Peachy" nail polish for the trip, and so we both sported it.

To get to Westview from Fort Russell without going 150 miles out of our way, you have to drive through the city where we had spent most of the summer. We had left early to have time to drop off and see Roberta at the hospital. She was out of the CCU now, and didn’t have all the tubes, but she was still wired to the monitors.

"Annie! Sarah Beth!" she squealed as we came into the room. We introduced our little friend to Sarah Beth’s mom, and gave her a big helium vampire balloon for Halloween. Mrs. Holding and Roberta’s mother stepped out into the hall, so we could chatter with the little girl who had received a new life with a new heart.

We had lunch at one of the places we had found in the city, then headed over the mountains to Westview. Following Julie’s instructions, we went first to the women’s dorm and entered the athletic wing. "Remember you’re Annie," Sarah Beth muttered. "Don’t ogle any beautiful bodies you see."

I bobbed my eyebrows up and down. "Okay, I’ll only ogle yours!" Mrs. Holding just shook her head, then picked up a courtesy phone to dial Julie’s room. In a minute, Julie was out hugging us both. Then I looked up to see a smiling, very tall black woman walk into the room. How striking! Her hair was cropped short, following the shape of her head. She reminded me a bit of a friend of ours from the chemotherapy waiting room last summer, but this woman was taller and blacker. I thought at first she would walk past us, but she stopped by Julie’s side to greet us.

"Hello, Mrs. Holding," she said, "It’s so good to see you again! And this must be Sarah Beth Holding and Annie Jansen! I’m so glad to meet you both!" She hugged us all. She must have noticed the confused look on my face, because she said, "Oh, I’m so sorry, Annie. I put you at a disadvantage. I’m Karrin Kamaeu, Julie’s roommate. Julie had told me how much fun she and her roommate had together, but she had just used her first name (accent on the last syllable), and hadn’t described her to us. Karrin’s voice was deep and melodic, and her English was very precise. She was at least four inches taller than Julie and I, but very slender.

The two roommates helped us settle into the small guest suite. It had two single beds and a small fold-out couch. "I’ve heard so many wonderful things about you two," Karrin told us. "Your sister is very proud of you both, even though she says that she teases you and pulls jokes on you all the time. And I am proud to help you out."

"Yes," Sarah Beth said, "Thank you for helping us settle in."

Karrin smiled down on us. "That is not what I meant. I am talking about the costumes." For the Halloween party, I wondered. Would we be wearing something African, maybe? She went on to explain. "I promised to keep the costumes secret until tomorrow evening, but they are very nice, and very appropriate. One of my great loves in life, even greater than my love for basketball, is theatre and costume design. I am the wardrobe mistress for the Westview Players, our local college troupe. So making your costumes was a labor of love."

"Karrin," I asked. "Forgive me if I seem too forward, but where are you from? Your accent intrigues me."

"I am from Westview, of course," she said, grinning broadly. "Actually, I was born in Zimbabwe, Africa. Soon after my birth, my parents came to this country to graduate school, and when I was seven, we moved here to Westview. Both my parents are on the faculty, so I have full tuition scholarship as a faculty child. The basketball coach wants me to stay in the athletic dorm to keep in training, and so that is paid for by an athletic scholarship. Besides, it is more fun being here with Julie than living at home."

I was impressed, maybe a little awestruck at this regal young woman. She was a sophomore. In addition to basketball, track, and the wardrobe room, she acted in plays and maintained a high grade-point average. Both she and Julie had started out with different roommates, but they were distracting and not well-focused or academically motivated. Keeping her grades up was vital to Julie, since her family couldn’t pay the high costs at Westview. So she and Julie had formed a team that had awesome fun, yet worked at a consistently high level.

Julie and Karrin left us to go get ready for their game. We settled in and Sarah Beth caught a little catnap while we waited to go over to the gym. I read a little further in a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 book, reflecting that I might be a good candidate for the Bajoran clergy with their androgynous robes and pierced ears. My pagh is probably pretty good, but I'd have to get a nose job.

Only a few dozen had gathered for the junior varsity game. We had watched lots of high school girls basketball in Fort Russell because of Julie's involvement, so it was fun to watch the college women go through their paces. Julie and Karrin both started the game. It was a fascinating study in contrast. Julie plays an intense "in your face" guard, moves up and down court with surprising speed, forces the other team to make mistakes, and is a fair outside shooter. In spite of her height, Karrin moved with lithe grace, and shot and rebounded with a dancer's style. In spite of their different styles of play, it was obvious that Karrin and Julie almost instinctively knew where the other was, and enhanced one another's strengths. It was a case where 1+1 equals more than two.

"They're so good, aren't they, Annie?" Sarah Beth said as Karrin deflected a rebound into Julie's hands and Julie shot for a three-pointer.

"Yeah," I observed. "I almost wonder why Karrin is playing here instead of at a larger university."

"According to Julie," Sarah Beth reflected, "there are a couple of reasons. First, scholarship basketball at that level demands a total commitment, and Karrin has too many other interests, with acting, designing, and other stuff. Also, you see how slender she is. She would have to bulk up to survive the heavier physical contact at the university level, and she's not interested in doing that. I'm kind of glad she came here, since she's become a part of Julie's life. I really like her."

"I do too," I said.

"That was obvious," Sarah responded. "When you first saw her, I was almost embarrassed. Your mouth dropped open. I had to fight back a twinge of jealousy."

"She is impressive," I admitted. "But you don't have anything to worry about." I mouthed "I love you" so people nearby wouldn't overhear. Sarah responded in kind.

Westview won by eleven points over their opponents from a college in Montana. We grabbed a quick sandwich for supper, cleaned up, and then returned for the varsity game with the same school. The gym was more crowded this time. Julie came by and pinned sheets of paper with her number, 23, on our backs. We noticed that family members of other players wore their appropriate numbers, too. Julie and Karrin sat on the bench the first half. It was a close game, so I doubted that either of them would have much chance to play. Foul problems, though, gave them the chance to go in as a pair. Evidently the coach wanted to take advantage of the way they played together. Obviously, they didn't dominate as they had in the first game, but I was impressed with how smoothly they fit into the pattern of play of the more experienced players. We screamed loudly when Julie spun to avoid the player guarding her and sunk her first varsity basket, and almost as loudly when Julie stole the ball as it was being returned down court, fed it to Karrin, who made her first. Four points in four seconds, not bad! Westview won by three. Later, back at the dorm, the two athletes stopped by our room. Julie was beaming, and Karrin's mouth wore a subtle smile. We praised their performances. Then Julie said, "The coach said that we played so well, she was sure we would get more varsity playing time than we had thought!"

The next morning, I put on the smooth baggy black slacks and the autumn-leaf blouse. I wore knee-highs and black flats, four small hoop earrings, a subtle chain around my neck, and a pin on the blouse. Sarah Beth dressed in a similarly dressy maroon outfit (maroon was a Westview color). We were overdressed for the majority of the student body, but we wanted to look like eager prospective students. Since it was Halloween, some of the students dressed up during the day. Some of them may have always dressed like that, though. I thought the Goth look was passe. I spotted two boys in drag, and was glad that I passed better than they did. They were way overdressed and overly made-up, trying to look like some prototype of "Sexy Woman."

"If Annie had looked like that," Sarah said softly after one of them had passed, "We would have never made it, would we?"

"I had good guidance," I told her. "You all told me that I should just look like an ordinary girl, and not go for glamorous. It worked, didn't it?"

Sarah squeezed my hand. "Yes, it did, and I have both a fiance and a new best girl friend. Thanks, Annie."

We visited some Friday classes with Julie, and Karrin escorted us to a math course that her dad taught. Admissions counselors visited with us, gave us advice, and tried their mightiest to get us to sign on the dotted line. We were honest, and said that Westview was our second choice, since we were hoping to do more specialized studies at the university than a small college offered. Mom Holding met us at lunch, in the college union. Julie and Karrin, along with their friends, griped good-naturedly about the food, but Sarah Beth and I thought it was great compared to Fort Russell High and Hope Haven.

At 3:30, Julie and Karrin took us with them to basketball practice. "Mind your manners!" Julie whispered as we walked into the locker room.

"I know. Don't ogle," I whispered back.

It was difficult since the room was full of tall, athletic young women in various stages of undress. I was pushing Sarah Beth in her chair, and she glanced back at me a few times to make sure I was acting innocent. Only once or twice did she reach back to swat my knuckles, as different teammates came by and introduced themselves. We went out to the gym, and just relaxed while the team went through a light workout, just to stay loose. "If we had lost last night," Julie mentioned during a break, "it wouldn't have been anywhere near this light."

We stopped at a gourmet burger place for supper, then went back to the dorm. Julie took Sarah Beth back to their room, and Karrin announced that she was going to help me with my costume in our guest room. "So what am I going to be?" I asked. I was relatively sure that I wouldn't have to strip, or Julie wouldn't have let Karrin help me.

"You'll find out!" she teased. She asked me to take off my slacks, blouse, and pantyhose, and gave me a pair of white knee-length socks and a pair of shiny black shoes with a low heel and a wide strap. "Mary Janes," she called them. They looked like little girl's shoes, but were a little large on my feet. I slipped into the bathroom to change and to make sure that I still looked girlish in my undies. When I came out, Karrin just smiled, bent over, and rolled down the tops of my socks. Then she reached into the closet and pulled out this huge, short orange dress. It, too, was obviously a little girl's style, with white rolled cuffs and a white collar. So, they wanted me to dress as a little girl. I didn't see what was so special.

Karrin beamed at the effect. "It is too bad that your hair isn't a little more reddish orange, or we wouldn't need a wig," she said, as she started to stretch a nylon net over my own wig.

"Wait a minute," I said. "If you have another wig for me to wear, I can just take this one off. Did Julie told you how I shaved my head when Sarah Beth lost her hair to chemotherapy?" I asked, lifting my wig off. "So far, it's just grown back into this cute little boyish buzz cut."

Karrin clapped her hands in delight. "Oh, that looks so cute on you. And you don't look boyish at all!" Yet another compliment to make me feel strange. "If you didn’t wear your wig, though, people might think we were twins," she teased, touching her own closely-cropped hair. The wig she placed on my head was a lot like the one I had been wearing, but it was a bright orange-red. It reminded me of the color of Lucille Ball's hair on those Nick at Night reruns, but in a more little-girlish style. Karrin invited me to look in the full length mirror.

"Now do you know who you are?" she asked.

"It looks familiar, but I'm not sure I can place it," I admitted.

"You are Annie!" she declaimed with real authority.

"Of course, I'm Annie," I said, "Annie Jansen."

"And now you are Annie, as in Little Orphan Annie! If only we could have gotten some white contact lenses so people could only see the whites of your eyes," she said.

Then I realized. I had seen a video of the musical Annie when I was a kid, maybe in fifth grade. Mom and dad told me that it was based on a comic strip that was popular a long time ago. "DUH!" I said. "Karrin, forgive me for being so dense. Now I get it, Annie! And I'm Annie! You and Julie said it would be appropriate, and it is. I love it, I really do. So how did you get a costume like this? Little girl's styles don't usually come this size, do they?"

"Honey, I brought the cloth and made it myself. Since Julie told me that you and she were the same size, she had to model it for me as I made it—you should have seen her!" That brought a laugh from me.

"But what about Sarah Beth? Is she dressed in something that relates to this?" I asked.

"Let's go find out. She should be ready." I followed Karrin as she started down the hall. Some of the other woman athletes were already getting dressed in their costumes, so I didn't feel too embarrassed at the giggles and pointing, and remarks of how darling I looked.

My mouth dropped as I stepped into Julie's room. Sarah Beth was standing, using the kind of cane that dancers use with top hats. Starting at the bottom, she had shoes with big yellow spats, striped pants, a tuxedo, a white formal shirt with a gigantic fake diamond stickpin, and no hair at all! My shy Sarah was now the world's shortest Daddy Warbucks, to go with the world's tallest Little Orphan Annie. I was amazed that she would be willing to go out like that, but evidently she had agreed to it back when Julie had first invited us. These are majorly sneaky women, let me tell you. Then Mom Holding came out from the bathroom with her normal clothes on, but a large yellow mascot dog head and fake paws stuck over her hands. "Woof!" she said. Then I remembered that Annie had a dog named Sandy.

Karrin and Julie didn't play to our theme. Karrin looked scary in a grim reaper robe and scythe, and Julie had scrounged up a Little Red Riding Hood outfit so I wouldn't be the only little girl at the party. The party itself, in the Student Union, was lots of fun, and one of the big fund-raisers for the women's athletic scholarship fund. Julie and Karrin had brought our tickets. Unlike Halloween parties back home, where kids usually wore store-brought costumes, the college students had been more creative. One even came as a Picasso painting. Hey, I'm not that uncultured. They had prizes for best costume. Sarah and I won a little plastic trophy for second place in the best couples category. I wonder if we would have finished first if they had known that it wasn't just Sarah who crossed gender lines?

Saturday was an informal day. Sarah Beth and I wore our Piglet and Tigger Westview shirts and denim skirts. She had even found a pair of Piglet earrings that matched my Tiggers. Different organizations and programs at the school had set up folding tables and tents on the quad, to drum up interest, both for current students and prospective ones. Sarah Beth was tired from the day before and rode her chair most of the way. Even though we weren't really serious about Westview, it was a fun way to find out more about college life. One of the most interesting visits Sarah Beth had was with a campus activist group that focused on accessibility and rights of people with disabilities. She grabbed up some of their literature and took down a few names and addresses. Karrin's family had us over for lunch. I thought it would be something African, but it was really good barbecue instead. Both Karrin's parents were very tall, and I kept bending my neck back to look up at them when they talked. Afterwards, my short Sarah said, "Now you know how I feel, having to look up at people all the time." I guess that was true even when she was standing, but was even more so with her in the wheelchair.

Mom Holding really seemed to enjoy the visit to the campus. "A campus like this on a beautiful fall day makes me wish that I could have gone to college," she said wistfully. She and her husband had both grown up poor, and went to work right after high school.

"Mom," Sarah Beth said, "I’ll likely be away at college next year, and you’ll have an empty nest. Maybe if I get a good scholarship, you can go to college, too."

"What? Don’t be silly. I couldn’t afford that, and my job keeps me plenty busy," she protested with a smile.

"Really, Mom Holding," I came in. "You don’t have to quit your job to be a part time student. Start taking courses at Fort Russell Community College in the late afternoons, when you’re usually home. Mr. Holding is out on the road enough that he doesn’t need you there everyday cooking, or anything. You’re really smart, and I’m sure that you would enjoy it."

She just smiled, and said, "Well, maybe. But I am forty."

"Good excuse, mom," Sarah Beth came in. "Just tell dad it’s you’re midlife crisis."

We changed our plans a little, and went to a contemporary worship service that the campus church held on Saturday evenings, so we could leave earlier the next day, and not have to change clothes. I went to church in the silky outfit that I wore Friday, although it looks like jeans and tees would have been okay there.

Sunday was a beautiful day for driving through the mountains. We stopped off at the children's hospital and enjoyed visiting Roberta and her mom. They had come from a distant corner of the state, but Vickie said that after Roberta was released, they would move here so Roberta's health could be better monitored.

"That's great!" Sarah Beth said. "That means that if we are able to come to the university, Annie here can teach Roberta how to ride that bike we fixed for her!" I just smiled and nodded.

 

Goodbye, Dear Friend

Sunday afternoon, after we returned from Westview, we tried to call Roger. Mrs. Cameron said that he was not doing well, and that he was asleep. Her voice sounded tired and strained, but she said she was glad we called, and I could hear it in the tone of her voice. Since she thought I was Julie, I explained that we were on our way back to college, and tried to tell her about the basketball games from Julie’s perspective. She enjoyed what we had to say, and promised to tell Roger. "Only a week ago, I could tell that he could understand what you said over the speakerphone, or what I said to him. Now, I’m not so sure. He’s asleep most of the time, which is a blessing. The doctors say it may be weeks, or it may be months. When the time comes, I do hope you can come for the services. We will make arrangements to get you here."

"We would love to, if we can," Sarah Beth said.

"It would mean so much to me," Mrs. Cameron responded. "You two made him feel loved and cared for during the worst part of his life." We promised to pray for them.

Only nine days later, the call came. Roger Cameron died peacefully in his sleep, a month shy of his sixteenth birthday. Sarah Beth took the call. Mrs. Cameron told her that his services would be Saturday, and asked if they could fly us there Friday afternoon. "But we don’t have commercial air service in Fort Russell," Sarah Beth said.

"You do have an airport, and our pilot will pick you up in our plane, if that’s all right," she explained. "Then we can get Annie at Westview."

Sarah Beth thought quickly. "No, that’s all right, Mrs. Cameron. Annie was planning to come home Friday, anyway, and she’ll need to have her car here." They arranged a time, 3:30 Friday afternoon. The next day, after we made arrangements at school, I went over to Sarah’s to plan for the trip. I had already promised to wear to the funeral a long maroon skirt and white blouse that Roger had liked so much. The black slacks and the autumn leaves top would be fine for any visitation or dinner on Friday evening.

"What about Sunday?" I asked. "What should I wear to church, since she asked us to go?"

Sarah Beth took me into Julie’s room, and pulled out a black knit dress. "Julie sent this home with us in case you needed it," she explained. "It’s her L.B.D."

"Her what?" I asked.

"Little black dress. It’s really smooth and comfortable, but dressy, too. This goes with it," she said, as she pulled out a white jacket with black trim. "This will go really nicely with the pearls." I remembered the pearl necklace that Mrs. Cameron had brought for me for my date with Roger. Sarah continued: "It’s what Julie would wear if she were going. So she wanted you to wear it. Especially since she has the gown that you wore on your date with Roger."

We packed Thursday night and I drove us out to the airport in my jeep. At least with the slacks and flats, it wasn’t too hard working the clutch. I checked myself out in a mirror, and saw the plain-but-pleasant Annie looking back at me. The autumn-leave patterned blouse looked good with my brown curly wig. Bronzed nails set off the hair and blouse. At this point, I had simple gold studs in my ears, but carried the diamond ones in my bag. I wanted to see how others were dressed before I knew what was appropriate among the more wealthy, powerful people that would be gathered.

Sarah and I waited in the small waiting room, left over from when a commuter airline had served Fort Russell. "Is that it?" Sarah Beth asked, watching a sleek jet come in for final approach.

"I was sort of expecting a Cessna or something. That’s probably a company jet for the electronics company." That’s where both my parents and Mrs. Holding worked. But as the jet braked down the runway, I saw a sideways horseshoe painted on the rudder, with its open ends pointing forward. It was a stylized "C," as in Cameron. Their ranch’s company plane was a Lear jet! Kelly Cassidy had told us that the Cameron ranch was the largest and wealthiest in the state, and now I believed her.

The jet pulled up to the tarmac in front of the terminal. A door opened, and a narrow flight of stairs descended automatically from the plane. A large ranch hand, one that we had recognized from his being at Hope Haven to assist in handling Roger, walked down the narrow steps, followed by a smaller man, the pilot. As they got nearer the door, I noticed that the smaller man was actually a woman. They all introduced themselves. Although we had her wheelchair with us, Sarah walked toward the plane, using her cane. I was concerned about the narrow steps. "Just wait here, ma’am, the ranch hand said. "We had a way of getting young Roger in and out of the plane that will work just fine for you, if you don’t mind."

"Be my guest," Sarah said.

"No, ma’am, you two are our guests." He climbed into the plane and came back with a small metal chair, with handles welded onto the arms. "Have a seat, ma’am," he said. Sarah looked a bit puzzled, but sat down. The cowboy reached down from behind, grabbed the handles, lifted the chair, and leaned it backwards, and carried Sarah onto the plane with ease. I followed, carrying our garment bags. Sandy Bernadetto, the pilot, stowed the wheelchair, retracted the stairwell, and sealed the cabin door. The seat that they used to lift Sarah into the airplane was the same height as the seats on the plane. At first glance, I thought they were vinyl, but realized they were leather—that shows my economic status. The cowboy raised arms on both seats, and Sarah slipped over into the aircraft seat. "We worked out this system for young Roger," the cowboy explained. "He loved to fly, and in his last months we took him on as many trips as we could."

I started to sit down in the seat across the aisle from Sarah. Then the pilot said, "If one of you would like to fly in the co-pilot’s seat, you’re certainly welcome. It would help balance the plane." I’ve only flown a few times, in a friend’s brother’s Cessna, but I loved it. To sit in the right seat of a Lear would be fantastic. But I didn’t want to leave Sarah Beth by herself.

"Go ahead, Annie," she said. "I’ve missed my chemo nap, so you can go up front and I’ll just snooze." I hesitated, but she motioned me forward. "Go on. You know you want to." So I did. The four-point harness was similar to a Cessna’s, so I slipped into the seat and buckled in.

"You’ve done this before?" the pilot asked. She had short dark hair, a long nose, and large, lovely olive eyes, and a great smile.

"No, ma’am," I said. "I’ve ridden a few times in a friend’s Cessna, and I love it."

"Do I look so old that you call me ma’am?" she teased. I was flustered. She laughed and said, "That’s okay. Most people think I’m too young to be a commercial pilot. Call me Sandy, okay?" Then she got down to business and had me read the checklist.

Soon we were taxiing to the end of the runway. Although the tower had cleared us for takeoff, I instinctively checked to the right and nodded. Then, as the twin jet surged down the runway, I discovered there was a big difference between the Cessna and the Lear—sheer power. I watched in awe as we quickly climbed above the mountains. Sandy guided the jet to 27000 feet, leveled off, and set the automatic pilot.

"You’re enjoying this, aren’t you," she smiled.

"I sure am!" I said. "It’s awesome to think of all that power at your fingertips. I used to think that I might become a pilot." My eyes scanned the controls as I talked.

"You should go for it if you want to," she said. "I’m living proof that gender doesn’t have to stop you."

"No, gender wasn’t part of it for me. I had a lot of things in mind of what to do with my life. Pilot, preacher, teacher, pro bike racer, then this last summer, when I stayed with Sarah and worked with her and Roger and other kids, I found something I really love. I want to go into physical therapy, or some other kind of rehabilitation work. That’s my goal."

"From what I’ve heard, you did wonders with Roger," she said. I wondered if she was referring to physical therapy or our date. She wouldn’t know about that, would she?

"Thanks. Roger was a special guy." I thought it might be wise to change the subject. "Actually, when you were talking about gender, I felt a little guilty. When I first saw you coming down the steps of the plane, I assumed you were a small guy."

She laughed. "This pilot’s uniform isn’t the sexiest outfit in the world, I’ll have to admit. I love your outfit, by the way."

"Thanks. Actually, Sarah Beth picked it out for me. I’ve been a little bit nervous about this trip. Mrs. Cameron is a wonderful lady, but Sarah and I both come from kind of poor families, and being around lots of wealthy folks, well, you know…."

"You’re right, I do. My dad was an electrician in Pittsburgh, and I was one of six kids," she said. But don’t worry about this trip. Cameron—the town, I mean—is a small town, and everybody knows the Camerons, of course, so you’ll feel pretty much at home. These are ranchers, Annie. You’ll do fine."

"So how did you get into flying, Sandy? I’ve always wanted flying lessons but couldn’t afford them, and it sounds like it would have been even tougher for you," I asked.

"Air Force, like so many pilots. The taxpayers paid for my training down these mountains a bit." I knew she meant the Air Force Academy. "Then I repaid the investment by doing the same kind of taxi service I’m doing now for about seven years. I’m still in the reserves. Actually, I wanted to be a fighter jock, but didn’t quite make the cut. To tell you the truth, I love what I do, and it’s more fun taxiing people like you and Sarah Beth than it is colonels and generals." Sandy got busy again, preparing for descent in Grand Valley, a city in the southwestern part of our state. There she picked up three more passengers, cousins of the Camerons. Since Sarah Beth was awake again, I spent the rest of the flight with her, as we traveled east over the mountains and across the high prairie to Cameron. The relatives from Grand Valley knew who we were, and they told us stories about Roger.

As the plane descended, all I saw was open prairie, with rocky hills and arroyos off to the side. I was starting to get nervous, wondering where Sandy was going to put down the plane. We were maybe forty feet in the air when I saw the runway appear before us, and breathed a sigh of relief. As we taxied to a halt, there were 2 Jeep Grand Cherokees with the Cameron "C" on the front doors, waiting for us.

The Cameron house wasn’t all that big. It was smaller than the Fort Russell City Hall, for example, and definitely smaller than our high school. It was large and rambling, but wasn’t flashy or fancy. Mrs. Cameron greeted us on the porch and hugged us fiercely. A Latino woman led us to our rooms and told us when dinner would be served. A part of me imagined that dinner would be at a hundred-foot-long table of polished wood, with lace tablecloths, candelabras, and fine china. I was greatly relieved when we went outdoors to a pavilion, and had barbecue, cole slaw, fried potatoes, baked beans, and lots of other goodies, with homemade pies for dessert. We blinked tears from our eyes when Mr. And Mrs. Cameron thanked us all for coming (there were nearly fifty, I think), and said that this was Roger’s favorite meal. We shed more tears later when we all watched a memorial video of Roger’s life, shown on a giant-screen TV. We laughed at the little toddler, smiled as the kindergarten student waved goodbye and smiled as he climbed onto the school bus, watched as he rode horses and learned ranch skills, graduated from junior high, blew out candles on birthday cakes, and then—went to the hospital. I gasped as I saw us—me in the gorgeous blue evening dress and jewelry, Roger and his parents in "cowboy formal," Sarah Beth and mom in more casual clothes. I’d forgotten about their video camera. Other people watching the video were glancing over at us, and smiling. Later, in a separate scene, I blushed and cried as Roger looked at the camera and said, "I love you, Annie." It was painful to watch the rest, as Roger, in worsening condition, would be visited by other friends and relatives. He always seemed so calm and casual. After the video, Mrs. C. invited us to stay around and tell our own stories about Roger, in informal conversation.

At one point, Mrs. C. came over to us. Sarah Beth spoke to her. "I can’t believe how well you are holding up. It’s amazing to me."

"It’s strange," Mrs. Cameron told us. "As Roger declined, I cried myself to sleep almost every night after I would leave him. The only nights that I didn’t cry were the nights that I spent on a foldout bed in his room so he wouldn’t be lonely. I guess that I did most of my mourning before he died. Right now, I’m out of tears. They may come again later, but right now, I just want to enjoy being with you and all of Roger’s family and friends. It means more to me than you could know."

The funeral was at the Episcopal Church in Cameron. The small church was crowded to overflowing. Before the service, Mrs. Cameron invited people to share memories. Some of the relatives and school friends stood up. Sarah Beth nudged me. Mrs. C. saw me jump and nodded. I had wanted to talk, but wasn’t sure I should, but there I was, walking up to the lectern. As I walked up the aisle in my maroon skirt and white blouse, the one mom picked out for me so many months ago when Annie was born, the one that Roger liked me in so much, I felt much less nervous than I thought I would.

"Uh…I’m Annie Holding. Some of you saw me in the video last night. I was the one in the blue dress, going on a date with Roger when he was at the hospital. I’m the one he said ‘I love you, Annie,’ to. Like that was totally embarrassing, but kind of wonderful, too. My sister, Sarah Beth and I, were at Hope Haven when Roger was there. Everybody there kind of hangs together, because it can be pretty scary in a place like that. Roger and us became friends. Roger broke my heart when he told me that he had been to shy to ask a girl on a date, and that he would never have the opportunity now. He was such a nice kid, so when Mrs. Cameron asked if I would go out with him, of course I said yes. It wasn’t a romantic thing. He knew that. I knew that. But we cared for each other in a tender and gentle way. He didn’t want us to see him anymore after my sister got better and we went home, so we wouldn’t feel pity for him. But we talked on the phone. Or I guess, Sarah and I talked and he listened. We’re sad that he’s gone, but glad that he’s with God now." I don’t know what made me do it, but I turned to the closed coffin and said. "Roger, I love you, too. Goodbye, dear friend." Tears ran down my cheeks as I made my way back to my pew. Sarah Beth and I hugged. Other people got up and spoke, too, and then they had the official funeral service. After the burial at a family plot at the ranch, we gathered again for dinner.

The next day, we were having tortillas, eggs, chorizo and homemade salsa for breakfast, eating with the family members that hadn’t left the day before. Afterwards, we were heading down the hallway with Mrs. Cameron. She looked at Sarah Beth’s hand. "Oh! Sarah! Let me see your ring. Does that mean what I think it means? You and Mark are engaged?" Sarah nodded and smiled. "That’s wonderful! Well, as long as you are able to complete your schooling, anyway. Holding on to Sarah’s hand, she reached out and took mine as well. "I’m so happy for both of you, and I’m sure that you’ll be very happy together."

Sarah Beth and I just looked at each other, then back to her with blank expressions on our faces. That didn’t compute, somehow. Finally Sarah stammered, "You know?"

"Yes, dears." She was smiling a genuine smile. We were petrified. "I didn’t know back at Hope Haven. But I suspected that you, Annie, weren’t Sarah’s sister, mostly just an intuition. My intuition proved correct after you sent in your scholarship application, Sarah. It listed your family members and mentioned that Julie was at Westview. We checked there and found that she had been employed on campus the same time that we were at Hope Haven together. So I called your mother, Sarah, and asked a few questions. She explained what had happened, and how Mark became Annie for the summer. Annie, Mark," she said, looking at me, "That takes a special kind of courage to do what you did for Sarah, and for what you did for Roger. So I’m glad that you could be Annie then, and I’m glad that you came back to see me as Annie. And please—be sure to invite me to the wedding, okay?" Mrs. C explained that the final decision on the scholarship wasn’t hers, but that she knew for sure that Sarah was a leading candidate. A few hours later, we were back on the plane, returning to Fort Russell. As the plane lifted off, I held Sara Beth’s hand, but looked out the window and whispered again, "Goodbye, dear friend."

 

Love and Death

Back home again, Sunday evening, and I was at the Holding’s house, changing clothes to become Mark again. I sat at Sarah’s vanity, just wearing my panties, slip, and bra, wiping the nail polish off my fingers. Suddenly, I started crying. Sarah swung over on her crutches and sat down on the bench beside me, and hugged me. She had taken her leg off earlier because she was tired and the physical pressure of the prosthesis was bothering her. "There, there," she consoled me. Her tears were flowing, too. "You got more emotionally involved with Roger than you thought you would, didn’t you? We both did, I guess."

We cried and hugged awhile. Finally I started wiping makeup from my face with cold cream. "It bothers me that it bothers me so much," I started. "I guess that doesn’t make so much sense. I mean, we all knew it was going to happen, didn’t we? He did, too. And so did his mother. And they all just lived with it. Dying, I mean." After awhile, I got up, sniffling, and went into the bathroom to change into my jeans and sweatshirt. When I came back, the tears started to flow again. "I-I guess that part of why I’m so upset is that I realize it could have been you. You had cancer. It could have killed you by now. When I was at the funeral, there was one time that I thought, ‘If it has to be anybody’s funeral, I’m glad it’s Roger’s and not Sarah’s.’ Then I felt so guilty to even think such a thing. Then I felt even more scared."

"Don’t feel bad. Every time we talked with Roger before he died, I had that same feeling," Sarah Beth told me. "When we were back at Hope Haven, we all knew that death was somewhere just offstage, and nobody knew who would cue it in. Would it be Roberta? Wendy? Roger? Me? If you weren’t with me, Mark—or if Annie wasn’t with me—I couldn’t have slept at night at all." I had rejoined Sarah on the vanity bench. It’s funny. All the time we were there, we hadn’t talked about death. It was as if we said it, it might happen.

"Sarah, just promise me something, will you?" I asked.

"If I can."

"Live to be really, really, old, okay?" I leaned over and kissed her freckled nose.

"Only if you will, too, and if we can always be together," she said, kissing mine.

"I will love you forever, Sarah Beth."

"I will love you forever, Mark."

We dried each other’s tears, kissed again, I finished changing back into Mark, and I drove home.

 

Normal, Normal, Normal

We knew that life would never get back to normal again. We also knew that we had to build a new normal. The next day, we were back at Fort Russell High. I was Mark, and had to remember to act like Mark. We had to work hard to catch up on homework that we missed during our trips to Westview and Cameron. Football season had ended, and basketball was picking up steam. We tried to make it to a few games. Sarah Beth’s old friends still hadn’t become comfortable with the "new" Sarah Beth yet, but Joanie, the girl with spina bifida, was fast becoming a close friend.

A couple of weeks after Roger’s funeral, the Monday before Thanksgiving, it was a warm day for November and I bicycled a few miles after school, and swung by Sarah’s house. She and Joanie were both up on the porch, sitting in their wheelchairs. "Hi, you two!" I called out. They both smiled and waved me up to the porch.

Joanie grinned. "I just thought of something," she said. "We all get around on wheels. Except yours are inline and ours are side-by-side." Her hands gestured down to the wheelchair wheels. The wind picked up, so we all went inside to Sarah’s room. Mrs. Holding was puttering around the corner in the kitchen. "One reason that I like to visit you, Sarah, is that it is so handy to get around in your house. They did a nice job of remodeling it for you."

"Yeah," Sarah answered. "And the ‘they’ were my dad, mom and sister, and Mark’s folks. No professionals at all, except for some of the plumbing fixtures. This was actually part of our dining room, but they walled it off, added an accessible bath, and moved all my stuff in."

Joanie rolled over to the wall-length closet area. "Neat stuff," she said, looking at some of Sarah’s outfits. "Hmmm," she said. "Some of these outfits look like they’re too tall for you." They were Annie’s clothes in that section!

Sarah responded. "Oh, they’re just my sister Julie’s, things she didn’t take to college with her. "You remember her, don’t you?"

"Sure. I always loved watching her play basketball. Nice and friendly, too. But these clothes don’t quite look like her style." Okay. So now we have a detective in the wheelchair.

"That’s why they’re here," Sarah explained. She told her about the aunt that always sent Julie frilly, feminine clothes. Fortunately, she didn’t tell her that I had worn every last outfit.

We all sat around talking about school, the teams, the cliques, the teachers, the usual stuff. The thought came back to my mind that with a new girl friend, maybe Sarah wouldn’t need Annie as much. Should I feel relieved? I don’t know. Part of me felt disappointed. Part of me felt jealous. As I sat on the vanity bench facing into the room, I wasn’t even aware that I had picked up a bottle of frosted pink nail polish and was rolling the bottle around the palm of my hand with my thumb.

Joanie noticed. "Want to do your nails, Mark?" she laughed.

I blushed and sat the bottle down so quickly that it knocked over two or three other bottles of nail polish or makeup. Flustered, I sat them all upright.

Joanie was laughing louder. "Boys get flustered so easily about makeup and stuff. You never know until you try it, Mark. You might look good with painted nails. Are you chicken to try?" If only she knew. But she couldn’t know.

I tried to smile. "It’s just not my color," I said. Both girls rolled in closer to me, grinning. Should I pretend to act the male with his macho threatened? I glanced around, and made sure that the nail polish remover bottle was still there and full enough. "Well, okay. If you want. But I get to take it off when you’re done." Joanie did my left hand in pink and Sarah my right one in my traditional blue.

About midway through, Sarah Beth told Joanie "This isn’t the first time he’s had his nails painted blue." I gasped. I liked Joanie okay, but I sure didn’t want to trust her with knowledge about Annie.

"It isn’t? Well, tell me all about it," Joanie grinned. I have a really low standing heart rate from my cycling, but I could swear my heart was pounding as if I were sprinting at the end of a race. Trust Sarah, I told myself. Trust Sarah.

"Mark didn’t have much say in it," Sarah Beth explained. "Last Spring, before I got sick, Mark would come over to our house after school and after bike riding. A lot of times he’d fall asleep in that recliner in the living room. One day my sister and I had on blue nail polish, and he teased us. Well, he fell asleep on the recliner and woke up with blue nails." Joanie laughed. "We were pretty mean to him. Later on, though, he did us a big favor and we promised not to paint his nails while he was sleeping any more."

"Well, I think he’s cute with the blue and pink," Joanie laughed. She looked at me. "But don’t worry, Mark. You’re still a real guy in my book." At least they didn’t take things any further when they were done with my nails. We talked awhile longer, and I made a big thing about pretending to start out the door with the polish still on my nails, then coming back in and having them take the polish off, as if I didn’t know how.

 

Good News and Warnings

They say that good things come in bunches of three, and it worked for us. In the same week, Sarah and I both received notices of our acceptance to the state university, pending our graduation from high school. The third piece of news was even better. Sarah Beth was through with chemotherapy, we hoped for good. Her test results from the local hospital showed no evidence of recurring cancer. Sarah was scheduled to go back to the children’s hospital at the university for more sophisticated tests in early December. We agreed that I would make the trip with Sarah and her mother, and that Sarah Beth and Annie would visit Roberta. The little girl was still in the hospital, but out of the isolation setting. Again, good news—her body was not rejecting its new heart.

Sarah was initially happy and excited at all the news, but in a few days she was in a funk almost as blue as my nails. She would sigh a lot, not talk much, and generally act more depressed than I had seen her since the first few weeks after her amputation. She didn’t act angry at me or anyone else, just low. She got up in the morning, dragged through school, went home, napped, and studied a bit in the evening, or just stared at the tube.

"Would you like a visit from Annie?" I asked her one day. "You haven’t said anything about her for awhile, but I’m sure that she could arrange a visit."

"No!" she almost shouted. She paused, then lowered her voice. "I can’t depend on Annie forever. That’s not fair to you, or to us. I’ll be glad to have Annie’s company when we go visit Roberta, but that will be enough. Thanks for asking, though. You are one sweet guy." She kissed me, but without much passion. Later that day, she told me "I’ll be okay, Mark. I really will. The doctor told me that a lot of patients have a big emotional letdown when they finish with chemotherapy."

"Letdown?" I asked. "I’m not doubting you or your doctor, but it seems like you’d be relieved that it’s over. Delirious, even."

"It seems that way," Sarah admitted. "And I am glad that the chemo is finally over. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. But Doc Wainwright said it’s like soldiers in a war. They’ve focused themselves so long on survival and victory that when it’s done, they have to change gears mentally and find a whole new way of approaching life. It was so wonderful to hear that the cancer may be gone, but now it kind of sets in that for the rest of my life, I’ll just be a girl—a woman—with a big limp, not able to keep up with anybody. People will stare at me and wonder what’s wrong, or they’ll pretend not to see me. And I keep on feeling that if we do get married…."

"When we do…." I interrupted.

"Okay, when we do, I’ll hold you back and eventually you’ll resent me for it." Well, from there, I gave her my pep talk. I knew it wouldn’t cure her blues in general, but I could reassure her about how I felt, and about our relationship. "And one thing that you need to think about," I added, "is that now that we’re admitted, if we get good scholarship help, we can get married next summer. How does August sound to you?"

That earned me a kiss. She must have liked the idea. I know that I did. We dreamed aloud about the possibilities, and agreed to ask Rev. McGrail to come help with the service. "I have a goal," Sarah said. "I’m going to walk down that aisle without a cane or crutch. I might have to lean on dad’s and your arm a lot, but I’ll be up there without a prop—unless you count this, of course." She tapped her prosthetic leg. It was good to see her cheerful again, at least for that evening.

Mr. Holding was home that weekend. He had been away a lot, driving his semi the maximum hours possible to help pay medical bills for Sarah. "Are you doing anything this evening, Mark?" he asked. I told him no. "Why don’t you come along with me for a little fishing after supper?" We had gone fishing a few times through the years, but it had been awhile.

"Sure," I said. It was just the two of us. I volunteered to drive, and took the jeep. We drove to a river access east of town, across the railroad tracks. I drove down to the gravel bar, and then we hoofed it fifty yards through the willows. We had a little luck, mostly catfish. In his slow drawl, Mr. Holding told me some good trucker stories, and we had a few laughs. To our west beyond the city, the foothills fell into purple shadow, while the mountain peaks still glistened from light from the hidden sun.

He was quiet for awhile. He shifted a bit, and his mouth turned down like he was trying to find the right way to say something serious, something he didn’t really want to talk about.

"I hear you got made," he finally blurted out.

I didn’t know for sure what he meant. Was he talking sexually? "Uhhh—what do you mean," I asked.

"Oh. I’m sorry. I meant like getting found out, not like the other way. Mrs. Cameron. You know." He sipped from his beer can. "The Missus told me about it. Scared me to death, did it you?"

"Yeah, it was pretty scary, but she’s a classy lady. She handled it better than I thought she would," I admitted.

"If she hadn’t been so classy," Mr. H reflected, "You and Sarah both could have been in real trouble. I know if I had a son—and you’re like a son to me, Mark—and I found out that a girl he dated and kissed was really a guy, I might have done something really bad." I started to remind him that it was his wife who told who Annie really was, that she could have just said that Annie was a family friend or cousin or something. But I knew that if she had lied and gotten caught in a lie, it would have only made things worse.

"Yeah, it scared me to death to do that for Roger," I admitted. "But if I hadn’t, the poor guy would have been---well, I don’t know."

"Mark, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have done it. What I’m trying to say is that it could have gotten you and Sarah Beth both into trouble." He shook his head, and watched his fishing line, just glancing over to me.

"Sarah Beth?" I wondered. He explained that Sarah Beth could have lost her opportunities for a scholarship, and the Camerons, powerful people that they were, could have made all sorts of trouble for all of us.

"I’ve heard that my daughter still dresses you up as Annie every now and then. Now that she’s home and everything, and planning to marry you, it might be a good idea just to stop this Annie business for once and for all. I worry for you if you get caught." He still looked out toward the river as he talked.

"But I have been careful, I just don’t wander around in a dress, for heaven’s sake," I protested.

"Even at home, though, it bothers me," he admitted. "Even though I’m not there very much, ‘cause I’m trying to make ends meet. I know Sarah Beth loves you like anything, but I wonder if she’ll respect you if you keep on being her own Barbie doll?"

"Sir," I responded. "Annie hasn’t been around much for awhile. There’s still some people like Roberta who need her from time to time, and sometimes Sarah Beth still needs Annie. She’s been a lonely young woman. So I can’t say that I’ll never be Annie again, but I’ll try to avoid it."

"Please." That was all he said. It was getting dark enough that we reeled in our lines, pulled in the stringer, and walked back to the jeep.

Less than a week later, after dinner, my dad coughed and mumbled, and he asked me too to try and stop being Annie. "It’s just getting out of hand," he told me. "I’m afraid it will get you into trouble sometime, or beaten up, or raped, or killed. Or I’m afraid that you might get to liking being Annie too much."

"What?" I asked.

"I’m glad that you want to be Sarah’s husband. But I don’t think I could handle it if you became someone’s wife someday." I had done a little research on the Internet, and tried to explain to him that transsexuals had a strong desire to become a member of the opposite sex even in childhood. I didn’t have that desire. I was comfortable being in the role of Annie, but it was just a role. I enjoyed being Mark, and I wanted to be the father of his grandchildren. Dad still came down hard on me, saying that he didn’t want me to be Annie again, and definitely didn’t want to see me being Annie again. I told him that I couldn’t promise not to ever be Annie again, since that might involve breaking other promises, but I would try to respect his wishes. Two "man-to-man" discussions in a week. It made me wonder if they had talked together or something. I also wondered if they had talked Sarah out of asking me to be Annie, and if that could be a part of why she was so bummed out and depressed.

 

Happy Holidays?

The Holdings made the trip to the children’s hospital without me, in spite of our earlier plans. Sarah Beth and her mom stopped off to see Roberta, who was out of the cardiac care unit and thriving. Sarah Beth told me later, though, that Roberta was sad not to have her silly friend Annie come to visit. The news from Sarah’s tests was wonderful, though—it confirmed that there was no more cancer. They recommended three-month checkups for the first two years, followed by six-month checkups for the next several years just to be sure.

By mid-November, Sarah Beth’s bald scalp was starting to get fuzzy again. That and the positive checkup gave us something to be thankful for. Sarah’s friendship with Joanie seemed to be going well. I was really startled one day to go into Sarah’s room and see her and Joanie sitting there, with Sarah’s artificial leg propped in the corner and her wig on the wigstand. Sarah is a private person, and up to this point I had been the only teenager in Fort Russell to see her without these items. That meant that in addition to just being friends with Joanie, Sarah was really coming to trust her emotionally.

We had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at our house, and then about six, I went over to the Holdings to raid the pies. Julie was home, along with her roommate Karrin. I hadn’t met Karrin before as Mark, and as we were introduced, I watched her face carefully for signs of recognition. She just smiled and asked about my sister, who Julie had explained was out of town visiting relatives.

Julie pulled me aside a little later. "How is Annie, really?"

I sighed. "Annie hasn’t been around much lately. Both sets of parents have been discouraging her coming around."

Julie looked pensive. "Don’t they think that there might be some sort of connection between Sarah’s sadness and Annie’s disappearance?"

"I guess not," I said. "Actually, though, the doctor said that this kind of letdown is normal. I just wish I knew how long it would last."

"Well, if there’s anything I can do to help, you know I’ll do it." Julie had that determined look on her face, her "game face" on the basketball court, the same look I saw when she first talked me into becoming Annie.

The weather closed in, so my bike riding season was over. I still helped Sarah with her exercise routine. We Christmas shopped together. With Mr. Holding out on the road, I helped the Holdings put up their outside Christmas decorations. School was—well, school. A few kids acted like jerks around Sarah, making stupid comments, but Sarah was getting good at ignoring them or coming back at them. "One nice thing about all this," she told me one day. "No more PE. So now the coaches don’t wonder out loud why I’m not athletic like my sister anymore." The best part for me was to see her strength and appetite return as the chemotherapy drugs filtered out of her system. Still, though, she was blue.

The Holdings celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve, and the Jansens on Christmas morning. So Sarah and I get to do the unwrapping and family togetherness thing twice in twelve hours. We gave each other some favorite CDs, I gave Sarah a necklace at her house, and she gave me a Nike winter coat to replace my dying one. When we were alone, Sarah asked me, "Did you like those dresses that Julie and I gave each other?" They were beautiful, I agreed, a simple soft knit, Julie’s a soft green and Sarah’s a soft maroon. "I ordered them online. I ordered one for Annie, too, in blue. I guess that I should send it back and get Mark something more practical."

I hesitated. I don’t think that Sarah had mentioned Annie in more than a month, except in remembering earlier times. I felt discouraged that both of our fathers had tried to convince me that Annie shouldn’t come back. "No," I told her, grabbing her hand. "Keep it. Keep it for Annie."

Sarah’s father had been home for Christmas, but New Year’s Eve found him somewhere in the Midwest—eastern Iowa, I think. My folks always play cards with some of their friends on New Year’s Eve, so I decided to spend the evening with the Holdings. Julie was there, too. They both wore the gorgeous dresses that Sarah and Julie had given each other at Christmas. We were finishing a video with Sarah leaning her head on my shoulder, when Julie said, "It’s a shame that Annie can’t be with us this evening. She meant so much to us this year."

Their mother spoke up. "Julie, we all loved Annie, but maybe it’s time to move on. You know what your father would think."

"Yes, I know, but he’s not here, is he?" Julie responded.

Her mother squirmed. "No, he’s not. But that doesn’t mean that we—you—should be doing things behind his back. Besides, Mark may want to be Mark. You two keep putting him on the spot. Don’t Mark’s feelings count?"

"Sure, they count," Sarah said. "More than anybody else’s in the world to me. Mark, you never have to be Annie again. But if you would enjoy being Annie tonight, it would be fun to see the three of us in these outfits, wouldn’t it?" She smiled.

"Sure," I found myself saying. "I’m sort of in an Annie mood tonight—if it’s okay with you, Mrs. H."

"Go ahead, I guess, if it’s really okay with you, Mark." So I went to Sarah’s bathroom, slipped on my padded undies and bra, applied foundation, painted my nails blue (of course, given the dress), and when they dried, slipped on the smooth, soft blue dress. We did look good together, and we were all laughing and joking the rest of the evening.

"If I stay as Annie until a minute after midnight," I said, "I can say that I was Annie for two years." So that was the plan. I was enjoying being Annie again, and Sarah was having more fun than she had in months. We all hugged and kissed as the clock struck twelve. Then, a few minutes after, when I was just about ready to go change, the doorbell rung. I was thunderstruck to see dad and mom when Mrs. Holding opened the door. They were thunderstruck to see Annie.

"We thought we would come by to see if Mark wanted a ride home," my dad said. I wasn’t sure whether he was ready to cry or shout. He just talked so very softly. "But I guess we were wrong. Mark isn’t here."

Could it be that Annie’s first visit of the new year would be her last?

Grounded

These aren't all the emails we sent when I was grounded, actually, there were hundreds, but they are enough to tell the story. Mark

 

To: SaraBH@ftruss.net; joopster1@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/1
Subject: Grounded

Hi, Sarah and Julie. Yep, it hit the fan. This is just to let you know that my dad grounded me for the whole month of Jan. I had never promised him not to be Annie again, but he still felt I broke our agreement. So--outside of school and church and going places with mommy and daddy--I'm under house arrest. Even phone calls are limited. He didn't think about email, though ;-) Sarah, he did say that I could come over after school MWF for your therapy/workouts, but I have to call him frm home every time I get back, so he can check me on caller ID. Or collar ID, since I seem to be the family dog now. I guess this Annie thing freaks him totally, more thn I thot. I guess I won't protest, maybe get off for good behavior. Maybe he won't recognize passive-aggressive when he sees it. Oh, well. We survived all those weeks at the hospital. I guess we can survive this.

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: SarahBH@ftruss.net
Date: 1/1
Re: Grounded

I miss you already, lover. And I'm sooooo sorry for talking you into being Annie last night. Please forgive me. You don't have to be Annie any more, ever again, if you don't want to. I won't ask anymore. I guess because your folks talked to my folks, they wanted us to get rid of Annie's stuff. Julie and I made a compromise with them. They're hauling it all up to her room now, so it won't be so tempting. As if that was the problem. And I am really sorry for playing with your brain about this Annie stuff. It's just that your brain is sooo cute. Be a good little soldier, I guess. Loveya bunches. Sarah

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: Joopster1@westview.edu
Date: 1/1
Re: Grounded

Mark, you are the nicest guy in the world, and I will love for you to be my brother-in-law. I wouldn't hurt you for anything, but I keep doing it. I am really really sorry for bringing the whole Annie thing up last nite. I didn't know your dad would go up in smoke and you would go down in flames. I know it's easier to forgive Sarah Beth, but forgive me, too, okay? I also promise that I won't talk you into being Annie again. I'm glad you have email. I'll try to send you letters to prison, okay? Julie the Hoopster

 

To: SarahBH@ftruss.net; Joopster1@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/ 2
Hey. It's okay

Thanks, both. Hey. You needn't grovel so much. I made the decision to be Annie that night, you didn't twist my arm. And thanks for salvaging Annie's stuff. No matter what our dads think, Annie will be back. I like her, too. She's part of our lives, and someday they'll have to come to terms with that, or they'll lose their son. Seeya at school tomorrow, Sarah. 2 days apart are more than I can deal with. Love, Mark P.S. Thanks, Julie. Keep a-writing.

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: Joopster1@westview.edu
Cc: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/02
Re: Hey. It's okay

Thanks, Mark. I'm glad you don't hate me. (I know you couldn't hate my kid sister for more than 10 minutes at a time) I'm glad to host Annie's stuff in my room, so anytime you have the urge (that you can get away w/it), jump into my closet and jump out as Super Annie. But 1 thing scares me-what did you mean "they'll lose their son?" that scares me. Should it? Wooops--gotta go.

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Cc: Joopster1@westview.edu
Date: 1/02
Re: Hey. It's okay

Yeah, me, too. What did you mean? I don't want anybody to lose you.

 

To: Joopster1@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Cc: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/02
Re: Hey. It's okay

Sorry! I was getting melodramatic. I'm not suicidal or anything crazy like that. I have too much to live for, and her initials are SBH. No, I just meant that next month I'm 18, and as much as I love my parental figures, I could move out and make it on my own if I don't get dad past his hangups about Annie. Say hi to Karrin for me, Joopster. And what do you mean, woooops?

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: Joopster1@westview.edu
Cc: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/03
Guess who knows?

Thanks Mark. Big relief. You're so mild-mannered (like clark kent) that you're not used to big blowups with your folks. I'm a veteran, given my temper. (LOL) All you Jansens are basically cool, you'll get thru it ok. Sorry to tell you this, Mark/Annie. I said wooops because my incredibly tall, light-footed roommate had come up behind me and read my email over my shoulder. You should have seen her face when she came up with the conclusion that you're Annie. When I told her the whole story, though, she was completely impressed with you (as I am). Don't worry-she's on our side. She wants to see Annie again sometime, though. And she dropped this broad hint that she wants to come to your wedding. Speaking of that, how are things going in wedding bell plans? Starting to snow here. Gotta go to bb practice before we get snowed in. Big game tomorrow night.

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net; Joopster1@westview.edu
From: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/04
The plot thickens

Thanx, Mark. I loved being w/you at school today, except it makes me realize how much I miss you when we can't be together. Thanx for explaining there that nobody was going to lose you. Even thanx for taking me thru the torture--I mean therapy--regimen today in the dungeon--I mean exercise room. Wasn't I good at sneaking the clear nail polish past mom so we could do yur toenails? You are good at being passive-aggressive. Your dad may suspect, but won't know fersure, fersure. (heh heh heh). Julie, the snow's starting here now, coming down off the mountains. And tell Karrin I would love to have her in my wedding, whenever it might be—and not just attending, really in it, like you will be. But tell her that Mark is going to be Mark for the wedding, not Annie. He'll wear a tux, not a wedding gown.

 

To: Joopster1@westview.edu; Sarabh@ftruss.net
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/04
The plot'th more thickening every thecond

Sarah's right, but I won't guarantee what color my toenails will be (giggle) then. Hey. This snow's something.

 

To: Sarabh@ftruss.net; Joopster1@westview.edu; Koopster3@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/05
Hi, gals

Since you know my secret now Karrin, I'll include you, too, at least once in awhile. I second what Sarah said. Please be in our wedding. That joopster/ koopster/hoopster email name business is just too cute for words, by the way. Do other team members do that too? Hey-I saw on the sports that your women's varsity won its game. Did you get playing time? I really feel in prison now. My only time away is to go to school, and school's closed 'cause of snow. I just wish we had realtime chat on our ISP. I told Sarah this in school yesterday, but I'm more and more sure that I want us to get married this summer. We've both been approved for scholarship now. Mine isn't as much as I hoped, but the Cameron trust scholarship will be there for Sarah--we just don't have the exact amount yet. BTW: Thanks, Julie, for the research and URLs on the good TG informational sites. Some say you have to be 18 to enter and I won't until next month, but Annie's over 18, right? They're helping me understand more, and helping me calm some of my fears about why Annie is so important to us. Now if I can just calm dad's.

 

To: Sarabh@ftruss.net; Joopster1@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/07
Bleary-eyed

So now it's Saturday and I'm still in solitary. Well, I'll see you tomorrow AM at church, Sarah Bear. It's funny that in the time I'm supposed to be reflecting on the error of my ways, I'm becoming convinced that you 2 bringing Annie into my life was a wonderful gift. Even though I can't look like Annie right now, she's still real inside me, just as real as when those long acrylic blue nails that rattled my keyboard when I kept my journal at Hope Haven. Annie is a lot of good things inside me that were always there, but I didn't have a name for them before. Yes, Julie. I've been hitting those web sites you sent me and thinking and praying. Now it's time to go outdoors and shovel some more on the driveway. Mark An(nie)drew Jansen

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net;
From: Joopster1@westview.edu; Koopster3@westview.edu
Cc: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/08
Thanks, Marko Polo.

Glad you liked the web sites. Wish we could be with you and the family at church today. We're really snowed in still, but we should still be able to get out of town by Tuesday for the next game. BTW. When you've served your sentence, Mark, why don't you and SB come visit us again? Or should I say Annie and SB? I can reserve the women's jock dorm guest room again, if you come as Annie. Howzabout Feb 13? It'll be a belated birthday present for Annie and an early one for Sarah. Okay? Attaching another web site you may find interesting.

 

To: Markanj@ftruss.net
From: Sarabh@ftruss.net
Date: 1/08
Re: Bleary-eyed

Mark, love, please forgive me, but I just meddled big-time. I hope your dad isn’t furious with me. I hope you’re not furious with me. I called your dad and talked with him. I thot maybe I could say some things that you couldn’t. I really did try to be nice and polite, honest. I told him that I loved him, and that I was really going to love being his daughter-in-law. Then I told him that he was being totally unfair grounding you.

I told him that he was so lucky to have as a son somebody who didn’t drink, smoke, or do drugs, and that his not liking Annie was his problem, not yours, because Annie saved my life. Anyway, he was nice enough not to yell at me, but I hope he doesn’t think you put me up to it. Anyway, if I messed things up again, I’m sorry. Love ya. SB

 

To: Joopster1@westview.edu; Sarabh@ftruss.net; koopster3@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/10
Bleary-eyed again

I know you'll be on the road, Julie and Karrin, going to the Tech game, but you'll get it sometime. Say--did you hear about the blond who--sorry, Julie. Forgot you were blond. Sarah and I talked, and if I can become Annie again without stirring up trouble, we'll come for the game. That "Saga of Tuck" story was great. Then I read the Seasons one. I was up half the night reading it. Tuck and I are about as far apart in temperament as any two guys can be, but his story seemed really familiar in some ways. I guess we're both lucky in both loving girls who like their boy friends to wear dresses. Maybe I need to learn something from him about standing up for myself more and doing my own thing. That's what makes this grounding so tough. I've always been the nice, obedient kid, straight as an arrow, never causing any trouble. So I'm not used to being in trouble (like you are, Julie<grin>). And it's hard when someone asks me to go somewhere and I say I'm grounded, and I can't tell them what for. They just say "You? Grounded? What did you do? Cross the street without holding your mommy's hand?" I just smile, think about my Annie life, and say "You'll never know." Just heard the score of your game. Sorry about that, Julie. But Tech's always tough. My eyes are jazzed from reading the laptop screen too long. So g'night. You, too Karrin. Sarah Beth, how I wish I could say goodnight to you personally. And no, dad didn’t come down on me, and I’m glad you said what you did. Love ya back, Mark

 

To: Richardsont@Cameron.com
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/12
Re: Scholarship agreement

Dear Ms. Richardson. Thank you very much for your work as administrator of the Roger Cameron Memorial Scholarship Trust, and your help to Sarah Beth Holding and to myself. I am pleased that you accepted my argument that the scholarship should, when appropriate, include funding for aides, such as interpreters for deaf people, etc. Sarah Beth and I have discussed this, and we agreed that in addition to my own studies, I can function as a mobility aide to Sarah Beth, helping her get to classes, the library, etc., and can continue with her physical therapy. We understand that this is a yearly renewable arrangement. We can arrange our class schedules closely for the first 2 years at least, since Sarah has recently decided on premed and I plan to study physical therapy. The stipend involved, added to other scholarship funds, will allow us to get married, and for us both to continue our education. This is a real dream come true. Sincerely, Mark A. Jansen P.S.: Please give Mrs. Cameron our love.

 

To: Joopster1@westview.edu; Koopster3@westview.edu
From: Markanj@ftruss.net
Date: 1/15
(This is from Sarah, too)

Yes! There is a God! Halleluia and amen! We just told our parents and we're telling you now. We are getting married on August 28, at the Presby church here in Ft. Russell. All the finances have fallen into place. Our parents all said they had hoped we would wait, but that we were unusually mature, and that since we handled last summer, we could probably handle marriage, too. We would have done it without their blessing, but we're glad that we have it. Julie, you already know that you're to be the Maid of Honor. Kelly Cassidy from Hope Haven and Joanie from here in town will be bridesmaids. Karrin, I'm short on attendants for my side. Would you be a groom's attendant (notice I didn't say groomsman)? You don't have to wear a tux. You can wear a long dress (yes, I know all dresses on you are long) in the same color as the tuxes. (One cross dresser is enough in the wedding party.) You'll be up there with my best friend (best man) and my cousin from out of town (also a girl, also in a dress.) If you're uncomfortable doing that, you can help at the reception. Whaddayasay? By the way--dad ungrounded me. He's still uncomfortable with Annie, but I think he understood that grounding me wasn't going to change my mind. Besides, We need the time to start working on a wedding. Free at last, Free at last!

 

 

Supper with Annie

"What do you want for your birthday?" my parents kept asking.

"You helped me buy the jeep last year and a good racing bike the year before that," I said. "So don’t get me anything big this year. Just put some money aside for the wedding, or my college fund. But when my birthday comes, I’ll ask you for something that won’t cost anything, okay?" That left them bewildered.

The days went by. It was good to be able to pick Sarah up after school, to bum around, to study together, to grab burgers, or just to sit on one of our couches, with her head on my shoulder, and dream about our life together. Sarah’s hair was growing in nicely, though she still wore her wig in public. Her hair was sort of crewcut length, but not trimmed. When it got pixie length, she said, the wig would go bye-bye. The hospital staff had warned us that her hair could grow back a different color or texture. Thank heavens they were wrong. It was the same light reddish-brown color that I always compared to ginger snaps.

On the first of February, my birthday came. I did get some presents, mostly music CD’s and some clothes that would be good for college. The Holdings and Jansens took me out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant as a special treat. As we talked over pizza and pasta, my mom reminded me. "What was it you said you were going to ask us for on your birthday?"

We were in a private room, so I could talk openly. Of course, Sarah knew what I was going to say. "First, I want to thank you for your blessing for our marriage. That means a lot to us. Second, I just want to say how neat it is for both of us to have two-parent families. Not many of our friends can say that. You’ve always been there for us. And even though we’re not married yet, I feel that I have two families. Mom and pop Jansen, mom and pop Holding, and my bossy older sister Julie, who’s away at college." Everybody chuckled. "Now, for what I wanted to ask. Dad, and Dad Holding, I know that you two are still having trouble dealing with the fact that sometimes I’m still Annie. I’ve done some serious thinking when I was grounded, and I want to talk to you about it, where you’ll listen and not try to argue me out of it. Actually, I want you to listen to Annie. I know that you’re all free next Saturday night, and that Sarah Beth and mom Holding are going to drive down and meet Julie and Karrin on Saturday morning and afternoon to bring them back here. I want you all to come over to the Holdings Saturday evening. Annie and Sarah are going to serve you supper. Annie’s going to cook it. I hope that when you find out a little more about Annie, you’ll get to accept her a little more. Because like it or not, she’s still part of our lives, and she’ll probably hang around. That’s what I want for my birthday. Okay?" Both dads looked nervous and unhappy, but they both nodded their heads. "And I don’t want to talk about it before then, either, okay?" They nodded again.

Saturday came. After two bowls of cereal, I drove to the Holdings. Dad Holding was still on the road, and Sarah and her mom had left to meet Julie and Karrin. The teammates had played a night game with a college next to the university we’d be attending next fall, and were coming to Fort Russell for the weekend. Sarah had also promised that she and mom would stop off to see Roberta.

The Holdings had left their garage door open, so I just pulled my jeep in next to their pickup and lowered the garage door. It felt a little different going upstairs to Julie’s room, but that’s where my stuff was now. It had been a long time since I had spent a whole day as Annie—since Roger’s funeral, almost three months ago. As a serious cyclist, I shave my body hair at least weekly, and I had done that last night, and had shaved my face closely this morning. So much for the preliminaries. I scout around the room, and find that Sarah had put a yellow sticky with the words "Annie’s Stuff" on one of Julie’s dresser drawers. I pull out my pale blue panties with the sewn-in hip pads, buckle my padded bra around my tummy and twisted it around and up over my chest. Making my way to the vanity, I file my nails to smooth off the rough edges and round them slightly, where possible. Then I pick up a bottle of clear and another of bright blue nail polish—not only Annie’s trademark, but it would look good with the blue knit dress I planned to wear that evening. For some reason, applying nail polish has become my favorite part of becoming Annie. Is it the fragrance? The color? The memories? I don’t know. I just like it. Slowly, carefully, I lay a clear base coat, then stroke the bright blue color, watching it catch the sunlight coming through the window. Another coat of blue, then clear. I repeat the process for my toenails, even though nobody will see them tonight. As the nails dry, I think about what I will say tonight, and pray that my parents and my Holding parents will listen. I grin, and wonder what Karrin will make of this. It’s just a happenstance of schedule that she’ll be here this weekend, but I trust her.

From nails I move on to makeup, just a simple job. Foundation, to cover my light whiskers. A little color mixed in. Mascara. Dark brown eyeliner. A soft rose lipstick that I think will look good with blue. For my day’s work, I slip on the Westview Women’s Power tee shirt, a soft pale blue denim skirt, and some battered old flip flops. I slip small studs into the upper holes in my ears, and in the bottom holes, some long, floppy earrings that I like to hear rattle when I shake my head. Sarah gave them to me. No other accessories right now—they just get in the way during cooking. I pull on the wig. My hair is still short enough that I don’t need to cap it—just a few bobbie pins hold it in place. I smile in the mirror. Annie smiles back.

On to the kitchen, Annie! I brought the groceries last night, so it’s a matter of finding the pans and utensils I need. The menu is Mexican—if you didn’t have that one figured out, you don’t know me well. Pico de Gallo (I make mine without jalapenos, so it’s a flavor contrast to the spicier stuff), guacamole salad, chili, and chili rellenos should do nicely. I begin chopping veggies. Mr. Jones, the Holding family dog, watches me eagerly. The large, drooling creature has very eclectic tastes. He gobbles up the cucumber peels and green pepper innards that I toss him. I know from past experience that he also loves potato peels. I wonder how he would do with a piece of poblano pepper? As I slice them and get ready to parboil them, I evilly try him on a piece, but he turns his nose up. Smart dog. Poblanos aren’t as hot as jalapenos, but they can zing you. I don’t stuff and deep fry the poblanos to make the chili rellenos. I lay them sliced flat in a baking dish, and put the seasoned meat and cheese layers on top, sort of like a Mexican lasagna. I love cooking, and I’m glad my mom taught me how. Most of my friends—male and female—can pull stuff out of the refrigerator and zap it in the microwave, and that’s about it. I haven’t coordinated many entire dinners like this, but everything seems to be simmering on schedule. This is the first time for me to cook a dinner as Annie, and it’s fun looking down at my skirt or nails and seeing myself as the busy little housewife. At least I don’t have pearls and high heels on, like June Cleaver on the Nick reruns. (For some reason, while all by myself, becoming Annie again and cooking, it just seemed right to use present tense. It was so immediate, so personal. So now I’ll go back to the "historical record" mode.)

About 2:30, the dog barked and the garage door opened. I opened the door into the garage to see Mrs. Holding, Sarah, Julie, and Karrin all climb out of the minivan. One of my flip flops fell off and I nearly tripped over the dog as I ran to hug and kiss Sarah—a big hug and a long kiss. Julie and Karrin were laughing hysterically.

"What’s so funny?" I grinned. "Haven’t you ever seen two engaged people kiss before?"

"You two are so funny, that’s what," Julie laughed. "Just because Karrin and I are such good friends and hang out together and work well on the court together, people assume we’re lesbians…."

"You’re not? I’m disappointed," Sarah said, with a fake surprised look on her face. By this time, we’re all in hysterics except for Mrs. Holding, who seems to be having deep reservations about having ever chosen motherhood.

"Bratty kid sister," Julie answered. "As I was saying, they call us lesbians, and the first thing we see is two broads making out in the garage. In front of company, yet." So we kissed again. Karrin’s leaning on the minivan, laughing with an African accent, if that’s possible, tears running down her face. She got up, walked over to me, and put her hands on my shoulder.

I looked up. I had to, since she was a head taller than I was. "Annie! It’s so good to see you again!" she said. "And to think that you spent that whole weekend with us on campus and I didn’t know you were Mark, and I visited here and met Mark and didn’t know he was Annie, but now I know you both, and you’re both crazy!" With that, she hugged me tight.

"Uh, hello, Karrin," I stammered when I came up for air. "I think I gotta go stir my chili." I turned to dash off for the kitchen. After checking, I went out to the garage to help unload, but most of it was already done.

As I helped carry a duffel in, I heard Sarah whisper to her sister "I wish you two were lesbian lovers, actually, because Karrin’s so neat I’d like to have in our lives forever."

Julie whispered back. "You’re just trying to get me to say one way or the other, aren’t you? I’ll never tell, you snoopy little thing."

I gave them a quick tour of the kitchen and preview of coming attractions. Later, as Julie and Karrin were settling in, Sarah and I set the table. I carried from the cupboards, and she set stuff on. "It was a fun trip," she said. "and Roberta’s going home in a few days. She really pouted that you weren’t there, Annie."

I sat down the plates. "Will she be home already by the time we go to visit Westview?" I asked.

"They’re not sure. They think maybe so. But her mom gave us their address, and told us to come by their apartment if they did. I don’t think she’ll be ready for bike lessons, though." Sarah continued to give me updates from their trip. "I understand that Julie and Karrin are getting a lot of varsity playing time and may earn varsity letters as a freshman," she announced.

"I can believe it," I said. Karrin came into the dining room, ducking slightly to get through the door. Her hair was piled up on her head, bound with an orange cloth, making her look even taller.

"So—Annie," she said, pitching in to help set out the silver. "Are you eventually going to stay a girl, or are you just going to play a girl?" she asked, in a teasing tone.

I smiled at her. "Details at eleven," I said. "I’ll explain more after supper."

"Even when I saw that email message and she explained to me how Mark came to be Annie," she pondered, "I thought it was just another of her elaborate jokes, that she was just leading me on."

"Nope, no joke," I replied. "There’s a fully functioning teenaged man under here." I lifted a corner of my wig. "Excuse me, Karrin. I have to go change for supper."

I went up to Julie’s room and knocked. She let me in. I gathered my makeup and my razor and went to the bathroom to clean off my face, shave, and redo my face. This time I took a little more care, especially around my eyes. Then, back to Julie’s room, I took off the denim skirt, tee, white shoes and tennies, and put on knee-high hose and flats. As I slipped the blue knit dress over my frame, Julie decided to wear her matching green one, and called down the stairs for Sarah to wear hers. Julie helped me attach a thin gold chain around my neck.

A door closed downstairs. As I started down, I saw Mr. Holding. He looked at me, just smiled and shook his head slowly. "Hi, Annie," he said. "I’ll have to admit that your supper smells great." Julie followed me down, and went in to Sarah’s room to help her finish dressing. When they came out, we all stood together and went "Ta-Da!" to Karrin’s delight. It was the same outfits we wore New Year’s Eve when the trouble started, but tonight we were all dressed a little more carefully and thoroughly. Last time it was a spur-of-the-moment. Tonight, we looked really classy.

The doorbell rang, and we greeted my folks. "You look lovely tonight, girls," mom said. I joined Sarah, Julie, and Karrin in thanking her. Dad’s lips tightened, but he said hello to everyone, including one to me as Annie. I asked Julie and Karrin to help me bring dinner in. After Mr. Holding offered a blessing, we dug in. Everybody praised the food, and I have to admit it was really good. I got a few teasing comments about making Sarah Beth a good little wife, and I just laughed them off. We cleaned off the dishes and went to the living room.

It was time. "I—uh, suppose you’re wondering why I called this meeting. Like all of you last June, I thought Annie would be around for six weeks to help Sarah Beth make it through her treatment, and then would just disappear. But life isn’t that simple, I guess. Annie made friends, like Roger, Roberta, Kelly, and some others. And I guess that I got so used to being Annie, I didn’t want to give her up, either."

"Neither did I," Sarah added. "I guess I kinda bonded with Annie. I’ve loved Mark as a boyfriend for a long time, but Annie was the only girlfriend who stuck with me through the bad times last summer. I still love Mark as Mark, but I also love who Mark is as Annie. Even though I’m not so lonely for girlfriends any more, Annie is special, and I love being with her. She’s a great cook, too," she grinned.

"Before last summer," I continued, "I never had any strong interest in wearing women’s clothes or fantasies about being a girl. Maybe a few moments of curiosity, but no real urges or anything. But now it seems to be a part of my life—not just being a girl, but being Annie. I’ve been doing some research on the web. I guess I have to call myself transgendered." Dad winced. "I’m not transsexual, though. I don’t want to live full time as a woman, or get surgery to become one, or anything like that. I guess I’m a cross-dresser—well, doh, that’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?" I grinned. "But it’s not like putting on women’s clothes is a fetish for me. It isn’t a big sexual turn-on. If it was, I’d have gone crazy those six weeks last summer."

"That’s what we’re concerned about," my dad muttered.

"I’ve talked with a minister about it, and a counselor, Dad" I told them, "and they say I’m not. I’ve developed a side of my personality that I like, and I express it through Annie. I don’t just dress up as a woman, I live in the role of Annie. When I do that, it brings me happiness. I feel good. I like Annie. That doesn’t mean that I don’t like Mark, or that when I’m in my Annie role I forget who I really am. It’s not a split personality, or anything. It’s just my feminine side expressing itself."

Sarah entered the conversation again. "When we were at Hope Haven together, maybe I became too dependent upon Annie. But she was always there for me. I knew it was Mark under there, but in another way, it was Annie I cuddled up to when I felt miserable and ugly. It was Annie’s blue nails I would see as her hands would hold onto mine when I was afraid I might die, and when I was afraid I might live. It was Annie’s gentle encouragement that helped me walk again. It was Annie who never took advantage of me when I was weak and vulnerable. I know it was Mark underneath, but what I saw was Annie. And I just couldn’t turn off my feelings about Annie when we came home. Like I said, we bonded. If Mark doesn’t mind, I want Annie to be with me for a long time to come. Mr. And Mrs. Holding, you can blame it on me, if you think your son is doing something wrong. I’m sorry if you do, but your son is such a beautiful person that I guess one gender just can’t hold him." She started to sniffle and sob. I reached my arm around her shoulders. I was getting weepy, too, and so was Julia, and so was Karrin. Maybe our moms, as well.

"Well, uh…" Mr. Holding began. "Mark, Annie, like I said before, what you did in becoming Annie for Sarah’s sake was one of the bravest things a man could do. I would never look down on you for what you did. I guess I understand a little better about why you couldn’t just turn Annie off. But…well, I guess I just get scared that someday you’ll get hurt—or you’ll both get hurt. There are a lot of hateful people out there, real narrow-minded bigots. If you want to dress up and be Annie once in awhile and you and Sarah both like it, that’s up to you. But, please, be careful about going out in public. That’s all I ask. But I do have a question. You didn’t consider yourself transgendered before last summer. Now your life as Annie has grown out of your romantic relationship with Sarah. What if you and Sarah weren’t romantically involved? What if you were Sarah’s brother, and since Hope Haven only allows same-sex roommates except for parents and children, you had become Annie to allow Julie to go to college? Would you still be Annie today?"

"Wow," I said. "I thought I’d anticipated every question people would ask, but I never saw that one coming. I really don’t know. But I think the answer might be yes. I had five hours alone in your house today. I could have just as easily cooked dinner while wearing the jeans and sweatshirt I wore over here. But I became Annie first thing after I got here, and I enjoyed it. I enjoyed being a girl in the kitchen. It was fun to be Annie, even when I was all by myself. So, I guess, yes. I enjoy being Annie whether Sarah is around or not."

Sarah spoke. "I guess some of the things that attracted me to Mark in the first place—besides his cute buns and blue eyes—were his gentleness, his consideration, his tenderness. Mom and Pop Jansen, you have raised one sweet son! Everybody at Hope Haven fell in love with Annie because she was an accurate reflection of the kind of person Mark is. Living in his Annie role just let a lot of Mark’s really nice characteristics come to the surface, and flow more freely. Mr. Jansen? I know you have trouble with seeing your son look so cute in that blue dress, am I right?" Dad nodded. "That cute girl is someone you should be proud to have as a son. I guess that sounds a little crazy, but you know what I mean. If I didn’t have Annie and Mark in my life, I would just be a hopeless, miserable, little crippled girl, wishing she were dead. But because of your son, I’m proud and strong. You and Mrs. Jansen raised a son who saved my life, in a whole lot of ways. I am going to be proud to be his wife, and no matter what happens, I am going to love him, and love him, and love him. And I hope that you can do the same."

By this time we were all bawling. I got up and went over to where mom and dad were sitting. They stood up, and we hugged each other so tight we could scarcely breathe. Finally, I asked dad if we could talk in private. When we were around the corner, I said, "Dad, I know you’re uncomfortable with me being Annie. I guess that I pushed Annie on you tonight, because I can’t help but be who I am, and I wanted you to understand why. What I don’t want to be anymore is sneaky. I want Annie to be out in the open with you and mom. I know you’re uncomfortable when I’m dressed as Annie, and I’ll try to be discreet about it. I love you, dad." We hugged again.

"I love you, too, son. And I am proud of you as a person. All this is hard to deal with, but I’ll try, okay?" Another hug answered the question. My folks left a few minutes after that. I went back and helped clean up the kitchen. I was about ready to go up and change into my Mark clothes, when Sarah asked me to come to her room. (That’s not as private as it sounds—since they remodeled for her wheelchair, her room has a drape in the doorway, not a door.)

She put her hands on my shoulders. "Remember that kiss we gave each other when we came home? Those kisses, I mean?"

"I sure do," I smiled.

"Well, they did something to me—they’ve been making me think all evening long."

"Did they bother you?" I asked. "It felt like you liked them. I did."

"Oh, so did I!" she said. "It was one of the great kisses of our whole relationship. A 9.2, at least!"

"So why does that bother you?"

She had this pensive smile on her face. "When we were at Hope Haven, remember how I really, really needed to think of you as Annie, not Mark, so we wouldn’t get carried away and get into trouble? I kept thinking that if you were Annie, I wouldn’t feel sexually attracted to you. It worked, but it didn’t work."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, it helped keep us from going too far, but as time went on, I found myself getting attracted to Annie. You know when I was joking with my sister about being a lesbian? I was feeling like one. I really got a thrill out of kissing Annie today. Should that bother me?"

"Well," I pondered. "I get a thrill out of kissing you no matter what I’m wearing, so I guess it doesn’t matter. But I think we need to do more research, and have Annie and Sarah Beth try it again." So I reapplied my lipstick. We tried it again. And again. Same results. I don’t think Annie will go away for very long for a long time to come.

 

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

The sun glared on the snowy mountains as we drove toward Westview, making me glad that Sarah and I each had on wraparound shades. Twenty-four hours ago, we were afraid that we would have to call off our trip because a February blizzard had dumped a foot of snow across the mountains. But the road crews had done a great job, and it was safe to make the trip. I was traveling as Mark. It isn’t against the law to cross dress in our state, but the police might still be a hassle if I were discovered. Karrin had invited us to stop at her family’s home so I could transform myself into Annie for our second visit to the women’s athletic dorm. I had on my Annie undies and bra, but they were well hidden under the bulk of an extra large flannel shirt, coveralls, and my new parka. Sarah wore one of my flannel shirts (which fit as bulkily on her as my extra large one did on me), jeans, woolen socks, parka, and boots. Not high fashion, but good for the weather conditions in the mountains.

We had bypassed the city where we had spent the last summer, and could barely see the university hospital towers. Even that glimpse got us remembering our weeks at Hope Haven and wondering about some of the kids we had come close to there. "It was sure tough sticking to our vow of celibacy there, wasn’t it?" I quipped.

Sarah lowered her glasses over her freckled nose and looked over at me with her gorgeous eyes. "It would be even tougher now, since I’ve discovered that Annie turns me on." Looking at her smile made me want to re-evaluate our commitment to wait until marriage before we went all the way.

I smiled back. "I might begin to get jealous of Annie, if she gets you hornier than I do."

"Don’t, dear," she told me. "It’s you I will love forever, no matter what the packaging." ‘

"Speaking of packaging, I really love your hair," I commented. Last night, the stylist had trimmed and shaped her sides and back, and tousled the top. Now the post-chemo bushy hair was a sexy short pixie style. She looked back at me with her pixie eyes and smiled. This was to be her first appearance wigless, giving her time to get used to it before she went back to school with the new style. Her wig, the one that Mrs. Cameron had brought me for my date with Roger, was in a wig box in the tailgate. This weekend, it would be Annie’s wig again. I smiled.

"What are you grinning about, Mark," she asked, with a flirty smile on her own face.

"You," I said. "Your hair, your attitude, your strength coming back, your color, everything about you is so great now. If I were seeing you for the first time, I would have had no idea how sick you were just a few months ago. You’re a whole new person."

She grimaced a bit. "Maybe not whole. I’m always aware that there’s nothing of me below my right hip. When I walk, it’s so painful and awkward. You’ve always made me feel beautiful, but when I clump along, it’s hard to feel that way anymore."

I shook my finger at her. "You want my self-pity lecture number 16? Yeah, you limp. But you walk. And you’re doing a lot better than when we left the hospital, and even better than you did a couple of months ago. You’re just going to have to accept the unpleasant fact that I still think you are the most beautiful girl I know."

"Thanks, Mark. You’re the sweetest guy in the world. Do you know what I wish that I could do right now, though?"

"Make wild, passionate love?" I asked, leering.

"Maybe later," she grinned. Then she looked serious. "Actually what I wish I could do right now is to help you drive. I had only gotten my license six months before I got sick, and didn’t even have my own car yet. Now I don’t even have a license." The state had taken away her unrestricted license because of her disability, because the officials thought it would be dangerous for her to operate the accelerator and brake with her left leg. My jeep had a manual transmission. Her dad was going to rebuild the control mechanisms on a car so that she would either have a left-sided accelerator or hand controls, but that wouldn’t happen right away because there were too many other bills to pay first. She agreed that I would have to be her chauffeur for at least the first year of college, but hadn’t really accepted it.

All I could do was commiserate. "Yeah. I wish you could, too. That sucks."

"Mark?" she asked, as we pulled off the highway to find a diner for lunch, "Were you kind of surprised that our parents let us come, unchaperoned?" I nodded. "Julie and Karrin told our folks that they could trust them to chaperone us, but we are going to be in that guest room all by ourselves, aren’t we?" I nodded and smiled. Maybe I should find time to stop at a drug store.

We found a diner and went inside. We had been in the jeep nearly three hours, and needed to stretch. The bleached-blond waitress, with the name Bonnie on her badge, led us to a booth. She looked sympathetic at Sarah and her cane and asked "Knee surgery, hon?" This was ski country, and that was a commonplace reality.

"Surgery? No thanks. I already had some," Sarah joked. "We’re just here for lunch." The waitress was friendly with us, and we enjoyed our lunch.

"Stay off the slopes until you’re healed now, hon," Bonnie called out as we left. We smiled and waved.

"This is as healed as it gets," Sarah muttered. But as we drove through the slushy parking lot back to the highway, we talked about how we had enjoyed Bonnie’s friendliness. Of course, we kept calling each other "hon" all the way to Westview.

Karrin greeted us with a big smile and open arms, which were somewhat awesome. Her wingspan is probably greater than that of a California condor. Her folks were both teaching that afternoon, so it would be easy for me to change into Annie. Well, sort of easy. Karrin insisted on watching. That would have been totally embarrassing, but Karrin was someone we felt really relaxed around, so it was just partially embarrassing. I slipped out of my travel clothes and put on Guess jeans and the Tigger longsleeve tee that Julie had given me. Hoop earrings of graduating size went up my ears. As I did my eye makeup, I noticed Karrin’s reflection in the mirror, watching me with a slight smile on her face. On came the long, wavy ginger wig, and I was Annie again.

"Not quite yet," Karrin said. "From what I understand, Annie always has polished nails."

"Usually she does," I admitted. "I forgot to bring my nail polish along this time."

"Use some of mine," she offered. Several bottles were lined up on her dresser. Most were shades that would look better on Karrin’s black skin. Karrin offered me a bright purple and a glittery silver with a blue tint. I chose a bottle of glittery silver and went to work.

Now that I was Annie again, we gave Karrin a lift to the dorm. As we carried our luggage through the door, Karrin called Julie on the house phone, and soon the Holding girls were hugging in the lobby.

Two other Westview women’s basketball players came through the door. They stopped to say hi to Karrin and Julie. One of them turned to us. "Hi. I’m Hannah Westin. Aren’t you Julie’s sister?" she asked Sarah. Sarah nodded and smiled. "You two visited us last fall, didn’t you? And you’re—forgive me…."

"Annie Jansen. I’m a close friend of the family’s, and her" I pointed at Sarah "fiance’s sister." We exchanged pleasantries, and she hoped that we would come to Westview. I started to pick up my duffel and Sarah’s bag and started to carry them toward the guest room.

"Wait a minute, dear," Karrin told me. "Sarah’s bag goes to our room. So does Sarah, for that matter." My face fell.

"But I thought Sarah and I were rooming together," I protested. By this point, the four of us were alone in the lobby.

Julie reached out and patted my shoulder. "In order to get mom’s permission for you to come together, we had to agree to keep you out of trouble. And we plan to do it." She turned to Sarah, "Come along, little sis."

Sarah said, "Wait a minute! You and mom trusted us to live together for six weeks last summer. Why can’t you trust us now?"

Julie said, "You’re healthy now. And we saw the way that you and Annie kissed last weekend. And you promised then. And you’re engaged now. Come on, it’ll be fun spending some quality time together, sis."

A frustrated Sarah asked, "What about Annie? Does she have to stay alone?"

Karrin smiled and said "No, I’ll stay with Annie." I was speechless. Karrin just said, "Come along, roomie," as Julie led Sarah down the hall. This wasn’t the way I had planned to spend the evening, but it was obvious that we didn’t have much choice. Karrin had already moved some of her things into the guest room, and pointed out the bed and dresser that would be mine. "Come on, Annie, cheer up," she smiled.

"Do your parents know that you’re spending the night with a boy?" I challenged.

"Do you want to tell them that you’re a boy?" she laughed. "Besides, I can take care of myself." That she could. She could probably intimidate Xena the warrior princess. Karrin gave me time to settle in, and then we met Julie and Sarah Beth to go to supper in the college union. After supper, they presented us with Westview basketball jerseys, one with Julie’s number and "Holding" printed across the back, the other with Karrin’s number and name, so we could wear them to the game. I wore Karrin’s. So did her folks. We sat next to Karrin’s folks as we watched the game. Neither Julie or Karrin started, but like the other game we saw, they both got nearly half a game of playing time. Julie didn’t score much, but was outstanding on defense and ball handling, feeding the ball to her roommate. After I jumped up to yell approval when Karrin swished a basket, Sarah grinned at me. "You should become a cheerleader. With your great legs, you’d look cute in a fluted skirt and sweater." I just smiled and primped. We all cheered like crazy, and were hoarse by the time Westview defeated Mesa College and clinched second place in their conference.

When we returned to Julie’s room, the four of us sat around in our nighties and laughed and told stories, like a big sleepover. I wish we could have just stayed there, but eventually Karrin yawned, stretched, and led me back to the guest room. I was ready to crawl into bed when I noticed her looking at me questioningly. "What?" I asked.

"I was just curious," she said languidly. "If I’m your groomsman, do I have to help arrange your bachelor party?"

I laughed. "I doubt that anyone will give me a bachelor’s party, I’m probably too young to even have a bachelor party, but if there is one, sure, you’re invited." I paused. "But I don’t think any of my friends can afford a cake big enough to hide you." She looked completely confused. I tried to explain, and her confusion turned to exasperation.

"No cake," she told me firmly. "Now let’s go to sleep." So we did. I’m not sure how well Karrin slept, since she was six inches longer than the guest room bed. But when morning came, we were both refreshed. I put on yesterday’s jeans and a flowered yellow blouse. The four of us gathered for a brunch before Sarah Beth and I climbed into the jeep. I was a little nervous driving through the mountains as Annie. It wasn’t just the police that worried me, but what if the car broke down or slid off the road, and I needed to provide identification? I stayed as Annie anyway, since we wanted to visit Roberta and I didn’t want to spend half the day swapping wardrobes. The roads were a little slushy, but not dangerous. We talked about he wedding as we rode. We wanted to ask Roberta to be flower girl. We weren’t sure how to deal with my double identity. They had never met Mark. We didn’t want to confuse Roberta, but should we tell Vickie, her mom? We decided to play it by ear.

I had printed out a map from an online service, and we didn’t have any trouble finding the apartment where Roberta and her mother Vicki lived. The two lived in a first floor apartment, so it was easy for us to find it. "Annie! Sarah!" Roberta called out when she saw us at the door. She hugged each of us so tight that I was afraid Sarah might topple over. We noticed the bicycle that we had restored sitting in a corner of the living room. It was too sloppy out to give her any serious lessons, but we walked the bike outdoors, I helped Roberta onto the seat, and walked the bike down the sidewalk, with her squealing with delight as we went.

Later, we were inside, eating cookies and drinking milk. We explained that Mark was my brother, and that he and Sarah would be getting married in August. "Would you be our flower girl?" Sarah asked Roberta.

"What’s a flower girl?" she asked. We tried to explain.

"Will you be there, Annie?" Roberta asked. I explained that no, Annie wouldn’t be able to come to her brother’s wedding because she had to be out of town. Roberta frowned deeply. "Well, I’m not sure I want to go if you won’t be there, Annie, because you’re my bestest friend."

"Oh, please," I pleaded. "Please do it for Sarah Beth and Mark. Mark’s a lot like me, and I think you’ll like him." Finally, she agreed. After awhile, Roberta went to take a nap. We sat down with Vickie and explained our whole story.

"What?" she shouted. Then more quietly, "You’re Mark? I can’t believe it! All this time you had us thinking you were a girl?" I didn’t know if she was going to be angry or what, and I’m not sure she did either, but eventually she just started laughing. We talked some more and eventually left as friends.

We drove to the Presbyterian Church and walked into Barbara McGrail’s office. We had called before we left and had arranged to meet her there. She stood and said. "Sarah Beth, Annie, welcome. I guess I had assumed Mark would be coming, but you’re always welcome here anyway, Annie."

I explained that I had been Annie to visit Roberta, and wanted to use the church bathroom to change back to Mark before we left. "I could change now," I offered, "if you’ll be more comfortable."

"No, that’s okay, I’m more used to you as Annie anyhow," the minister said. "Now what is it you wanted to talk about?" We asked if she could come to Fort Russell and help marry us. "I would love to," she explained, "but your local minister would have to invite me. My code of ethics would preclude me from taking part, otherwise." We were sure that our minister would agree to Rev. McGrail helping, so we got her tentative approval. Sarah stayed and chatted, while I went to change back into Mark clothes. I came back in boy’s jeans and flannel shirt, and asked Rev. McGrail, "Uh, I hate to ask, but do you have any nail polish remover?" I was all guy now except for my glittery nails.

She shook her head. "I’m afraid not, Mark." I recalled that I had never seen her with polished nails.

"Thanks anyway," I said. "We can stop at a drug store." We hugged and left. We were going to be pushing our limit to get back home by the time we had promised, and it was starting to get dark, so we skipped the drug store stop. Near the entrance to the freeway, though, red flashing lights flickered off my rear view mirror.

"Were you speeding, Mark?" Sarah asked nervously as I pulled over.

"No, not at all," I responded. "I have no idea why he stopped me." The officer walked up to my window. The city policeman asked for my license and explained that a brake light on the jeep had burned out. As I passed the license out to the officer, I couldn’t help but notice my nails glittering in the red light. The officer must have noticed to.

"Are you sure this is your license, uh….sir?" he asked with cold politeness. I told him it was.

Sarah Beth spoke up. "Don’t let the nail polish bother you, sir. This is my fiance, and he just lost a silly little bet."

"Whatever," the officer mumbled. I was surprised to receive a ticket rather than a warning. I guess that the police have the option of giving a warning or ticket, but usually it’s just a warning. Did my nails bother him? Or was it just because I was a teenager, and we’re easy targets? The rest of the trip was uneventful, and Sarah slept most of the way. As I drove, I stewed about what had happened. I could see why my dads were nervous about me being Annie, and this was just a small thing. As cars passed, sometimes I would see my nails glisten in reflection as I gripped the steering wheel.

 

BEST AND WORST DAY

Neither Sarah nor I ever knew Randy Rollins very well. Nobody else did, either. So maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising that this ordinary face in the crowd at Fort Russell High would kill himself one March morning when the signs of Spring were making the rest of us feel hopeful. We can’t be sure it was suicide. Maybe it wasn’t. But he drove his old rusty gray Chevette off a mountain curve fast enough and in enough of a straight line that it seemed he wasn’t trying to brake or steer. Just go—go over the edge and down into the rocks of the canyon hundreds of feet below. Randy had been depressed, some kids said. And the last entry in his journal, open on the dresser, was a note that his mom found—"Don’t blame yourself. It’s not your fault." Was it a suicide note intended to comfort his mom, or just a note to himself? I guess we’ll never know.

In spite of the counselors they dragged in, almost everybody at school seemed depressed and guilty. Some cracked jokes, but there was a nervous edge to their laughs, and no one laughed with them. I asked my good friend Rick "What do you think about Randy?"

"At least the poor kid’s getting some attention now," Rick responded. "Not that he’s around to enjoy it. I woke up from a dream last night, dreaming that I was in that old bomb of a car, sailing through the air. I woke up all sweaty and yelping."

"So why do you think he did it, if he did it?" I asked.

"Lonely. Hopeless. Frightened," Rick slowly said.

"Frightened? Why?" I was puzzled.

"Because he had feelings—gay feelings—and they frightened him. He knew if he expressed those feelings that he would go from being ignored to being despised." Rick’s jaw tightened as he talked.

"Gay—you weren’t—you weren’t—" I started to say. As far as I knew, only Sarah and I knew Rick’s sexual preference.

"No!" Rick almost shouted. Then he calmed down. "I wasn’t attracted to him, and he hardly knew me. He did try to come on to one guy, a school dropout, and got punched out. Maybe he was afraid that guy would tell everybody, I don’t know. Anyway, it’s very lonely in a town like this not to be able to live like you were meant to live. There are a few other gay and lesbian students here, and we kind of watch out for each other, but that doesn’t help the loners like Randy." I knew from previous talk that Rick planned to stay closeted, at least until he could leave town. He wasn’t sure yet whether he would go to the state university with us, or would move to a larger city. We were both alone in our thoughts. Then he looked at me and asked, "Mark, if I was outed, before your wedding, I mean, would you still be my friend, out in public, I mean? Would you still want me in your wedding?"

"Absolutely, bud," I said, looking straight in his eyes. "And if I were outed, if I were out as Annie and people recognized me, and I got beat up, or just blabbed about, would you be there for me?"

"Absolutely, bud," he said. Then he smiled. "There’s one dress you have that’s pretty tacky, though—that pink one from Julie’s aunt." (I knew the frilly little-girlish one he meant.) "I would be a bit embarrassed at your fashion sense if you wore that one in public, whether you were outed or not."

"That’s okay, so would I."

Sarah Beth’s spirits had improved greatly over the past month. She was bubbly, witty, and funny again. I hadn’t spent any major time as Annie since our trip, but every know and then Sarah would look at me appraisingly. She might comb my hair over a bit and slip a couple of barrettes in, or find an old shell of Julie’s that she’d have me try on to see how the color looked on me. Now, with Randy’s death, she was quiet and sad looking. I asked if she wanted to talk about it, like I had with Rick, and she would just shake her head a tiny bit, and give me a half-hearted smile, then look the other way.

About two weeks after the death, Sarah asked me "Are you doing anything Saturday afternoon?"

"I’m scheduled to work at the bike shop, but I could trade off."

"Do it. I want to go somewhere with you," she announced.

"Uh…Me or Annie?"

"You. Mark. My fiance. Dress grubby. Eat a big lunch. I’ll pack some nibbles." She didn’t sound happy, but she did sound determined. That was better than depressed. I agreed and made the tradeoff.

Around 3 that Saturday afternoon, I swung by to pick her up. She lifted herself up onto the seat and used her hands to pull her right leg into the car. The inside of her shoe scraped across the door frame. "I’ll have to lift higher," she murmured, "or trash all my shoes." Then she turned, smiled the smile that lights up the world, and said "Great day, huh?" I agreed.

"Where to, milady? Your wish is my command." I nodded my head.

"Canyon road, please, Sir Mark," she smiled. Her eyes weren’t smiling. They looked determined. She had an agenda, and this wasn’t going to be just a fun cruise on a beautiful early spring day. As we left town heading west, I wondered for a moment if she wanted to see where Randy had ended his life. She wasn’t much into morbid curiosity, so I buried the thought. The brown foothills were showing splotches of green and bright colors following yesterday’s rain. The sun glistened off of the ore streaks in some of the rocks and rock walls along the way. The road climbed away from the lower canyon up to our lookout—our lookout. We hadn’t been there, or been past there, since the other bright spring day, almost a year ago, when we biked up. Sarah hadn’t biked back. I felt too awkward to say anything about it.

"Pull in at the overlook, please," she said. We had loved this place before the accident. Looking east, the foothills rolled down toward the plains. Fort Russell was spread around the river. Looking west, the Rocky Mountains rose above us. It was such a great spot just to sit and watch the cloud shadows glide across the terrain. There were one or two other cars in the lot. Sarah asked that I park near the outcropping where we had sat last Spring. What memories, what demons, were this fragile but incredibly strong young woman planning to meet here?

Sarah walked past the picnic table where I thought she would have stopped to the outcropping, right to the part where we had sat a year ago. The ledge was a little over three feet high. "Mark, I’m afraid you’ll have to help me up this time," she said, with a sad little smile. Leaning on me for balance, she raised her left foot into a crevice, and was able to lift herself up. I helped her balance, turn, and sit, handed her cane up to her, and then I scooted up beside her.

"Memories, huh?" I asked, to show her I was open to listen if she wanted to talk.

"Yeah. All kinds." A pause. "Let’s just sit here for awhile, okay?" So we did, for quite awhile. According to the school counselor, we’re both introverts, and we can be comfortable with just being together in silence. I laid my hand on hers. The other cars left. I leaned over and kissed her cheek. She squeezed my hand and smiled. She looked out over the valley again. A tear trickled down the side of her nose. Then another. Then more. Then she leaned over and started sobbing deeply. I put my arm around her shoulder. She gasped and breathed deeply, regaining composure. Finally she smiled, and I didn’t know what to say.

"It was terrible, wasn’t it?" I finally said.

She smiled again, a wry, sad little smile. "Yeah. It was the worst day of my life up to that point. Then came all those days of pain and fear. Even when my family was around me I was like, so totally alone. I was just a frightened little girl when they took me into surgery to save my leg. That’s okay, I thought. I can do this. There’ll be a scar, I might limp a little, but I’ll still be whole. Then the fever came, and I was so miserable, so out of it. I could feel my leg trying to kill me. It was the center of pain and fever, it was sending poison into the rest of me. I was still in a haze of drugs and fever, but I can see the sad, guilty look on the doctor’s face when he tried to explain to me that they would have to operate again, to take my leg." She paused, gulped, and went on. I just held tight for the ride. "I didn’t think about it much. I wasn’t thinking at all. I just wanted the pain to be gone, so I told him okay, go for it. The next couple of days I was so out of it. I was vaguely aware that when I shifted weight my body didn’t turn like it used to. I knew the sheet draped over me funny. I’d look down and say, ‘Oh. That’s where my leg used to be.’ And I’d go back asleep. Then I was just coming out of it and I saw your face, with those beautiful blue eyes looking down at me, that silly smile on your face. My first thought was ‘will he still want me like this?’ and my second was, ‘I never want to be apart from him again. Later, when I was back in my right mind again and they were talking about me going to Hope Haven, I knew deep in my heart that somehow you would be there with me." She chuckled. "Then I got the idea for Annie, and you were enough of a lovesick dope to go through with it."

"I’d do it again in a minute," I said. "That’s what kind of lovesick dope I still am."

"That was the worst day of my life up to that point," she said softly. I nodded. "But in another way it was the best day of my life."

"How do you figure?" I asked. "You mean what happened before your accident, the fun of being together, the beauty?"

"All that, but think. If I hadn’t jumped off of this ledge and my femur hadn’t snapped," she was sounding like a premed student already, "they might not have discovered the cancer until it had spread. I would have been like Wendy, like Roger, like a lot of other kids, just a memory. And it’s all so beautiful."

"What is?"

"Life! Okay, there’s nothing of me below my right hip. Just dead weight, plastic, and hinges. But I’m alive. I can walk, sort of, anyway, I can feel the breeze on my face, see the desert flowers," her voice shifted to a whisper. "Look to your left, but don’t move." My eyes shifted. On a slight rise on the ledge, a tiny tan lizard looked up at me with bright black dots for eyes, its tongue slithering in and out. We watched it in silence for a few seconds before it darted away. "See what I mean? It was beautiful. It was alive. It was part of all this glory all around us. How could heaven be any better? And here we are making plans for school, for getting married, and I’m going to medical school. I never could have afforded that before. So, yeah. That was one of the best days of my life last year. And this is another one this year. I love life. I love you so much, Mark."

"Just as much as I love you, Sarah Beth," I said. We kissed, but broke it up when another car pulled into the parking area. "When you first asked me to come up this road, I thought you were thinking about Randy. You’d seemed kind of down since that happened."

"I was, in a way—but not like I wanted to see where it happened. Life is so wonderful that even with all I’ve lost, I couldn’t figure out why anyone would want to die. But I had to admit to myself that there had been times that I thought about giving up, thought that dying might be easier than living. Then sometimes I’d open my eyes and see Annie, with those silly ribbons in her hair, clattering along on her laptop with those bright blue fingernails, and I figured that I had better hang on for her sake—for your sake. And I’m so glad I did, lover mine."

"Like I said, I’d do it again in a minute, just to be with you. Even if I hadn’t gotten to like Annie myself. Uh, oh. I was just noticing the back of your neck. It’s pretty red."

She gently rubbed a pink fingernail against her neck and winced. "Ooh. You’re right. I’m still used to having long hair—mine or my wig’s, and I’m not used to having my neck bare."

"Beautiful neck it is, too," I leered, and kissed it appropriately. There. Does that make it feel better?" As much as I loved the long, flowing curls she had lost, I liked this short and sassy cut, too.

"No," she grinned. "But it makes the rest of me feel better."

As the sun went behind the mountains, we watched their shadows lengthen across the prairie, and lights in Fort Russell became more visible. We hugged and kissed, we ate our snacks, we talked some more, and finally got back in the jeep to go home. We stopped at DQ for cones, then she asked me to swing by the thrift store. It was still open. She soon found a broad-billed tan hat that would protect her neck on future outings. She also found a floppy, faded denim hat with embroidered flowers all around the crown. "Oh, this is so Annie," she squealed. "Let’s get it for her."

"Annie’s got a pretty good tan from all her bike riding," I started to protest, but I saw that determined look in her eyes above the grin. "but you’re right. Annie will love that hat. And it’ll remind her of this most beautiful of all days." Since it was dark by then, I wore the hat in the jeep the rest of the way to Sarah’s house.

 

SENIOR PROMS

Signs were sprouting up like flowers around Fort Russell High, all of them touting the glories of the Senior Prom. Just a year ago, as juniors, Sarah Beth and I worked hard to help organize the big dance. We had dreamed about coming and dancing as seniors, even though on the whole we weren’t "social animals." We were, after all, celebrating the end of our high school career and looking forward to staying a "couple" forever. Now we were seniors, and the juniors were working for us, making plans to decorate the country club. But now Sarah had only one leg. As we stood in the hallway, Sarah leaning on her cane, I said, "You’re not taking anyone else to Senior Prom, are you?"

"No," she said wistfully. "No one else. Were you asking?"

"Sure, I was asking. Will you come to the prom with me?"

We hadn’t been to any dances since her illness. We missed the Fall Fiesta and Homecoming Dance because she was sick with chemo. The other smaller dances, held in the school cafeteria, we ignored. But this was prom. "Is it worth spending the money?" she asked. "I’m not even as good a dancer as you are, anymore." As choreographically challenged as I had always been, she was probably right.

"So, we can improvise on the dancing. I just want to be there with you in my arms. We can at least sway during the slow dances, just so we can hold each other close. Please come." I sloppily tried a kneeling motion and almost knocked her over. "Besides, you’re my fiancee, kid."

"Okay, then. Prince Charming, I’d love to go the ball with you. But I’m not sure I can find a glass slipper to fit this foot."

"That’s okay, as long as you don’t mind that the carriage is my jeep. The limos are already rented out, I hear." Besides, I couldn’t afford one, anyway. "But I am glad that you want to go." So I stopped at the booth to buy tickets from two eager juniors.

That Saturday, Sarah’s mom took her shopping for a prom dress, and they met me at the tux rental place so we could coordinate our attire, and go from there to lunch together. Sarah’s dress looked great in the bag, but I had trouble finding a tux in my size that went well with it—or with anything else, for that matter. All the good ones were reserved. Finally, we picked the least bad of the lot. On the way to lunch, Sarah grinned. "Too bad it isn’t Annie that’s going to the prom. She could wear that gorgeous blue gown from her date with Roger, and make all the girls jealous." She paused. "Actually, it does seem a change that Annie will miss out on going to a dance." My date with Roger had been a formal dinner date.

"Probably not the safest thing to do, though," I chuckled. "Some of these guys will have gun racks on their limos. No, Annie will just have to miss this dance. Besides, doesn’t Julie still have the gown at college?" Sarah’s mom admitted that Julie did still have the gown, and that she had actually worn it once to a college dance. She also told me that Julie was home for the weekend.

As we munched our burgers, Sarah mumbled something softly. I asked her to repeat it. "Maybe we shouldn’t go." I asked her why. "Except for bobbing my head back and forth, I haven’t moved to music since last summer. I’m really going to feel like a geek, limping around the dance floor."

"You two lovebirds could practice beforehand," Mrs. Holding advised. "Without a crowd around, put on some music and become comfortable with it. The prom’s in a week. Come over tonight, if you want." We had planned on a movie, but we could always put that off. Sarah and I agreed. "Come over about six for supper, and we’ll go from there. We’ll move the therapy equipment to the side in the basement, turn the dimmers down, and boogie. It’ll just be the Holding girls and you, Mark." Mr. H was trucking a load down in west Texas.

I cringed when I saw the gleam in Sarah’s eye. "Can Annie come? Tonight, I mean? That way, she could have her own prom."

Mrs. H pressed her lips together. "That would be up to Mark, Sarah. Don’t put him in a difficult situation."

I wasn’t sure how to react. I hadn’t gotten to dress as Annie since our last trip over the mountains. "Let me think about it. Let’s just see how it goes, okay? " They agreed.

So I showed up for supper in my khaki slacks and a Henley shirt, but I had a sport jacket and a Sunday shirt on hangers over my shoulder, and an inexpensive wrist corsage in a plastic box. I had picked it up when I ordered the real corsage for next Saturday. Sarah kissed my cheek and put the corsage in the refrigerator until after supper. As her mom took my jacket and shirt, Sarah said, "You won’t be needing those, unless you’re planning to spend the night and go to church from here tomorrow." Her mom protested with a vigorous head shake. Soon, we were all chowing down, except for Julie who was having supper with Joan Kim, from the nail shop. Mrs. H had found time to put together a nice meal, in spite of the day’s shopping. We all pitched in to help clean up the table and throw the dishes in the washer. "It’s getting late. We’d better get Annie ready for her prom," Sarah told her mom, casting a teasing glance at me.

"If you want me to be Annie tonight, I will," I said. "But why do you want me to be?"

"Because I miss her every once in awhile," she said. "and because you’re always so stiff at dancing, that maybe being Annie tonight will loosen you up a bit. That way, we can both be more relaxed on the real dance floor. And Annie shouldn’t have to grow up without having gone to a prom." As we left her mom in the kitchen, she whispered, "Besides, I always find you sexy as Mark. But I’m beginning to find Annie a little bit sexy to me, too!"

"Lead on, then," I said in my Annie voice. I had though we would have to go upstairs to Julie’s room, where most of Annie’s clothes were stored, but Sarah and Julie had already brought what I needed down to her room. Unfortunately, her room didn’t have much privacy, since it only had a curtain for a door. Sarah gave me my padded panties, bra, and a pair of pantyhose and told me to go change in the downstairs bathroom. I stripped and put on the lingerie.

I padded back, wearing my Annie undies. My heart jumped and I started to dash across the living room to Sarah’s room. With the slick pantyhose, my feet went out from under me on the polished hardwood floor, and my slide was so good that I would have been safe at third, had the coffee table been third base. It was only Julie, carrying a baby in her arms. "Hi, Annie," she just said calmly, as if I always slid around their living room in lingerie. "This is Tina Kim, Joan’s daughter. She was in her mommy’s tummy when she gave you your blue nails." The infant gave me a toothless grin as Julie waved its tiny hand at me. "Tina, this is your aunt Annie. She’s kind of silly, but we love her very much." By that time, Sarah had come out, and eagerly took the baby. Someday all those motherhood instincts will be used on our kids, I thought, as I rose up from the floor. Mrs. Holding had come up from the basement at the loud thump, so I was now surrounded by laughing women. "Joan couldn’t get time away from the shop for supper," Julie explained after the laughing had died down, "and the shop was so crowded, all of Tina’s natural babysitters were busy nailing the general population of Fort Russell." (All the women in the Kim family were nail technicians at their own store, Nail Fancy, except for Tina, who was sitting in my lap by this time. Her nails weren’t much larger than pinheads.) "So they ordered in oriental, and I volunteered to take Tina for the evening. She wanted to dance at the prom, too."

Tina watched raptly as the Holding sisters prepared to transform me into a prom queen. First came the dress. When I first entered Sarah’s room, I thought it was her prom gown hanging from a hook, but I realized it was much too long for Sarah. (Sarah, under 5’2", is almost as much shorter than Julie and I as we are shorter than Karrin, Julie’s roommate at college.) The dress was a delicate peach color, sleeveless, low-waisted and slightly flared, with a subtle brocade around the high neck. As I found out when they lifted it over me, the back was open to mid-back. Julie pulled down the bra strap so it wouldn’t show, leaning me backwards. It was classy. "This was my senior prom dress, Annie," Julie commented. "So we figured it would fit. That color looks good on you!" I have dark enough a tan that I didn’t know if it would or not, but as it worked out the contrast was nice. "Here, why don’t you do your nails, and I’ll help Sarah change and then come back to do your makeup," Julie suggested.

"That’s okay, I can do my own," I offered. Julie was already helping Sarah out of her slacks and lavender tank top.

"You do great for daytime makeup, Annie," Julie answered, "but for prom you need something more dramatic, yet not overdone. We’ll handle it."

"Okay," I muttered. I started to paint my nails the silvery-blue color they had given me. Seven-month-old Tina watched with fascination from my lap, where Julie had dropped her, with a baby blanket between the kid and my fancy dress. The painting process was slowed by my glancing at the mirror to watch my fiancee change clothes. Her body was so beautiful to me, even with the bulk of the harness for her full-leg prosthesis. Sarah’s new gown, as Julie fit it over her, was a pale blue, classy and understated, but showing her curves off to good advantage. "Wow!" was all I could say.

"We’re just getting started with both of you," Julie said. "Let’s you, me, and Tina go up to my room so Saraboo can have her vanity back." With that, she swept the little one out of my lap, and we processed upwards. After applying base makeup and color to my cheeks, Julie began to work on my eyes, first with an eyebrow pencil, then with several colors of eye shadow. She artistically blended grays, silver, and peach together, which helped unify the colors of my nails and my gown. She added some tiny spots of glitter to my cheeks and neck, and handed me a peach lipstick.

"Now, downstairs for the fine tuning," she said. I loyally marched after her. They had given me footies to wear, to keep my pantyhose from running, and to help keep me from sliding again. I still walked very carefully.

I sat on Sarah’s bed as she was finishing her makeup. Julie placed Sarah’s luxurious, wavy wig on my head. The back of the hairpiece was swept up to the crown, held in place by a few glittery clips here and there. Tiny ribbons of silver and peach hung from it, and brushed against my cheek. Julie pulled out a few small hair clips to allow ringlets to fall down past my temple. I leaned over Sarah’s shoulder to look in the mirror, and worked the diamond earrings into my ears. Was Annie prettier than she was on her date with Roger last summer? Maybe.

When I was done with my earrings, Julie placed the pearls around my neck that Mrs. Cameron had brought me. The wrist corsage was a surprise. Sarah slipped it over my wrist. "You were driving away from the florist when mom and I pulled in," she grinned. Peach blossoms with silvery ribbon coordinated beautifully with the rest of my look.

"I guess I’m wearing my low heels from last summer, right?" I asked. I knew that my feet were larger than Julie’s and that the heels she had worn with the gown wouldn’t fit.

"Wrong," Sarah said. She pulled out a shoebox. Inside were tall heels, at least three inches, open-toed, peach colored, with a little silver spangle on the inseam. "Nice, huh?" Sarah asked. "We got them at the discount shoe store, so they’re made of plastic and won’t stay together too well, but their look are more stylish than their price. We added the silver to go with the rest of your ensemble." I slipped them on, and wobbled around. "Considering our short notice, you look absolutely gorgeous," my Sarah told me, as she wrapped her arms around me. "If you went to the prom next Saturday like this, I bet nobody would have the least idea."

"Not until I did this," I answered. I reached down to kiss her and we joyously smeared two sets of lipstick. As I leaned up, she pulled my face down for another. Julie groaned. After we freshened up, we worked our way downstairs very carefully, me wobbling as much in my heels as Sarah Beth was on her artificial leg.

I commented on it, and she said, "Don’t complain. Think of yourself having a flat on one foot and a twenty-six inch heel that goes all the way up to your thigh on the other." She had a point. The lights were low in their family room in the basement. Sarah’s physical therapy and exercise equipment was pushed against a wall or stashed in the laundry room. Mrs. Holding had set out a punch bowl and crystal glasses, with orange sherbet floating in the punch. Who cares if the snacks were from a Little Debbie’s box?

"I’m going to check on mom and Tina," Julie told us from the stairway. "Then I’ll be back down. So will mom and Tina. So make sure that all your dancing is vertical, okay?" We both stuck out our tongues at our pesky older sister (well, my pesky older sister-in-law-to-be, but the Holdings consider me family already, anyway).

"Shall we dance?" I asked. The music was soft and slow.

"We can try," Sarah said, a smile beaming on her face. She left her cane at the chair. Slowly, awkwardly, we rocked back and forth and made our way around the floor. Slowly she gained confidence—not in our dancing ability, but in our combined ability to stay on our feet. It was so wonderful, having her body against mine, that I almost forgot that we looked more like sisters than a man and woman planning to be married. When the rock beat picked up, we were able to let loose of each other and move our bodies to the rhythm, again staying upright. A few times I had to reach out and steady her, and once she reached out to steady me when I wobbled too much in those darn heels. Then we just laughed and sat down. The other Harding women and Tina came down, so we all took turns dancing with one another. In spite of the fact that her feet were nowhere near the floor, Tina was a very good dancer.

When our feet were sufficiently sore, we just sat and talked. "See, I told you," Sarah chirped. "Annie’s a beautiful lady, and a better dancer than Mark. Maybe it’ll carry over next week."

"But I’ll be plain old Mark next week, remember? But that’s okay, you will still be beautiful Sarah."

And so, next week, we were. I did look like a nondescript teenage boy in a mildly ugly gray tux, but that was okay. The shoes pinched, but at least I could wear them without wobbling like I had in the heels. And Sarah, of course, was radiant. We danced, not worrying about what other people thought about our dancing ability, but like two young people deeply and incredibly in love. And the hair ribbon and wrist corsage from Annie’s prom hung pinned together from my dresser mirror at home.

WEDDING PLANS

Working together with our parents, Sarah Beth and I got busy making wedding arrangements. Of course, since our families were both active there, we planned to have the wedding at our local Presbyterian church. Our minister, Dr. Rollins, agreed to invite Rev. McGrail to participate in the service. We would have the reception in the church’s fellowship hall. The ladies there would cater it for us, and save us a huge amount of money. We had also sent out letters to the people we wanted in the service, including a follow-up letter to Vickie and Roberta Hudnut. We thought Roberta might be more comfortable if her mom were in the service, so we asked Vickie if she would be a bridesmaid, too. Of course that meant adding another guy on my side, so I called Allen Eagle Wing, a friend of mine from the Ocelots bicycling club, and he was delighted. It wouldn’t be a large wedding, because neither of us had large families or lots of school friends. But it would have one of the most interesting wedding parties that our town had ever seen. On the left would be my one-legged bride; Julie, her jock sister; Kelly, with all her scars; Joanie, in her electric wheelchair; and Vickie, Roberta’s young mother. On the right would be the groom, who had an alter-ego named Annie; my gay best friend, Rick; Karrin, Julie’s African roommate, nearly 6 and a half feet tall, who would tower over everybody; my girl cousin, who was normal, as far as I knew, but willing to stand on the guys’ side; and Allen, a Ute with a long braid.

A week later, we got a letter back from Kelly.

Dear Sarah & Mark & Annie,

Thanx for the invite. I know you had asked me before, but now it’s official. Yes, I’ll be glad to be in your wedding. I’ll either come by bus the day be4 or maybe my boyfriend Dan will drive me. We’ll see. I (or we) will come on the 25^th so there’s times for the dress fitting and beauty shop like you asked (hopeless cause tho it may be). But I’m warning you. If the dress is too ugly or all dainty frills, I will get my revenge. By the way. Now that my ranch has stopped paying for my burn surgeries, mom, Dan and I may be moving to Cameron! Thanx for introducing us to Mrs. Cameron. They offered us all jobs at better pay. Dan keeps hinting that he wants to marry me, but hasn’t come right out to ask yet. He’s real shy and quiet, but sweet, a lot like you Mark, but he would look really ugly in a dress. He doesn’t have much book learning, but he knows a lot. So yes, I may be holding you 2 to your promise to be my bridesmaids. Actually, Sarah, you can be my maid (matron?) of honor. I don’t want Annie 2 be, cause she couldn’t sign her name legal on the license, and I don’t want any loopholes. Love u both! Kelly Cassidy

One April day, we went shopping for wedding rings. Sarah was wearing the engagement ring that I had given her. It wasn’t a real engagement ring. It was the diamond solitaire that Mrs. Cameron had brought me for my date with Roger. I had told Sarah that I wanted to buy her a new engagement ring, but she hadn’t agreed right away. So we were going to look for wedding rings, anyway. On the way to the store, Sarah looked at me and said, "You’re going to be Annie sometimes after we’re married, aren’t you?"

"I guess. Why?" I asked.

"It’ll make a difference in what we get here," she said, as I parked at the mall to go to the jewelry store. "If you want to buy me a new engagement ring you can, if it’s not anything too big that you can’t afford. But if I do, it’s because I want Annie to have the solitaire back. They can stretch it here for your ring finger size. I’ll tell them it’s for my sister. We’ll try to get you a wedding ring narrow enough to be unisex, and one that goes with the solitaire. Annie’s going to be married to me too, so it’s only right that she has rings. And if Annie goes out in public, I want guys to know she’s married, so they don’t try to hit on her."

"Yes, ma’am," was all I could say.

 

 

GRADUATION TIME

"Hello? Holdings. This is Sarah."

"Sarah, hi! I’m glad you’re up."

"Oh, hi, Marko. Just barely. Watcha want?"

"What I want is for you to put on your shrink hat and listen to me tell you about my dream."

"Okay, sure. What did you dream about the night before graduation? Getting your diploma in the buff?"

"No, but that’s a good idea. Actually, I was Annie last night. I was at my dresser, getting ready to go to church, I think. I had a white, frilly top on. Anyway, my hair was straight, like mine is, and long, below my shoulders, so I took the hair hanging down in front, lifted it back, twisted it, and clamped it behind my head, like I knew what I was doing. I put on earrings and a necklace, silver and turquoise. My nails were long and turquoise, too. I touched my breasts—they were real—and realized that they were getting bigger—getting ready. And below those two lumps was one huge one."

"Mark! You were pregnant!"

"Well, Annie sure was. I was just getting up when you came walking in through a door that wasn’t there before. You were on crutches, without your prosthetic, wearing a man’s Sunday suit, but you were taller, had a crew cut, and a cute little moustache. But the face was definitely you. Freckles and all."

"So I was your husband—wow."

"You were my husband Seth—that’s what I called you. You patted my tummy and asked if the kids were ready for church. I teased you that Luke was ready but Lanni couldn’t make up her mind what to wear. That’s what we decided to name them."

"You mean we were having twins?"

"Yeah. A boy and a girl. And I said that I was glad my husband was a doctor, so if they came a couple of days early, he could deliver them right there in church. You hugged me, sort of sideways since my tummy was so big, and you kissed me, and I thought about your moustache tickling, but I couldn’t feel it since it was only a dream, then I woke up."

"Annie, that was beautiful! Thanks for thinking to call me about it!"

"I’m Mark, remember? Now, anyway. So what do you think, shrink?" Sarah had told me that when it came time to specialize in her medical training, she might be a pediatrician, a research doctor, or a psychiatrist.

"Vell, let me tink," she said, laughing, then dropped the fake accent. "Going to church probably meant you were thinking about graduation, both being ceremonies and rituals and stuff. I think it’s neat that if you were Annie I was your husband, because you’d assume we’d be together. And wow! Me! The father of twins! Okay, new start, new life, boy and girl twins, probably about the male and female parts of your own identity. Uhh—how did you feel when you woke up?"

"Okay, I guess. I didn’t wake up screaming." Actually, I was afraid to tell her that I woke up feeling really, really contented and high, like when I had an endorphin rush on long bike rides.

"You probably would have woken up screaming if you and Seth had gone to church and you started delivering right there in the pew."

I chuckled. "That’s a fact."

"Two things come to mind. First of all, is there a history of multiple births in your family?"

"No, not that I know of."

"Us, neither. Good. Because if there are ever multiple births in our family, I will not do it. It will have to be Annie that will carry them and deliver them."

"That’s impossible, isn’t it?" I hoped so.

"I will be a doctor. I will find a way to make it happen."

"Sometimes you scare me."

"Second thing. Thank your. You telling me about your dream gave me a sign."

"A sign?"

"Yes. It helped me make up my mind what I’m going to do when I have to speak at graduation. I’m taking my crutches."

"Good girl," I said. "I’ll be rooting for you."

"I know you will. ‘Bye, love."

I hung up and began to get dressed. This was the first time I dreamed about really being Annie since our days at Hope Haven, at least as far as I remember. Some dreams are quickly forgotten. I had a feeling this one would stay with me.

Sarah was graduating third in her class, and had received an award as most courageous senior, and they had asked her to make a little speech. (Actually, if she hadn’t gotten cancer, she might have at least tied for valedictorian. I was pleased to be in the top ten percent.) She had even considered not going to graduation, because her leg was acting up again—her stump, I mean.

Eight days before graduation, Sarah Beth developed a problem that her doctor says is fairly common among amputees. Her stump developed an inflammation. That new part used her wheelchair, keeping her prosthesis strapped to her for cosmetic reasons. "I just don’t want to be pitied and stared at," she said when I asked if she would be more comfortable without it. At home, she took it off and swung around quite rapidly on crutches. She had doctor’s appointments to get antibiotics and cortisone to fight infection and swelling, and an appointment with the artificial limb people to reconform the leg to her stump.

But none of that would work in time for today, when it was so important for her to walk across the stage to get her diploma, to stand at the podium to make her speech. At one point, she was so low that she thought she might not even go to graduation, speech or no speech. It was such a drag to spend the last week of high school in a wheelchair. Now she had decided to go, and to walk on her one leg and crutches. Yes, I was proud.

I don’t remember too much about graduation except Sarah’s speech and us getting our diplomas. She had been sitting on the stage in her wheelchair from the beginning. Then the assistant principal said some nice things about her being an inspiration, and Sarah got up on her crutches. Everybody applauded wildly as she made her way to the platform.

"Thank you, Mrs. Timmerman. Excuse me. I’m a little embarrassed, but I’m happy, too, I guess. Please let me make like the Academy Awards and thank everybody first. I want to thank my teachers for helping me, and my family because they’ve been through so much, Joanie Hudnut, who has been a big help at helping me adjust to life with a disability, and especially Mark, my fiance, who loved me even when I was bald and grumpy, and Annie, who isn’t here tonight, but who was my roommate at Hope Haven, and who was the only person who kept me from giving up completely." Of course by this time, tears were running down my cheek. "Anyway, I’m not sure why the seniors voted for me for this award, because I’m not really courageous, I’m just surrounded by a lot of wonderful people. Something bad happened to me last year, something that could happen to any of us, cancer, or an accident, or whatever, and I’ve just had to have faith in God and deal with it the best I can. But again, what kept me going was the knowledge that I was never, never alone. One of our classmates died this spring, and he died like he lived, alone. I felt for him and I pray for him constantly, but I only wished that I could have gotten beyond my own problems and reached out to him when he was alive. So that’s all I want to say. Surround one another with love. My burden in life is kind of noticeable. A lot of you are carrying burdens that aren’t so visible. But bear each other’s burdens, and it’ll be okay. Thanks."

 

RACE DAY

"Annie! Annie!" Roberta yelled as she hugged my legs. (She had already called "Sarah!" and hugged her.) I loved the exuberant welcome from our little friend, but it was a little confusing, since I wasn’t Annie today. This was the day I was going to introduce her to Mark. We had arrived at their apartment on a Friday morning when my bicycling team, the Ocelots, were going to race in a rally with several different teams from around our state. I hadn’t been as active on the team with spending more time with Sarah and planning our wedding, but I was still able to hold my own, and they needed me. We had called Vicky and agreed that we would meet them at their apartment and take them to the race, so her daughter would have a chance to meet Mark—well, Mark as Mark.

"Hi, Annie, I’m so glad to see you!" she beamed up at me.

"Uh, hi. You must be Roberta. I’m Mark, Sarah’s boy friend."

"No you’re not, you’re Annie," she grinned. "Quit teasing me."

I had my spandex Ocelot uniform on, which she had seen me in last Summer as Annie, so I guess I could see where she could get confused, even with my hair in a somewhat boyish cut. (It was short on the sides, but I was growing the top and back longer to get my ponytail back.) "I really am a boy, Roberta. I really am Mark, and I really am going to marry Sarah this summer, and I really want you to be our flower girl, okay?"

Vicky mouthed to me something, I thought she said, "she knows."

Then Roberta said, "I know you’re Mark, but I know you’re Annie, too."

By now Sarah and I were totally confused. We went inside for coffee and a danish. "I’m sorry, kids, but after the last time you were here and you said that Annie wasn’t going to be at the wedding, she decided that she didn’t want to do it. She cried and cried. Finally, I explained that Annie and Mark were really the same person, and that you were Annie last summer because that’s the only way you could help Sarah get well. And that you dressed up as Annie to see us just because she liked Annie so well, and because you liked her that much, too," Vicky explained.

"A good explanation, but I’m sure it’s still confusing to her. It is to me, sometimes," I admitted.

"Reynaudo helped me explain it to her," the curly-haired lady told us wisfully.

"Reynaudo?" Sarah and I asked.

"Reynaudo is my friend," Roberta said. "I carry him around inside me, so he’s always with me. He likes it when I have fun, because he has fun, too."

"I’d like to meet Reynaudo," I said. "He sounds like a nice boy."

"You can’t meet him," she said. "He’s inside me. Right here." Roberta tapped her chest.

Then I thought I understood, but Vicky clarified it. "Reynaudo was a little boy, seven years old, who was part of a migrant worker family in Kansas. Their pickup truck overturned. Reynaudo fell out. He was brain-dead. But his mother, bless her heart, in all her grief, said yes when they asked about organ donations. So we know that Reynaudo’s in heaven right now, but he’s also a part of Roberta. And yes, we do believe that whenever Roberta has fun, Reynaudo’s having fun, too. So, Mark, since she understands about having a little boy inside of her, she can understand that you’re a boy, but you have Annie inside of you. She knows Annie and loves her. But she’ll love you as Mark, too. Just give her time."

We put Roberta’s little bicycle on the rack on the roof of my jeep wagon, right next to my big racing bike, and all drove off to the rally. Roberta wore her way-oversized pink helmet and the red and blue ribbon I had given her last summer. (Of course, that was only after she had me try it on.)

Sarah, Vicky, and Roberta settled down in lawn chairs and a blanket with the other spectators near the start/finish line. During the day, we had several sprints and a few longer races. When I was between races, I noticed a guy from the host team staring at me whenever he thought that I was looking the other way. I recognized him as the guy that I, as Annie, had beaten last summer. This could be bad. If he found out that I was the girl who had caused him to bike back into town with the hair ribbon that Roberta now wore, and that I was a guy, he would probably punch me out and tell everyone, including my Fort Russell teammates, that I was some sort of fairy queen. How should I handle it? I couldn’t pretend I was Annie, since I was racing in men’s competition. If I acted as nervous as I felt, he might be able to figure it out. So I had to lie boldly.

I walked up to him and said, "I’m sorry, you keep looking my way. Do I know you?"

He introduced himself, and said that he had met another member of my team last summer, who looked an awful lot like me, except that she was a girl.

"You think I look like a girl, huh?" I asked.

He apologized. "I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way. These uniforms are sort of unisex, and you’re about her height and size, and your face is shaped a little like hers. Now that you’re close up, I can see you aren’t her."

"So how did you get to know this girl?" I asked innocently (well, not very).

"I was just out bicycling one day, and I met her down at the riverfront park. We got talking, and we rode up a trail to restaurant, and had a coke and fries. Nice girl, in a plain sort of way, but she had these flashy fingernails and had some silly long ribbons in her hair like that little girl over there. I didn’t get very far with her, or anything."

I smiled. "Oh, I think I know who you meant. It sounds like my fiancee’s sister. She’s in college now, a real jock, basketball player. Her name’s Julie. But a lot of people think we look like brother and sister. She’ll be my sister-in-law soon enough, though," I grinned. "She has sort of a blond bubble hairdo."

"Yeah, that must have been her," he admitted. "Well, thanks. Good to meet you. Have a good race."

"I’ll try," I smiled. I did, too. I didn’t win any, but I finished with points in two sprints and the longer road race. Even more important, Annie was safe.

On the way back to Vicky and Roberta’s, Vicky smiled and asked, "Do you want a part-time job next Fall?" We weren’t going to have much time for outside work, but we asked what she meant.

"You won’t be the only two in school next Fall. I want to get my GED in evening school, but I need somebody to watch Roberta. You could still get your studying done with her around, and since she loves you two, it seems like a nice match. If I send her to evening day-care, I won’t have enough money left over for luxuries like food or clothing." Vicky had gotten pregnant in high school and dropped out to marry Roberta’s father, who had gotten so frightened by having a daughter with a severe heart defect that he had deserted the two. Vicky had been working as a waitress. Although she was the mother of an 8-year old, Vicky was barely 6 years older than we were. That’s why it was easier to strike up a friendship with her than with the other parents at Hope Haven.

"That’s great!" Sarah told her. "I’m so proud of you, Vicky. Of course we can, can’t we Mark?" I agreed, too. Roberta squealed with delight. It wouldn’t pay much, but we had a job that wouldn’t interfere with our studies, well, not much, anyway. More important was the friendship factor.

 

SHOWER FOR ANNIE

The summer moved quickly, busy with work at the bike shop, wedding preparations, and college planning. Sarah and I would get together once in awhile just to be together. But mostly it was busy. Julie was away again working in the summer basketball camp program at Westview.

One Saturday in early July, I was out biking, hit some loose gravel, and went down hard. I had some patches of road rash on my left leg and elbow, and a sprained ankle. It didn’t hurt real bad, but it swelled up and was weak enough that I had to get it taped up and use crutches for a few days. "Now you’re finding out how the other half lives," Sarah teased me.

"Yeah," I replied. "Now we have two good legs between us."

The next afternoon, we were sitting on the couch at the Holdings. My ankle was propped up in front of me, with a bag of ice on it. I was able to lean enough to try and kiss every freckle on her left shoulder. I had to move to reposition the ice, so I asked her, "Help me understand something, Sarah Beth. Last spring at the overlook, you told me a little bit about how you and Julie came up with the idea of me being Annie. But what I want to know is how did you get the idea in the first place? Did it just pop up out of your warped little brains because you liked to paint my nails when I wasn’t looking?"

"Hmmm," she said. "Let me think. Actually, I was sitting around here, wondering whether I’d ever get enough courage to leave the house again, and Julie and I had the TV on to some cable channel. It was showing an old movie—maybe early 90s, late 80s, I don’t know. I can’t remember the name of it. There was a boy in college, on the tennis team, and he developed a mad crush over a beautiful exchange student who was on the women’s team. She was shy, and generally not interested in him. So he asked some girl—his sister?—for advice. She suggested that he become a girl for a little while, and get to be her girlfriend, so he could understand her better. Well, he did, and it went on from there, with him being a girl part time, and a guy part time, all to get in good with the beautiful blond. It was kind of a sweet movie, and in the middle of it, I said out loud, ‘I wonder if Mark loves me enough to do something like that?’ and Julie said, ‘Probably, he’s really stuck on you, Sis, and he would be kind of cute.’ Then we were quiet for awhile, and we suddenly realized who could take Julie’s place at Hope Haven!"

"Maybe we’ll find the video some day. Maybe I could learn some makeup tips from this guy," I kidded.

"Nope," Sarah said. "Annie’s definitely cuter, but yeah, we can watch it sometime. Then

She looked at me with an intriguing expression on her face. "I talked with Julie on the phone today. She said that she wants to do something for us for a whole weekend, the first weekend in August. She really appreciates what you did last summer, and wants to do something nice."

"She doesn’t have to," I said.

"No, but she wants to." After a pause, she continued. "And she said that it would be more fun for everyone if you would be Annie for that weekend."

I hadn’t dressed as Annie since the end of the school year. It sounded intriguing. "Are you sure I can trust her on this?" I asked.

"You can trust us on this," Sarah replied. "I know what she has in mind, and Annie will have a ball. So will you. But don’t feel you have to, or anything. If you’re uncomfortable or anything…."

"No, it’s okay. I’ve been working enough weekends for other people, I should be able to get someone to return the favor. But I don’t suppose you’ll give me a clue." Sarah shook her head no and smiled. I went back to kissing freckles on her shoulder, but since I had lost count, I started over.

When the day came, I drove over to the Holding house, assuming I’d change into Annie there. I was glad that my ankle was healed, since the jeep has a manual transmission. It surprised me that Sarah was at the door with a duffel bag. She told me that she had everything Annie needed. She knew that I was still a little nervous about driving as Annie, she explained, and that I could change when I got there. I shrugged, and carried Sarah’s bag and Annie’s to the wagon. She gave me instructions to go to a neighborhood in the south side of the city. The house she had me pull up at was small, very tidy, and unfamiliar. At Sarah’s request I fetched the stuff and we went to the door. Was I going to be changing at a stranger’s?

No, it was okay. Joan Kim warmly welcomed us in. Her little daughter grinned from a playpen. "Don’t worry," Joan told me. "All the other family members are working today. Lunch isn’t ready yet, so why don’t you go change, Annie?" As I changed into my yellow satin panties and bra set, Sarah pulled out a yellow sundress and unrolled it. It had remained remarkably wrinkle free. I asked if Sarah had brought a wig, and she told me that she hadn’t. Sarah handed me a pair of white sandals that went nicely with the white pattern in the yellow dress. I asked about makeup, and Sarah told me not to worry about it. Still I felt a little uneasy, knowing that I looked like a boy in a dress.

"Come, let me do your nails," the Korean nail tech told us. She had her supplies set up on the dining room table. She cleaned the old polish off of Sarah’s nails, and applied short extensions. Then she worked on mine, gluing on extensions. I checked to make sure that they could come off by Monday morning, and she assured me they would. Joan stroked plum polish on Sarah’s nails, then applied a pale blue to mine. "That works with the yellow, don’t you think?" she asked, "and I know how you always want blue polish." She propped our feet up and gave us each a pedicure, and applied daisy decals to our big toes.

After our nails dried, our hostess dropped egg rolls into a fryer. Then I helped Joan carry food in from the kitchen, and we enjoyed an oriental lunch. Of course, I had to show off my chopstick prowess.

As we were cleaning up, the doorbell rang. An attractive blonde lady hugged Joan and came in. It took me a second to recognize her. "Hi," she said. "I’m Tina Bidesky. Remember, I did your first makeover right after Joan here gave you your acrylic nails last summer?" That would have been hard to forget, with the bleaching, perm, and piercing, and waxing. "It was hard to get off on our busiest day, but I wouldn’t miss this in the world!" Miss what, I wondered. She carried a beige work bag with her, with a designer name on it. Soon, I was in Joan’s bedroom, sitting on her vanity bench, while Tina was rolling hot rollers into my hair. "Yes, I think we can get something nice out of this," she told us. While the rollers were drying, she worked on my makeup. "I wish we had time to give you a facial first, dear," she said, "But you can come to the shop sometime and get a free one on me. It does wonders for softening your skin. You’re out on that silly bicycle too much. Even with sunscreen, you’re getting a little tough." It was fun to watch a pro at work. Without being obvious, the makeover made Annie look about as attractive as Annie can get. Now I felt like Annie, as well as looking like her. I wonder what was going to happen next?

We put the baby down for a nap. The doorbell rang, and I saw a small crowd walking toward the Kim residence, emerging from the Holding’s minivan and another car, carrying bunches of stuff. Julie and Karrin came in and hugged me, followed by Vicky and Roberta, and our two moms. "Happy wedding shower, Annie," they all told me in one way or the other as they hugged me.

"A wedding shower? But Sarah’s the bride, not me!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, but we all know that Annie will be a part of this marriage, too!" Karrin explained. "And when you told me that you didn’t think you would have a bachelor’s party, I felt so sad for you. So I told Julie, why don’t we have a bridal shower for Annie?" I knew that Sarah’s was scheduled in another two weeks.

"Well, I’ve never been to a bridal shower before," I grinned, "So you’ll just have to tell me what to do."

"You just sit back and enjoy it, baby," mom said as she hugged me.

"Did I see you and Roberta get out of the minivan?" I asked Vicky.

"That’s right," she answered. "Julie came down to the city to pick us up, and then we met Karrin at the bus station. And we’ll be riding back with you tomorrow." Hmmm. Evidently, this was going to be a big weekend.

They all bustled around, getting drinks out of a cooler and setting out munchies of all sorts. Then they pulled out cards and presents. I assumed since everybody knows that I cook it would be a bunch of kitchen stuff, and there was. The lingerie surprised me. Excuse me—the incredibly sexy lingerie in my size surprised me—a lot. My face must have been as red as the nightgown. So was my mom’s, but she seemed to enjoy it, too. Mom gave me a plastic bucket with a pink bow on it. It was filled with tools, nails, screws, and other kinds of hardware. "Everyone setting up house needs this kind of thing," she said. "It was your father’s idea." Dad knew about the shower? He must be mellowing. Tina had to leave to get back to work, but the rest of us sat and snacked and teased one another unmercifully. Well, mostly they teased me and Sarah. Vicky and Roberta gave me (us?) a darling crayon picture of me (as Annie) and Sarah that her mother had framed. Mrs. Cameron and Kelly Cassidy had mailed gifts, too—a generous gift certificate to a department store from Roger’s mother and something raunchy from Kelly.

Finally the party broke up. Mom drove my jeep home, and I rode with the others to a family-style restaurant in a nearby town. The chicken-fried steak was tasty, and the laughing and giggling of this large table full of women brought chuckles and appreciative glances from the older folks that made up most of the crowd. A very old woman left her table to hobble over to tell us that the good time we were having helped make her day. My mom picked up the check for our group.

We went to the Holding’s house and everyone that was still with us (Joan Kim had to go back to work) were instructed to get into our swimming suits. The public pool in Fort Russell wasn’t going to be open that long, and the Holdings certainly didn’t have a pool, so I had no idea what was going on. Obedient, though, I went up to Julie’s room, where she handed me my blue-skirted one-piece suit that I used in water therapy last summer, and changed in the bathroom. When I came down, I saw that Sarah, in changing, had taken off her prosthetic, and that the right leg of her bathing suit was sewn shut. "Since we’re not at the hospital, I thought it would look better this way," she told me. Some of us just had on our bathing suits, towels, and flip flops, and others slipped on loose garments over them. So we went back to the cars for our mystery destination. It was a health club downtown. The pool closed at 8, but Mrs. Holding and Julie had made arrangements for a private party for an hour. We all had a great time, even though I had to wear a shower cap and wasn’t allowed to get my hair wet, because I needed to save the set for the next day. Sarah and I have always enjoyed swimming, and now she enjoyed it even more, because the buoyancy of the water offset the gravity that always bore down on her single leg. She swam surprisingly smoothly, reminding me of a mermaid. She had been self-conscious about going to the public pool here. We were going to have to find a way that we could swim once we were married and at the university.

After we got back to the Holding’s, we had a sleepover. It had been a long day, so there wasn’t too much chattering, and soon I was dropping off to sleep, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

The next day, Julie, Karrin, Vicky, Roberta, Sarah, and I all climbed into the minivan. After dropping off Vicky and Roberta, we went out for supper at a favorite place, and then Julie drove us up into the foothills. There, at an amphitheater, we spread a blanket on the ground, sat down, and heard a great Lillith’s Fair concert.

On the long drive back to Fort Russell, Julie asked if I was glad that I came. "I can never repay you for last summer, no matter how I try," she said, "but I just wanted to let Annie know how much she’s loved." Sarah seconded the motion with a very long kiss. Who was I to disagree?

 

...Finis

 

A Note from Emmie: I want to thank all of those who have sent me emails. They are so loving and encouraging. This is the end of this particular story, since after their marriage, Sarah, Mark, and Annie will enter a new part of their lives. I am planning a new story about their wedding and first year of marriage, since I just can’t get them out of my head. I wasn’t intending an epic, but they keep insisting. Love,      Emmie

~The Adventures Of Annie~ © 2000 by Emmie Dee
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