Rated R for context. Nobody under 18 should read this, or whatever is the appropriate age in their community. This story deals with transgenderism in children and may be uncomfortable for some readers.

 

Kelly Girl

by Wanda Cunningham

Chapter 14

"Floop and Happenstance"

 

Kelly stared, squinting a little without his glasses. Andie had just removed Melissa's wig revealing thinning brown hair and a receding hairline, very much at odds with the rest of Melissa's appearance. Moments before, she had sat in the salon chair, a trendily dressed young woman getting her hair done after a visit to the gym.

Now she looked like...Kelly gulped.

"What do you mean that we're all members of the same club?" Melissa snapped at Andie while reaching for her wig.

Andie easily held it out of reach and chuckled. "I mean we all have shomething in our pasts that we share."

Kelly looked away, catching sight of himself in all his darling finery; platinum blonde curls, pink and blue earrings, baby blush nails, red polka dot dress. That startled him, too. He looked back at Melissa, if he didn't try to focus, her appearance was less disturbing than his own.

She stared back at him, opening and closing her mouth a few times. "Andie? What are you saying?" she stammered.

Kelly needed to sit down and stumbled to one of the little pedicure wagons that had a built-in stool. He sat down and looked up at the two—women?

"You went to college, you figure it out," said Andie.

Kelly hadn't been to college and didn't want to figure it out; he just wanted this all to be over with so he could go back to living in cheerful poverty with his ditzy mother in their little apartment half a block from the beach. And wearing his own clothes.

Melissa kept staring at him. "You're a—" she began but obviously didn't want to finish what might have been either a statement or a question.

Kelly just sat and waited, thinking it safer not to admit to anything. But he stared back at Melissa, squinting again, noting her hands, her neck, the line of her jaw. He knew he was too smart not to figure it out if he kept looking, so after a moment he closed his eyes.

"Oh, for gosh sake!" Andie said, out of patience with the two fishfaces. "We all three used to be boys, okay?"

* * *

 

Phillip Constable had simply left when he lost his job as a veterinary assistant in Merced. He hadn't told his parole officer, he hadn't said a word to his treating physician; he'd just bought a bus ticket and then a train ticket and finally ended up in the San Bernardino Train Station. He still had six hundred dollars in his pocket, and didn't plan on getting anymore out of his ATM until he had finished what he had to do.

He hung up the phone after talking to his ex-wife, Amanda. Her testimony at his trial had helped convict him and he knew he had deserved it. He didn't bear her any grudges, though; nine years in prison and three as a parolee outpatient in the State Sexual Offender Treatment Program had convinced him that he had no one to blame for his problems but himself.

He hadn't called her when he got out of prison on an early release three years ago; he'd assumed that she knew. From her surprise on the phone, he guessed that she hadn't been told. Either that or she'd lost that memory in one of her alcoholic binges. Phil hadn't had a drink in more than eight years, raisin jack from an illegal prison still. Prison had taught him another thing, he actually preferred being sober. He hoped one day Amanda would learn that lesson.

He could have ridden the train on into Fullerton or Santa Ana but making the call to Amanda had caused him to miss the best connection. Greyhound would get him to Orange County faster now, avoiding a six hour wait for the next train. He took the short walk to the bus station in the hot sun and smog of the desert afternoon.

The three southeasternmost counties of California call themselves the Inland Empire, and grow most of the oranges still cultivated in California. A land of mountains and deserts, lush farm fields and dusty streets; fabulous golf courses in Palm Springs and Indian Wells where the homes of the wealthy and famous sit next to the gleaming emerald links; retirement communities in Hemet, Bombay Beach, and Apple Valley where senior citizens bake their old, cold bones, staving off that last endless winter for one more year; and dingy, dilapidated apartments in decaying barrios from Calexico to Baker where Americans born of Mexican heritage and recent illegal immigrants alike wait for the once plentiful farm jobs to return. If it were a state, it would be bigger than nine other states, in area; bigger than 24 others in population: home to 3.5 million people; on a holiday weekend in the winter, maybe 5 million.

This was August, though, and the streets were not crowded; no one spoke to Phil, no one paid him any attention at all. Just an ordinary looking man, short and slender, with bright, blue eyes behind thick spectacles and poorly cut hair the color of dust. In the bus station, Phil bought a ticket to Costa Mesa, the middle-class shoreless twin of upscale Newport Beach. The air there would be cleaner and at least twenty degrees cooler, bathed in the nightly onshore flow off the cool Pacific Ocean. Greyhound did not go all the way to Newport.

He had only a small bag, enough clothes for a weekend stay, some toiletries and a book he had been reading; The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans. He didn't think he would need more for what he had planned. He had been re-reading the book on the train, but he wasn't sure he would finish it this time. The story of healing and redemption made him cry and crying in public always embarrassed him.

The bag also held a few other things he thought he might need.

He didn't speak to anyone more than necessary; almost six years spent in solitary to protect him from the other cons had left Phil with a huge capacity for tolerating silence. The guards had reinforced this occasionally, sometimes brutally. Phil never used words when a nod or a shrug would do.

When the call came for boarding, he took a window seat on the uncrowded bus, planning to watch the brown, desert hills flow by. No one sat next to him and that suited him. Down the 215 to the 91, when the bus passed through Riverside, he spared a moment to hope that Amanda wasn't drinking again. She had probably called Barbie to warn her, maybe she had called the police as well. That would be fine. The bus rolled on, through the Santa Ana Canyon to the 55 and on down toward the sea. Costa Mesa, the end of the line.

* * *

 

Kelly shook his head. "What?" he said again. "Andie, what did you say?"

Andie rolled her eyes, "I shaid I used to be a boy, too. And so did Melissa."

"Too?" said Melissa. She pointed at Kelly, "That's not a boy."

"Yes, I am," said Kelly, then slapped his hand over his mouth. He'd been telling people for two days that he was a boy and now that someone was likely to believe him, he was no longer sure he wanted her to know.

Melissa stared. "What are you? Nine? Any nine-year-old boy with long hair could probably pass all dressed up like..."

Kelly interrupted. "I'm twelve!" he exclaimed. "I'm not a little kid!" He spared a glare for Andie who chuckled as she combed out Melissa's hairpiece before putting it on a wigstand.

"She's telling the truth, Mel," said Andie. "This is Barbie's son, Kelly. I've known her for three years now."

Mel blinked. She vaguely knew Barbie from having been introduced to her by Andie when the two of them had lunch in a restaurant where Barbie worked at the time. Her own reflection caught her eye but she refused to look at herself without her hair. Instead she examined Kelly carefully. "How long you been dressing like that?" she asked.

"Since yesterday," Kelly said. He pouted then stopped that when he realized how he looked. Cute.

Mel snorted. "You're a lucky little...." She stopped herself, don't be rude to the kid just because she's a natural. "You really look like a girl, congratulations."

Andie laughed.

Kelly went back to pouting. "It's Andie's fault, she made me do it."

"Oh, right," said Andie. "The last time shomeone forced you to do something you really didn't want to, I bet they're still getting shots for rabies. We've been playing the reluctant game, kiddo, but tell the truth; you love how you look."

"Do not."

Mel grinned. "I remember that, wow, wanting and not wanting, and being afraid of wanting what I wanted and afraid to admit to myself that I wanted what I wanted."

Andie and Kelly blinked while they sorted that out.

Melissa continued. "You are lucky though, getting an early start. Like Andie, she started when she was fourteen. I didn't transition till I was almost thirty and look what I have to put up with!" She gestured at her head, the receding hairline and thinning crown quite obviously male-pattern. "Get your nuts cut off now kid, before they poison you. What am I saying?" she stopped and shook her head. As a school employee, she knew could be in big trouble for handing out advice in such a situation.

Kelly looked at her in alarm, had she said what he thought she had said? He slammed his knees together and sat back down on the pedicure cart. "Andie?" he said, his voice trembling.

"Mel and I made our decisions," said Andie, "but I think we knew what we were when we were younger than you are now, Kelly. It's got to be your decision though, kiddo. Obviously, you are very talented at looking like a girl, and I know you act more like a girl than not. Mostly."

Kelly bit his lip. He didn't want to hear that, but he knew he had gotten bullied in school for more than just being short and smart.

"No hurry, kiddo, okay?" Andie squatted beside the little cart to put her face next to Kelly's. "But this is why I've been pushing you, huh? Just a little? 'Cause I think you ought to know what you really want as early as possible? When I came over to Buzzy's and discovered that you had convinced my hooligan nephews that you were a girl, without even trying, I thought I ought to—move things along a little further." She grinned, "You can tell your psychiatrist about me, sue me if you like."

Melissa frowned. Andie's reckless side had gotten herself into trouble before; Melissa hoped that Kelly, and Kelly's mom, didn't really want to make legal problems for Andie's free spirit.

Kelly hiccoughed, a reaction he sometimes had to unexpected stress. Andie got him a cup of water and he sipped it slowly till the breathing spasms were under control.

"Better?" she asked.

He nodded, his platinum curls bouncing. "You were really a boy?" he asked.

Andie nodded. "Yep." Kelly looked the question at Melissa, too.

"Oh, hell, yes," she waved a hand. "I would have killed to have looked like you do when I was your age, honey. But I knew what I was before I started school, I didn't know what it was called, but I knew I was supposed to be a girl." She examined her nails. She didn't really like talking about it, but the kid deserved the truth.

Kelly took another sip of water before speaking. "Dr. Mann?"

Andie grinned, "Well, of course he knows about me. He's my big brother, you know. When our parents died and he took me in, I told him everything while we were both so upset we couldn't think straight. It took him awhile to adjust to the idea but he found some doctors for me and I started high school as a girl." She flicked one of her many earrings and giggled.

Kelly stared at Andie's curves; even knowing that her waist was nipped in by a corset, Andie did not look like someone who had once been a boy. Kelly glanced toward Melissa who lifted an eyebrow and gestured down at her own shape, "Dr. Pygmalion's finest work. When I can afford it, I'm going to get hair implants. Would you believe that costs more than anything else I've had done?" She shook her head. That was partly because Dr. Mann didn't do implants and she wouldn't get the discount Andie had negotiated for her.

Kelly wanted to ask what exactly she had had done but decided not to. He put his head down in his hands and rested his elbows on his knees. The concept made him feel dizzy. He could actually choose to become a girl and stay a girl. Forever. It hadn't really occured to him before, not seriously. He honestly didn't know how he felt about that.

* * *

 

Amanda glared at the drink in her hand and put it down reluctantly. She tried again to call Barbie's number in Newport but didn't get an answer. She had already left two messages on the tape so she hung up on the fourth ring before the machine could pick up.

She dithered a bit, picked up her cat and hugged him. "What am I gonna do, Floop?" she murmured to the animal. "I should call the cops, Phil isn't supposed to be in Southern California; he's not supposed to be within a hundred miles of Barbie. I don't think that's changed, even if he did get out of jail."

She didn't take a drink, though she wanted to desperately. She didn't call the cops, though she knew she probably should. She sat on the floral print couch and wept; Flooper complained mildly, "I know," she murmured. "I'm getting your fur all wet." She blew her nose and used tissue to dry the cat's head. Flooper purred.

She kept crying. She held the cat in her lap and cried for the loss of innocence, cried for her inability to drink sensibly; cried for her barely restrained terror of taking a drink now when she really felt she needed one; cried for having driven Barbie out of her house and out of her life; cried because she hadn't seen her grandson since sixth grade graduation in June. She wept from fear and from guilt; she wept like a child whose heart has been broken.

She used most of a box of tissue but still tears flowed down her cheeks and dripped onto the cat. Flooper continued to purr; he didn't mind all that much. He felt needed and comfortable and the tears were at least warm.

When she had done crying, she poured the drink down the sink, washed her face, put out food for the cat and got her car keys. She hated to drive, and she especially hated the drive through Santa Ana Canyon down to Orange County. But she had been weak, she had told Phil where Barbie lived. She would have to go to Barbie's apartment and wait for Phil or Barbie to show up.

Either that or call the police and have Phil picked up. "That's what I ought to do," she told herself. Vaguely, she wondered if Phil had managed to stay sober since he got out of prison. "If he can do it, I can," she said, believing it for a moment. She wished she had a man in her life right then, someone she could call for help. Someone to do the driving and maybe someone who could threaten Phil and make him stay out of Barbie's life.

But all of her male friends drank, all of her boyfriends were drunks. Alcoholics. "Like me," she sighed. Her hands were shaking and she knew she might take a drink, to steady her nerves for the drive and the confrontation ahead. One drink lead to another; if she got off her schedule, if she took a drink for any reason other than it being the time she had appointed for drinking—if she took one drink now, she would take another. And she knew where that led.

For some reason, she had very few female friends. "Men and booze," she muttered. "Booze and men." She remembered someone and sat back down on the couch. Flooper left the kibbles and joined her, purring. With her carkeys, purse and cat in her lap, she dialed a number she knew she didn't call often enough. "Rachel, this is Amanda," she said to the person who answered.

"Hi, Amanda. I haven't seen you at meetings lately," said the voice.

"Oh, you know," Amanda said. She petted the cat and twisted the phone cord. Floop batted idly at the plastic loops, a game he could play for hours.

"I do know," agreed Rachel. "Have you been drinking?"

"No, not yet. Not today."

"You're afraid you are going to start?"

"Yes, but I need you to go somewhere with me, it's complicated. I'll tell you on the way?"

"Now? This afternoon?"

"Please?" Amanda still sounded like someone who had been weeping.

Rachel consulted with someone else, then came back on the line. "I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Don't drink."

Amanda laughed. "Flooper is in my lap, he won't let me."

"Pet the cat and stay calm," said Rachel. "We'll talk when I get there."

After hanging up, Amanda petted Flooper and waited. Not drinking had always been the hardest thing to do but calling Rachel helped. "Damn it, Phil," she muttered and stroked Floop so vigorously that he complained again.

* * *

 

Melissa and Kelly eyed each other in uncomforatable recognition. Andie had disappeared to deal with some situation elsewhere in the salon she owned. Melissa still sat in the big chair but with a flowery plastic bag like a shower cap now covering her bald spots. Kelly wandered around the inner salon but stayed away from the big windows; someone out there just might recognize him.

"Did you get beat up a lot in school?" Kelly asked finally.

"Yeah," Melissa responded. "Till I got into high school, pretty much a regular thing, two or three times a week."

"High school was better? How come?"

"You don't want to know," Melissa said after a moment. How could she tell the kid she had learned to buy protection by giving blowjobs? She shifted uncomfortably, that was something she hadn't even told her husband, Davey, though he had benefitted quite a lot from skills she had learned in the boy's locker rooms.

Kelly watched the blush creep up Melissa's face and brighten her cheeks. He decided Melissa was right; he didn't want to know. He absently rubbed the slight knot on his head he'd gotten in this morning's roughhouse; going to school with monsters like the Mann brothers was a scary thought. They liked him now but they thought he was a girl. How would they react to a skinny, short, androgynous Kelly in a gym class with them? Grade school had been bad enough; in a few short weeks, he might be finding out how other boys might react in junior high. High school had to be even worse.

"It must have been hard," said Kelly and wondered for a moment why Melissa got even redder.

They didn't say anything to each other for a bit after that; Melissa looked at pictures in a magazine and Kelly tried to read the instructions on the back of some of the many bottles. He didn't really want to know how to use them, reading everything in sight was just a habit. A painful habit without his glasses.

He found the plastic boy doll Andie had given him, little Robin with the yellow hair and blue shorts. No wonder the doll meant so much to Andie, he reflected. She hadn't had it since she was a little girl but since she was a little boy. Odd thought, he couldn't picture curvaceous, flirtatious Andie ever having been a boy.

Melissa spoke in an odd echo of his thoughts, "I dunno, Kelly, I just can't picture you as a boy?"

* * *

 

Barbie sighed and Harold looked at her in surprise. "That sounded almost painful?"

She squirmed a bit, "I've got something sort of painful to tell you, Harry." She moved the damp glass around on the table in little wet circles, looking as if she were steeling herself up to tell him something awful.

The one thing he could think of was that she wanted out, that he made her crazy with wanting to get away from him. He kept his face straight and glanced around the busy restaurant. "Take your time, Barbie. Make it easy on yourself," he said in an even voice. He'd had his heart broken before, he knew he could get over it. If she really needed to go, he loved her enough he could let her.

"I can't make it easy on me," said Barbie, "I've got to make it easy on Kelly and I can't figure out how to do that?" Her voice edged up toward a little girl whimper.

"Kelly? What's she—what's the problem with Kelly?" Harold frowned. Would Barbie use Kelly as some kind of lever to keep them apart? Why am I so damn paranoid she's going to leave me, he wondered.

"That's just it," said Barbie. "The problem isn't really with Kelly, you made the mistake and now your sons—and I don't know how Andie talked me into going along with it?" Barbie tried to get the last ice cube from her drink but it had stuck to the glass and simply went round and round, even with the bottom tilted high.

Harry frowned. "Huh? Wait a minute, you went way out of my tracking there? What are we talking about?"

Barbie gave up on the ice cube and set the glass back down. "Kelly," said Barbie. She lowered her voice and leaned toward Harold, which actually distracted him for a moment as she said, "Kelly's not my daughter."

"Ah," said Harold, glancing down at Barbie's new cleavage and thinking, damn, I do good work, don't I? "What?" he added not sure he had heard her right.

"Quit looking at my tits," Barbie stifled a giggle. "Quit that, jeez, am I going to have to put up with that now?" She shook her head, his looking had distracted her for a moment. "I said, Kelly isn't my daughter."

"She's your sister?" Harold had thought that originally, there just didn't seem to be enough difference in their ages. Barbie looked about nineteen at most and Kelly could pass for eight. And their real ages of twenty-six and twelve still seemed much too close together.

"I never said that," Barbie snapped. Then more softly, "I said, he's my son. S-o-n. Get it? Kelly is a boy." Her gaze pleaded with him to understand.

Harold grinned at her. "No kidding? Are you kidding? Come on!"

Barbie giggled nervously, "No kidding! Jeez, Harry, I thought you'd be upset?"

Harry shook his head, "Why should I be upset? This is the truth?"

"Yeah. I know he looks pretty girlish..."

"Wow. Um, you do know about Andie, don't you?"

She nodded. "Well, yeah? That, that..."

Harry nodded, "Andie used to be my little brother, and you know she's the reason I really became a surgeon?"

"Huh?"

"I wanted the best for Andie. I knew I couldn't do it, but I wanted to know enough to pick the best."

They fell silent for a moment. The business of the restaurant went on around them. Harry took out his credit card and lay it on the check wallet the waitress had left at the edge of the table.

They both did a lot of thinking. Dr. Mann's mostly about how this could help him hold Barbie, even more than what he had already done for her, what he could do for Kelly. Barbie thought about how had she messed this up, because she had the odd feeling that she had. She played with a bread crust and went back over what she had said.

Harry reached out and put his hand over Barbie's. "You want the best for Kelly?" he asked.

Barbie looked up and nodded. "Sure, of course."

Harry smiled. "I'm the best there is," he said.

* * *

 

Pete pushed hang-up on the cellphone, "Concha says they went to the mall, and probably the salon? Want me to call there?" he asked his brother.

Richard glanced at Sarah, "Nah, I guess not. Andie gets Kelly into the salon and I bet she's going to do a complete makeover on the poor kid."

"So who is Kelly?" asked Sarah. They walked slowly from the practice field toward where Pete had parked the car.

Pete laughed. "She's this real cute daughter or maybe sister of the girl our dad is dating."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, we thought she must be her sister, uh, Barbie's sister. but Andie says Kelly is Barbie's kid." He shook his head. "Barbie looks like she might be a frosh herself, she's not as tall as you. She's the cutest thing."

"She is cute," agreed Richard. "But Kelly is even cuter." He grinned down at Sarah.

"How old is this cute little thing?" she asked.

"Kelly says she's twelve, but she looks eight or nine," said Pete. He stood up and started punching numbers on his phone again.

"Oh, she's just a kid," said Sarah with emphasis.

"That's mostly that she's wearing Darla's clothes," Richard put in.

"Who's Darla?" asked Sarah, frowning again.

Richard grinned even wider. "Darla's the sister we don't have," he unexplained.

"What?"

Pete frowned at the phone, Cheryl's line was still busy. "And Kelly is the sister we may have next week, or maybe she'll be our aunt." He laughed. "If Dad marries Barbie, he's already asked." Pete kind of admired his father for moving quickly in the situation. But then, Barbie probably didn't spend half her life on the phone like Cheryl apparently did. He decided to call Cheryl's house instead of her cell phone, maybe someone else was home and could pry her off the other line. "You two up for some pizza or something? If I can get my girlfriend on the line?"

Richard shrugged, "Yeah, I guess so. How about you, Sarah?"

"Sure, let me call my folks," she took her own cellphone out of her purse and quickly came back to the boys with, "Where we going for pizza?"

Pete had the answer, "I got Mrs. Wilson on the line, she says the girls went to the Virgin to look for CDs; so, I've sent a text message to Cheryl that if we don't find her to meet us at Upper Crust on top of Triangle Square?"

Sarah relayed the news to her mom and got permission to go while Pete waggled his eyebrows at Richard and nodded toward the diminutive brunette. The bigger Mann brother winked when Richard frowned in irritation.

Pete thinks he's funny, thought Richard, but Sarah is sweet, it's not just that she's short and cute.

"I can go," Sarah said, pleased that her parents knew Dr. Mann and that she had to lie only a little, telling her mom that Cheryl Wilson would also be going. She beamed up at Richard and giggled in happiness. He slipped an arm around her for a moment while cell phones were put away, then she sat between the brothers in the front seat of the big sedan, feeling even smaller than usual.

Richard smiled down at her, teasing, "You're not jealous of Kelly are you?"

Sarah shook her head and teased back, "Not if she's your aunt."

* * *

 

In her salon office, Andie tapped a few keys on her computer and sent the digital photos she had been taking on their way: Kelly in the lacy pink dress he had been wearing this morning, Kelly in polka dots trying on cute glasses, Kelly with his hair in platinum curls, his ears pierced, his nails painted. Kelly laughing, pouting, smiling. "She's such a cutie," murmured Andie, feeling only the slightest bit guilty for not having told Kelly about the pictures or what she was doing with them.

  

  

  

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