If you aren't who you thought you were, who are you?

I helped Mom finish cleaning the table while Dad and the boys trooped off to watch some game on TV. “Is it the Angels?” Mom asked. “You don’t have to give up watching the Angels just because we found out you’re a girl.”

I made a face at her. “It’s not the Angels,” I said. “Their game is later; they’re at home.” Besides, Dad and my brothers were Dodger fans.

“Then you and I can watch the Angels,” Mom said.

I didn’t care at the moment but I nodded so we could stop talking about it. Together we rinsed the minor amount of dishes used and put them in the dishwasher without saying much of anything.

“I called your Aunt Nora,” Mom finally mentioned.

Nora is Dad’s older sister and has a daughter, Beth Ann, in her early twenties. And both ladies work in a beauty salon.

“Argh,” I said quietly.

“I asked them to come over and bring stuff for hair styling and…”

“Mom!” I said louder.

“…and a mani-pedi. Even though you’re only…”

“Mom! You told them about me?”

“Well, yes, dear. You’re going to be back in school on Tuesday….”

I left the big salad bowl on the counter instead of tenting it in the lower rack and headed out of the room.

“…and you should try to look nice. So no one doubts. Audrey?”

I didn’t answer.

I debated going back to my room but instead headed through the house and out the living room door to the windlock. This is something you need on a house where we lived, a small room with one door going into the rest of the house and one going to the outside. It isolates the interior from the wind and dust that blows almost constantly through the desert passes and canyons. In summer and winter, it also helps with cooling and heating the house. On the back side of the house, the laundry room served as a windlock.

The two walls of our front windlock that didn’t have doors had big windows, and this being late summer, they trapped a fair amount of heat. Even at almost sunset, it must have been over ninety degrees in the little room. The only furniture in the windlock was a loveseat and an end table with a lamp on it, but I didn’t sit. I stared out the western window toward the sun going down at the other end of the pass.

It had not been a good day.

I had never figured on growing up to be as big and strong as Lee or Morgan, and I guess I’d never really wanted to, for that matter. They were my brothers, but I was nothing like them. And now I knew why.

“I’m a girl,” I told myself. “I’m like Mom, and Aunt Nora and Beth Ann.” I closed my eyes and felt the red light of the sunset on my eyelids. I played with the bangles on my wrist. I wasn’t completely a girl, I knew. I could still point-and-shoot when doing my business, but they would probably want me to have an operation to fix that.

Girls were supposed to have Slot A instead of Tab B.

I didn’t want to have an operation. I didn’t want to be a girl if it meant I had to let someone cut on me. I didn’t want to give up baseball and being pals with Pete and not worrying if my shoes matched the ribbon in my hair, either.

I snorted. Maybe I was being too dramatic. I just couldn’t see wearing dresses or makeup, but lots of girls on ranches almost never did. Mom wore dresses only to go to weddings or funerals or some fancy party somewhere and makeup for her meant maybe a touch of lipstick.

As if thinking of her summoned her image, Mom’s face appeared at the window in the door back into the house. Just checking on me, I guess, since she disappeared without opening the door. It was too hot to stay in the windlock for very long, and after another minute or two, I went back inside.

* * *

Dad’s oldest sister, Aunt Nora, and her daughter Beth Ann showed up before the Angel game came on. They had the same coloring as Dad, pale yellow hair and gray eyes; their blondness perhaps accentuated by the perks of their profession as beauticians. Beth Ann, in particular, had stunning golden waves and a fresh complexion. They were dressed in contrasting smocks and slacks as if they had just come from their shop, the only salon in Presley, which perhaps they had considering the time.

Dad and the boys had given up on the sad sack Dodgers who were doing one of their patented late-season meltdowns. The guys had gone back out to do evening chores, and were just now returning, all noisy and smelly.

Mom decided that we would cut my hair in the smaller room off the big bedroom, her and Dad’s bedroom, since the guys planned on watching something new in the living room; an old movie, I think.

The guys as a term no longer included me. Mom got everyone coffee or lemonade and led us girls through the house to the back room, and everyone said hello as we passed. Junior grinned at Beth Ann who he had a crush on when he started high school four years before, despite or maybe because she was five years older and a cousin, besides.

“Hey Betsy,” he said to her, a nickname she hated, “I know you can’t make my new sis as pretty as you but give it a shot, huh?”

Beth Ann rolled her eyes and only said, “Brothers,” reminding me that she had one herself. Gordon was off studying Forestry or something at UC Davis up north.

I made a face and a Neanderthal grunt, surprising even myself; then we all giggled. Oh, jeez, I thought, we’re bonding. Next, we’ll be watching a sappy movie and crying.

I still wasn’t too sure about getting a new girly haircut, but pretty soon I was sitting in the big office chair in the little den where Dad did our family finances, looking out over the backyard and across the fields to the dairy barns while Aunt Nora examined my hair and Beth started on my nails.

The sun was low in the sky behind us on the other side of the house, and the golden light made the barns and fields look almost magical. The purple mountains did their majesty thing, but I was the one feeling fruity instead of plain.

“Your hair is pretty short, hon,” Aunt Nora said, “but it’s a lovely color. Reminds me of warm taffy at the carnival still being pulled in one of those machines.”

“Huh,” I said intelligently, and Beth giggled some more. I stared at my reflection in the mirror. Except for the curls and Mom’s round chin, I looked more like Aunt Nora or even Beth Ann than I did Mom’s side of the family. The sharp cheekbones, high forehead, straight nose, and big blue eyes I got from Dad.

“Maybe a sort of pixie cut?” Mom suggested. “That’s what they did with my hair after I got sprayed by a skunk when I was ten. I looked darn cute, too.”

Nora snorted. “I remember that, Evie. Yeah, have to be short. Audrey’s hair is too curly for any real bangs, so something kind of tousled-ish?”

I had a vague idea of what that might look like and nodded involuntarily. They all beamed at me. I’d seen the picture of Mom at that age; she’d looked like a dark-haired version of Shirley Temple.

“Mom’s good at this,” Beth assured me. “You’re going to look so cute!”

“Kee-rist,” I muttered but, luckily, no one heard me. I blushed anyway, feeling guilty.

While Beth clipped and filed and poked my fingers with little sticks, her mom snipped and combed, and spritzed my hair with something smelly that was neither completely pleasant nor unpleasant.

“I know what you’ve got in that spray bottle,” I said.

“What’s that?” Aunt Nora asked, sounding puzzled.

“Girl cooties,” I said. “I know that smell anywhere. And now I have my own.”

Mom was sipping her coffee when I said that and made spluttering noises then had a coughing fit while Aunt Nora and Beth Ann hooted and slapped my hands.

I grinned, but I wasn’t entirely kidding, just trying to be a good sport about it. I really was dreading when Pete found out about my cooties.

After they all got over the giggles, Beth Ann asked me what color I wanted on my nails. “Just clear,” I said.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Positive,” I said. Mom had bought a bottle of clear when we were shopping, but of course, Beth Ann had brought a whole selection of pink, red, and lavender.

So she offered her professional opinion. “You’re worried about what your friends might say? I think you should jump in the deep end. Go all out, pink nails, ribbons in your hair, and wear a frilly dress to school on Tuesday.”

I know I probably changed color, first white with fright then red with embarrassment. I shook my head a minimum amount but got a warning from my aunt to sit still.

Beth Ann was chuckling again. “Your face,” she commented. “But seriously, Audie—Audrey, don’t let them give you a hard time about this. Get up in their business if they can’t deal. It’s your life, but I think you’d have less trouble if you just jumped in with both feet.”

“This isn’t my idea at all, Beth Ann,” I protested. “I’d still be letting everyone think,” I swallowed, “that I’m a boy if it were up to me. It’s just my inside plumbing is different. And that doesn’t show.”

She gestured at my chest.

“Padding,” I said.

“Not all of it,” Mom put in. “And it will show more, soon.”

“Yeah, I know,” I said. I sighed.

“You’re wearing a charm bracelet,” Beth Ann pointed out.

I shrugged and got another warning from Aunt Nora. I liked my little ceramic unicorn, feeling like a rare beast myself. I liked my ears, too, so I held still.

Beth Ann apologized. “Sorry,” she said. “I know I’m just trying to help but it… maybe it feels like, uh, nagging or something on your end?”

I waved the hand she wasn’t working on instead of nodding with scissors so near my anatomy. I didn’t want Beth Ann to feel bad about it. I had a lump in my throat that meant I might start crying again, so I didn’t say anything at all for a moment.

“I’ve got a tinted gloss, just a tiny bit of pink, hardly noticeable,” said Beth Ann. She held the bottle up to show me. “I think it would look so pretty?”

“Okay,” I managed to say. Why not? If I gave in a bit maybe they wouldn’t try to drown me in girliness.

* * *

An hour later, I looked at myself in the mirror over the chest of drawers in the little room. Aunt Nora had trimmed my hair, but there seemed to be more of it now. It still lay in messy curls, but it had shape to the arrangement. A girly shape, I guess; I certainly looked less like a boy.

I held my hands up, fingers spread. My nails were shaped and tinted a slight pink, not so much you would notice if you didn’t know it was there. My unicorn bracelet and the necklace with the blue star completed a picture. The blue, I noticed, matched my eyes. Mom and my brothers have gray eyes, Dad and I have eyes as blue as new Levi’s jeans. Indigo, Mom called the color.

I looked nice and ten times girlier than before. I sighed, feeling a bit of icy dread in the pit of my stomach.

At one point, Aunt Nora commented, “You have the same problem Beth Ann has, nearly invisible eyebrows and eyelashes. Your ‘lashes are long and thick but almost transparent, same for your brows.”

“I use mascara and eyebrow pencil,” said Beth.

I frowned, but Mom put in, “She’s too young for makeup,” and I sighed in relief. Then she added, “Maybe when she starts high school.” Well, maybe.

“Do you like how you look?” Beth Ann asked, handing me a hand mirror.

I rolled my eyes before even looking. “This is not my idea,” I reminded her.

Mom gave me a hug around the shoulders. “She’s just not used to being so pretty, yet,” she teased.

“Mom!” I protested, but I couldn’t help smiling as the others laughed. I had certainly had no desire to be pretty, but the mirror showed that my hair did look infinitely better than the rat’s nest it had been.

“Now,” Aunt Nora explained, “you need to wash your hair with shampoo and conditioner every evening.” She handed me tubes of stuff from her shop. “And make sure it’s dry before you go to bed. As short as it is and the low humidity around here, it will probably air-dry in just a few minutes. Comb it while it is wet to prevent tangling. Never use a brush on wet hair; you’ll get split ends.”

“Okay,” I said. “But how do I get it looking like this again?” I waved at my head.

Beth Ann took over. “In the morning, you can use a brush on dry hair. First brush it front to back, then from back to front. Brush up from the sides. Then shake your head back and forth and up and down.” She demonstrated and we all giggled. “Use your fingers to comb stuff upward a bit, then spritz it with a light hold spray.” She held up a can and sprayed some on my hair.

“It smells like strawberry ice cream!” I said, not sure if I liked the idea of smelling like dessert.

“Uh, huh,” said Beth. “This is for girls your age,” (I tried not to wince), “so nothing too… uh, sexy? It’s just a pretty smell.”

Aunt Nora completed my lesson in hair care with a few more remarks. “If your hair gets mussed up, you can brush it back into shape and spray it again. But that’s why you want to shampoo every night, to get out the spray and the dust it attracts. But you need the spray; your blond hair is so fine, it won’t hold a shape long without some help.”

I shook my head. “Lot going on I never knew about,” I said.

They laughed.

* * *

Aunt Nora and Beth lived in Presley, not in one of the houses at the ranch compound, so they headed home for dinner, and Beth Ann had a date with her fiancé, Greg, one of the Fordyce grandkids. I noticed that she was wearing a necklace with the interlocked squares and diamond of the ranch cattle brand.

Jemmy Fordyce, Greg’s cousin, was a grade ahead of me, and we’d be going to the same school again starting next week when I began sixth grade in middle school. I remembered Jemmy as being something of a snot and a bully, but I didn’t really know Greg at all.

We’d missed the beginning of the Angel game. The sun was going down, and the guys were snacking in front of the TV after having taken care of evening chores while I got my hair cut. Dad, Morgan, and Junior were rooting for the Angels because the Dodgers had lost and they were hungry for a win. They might get one, too, but it could be interesting. The Angels were playing the Milwaukee team who had beat them the day before.

I knew all that, but my personal drama made it seem less important than it would have a week or two earlier. For one thing, now I knew I would never pitch for the Angels; they don’t let girls play Major League Baseball, and I didn’t see that rule changing any time soon. Besides, I never had learned to throw overhand with any real force or distance.

Feeling discriminated against and a bit confused, I followed Mom into the kitchen.

We seldom ate a full meal Saturday evening unless Dad decided to barbecue, but Mom said, “They’re going to want a hot snack in a bit.”

I flashed a grin because I had had the same thought. The guys weren’t the only ones who were hungry. I threw a bag of popcorn into the microwave while Mom took some frozen taquitos out and poured a bit of oil in the big, cast iron pan.

I took a tray down from the cabinet, standing on the little one-step footstool, and got out a basket that I lined with napkins. I also took out a large wooden spoon that I placed on the tray. Taking a beer from the fridge, I twisted the cap loose then poured the popcorn into the basket and loaded it all on the tray. I’ve never tasted beer but the popcorn smelled yummy.

Mom watched me curiously as I headed into the living room where Dad sat in the lounger, and Junior sprawled on the couch. I stepped around the Moose occupying the floor and set the tray on the little table beside the lounger. “I thought you might like a beer and some popcorn,” I said as I picked up the wooden spoon.

“Thank you, Audrey,” Dad said, smiling at me.

Morgan grinned, sat up, and reached for a handful of popcorn — so I hit him across the knuckles with the spoon. “This stuff is for Daddy,” I said, holding my chin up. “Go get your own.”

Junior fell off the couch laughing.