I wondered what he would look like in basketball shorts...?

After more yak-yak by the adults and Del and I not really having time or space to talk, it seemed settled. Del and I would be double dating Saturday night with Hannah and the Gronk. Not Friday because Gronk had a wrestling match at another school's gym, but not Thursday because Del was on the junior varsity basketball team, which would be playing that night.

"You and Hanna should come see me play," Del managed to get in edgewise. I wondered what he would look like in basketball shorts even while I was already nodding.

"Hey, uh, and Friday, I could go with Hannah to see her guy gronkalize his opponents, and, uh, maybe you could be there too?" What did I just say!?

Del's dark broody eyes lit up at that suggestion. Oh, shit, oh, shit. Have I just set up three dates with... my boyfriend? You could probably have toasted marshmallows on the heat from my face just then, but wow, I felt all light and bubbly inside!

*

I don't know how we got out of there, the DelFortes went one way and Mom, and I headed back to the mall. "You said something about needing shoes?" she reminded me.

I nodded, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. But—"I'm going to need some heels, Mom!" I said. "I know you didn't let Hannah wear them till she was fifteen but—but..."

"But Del is so tall?" She was smiling!

"He's even taller than the Gronk! By inches, plural!" I said. "I feel like a midget next to him." I pulled my braids nervously in front of me like I was trying to hide behind them. "And, and there's this shoe shop I was in that I promised them I'd be back...." I looked maybe a bit hopefully at Mom. This expedition was costing a ton, and we still hadn't bought the hair kit stuff that I had really agreed to this shopping trip for.

She laughed at me. Okay, maybe my expression was funny or something. "Is my little tomboy Samantha turning into a girlie-girl?" she asked.

She might as well have hit me with a fish! A three-day-old smelly mullet from the alley behind Charley's Chowder Haven—okay, maybe not. That would be more just gross instead of astonishing. I'd only been dressing as a girl for a couple of days, and I was... what was I doing? Planning on enjoying myself with my new boyfriend? The same guy I had punched in the nuts last October?

Well, yeah, I guess so.

But it must have been the buying of the shoes that forced me to confess. Okay, okay, I kind of like being a girl. I confessed to myself, not to my Mom. She had her own opinions of how I was acting.

I tried to dial it back a bit. I really tried. But everyone was being so nice to me, and since dressing as a girl, I'd got nothing but compliments on my hair. No one suggested cutting my hair, even once. And no one seemed to have even a clue that I was a boy.

Still, I mean, who else but a girlie-girl would end up spending almost two hours picking out shoes she was buying mostly because the guy who is sort of her boyfriend is almost a foot taller than her? Than him? Than me!

Mom didn't tease me much, just offered advice when I asked. The mall had like fourteen shoe stores, and we may have hit them all, starting with the one where I had hidden after seeing Del and his father going into Yukon Fitters. Wait. What had happened to the game store bag Del had been carrying? I'd meant to ask him what he'd bought.

Then I remembered Mr. D. had taken that bag when Del and I set out for the cheesecake factory. I'd have to remember to ask when I saw him again.

I stopped right in the entrance back into the store on that thought—that I'd be seeing Del again. It had given me a little thrill.

Mom paused beside me. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing!" I said, and she laughed at me. And winked as if she knew exactly what I had been thinking. I huffed at her and went on into the shop. Mothers think they know everything.

But Deirdre (the shoe store lady) remembered me, and I bought my first pair of high heels from her before going on to look at other shoe stores.

I ended up buying two pairs of high heels, one black, one red, both three-1/2 inches tall. Mom's rule was less than four inches, tops. And two more pairs of low heels, a yellow-dun pair and one in navy. And a pair of really kitschy high heel sneakers! Four-inch hidden heels, taller than the wedge heels I bought — and these shocking purple laces! Love them, wore them out of the store.

Okay, so who spends over $300 on shoes? Only a girlie-girl, like me, I guess. I got a ton of bargains but -- yikes!

I kept expecting Mom to put her foot down, if not on top of mine. But no, she was all in, pointing out that I couldn't keep wearing my sister's old shoes that didn't fit her anymore. Even if she did have a humongous supply of them. I mean, if I'm going to end up with as many shoes of my own as Hannah, I've got a lot of catching up to do.

And we didn't just buy shoes. I ended up with two handbags, a billfold and some stockings, too. Well, pantyhose. Mom actually vetoed the pair of patterned stockings I liked, possibly because they were red.

"You don't have anywhere to wear those," she said. "At least, nowhere your father is going to let you go wearing them."

I got the giggles and admitted that, yeah, they were probably a little too far out there.

Last, we got the hair curling kit I wanted: the big one with the nine different size tubes, the mister, the no-heat, hand-held, wide hairdryer and a bottle of stuff for the mister that had only all-natural ingredients that wouldn't damage my hair. I could barely wait to get home to try it all out. Who wants to wear braids all the time?

"You're done?" Mom asked as we headed toward the car with our bags.

"Huh? Yeah, I guess...." I looked at her sideways. Mom had used a certain voice inflection there that I was suspicious of. She seemed to be setting me up.

"Yup," she said in a tone of conclusion. "You're done."

"What does that mean?" I asked as we loaded our purchases in the back of the car.

"You know, your father and I were not having you dress this way as punishment." She motioned at what I was wearing, and I looked down at myself for a moment. "It was really an experiment."

I rolled my eyes at her. "Yeah, yeah, I get it."

We got in the car and buckled up, me being careful not to muss my clothes with the belt. She watched me, grinning.

"For all of your protests and whining and begging off...." We bent toward each other and traded awkward hugs. "We knew you really wanted to do this."

I sighed. "How could you know when I didn't?" I asked her.

She rolled her eyes before starting the car. "Honey, everyone knew. That's why the boys gave you such a hard time at school. You've always been Samantha, my younger daughter, the prettier one."

I giggled and smirked at that. "Okay, okay." I pulled down the mirror in the sun visor and looked at myself: make-up, hair braids, jewelry. I pulled my braids back in front and folded the mirror back up as we turned onto the avenue.

"You aren't going to be changing back at the end of the two weeks," Mom commented.

Not a question but nope. I shook my head, feeling my braids swish. I'm Samantha.