Chapter 15

"Triangle Square"

by Wanda Cunningham

"I need to go for a walk--or something," Kelly said. He stood near the edge of the glass partition separating the inner salon from the front room. Peering out, through the more public part of Andie's shop and the plate glass windows, he could make out the looming mass of Triangle Square, the trendy mall built in the crooked corner where Harbor Boulevard and Newport Avenue came together. He didn't see anyone out there who knew him well enough to worry about it, but without his glasses he couldn't be completely sure.

"You willing to go out dressed like that?" Andie asked, smiling. She had been working on Melissa's nails while they talked. She put the tools down and reached for her purse. Melissa lifted her hands and admired the Billion Dollar Red color Andie had chosen for her. A fuzzy red hat with a yellow pouf on top covered her incongrously balding head while Andie treated the wig to a well-earned airing.

Kelly looked down at the red polka dots on the dress he wore. He squinted at the image in the mirror of his platinum curls, little heart earrings and makeup. "I don't think anyone will recognize me?" he said. He wasn't sure he recognized himself.

Andie counted bills into her hand, "I mean, you're comfortable, letting people shee you?" she lisped around the rings and studs of her mutliply pierced lips and tongue.

"I guess," Kelly sighed. It did seem odd but maybe this would be a test, to see if he could do it. He knew he didn't want to stay and talk to Andie and Melissa about their experiences anymore. It had begun to make him nervous. "I'll be okay," he assured Andie.

She beamed at him, stooped to give him a kiss on the cheek and handed him a wad of cash, "Take this, buy whatever you want. Clothes, books, music. It's yours to shpend on you."

"Huh?" Kelly counted quickly, squinting to make out the even the larger numerals on the new style bills. "Andie, this is over two hundred dollars!"

She nodded. "I can borrow a twenty from the register, if I get hungry before you get back." As if leaving her broke were his main worry. "How long you think you'll be gone?"

"I can't take this!"

Kelly tried to hand her back the money but she took his little red purse and tucked it inside. "You're going to the mall, right? I'll meet you in the food court on top in two hours, okay?"

"Uh, okay." He felt odd holding a purse, anyway. His reflection assured him that he looked perfectly natural with it.

"And you gotta spend the money, mosht of it," Andie ordered. "On yourself. You said you didn't want to wear a skirt to Disneyland tomorrow, buy yourself some pantsh. Or whatever you want."

"Go for it, honey," urged Melissa, "a shopping trip with someone else paying the bills?"

Kelly giggled nervously and shook his head. "Can I buy something for Barbie? Or you?" he asked Andie.

"Nope, we'll shop for your Mom in Disneyland tomorrow, she'll like that." Kelly knew that was true, Barbie loved the Magic Kingdom.
"And don't spend my own money buying me a gift, that'sh immoral or something," Andie added as he reluctantly turned to go.

He checked the clasp on the little purse to make sure it was securely closed then stepped out into the outer salon and waved toward Penny where she was shampooing the purple hair of some fat goth girl.

Penny waved back, "Bye, Skipper."

He waved back as he scampered across the room. A beefy man he had never seen before stood up and opened the outer door for him. "Here you go, sugar," the man said indulgently.

"Thank you," Kelly murmured politely, going through and letting the door to the street close behind him. "Skipper," he muttered.

* * *

Barbie and Harry eventually made their way back to Harry's Las Vegas apartment after Barbie declined the invitation to see another show. "I'm really tired, Harry," she said.

"Even a minor operation will do that to you," agreed Dr. Mann.

Barbie glanced down at the results of that operation, the new cleavage created by the breast implants Harry had done for her just that morning. She giggled a bit nervously, sounding very much like Kelly. She felt pleased at the results so far, and looked forward to seeing how they would look as Dr. Mann inflated the implants more over the next few weeks. Harry had assured her that when she felt they were big enough, he could easily remove the potentially large implants and replace them with appropriately smaller ones just as easily as he had done the first operation. It had actually taken him much longer to tell her what he was doing and what her choices were than the actual operation. There were definite advantages to having a plastic surgeon for a boyfriend, she reflected.

Though getting her son a sex-change operation had not been one she had ever considered. "Harry," she had told him in the car, "I don't think Kelly really wants to be a girl. I think he's just a little effeminate?" Like she often did with difficult words, Barbie pronounced each syllable of the word separately, ef-fem-in-ate. The effect was very cute and distracted one from catching her meaning a little, reflected Harry.

"That's not his fault," Barbie went on. "I raised him alone and I guess, I'm just a real girly-girl?" She giggled self-consciously.

"He had several hours to correct the misunderstanding before you told him to go along with the gag, Barbie," Harry said mildly. "I think he must rather enjoy it. Almost any other boy his age woud have just thrown an angry fit if mistaken for a girl."

They eventually continued the discussion in the opulent chrome and glass surroundings of Dr. Harold Mann's Vegas residence. First, Barbie lay down in the middle of the sapphire-blue leather couch, her green dress and eyes and platinum hair startlingly vivid against the coordinating background. She kicked her feet out of her expensive new high heels and tucked her silk-clad legs under one of the satiny blue pillow-cushions. She wiggled her toes under the pillow and giggled again. Just like in most apartments in the Southwest, especially in August, especially in Las Vegas, the air-conditioning had been set on stun.

Harry sat at one end and she lifted herself a bit to let him put another pillow under her neck and shoulders so she could rest her head on his thigh. He teased her nose and ear and lips with a strand of her own blonde hair and she giggled and puffed at him, pursing her lips into a kissable red pout. Harry resisted temptation only because he would have had to be a contortionist to kiss her in that position and neither of them really wanted to move that much.

"Maybe you're just too close to the problem," Harry suggested. "I remember it took a lot for Andie to convince me that he, she was serious back twelve years ago."

"About the time Kelly was born," murmured Barbie.

"Uh, right. It's hard to remember you're actually a year older than Andie. You were fourteen, with a baby?"

"Uh-huh," said Barbie. "It sounds terrible but I was actually very happy, even if I'd been in and out of juvie and foster care so much I thought my last name was 'Child Services'."

He blinked, unsure if he should laugh at such a dark joke from the normally ebullient Barbie. He smiled tentatively and she broke into one of her little-girl grins. Then he did laugh. "It doesn't seem to have done you a great deal of harm."

"I'm tougher than I look," she admitted. "But being a teenager with a baby, a drunken mother of my own and no men at all in my life was no picnic."

"Um." He hadn't heard about Amanda before. "What about Kelly's father?" And he hadn't asked that before either.

"He went to prison, I was seriously under age, you know?" She made a face.

"Do you ever hear from him?"

Barbie didn't answer for a while. "I used to get letters from him. I never opened them."

"Ouch," Harry commented.

"I want to call home, talk to Kelly," Barbie said, suddenly sitting up. He nodded and handed her his phone. She called the Mann household, found that Kelly and Andie had gone out and called Andie's cellphone.

Harry watched, still bemused that she had referred to his house in Newport as "home".

* * *

Kelly made his way across Newport Avenue and debated where to go next. The bookstore called him but he knew he could spend two hours in there and spend every penny of Andie's money. And he really did want to look for some pants he could wear. "Boy pants," he said firmly and headed for the Gap Kids store. "And maybe some sneaks."

A lady and a young girl smiled at him, he smiled back automatically. Everyone he passed seemed to look directly at him and smile. It made him self-conscious. "I must be cuter than both Olsen twins," he muttered.

In the Gap, he found the jeans section quickly but felt very odd looking at boys jeans while dressed as a girl. One of the shop clerks, really just a teenager still wearing braces came up to him and asked, "Are you all by yourself, honey?"

"My aunt...is around someplace?" he said, not exactly lying.

Millie--that's what the name tag read--beamed at him. "You're cute, are you looking for something in particular? Can I help you?"

"Uh," he sighed. "I know I look like a little kid, but I'm twelve, honest?"

Millie laughed. "Okay, what's your name?"

"Uh, Kelly," he said, not wanting to continue the Skipper part of the charade.

"Kelly, that's a pretty name," said Millie. "It almost rhymes with mine."

He stared at her for a moment, squinted to read the nametag and then sighed. "I'm twelve. Don't... My Aunt dressed me like this, like a little kid, but please don't treat me like one?"

Millie laughed so hard she attracted the attention of one of the other shop girls. Sharon came over and smiled at Kelly, too. "What's so funny?"

"Her aunt dressed her in little kid's clothes," Millie managed to say between giggles.

Kelly blushed and wished he had gone to the bookstore. Of course, there he might have had to sit and listen to a Dr. Seuss reading or something. Besides, without his glasses, a bookstore would be torture. He tugged at the dress in disgust.

Sharon looked at Kelly and smiled, "How old are you, sugar?"

"Twelve. I'm in the seventh grade, or I will be next month. Do I sound like a little kid?"

Sharon hid her mouth, "Uh, no. No, I guess you don't? What did--I mean, why did she do that? You do look adorable, though?" Both girls grinned at him with such good humor that he grinned back a little sheepishly.

"Uh, I'm staying with her while my Mom is out of town, and--it's complicated but it's sort of a joke that got out of hand. I need some more clothes?" He picked up a pair of jeans and looked at them.

"This is boy's stuff," Millie told him. "The girl's jeans are over here. What are you looking for? In particular."

"Uh, we're going to Disneyland tomorrow..." he began.

Sharon interrupted, "In August? You don't want jeans, you'll get too hot, Wear some shorts."

"Shorts," he said.

"Wow," said Millie. "Who did your nails, those are so cute!"

"Uh, my aunt, she owns a salon."

"She do your hair, too?"

He nodded.

"She's good, you look cute in that stuff but that style would work with clothes your own age, too." Both girls nodded. Andie had acheived a classic.

He blinked. That hadn't really occured to him. They had somehow ended up in the girl's shorts and tops area. "You know?" said Sharon. "You are tiny, Kelly. It's gonna be hard to find you something that doesn't make you look like a little kid?"

"At least, you believe me," he said. He decided he liked these two, they seemed enthusiastically willing to help him. "About being twelve, I mean?"

The girls laughed. "Yeah, well, you've got a cute voice too, but I dunno? You don't act like an 8 year old or something," Sharon grinned. "You get a lot of teasing abut being short?"

He shrugged, tossing his curls and rolling his eyes. That got more giggles from them and he joined in. "Would you believe me if I told you I was really a boy?"

They laughed so hard the assistant manager glared at them. Sharon pinched her cheeks and made a strange face in order to stop grinning. Millie shook her head and coughed. "No, Kelly, no, I don't think anyone would believe that you're a boy!"

Kelly grinned and blushed. What's the use, he thought, I might as well go with it. It's Andie's money, I wouldn't feel right spending it on myself, my boy self. That was a weird thought. But if I spend the money on stuff I can only use in her game, well, that's fair. I guess.

"So, what do you think I should wear to Disneyland?" he asked the two girls.

"You don't want to look like a little kid?" asked Sharon.

"No, no, I'm getting tired of being cooed at," Kelly said. "I want to dress my age."

"Then, what you need is a padded bra," said Millie. Sharon nodded emphatically.

* * *

In "Hollywood" there are the major studios, then the independents, then various levels of low budget filmmakers most of whom meet payroll by making cheap local commercials. A lot of them have dreams of getting a break, of making the "small" film that wins awards at Sundance or Cannes.

Gregory Lamb looked over the emailed photos again. This kid really had a good look, cute, kind of sassy. And according to the text, she was twelve and could pass for seven. That really came in handy for film makers, twelve-year-olds came under entirely different sets of rules on how long they could work than did younger kids. Even no-budget filmmakers had to follow the child actor laws.

* * *

"I don't think so," said Kelly, blushing. A padded bra?

Sharon grinned. "One reason everyone keeps thinking you're eight or nine is your chest is almost completely flat. You need some shape, girl."

Millie suppressed a giggle at the face Kelly made, "She's right, um, I guess you're not -uh-developing as fast as some of the other girls you know."

Kelly didn't know what to say. He nodded, aware that his cheeks were probably as red as strawberries.

"Okay, well, you don't want them to get too far ahead, and believe me, probably more than half of them are padding already."

Sharon nodded, "Yeah, everybody pads in six and seven; heck, I did."

Millie grinned, "You still pad."

"Do not," said Sharon. "These are Curves." She laughed.

Kelly knew what Curves were, his mother had a pair. Silicone pads to put in your bra. Millie and Sharon made faces at each other, and he grinned at their antics. Maybe the implants Dr. Mann was doing for Barbie would be like permanent Curves. "Never mind, tho, I don't think I want -uh- padding."

"Then you might as well dress as a little kid," said Millie. "'Cause without tits, you're never gonna convince everybody that you're twelve, nope."

Kelly blinked. "But I really am a boy," he said plaintively.

Which destroyed Millie and Sharon in laughter again.

* * *

"Can I speak to Kelly?" Barbie asked when she had Andie on the phone.

"Kelly went over to Triangle Shquare," Andie told her. "Just a little bit ago."

"Darn," said Barbie.

"Did you look at the pictures I took of the little shcamp?" asked Andie, "I emailed them to Harry." And a few friends in Hollywood, she added silently. Time enough to confess to that if anyown emailed her back wanting to see more of Kelly.

* * *

Pete parked the sedan in the second level underground parking below Triangle Square. Richard slid out quickly and offered a hand to Sarah, who took it smiling a bit shyly.

"Everybody remember where we parked," Pete said in conscious imitation of the line from Star Trek IV. "Where do we go first?"

"The Virgin I guess," said Richard, "Look for Cheryl then we can get some pizza?"

Pete nodded, flipped out his cellphone and saw that, naturally, there was no signal in the underground garage. "She's probably still on the phone anyway, that's how we'll recognize her, she'll be the cute blonde with the phone stuck in her ear." He grinned.

Sarah giggled, "And that will make her unusual around here, how?" She ran a hand through her own dark brown hair as if to emphasize the contrast.

Richard commented, "We should get Kelly a phone so we can find out where she is."

"She's probably at Andie's shop by now, it's practically across the street," Pete noted, gesturing vaguely.

"Hey, yeah. We can call Andie and maybe Kelly can meet us for pizza. You'll like Kelly," Richard added to Sarah.

I doubt it, thought the little brunette.

* * *

Kelly had given up trying to disbelieve the fixes he found himself in. He listened to Sharon and Millie babble about different sorts of bras and just smiled vaguely. Fortunately, the Gap didn't sell bras but Kelly hoped he wasn't blushing.

"You need to measure you, figure out your size?" Sharon told him.

"Twenty-six double-A," Millie said confidently.

Kelly knew Barbie's size and for some reason he couldn't really fathom volunteered the information. "My mom wears a 30A or B depending on if she's padding." Then he remembered again that Barbie had gone to Vegas with Harry to get breast implants.

The girls grinned, "She's just a bit of a thing too, huh?" They borrowed a tape from the counter and quickly measured him. "Twenty-six triple A," announced Sharon after a quick calculation. "Which means you're completely flat chested. Maybe you are a boy?" She grinned at him.

"Told you," he said firmly.

They laughed and Kelly was again glad that there were no bras to be bought in any of the shops in Triangle Square; they had already told him that.

"You're going to want to get a 26A," said Millie. "So you can look good with the padding, not like a kid, but not, you know, silly." Grin.

"You can get something nice at South Coast, lots of places there." added Sharon. South Coast Plaza was the big shopping mall at the other end of Costa Mesa, it had everything from a Sears to a Neiman-Marcus. "But while you're here, let's find you some stuff to wear to Disneyland, and have you got stuff for school next month yet?" The back-to-school sale banners were everywhere in the store.

"Uh," said Kelly. "I'll be back home by then, I'll have my own clothes."

Millie and Sharon looked at each other and shrugged slightly.

* * *

Amanda explained it all to Rachel one more time. The dark-haired woman just shook her head. They made an odd pair; Amanda, tiny and slightly plump, with red hair (at the moment) and green eyes; Rachel, tall and slender with a wild mane of black hair that normally hung to mid-thigh but had been pulled through a scrunchie to keep it out of her way while driving. They had one thing in common; they were both alcoholics and they both knew they were alcoholics.

Rachel was Amanda's sponsor in the local AA. Combination confidante and cheering squad, Rachel had taken on the task of helping Amanda not to drink, one drink at a time. Rachel had her own sponsor, a woman named Shelly who had helped her stay sober for seven years by just talking whenever Rachel felt the need of a drink and by congratulating her on her sobriety at appropriate times.

"How long has it been since you had a drink?" she asked Amanda as they wheeled out of the mobile home park and headed toward the freeway. Amanda elaborately checked her watch, "Fifteen hours, seventeen minutes, approximately."

Rachel grinned, "Hey, that's--" she hesitated as she saw Amanda rolling her eyes, "--that's great. Really it is?"

"If you say so," said Amanda. The constant boosterism of most AA meetings actually got on her nerves. She chewed on a fingernail, her substitute vice, and peered at the ranch houses and strip malls streaming past. This was why she hated to drive, it meant she had to wear her glasses. As a passenger she could relax and let the world go blur.

"Yes, it is," said Rachel, firmly. "You called me instead of taking a drink, that's very good." She negotiated the tangle of streets and stoplights lining the 91 freeway in west Riverside with practiced care. She eased the silver Civic into the stream of traffic and quickly angled across to get in the carpool lane. "I've got my transponder," she noted, "we'll take the Toll Road." You had to have a transponder to get on the 91 toll road with an account that got debited each time you took the 9.5 mile "shortcut" that could save you half an hour or more of sitting in the heavy traffic that always filled Santa Ana Canyon.

"I'll pay you back," promised Amanda.

"Don't worry about the toll," said Rachel. "You're buying me lunch and filling the tank."

Amanda giggled nervously, this expedition would put a noticeable dent in her finances. They rode in silence for awhile. At the I-215 interchange, Rachel swung out of the carpool lane to speed up and pass a Greyhound bus. "Tell me again why you don't just call the police?" she asked.

"I guess I still love the guy," Amanda admitted.

Rachel shook her head. "After what he did?" She swung back into the carpool lane to get through Corona, only a few more miles to the toll road where traffic would ease considerably.

Amanda didn't say anything for a bit. "How can any of us expect to be loved, after the things we've done?" she asked finally.

After another long silence, Rachel answered, "God loves us."

Amanda nodded. "And forgives us."

Neither woman truly believed in the Biblical God; Amanda even held attending church over her own head as a form of punishment, but both had learned the value of some of the teachings of the AA Twelve Steps. And one of those was surrendering things that cannot be changed to a Higher Power. Another was forgiving--oneself.

Rachel smiled, pleased with how things were going. Amanda seemed to be really making an effort to deal with her past, her daughter and grandchild and her ex-husband. She knew her Amanda was making a mistake, trying to control her drinking with rigid time schedules and bargains with herself. She was glad Amanda had called her to help deal with the stress of the coming confrontations, something like this would have surely destroyed here schedule which was only part of the problem with such things. It was stress that made a lot of people drink but Rachel would be there now for Amanda to lean on. Maybe this time Amanda would be able not to drink. One drink at a time.

* * *

In the bus, half a mile back now, Phil dozed over his book, trusting in the Higher Power of the bus driver to get him safely to his destination.

* * *

"Those pictures are of Kelly?" said Barbie wonderingly.

Harold nodded, "She's a real looker, just like her mom."

Barbie shook her head, "Harry, I told you, Kelly is a boy, not a girl."

Harry just indicated the pictures again.

"What the heck have I got you into, kid?" said Barbie looking at them. "Andie has gone over the moon with this."

* * *

"It's too bad we don't have sizes to fit you in the grown-ups side of the store," Sharon told Kelly. "Millie is going to get all the credit for this sale."

Millie giggled happily, punching keys at her register in the Kids part of the store.

Kelly grinned at both of them and looked at himself in the full-lenth mirror again. The Catalina Blue slacks were pure cotton and felt great. They were definitely girl's slacks though, no pockets and the little coral pink stitiching at the waist band were dead giveaways. The yellow tank top had the word Catalina printed in the same color blue as the pants and just a tiny bit of the pink edging, too.

"You look hot," said Millie. "And not quite so much like a little kid, but have your aunt buy you that bra, huh?"

Kelly just shook his head and giggled. It had been fun, trying on things; he had another pair of slacks, two pairs of shorts and three more tops, and all of it would coordinate in these Catalina colors. Too bad he would only be wearing this stuff for today and tomorrow and maybe Monday.

The bag with everything made a large bundle, large for someone as short as Kelly, at least. He waved again to the girls as he left the store then looked around, confused. Had he exited on a different side than he went in on? He bit his lip, trying to figure out if he were on Newport or around the corner on Harbor. He didn't even try to read the street sign on the nearest corner; that was just a green and white blur.

"I'm on Harbor," he decided. And again thought, no point in going to the bookstore, without his glasses he'd have to read by 'nose-braille', as Barbie called it. He hefted the bag experimentally, trying to decide if it was too much of a load to wag around while he looked for shoes at the Nike store. Or music CDs at the Virgin. Deciding that he might as well spend Andie's money while he had it, he turned the corner back onto Newport and ran straight into three young men.

"Hey, chica!" said one of them, grabbing him before he fell on his butt from the impact. "Cuidado." Another of the boys grabbed the bag he had dropped before clothing spilled all over the pavement.

They were all nearly a foot taller than he, dressed in summer chic for guys in the current year: baggy jeans, untied sneaks, tanks and tees. "I'm s-s-sorry!" he hiccoughed.

They laughed. "She's got the hiccoughs," said the one with the front of his hair dyed blond.

"It was entirely our fault," said the third. "We were looking at cars instead of watching for pretty girls." He looked vaguely Asian, Kelly thought; the other two boys looked and sounded Hispanic, but he couldn't really see their faces without his glasses. Then what the boy had said penetrated and he blushed.

He glanced down at himself; in makeup, jewelry and these clothes, they would certainly think he was a girl. Which meant that...he was safe. They grinned at him, they laughed when he hiccoughed, they picked him up and gave him back his stuff. They liked him. At school he had had a lot of trouble with boys very much like these, but these three couldn't have been nicer to him. It was scary and exhilirating, but what would happen if they knew?

"Thanks, guys," he said, unconsciously imitating the purry giggle Barbie often used in embarrassing situations as he took back his things. "I've got to go though, my aunt will be waiting for me." He tried to keep smiling even if it did seem the weirdest thing in the world to be doing.

"That's a lot to carry for a little girl," said the tallest boy, the one who had cautioned him in Spanish. "But you aren't a little girl, are you? Just--short? Small." He grinned down at him.

"Um, yeah, I'm tw-twelve," said Kelly. And now something penetrated his consciousness, his smile slipped and he really wanted to get away from these three.

"I'm Jimmy Nunez, this is Doug Weeyun..."

"Nguyen," corrected the smallest boy, only eight or nine inches taller than Kelly. "I'm twelve, myself. And these guys are in seventh grade, too."

"I'm Tommy Hererra," said the third boy. "What's your name?"

"Ah--" Kelly felt panic perk up inside him like an old-fashioned coffee pot. His breath wouldn't seem to come at all; he couldn't speak.

Jimmy grinned at him, suddenly. "Hey, guys, this is Kelly from school last year, don't you remember?"

All three boys looked at him more closely, their blurry faces unreadable to Kelly. He opened his mouth to speak. He hadn't been able to say anything since he recognized them and now, nothing came out but more hiccoughs.