Kelly Girl

by Wanda Cunningham

Kelly Girl 24

"Dixie Cup Love"

 

The three taller girls sat with Kelly on the bus bench at Bristol and MacArthur. The fading summer turquoise of an early evening sky in Southern California promised a gorgeous sunset. Valerie, the slender brunette, sat half turned around to watch the western sky. Flotillas of birds had begun seeking their rest; seagulls heading toward the shore from a hard day at the landfills; crows heading from shopping malls and athletic fields toward Disneyland where the myriad trees provided safe nesting for ebony scavengers.

Valerie felt a little sad; the adventure, such as it was seemed to be winding down. She felt glad to have helped Kelly's Aunt Connie get away from the police safely, and didn't feel at all guilty. Even if a crime had been committed, no one had really been hurt, so that made it all right, didn't it?

Crystal's golden head leaned toward Kelly's hot pink wig. She'd been straining to hear both ends of the phone conversation between Kimberly and Richard Mann but with the phone held between Kelly and Kim, she hadn't heard much. She rested an arm across the back of the bench and as Kim ended the call, Crystal impulsively pulled Kelly into a quick hug. Kelly was a strange one, letting almost everyone think she was a boy all during school last year, but Crystal liked her anyway. She looked so tiny and cute, it was hard to believe Kelly was the same age as the other girls, twelve.

In fact, Kelly was second eldest, with a birthday in March, Kimberly's in January, and Valerie's in April. Though youngest with a July birthday, Crystal had the most curves; she, like the other girls assumed Kelly's meager bosom had simply sprouted since school let out three months ago.

Kimberly closed her phone, satisfied that she had handled the task of calling for Kelly's rescue with adult competence and cool. She stifled her giggles at Kelly's outburst at what she had said to Richard about Kelly waiting for him.

She nodded, her crisp bright red curls bouncing with the decisive movement; Kim loved getting things done and doing them well. Helping Kelly and Connie escape South Coast Plaza had been quick, thrilling, and a tiny bit naughty, a perfect escapade to spend hours dissecting with her girlfriends later. She wanted to squeal with delight but settled for a grunt of accomplishment though her gray eyes sparkled and even her freckles seemed ready to dance.

Kelly returned Crystal's hug and nodded at Kim. He'd been worried when the three classmates had found him in the mall but they had somehow convinced themselves that he had always been the girl he now seemed. Everyone's willing acceptance of his masquerade had begun to wear down his doubtful resistance. He felt relaxed around the three now, comfortably sure they weren't going to treat him like a freak or a pervert, as long as they didn't know. And he certainly had no intention of telling them, he'd even improved his masquerade himself with the purchase of a padded bra.

He wanted to squirm and squeal; hope, anxiety and relief mixed in nearly equal proportions. He'd never really had friends his own age before but now six of his classmates had met him in his girl disguise and demonstrated their friendliness. A flash of memory warmed his cheeks—kisses from Jimmy and Tommy on top of Triangle Square—had that been only this afternoon?

Kelly opened his other arm to Kim and she and Valerie both joined the triumphant, giggly hug. "Thank you for making the phone call," he whispered to Kim. He'd wanted to talk to Richard himself but hadn't dared.

Kimberly smiled. "You're welcome. He sounded really nice. What was it you didn't want him to think?"

Kelly squirmed a bit. "I don't know, you made it sound like...I was real anxious, I guess?"

Kim grinned. "He's got a deep voice. Is he a big guy?"

"Um, yeah? He's about six feet tall." For some reason, Kelly didn't want Kim admiring Richard, even over the phone.

"How old is he?" asked Valerie, who liked tall boys, too.

"Uh, fourteen."

"Wow, he is tall, for fourteen."

"The perfect age," commented Crystal.

Kelly frowned, "How do you figure?"

"When you're a freshman, he'll be a junior and he can take you to all the really cool upperclass dances at school. Then you get to go again when you get to be upperclass yourself while he's away at college," Crystal explained with crystalline logic.

"Besides," added Valerie, "he'll have a car by then and boys our age are always stupid."

"Uh," Kelly shook his head. "He's supposed to be my...I mean, he's going to be my step-brother?"

"Oh, well," said Kim, "Then you can introduce us to him." The three friends giggled but Kelly frowned.

"Oh ho!" said Crystal.

"Huh?"

"You like him?" asked Kim, as quick to pick up on Kelly's expression as Crystal had been.

"She likes him," agreed Valerie.

"I guess I do," said Kelly, wonderingly. Then slapped his hands over his mouth to stifle more giggles.

 

* * *

 

Harold closed his phone, looking at Barbie whose eyes seemed to have grown two sizes. "They found her?" the tiny blonde whispered, repeating what Harold had just said. Then she corrected herself, "Him. They found him?"

Harold nodded. "Yup, the boys were nearly to the airport when she called Richard. Or someone called Richard for her. She got away from the kidnapper, apparently, they're going to pick her up then come back and get us."

Barbie shook her head. "You keep saying 'her', Kelly is a boy."

"I'm sorry. You're right, I mean, of course, you are. But, uh, Richard thinks Kelly is a girl."

"I don't care what he thinks," said Barbie, a little cross. "That's just because Andie dressed Kelly up for some goofy reason."

Harold stood quietly for a moment. The long galleries of John Wayne Airport stretched away from them on both sides, full of bustling people going and coming and sparing only a glance now and then for the tall, handsome, dark-haired man and his diminutive, pretty, green-eyed companion. In front of them, tall windows opened on the lower automobile concourse. They'd been staying in the air conditioning rather than wait for the boys out in the sticky heat of an August evening.

"You know about Andie," Harold said, not asking.

"Yes," said Barbie. "She told me. But Kelly's not like that." Andie had confessed her own transsexual past to Barbie months ago when Barbie had told her rich friend about having thrown out another boyfriend over calling Kelly a sissy.

Harold said nothing, but he put his large, comforting hand against Barbie's back. She leaned into his touch, sighing. He glared at a passing teenage boy who couldn't help staring at Barbie's recently augmented bosom. He probably thinks she's my daughter, Harold realized. Barbie still looked pretty much like a teenager herself, a small one. Maybe that's why she wants to have double-dee breasts, Harold wondered, so people will stop treating her like a child.

Barbie sighed again. "I wish the boys had stopped for us, but it was right that they go on. Pickup Kelly first, I mean."

"We could get a cab?" offered Harold. Outside the windows, Elise Fremont had just pulled her green-checked taxi into the queue to wait for a new fare after dropping Andie off at South Coast Plaza. Neither Harry nor Barbie knew Elise, of course, or knew how the middle-aged cabdriver's life had intersected their own already, however obliquely.

"No," Barbie decided. "We might miss them. You get people running in all different directions looking for each other and things go wrong. We'll wait here." But she put the side of her hand in her mouth and chewed on it nervously. She never chewed on her nails anymore but her substitute activity looked a bit odd to Harold. She grinned at him around her hand,"You'd think I'd be better at waiting, I'm a waitress.

Harold smiled at the feeble joke. "Kelly will be all right," he said, pulling Barbie over to lean against him.

"I know. Phil would never have hurt him," she murmured. "But I still don't think Kelly is like Andie," she added. "Wouldn't I know? Am I really that dumb?"

Harry didn't answer that, choosing instead to kiss her on top of her blonde head.

She giggled and craned her neck to look up at him. "Tell me I'm not stupid."

"You're not stupid," he said. "You're Kelly's mother. I don't think my parents had Andie figured out when they died, it's harder for a parent to see stuff like that than for anyone else."

 

* * *

 

Pete spotted the little girl in the burgundy slacks as soon as he turned onto Bristol. "Is that her? How come her hair is pink?"

"I dunno," said Richard, but before they could speculate more, Kelly turned and waved at them.

"It's her!" they both shouted. Pete jackrabbited to a shuddering stop at the curb and Richard jumped out of the car before it stopped moving.

"Kelly!" He grabbed her around the waist and swung her high into the air, laughing.

"Richard!" she squealed in delight and terror. "Put me down, you goof!" She laughed, kicking her feet as Richard pulled her into a hug.

Watching from across the street, Valerie nodded to her two friends. "Yup, she likes him." Crystal and Kimberly nodded and giggled.

"How did you get away?" Richard was asking her.

"Why is your hair pink?" Pete asked, having raced around the car to try to take a Kelly handoff from his brother..

Kelly laughed again; they were all three laughing like red-headed loons. She hugged both of them when Richard put her down. And she didn't slap either of them when they each kissed her on the cheek.

 

* * *

 

Lt. Bartolo Mendoza spoke laconically into the police mobile. "Yeah, uh huh. Okay." Andie watched and listened in a mix of boredom and anxiety. Nothing seemed to be happening. She wished she had her cellphone so she could call someone. She wished she had her car back so she could go somewhere. She wished most of all that she knew that Kelly was okay, that crazy Phil Constable had not harmed his 'daughter' and that Kelly could get out of all of this without revealing any secrets.

Mendoza watched her while he spoke to his headquarters. The fading light twinkled off of her multiple piercings; he could see the jewel-colored snake she had tatooed around her neck. Her long legs looked deliciously slender in her peach-colored slacks. A circle of tattoed charms showed at her left ankle and a vine twined around her right wrist. Bartolo wanted to see whatever tattoos her clothes might be covering, he wanted to trace them with his fingertips, taste them with his tongue.

Andie's tongue touched her pink lips, toying with her piercing there, all unknowing of the synchronicity with Bartolo's thoughts. He groaned and she looked up at him and he said into the phone, "No, I'm okay, just....gas." He hung up. "They found her," he said to Andie. "Your nephews found her walking up Bristol Street." He waved vaguely northward. "They're taking her to the airport to her mother."

Andie shrieked wordlessly and kissed him. Her car having been impounded, Lt. Mendoza was happy to give her a ride to her brother's house in Newport Beach, later. After he had asked her for a date, after she had considered what she would tell her boyfriend Tony and after she had accepted because he had asked three times. She wondered what she would say to her boyfriend, Tony, about this and decided she wouldn't tell him.

 

* * *

 

Kelly had discarded the red wig in the car and exited the back seat like a platinum-headed torpedo when he spotted his mother coming out of the airport terminal doors. They matched; Andie had intentionally used the same color on Kelly's hair as she had previously used for his mother.

"Barbie!" Kelly shrieked.

"Omigod!" squealed Barbie as the two tiny blondes collided. The Manns loomed over them, three grinning hulks, while the two pretty, doll-like figures danced and hugged and took in each other's appearance at arm's length.

"You've got boobs!" Kelly said, astonished at his mother's new C-cups. He didn't mention the expensive jewelry, shoes and clothing. And he wasn't sure he liked Barbie's new sexier look just yet but he was too happy at the moment to worry about it.

"So do you!" laughed Barbie, poking Kelly in his padding. "Omigod! Kelly, you're gorgeous!" She still didn't think it had been one of Andie's better ideas but looking at Kelly was like seeing her own younger self, a very odd thought.

Harold couldn't believe it. Kelly might be an anatomic boy, but this child had been born to be this beautiful. The thunderbolt of love and lust for Barbie he had felt before had a new companion; Harold had fallen just as suddenly in love with the idea of Kelly as his new daughter. She was so pretty, so irresistably a miniature of Barbie, it shook him and thrilled him and gave him a moment of unaccustomed anxiety. He felt intensely protective, something he hadn't felt since Richard had pneumonia six years ago. Whatever happened now, he must be sure that these two were safe and had every opportunity to be happy that he could give them.

At that moment, just as suddenly as their laughter, Kelly and Barbie simultaneously burst into tears. The Mann brothers grins turned stricken but their dad only laughed, a bit relieved. He knew how to handle feminine tears and Barbie and Kelly were not crying because they were unhappy. "Let's get them into the car and take them home," he shouted boisterously.

It would be some while before Kelly and Barbie had time and solitude for a mother and son reunion.

 

* * *

 

Grant Walker filed his story about a kidnap in Triangle Square and a manhunt in South Coast Plaza, about the rescue of a little girl and her return to her loving family. He'd gotten Phil's name from some police informer and described the short man with the pale hair and bright eyes as an ex-convict who was "wanted for questioning." He resented the fact that he hadn't been able to interview the little girl or her mother but he did learn that Barbie Drew was the girlfriend of Dr. Harold Mann, one of Newport Beach's famous squadron of plastic surgeons. He didn't mention either Barbie or Harold by name, but kept the information for future use.

A three-state police bulletin went out for Phil, five-foot-three, one hundred fifteen pounds by his prison records. Age, mid-forties but appears much younger. Blond hair, blue eyes, wears prescription glasses for astigmatism to drive. Assumed to be armed with knives and a veterinarian's humane killer but not considered violent; approach with caution. Wanted for questioning by Costa Mesa Police and California State Parole Authority in connection with charges of kidnapping, carjacking, assault, vehicular assault, theft and parole violation.

 

* * *

 

"Kelly is beautiful," Harold told Barbie when they were alone later.

"Hmm," said the little blonde. She took off her gown and hung it up carefully.

"She's the very image of you, I know what you looked like at that age now."

"He," Barbie reminded him. "Kelly is a boy." Barbie kept her bra on, Harold had said she should wear it practically continuously for two weeks after the surgery. She reached under the cups to massage her bruised tissues carefully. Harry waggled his brows at her and she giggled.

Harold shook his head. "I can't call Kelly 'he' or 'him' when she looks like that."

Barbie sighed. "Goddam Andie, anyway."

"It wasn't all her idea," Harry reminded her.

"No, you started it, confusing the boys by telling them Kelly was my niece."

"Sister. Whatever." He lay back against the couch, watching Barbie get dressed in silky green pajamas he had bought for her in Las Vegas. " I honestly thought she was a girl."

"Well, she isn't—he isn't, dammit!"

"You mad at me?"

"No, I'm just annoyed that you've got me doing it." She buttoned up the last of the tiny pearly buttons on the pajama top.

"Sorry," said Harold.

"No, you're not," she said and plopped herself into his lap. "You're imagining having Kelly for a daughter, taking her on pick-a-nicks, scaring away boys who try to date her, giving her away at her wedding."

"Wow?" said Harold, bemused.

"Confess."

"I confess, she's just so pretty."

Barbie pecked him on the lips then studied his face while he massaged her bottom. "You want Kelly to stay a girl, don't you? You helped Andie when she was just a little older than Kelly. You've turned boys into girls before, in your clinic down in Mexico—did you say hundreds of times? You'd do the surgery on her in a moment if I said yes, wouldn't you?"

"No. She'd have to say yes, too." Harold admitted. And he wasn't sure it would be ethical for him to actually operate on Kelly but he didn't mention that.

Barbie bit him, felt his erection surge beneath her, then hopped off his lap and danced away, giggling.

"You're not spending the night with me?"

She shook her head, taking the short powder blue robe he'd also given her and heading for the door. "I told you, Kelly and I are going to sleep in the spare bedroom. We've got to talk."

Harold wanted to suggest that maybe a mother should not be sleeping with her twelve-year-old son, that maybe that was part of the problem Kelly seemed to have with gender. But he recognized the essentially selfish interest he had in such a view and restrained himself. In his mind, Kelly really seemed like a girl and what was wrong with a mother sleeping with her daughter who had just gone through a terrible experience. "Give her a kiss for me, tell her I love her, too," he said finally.

Yikes, thought Barbie, not choosing to answer. She left the big master suite with its sweeping view of Newport Bay and went down the hallway to open the guestroom door.

Kelly had already changed into pajamas and sat in the middle of the huge queen-size bed. He clicked off the television and got up to hug his mother. His pajamas were covered in multi-colored lollypops, the least girly ones he could find in the saccarine bedroom of the vanished Darla. They were short-sleeved and only calf-length, though, and they buttoned on the distaff side.

"You really gonna marry him?" he asked her.

"I guess so," she admitted. "He's nuts about both of us." They hugged then clambered into the bed to sit facing each other. "You're wearing earrings," Barbie noted.

Kelly fingered one of the tiny hearts. "Andie said I shouldn't take them out till the holes had healed up. I doctored them a bit ago. Stings."

"Did you clean your face?"

"Uh huh," said Kelly. "Took off all the makeup and then washed and used some of that cream."

"You don't need that stuff."

"It smelled nice."

"Your nails look pretty," said Barbie.

Kelly blushed.

"Do you like having everyone think you're a girl?"

"I don't know?"

"What if you'd ended up on television? It could still happen, did you think of that?"

"Barbie!" Kelly protested. "This wasn't really my idea. It... just happened. I told everyone I'm really a boy! Nobody believes me."

Barbie snorted. "I'm beginning to have doubts myself; except, I remember the Dixie cups."

"Huh?"

Barbie mimed changing a baby's diaper, dropping a strategic Dixie cup over the baby boy fountain while dodging an imaginary stream.

Kelly laughed. "I got you a few times?"

"Uh huh. A neighbor lady showed me that trick. Mom wouldn't have known, she never had any boys. Just me."

"Mom screwed up again," commented Kelly. "She's in the hospital."

"I know." Neither of them suggested visiting Amanda.

"Phil seemed nice. Not at first, but later after he told me who he was."

"He was nice, too nice for what I did to him," said Barbie with a twinge of guilt.

"He came down here to ask you to forgive him," said Kelly. "I told him you would and he seemed happy."

"Me forgive him? Well, yeah, I know he already forgave me. We both messed up but I got you and he got prison, the dirty end of the stick, for sure."

"I think he's a little crazy," Kelly said slowly.

"He's got the right to be," said Barbie. "Did he get away?"

Kelly started to tell her how he had disguised Phil and how his acquaintances from school had helped.

"Wait, wait!" Barbie insisted. "Start at the beginning, tell me everything!"

"It'll take all night," Kelly protested.

"We can sleep late, tomorrow is Sunday."

Kelly talked, starting with Harold's miss-identification, with much back-filling and explanations, gigglings and incredulity. He told about the pool party and breaking his glasses and the expedition to Fashion Island and Andie doing a make-over on him. By the time he got to Triangle Square, they were both yawning. "Finish telling me tomorrow," suggested Barbie.

Kelly nodded sleepily, "I'm gonna have some weird dreams."

"I'll be right here, sugar," said Barbie. They pulled the covers back and hugged, then turned out the lights and rested their heads on the pillows.

"Did you like being a girl, Kelly?" asked Barbie.

"It's been fun. Scary, too," said Kelly slowly.

They hugged again. "Don't be scared, baby. I'm right here."

Kelly nodded, "I love you, Barbie," he murmured, his breath already slow and even.

Barbie sighed, then snuggled and they fell asleep in each other's arms.

  

  

  

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