To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna

Chapter 9 — Ruby Roundhouse

 By Christopher Leeson 

As soon as Donna got back to her room, she checked her phone. There was a message from Glory.

Costume fitting. My place, 5:00. Don’t eat dinner; there will be party food. Bring nothing. I have everything. Don’t worry about a costume, I’ll handle it. I’ll take you home at eleven.

Donna read it twice. She had known it was Halloween, the way you know about taxes: as a fact on a calendar. She had said yes to the party on Wednesday, in the hallway between classes, when Glory asked if she was coming and Donna’s mouth answered before the rest of her was consulted. She hadn’t been looking forward to any sort of crowd activity, but she had given her word, and she didn’t want Glory thinking her word was worth nothing.

Nonetheless, she had been worrying for three days about what sort of outfit Glory would find for her.

She typed okay and closed the phone.

She put the Victoria’s Secret bag on the shelf in her closet and changed out of her downtown clothes into her dungarees and a hoodie. Elisa wasn’t home yet, so she wrote a note, Going to a Halloween party at Glory’s. Back by 11:30, and left it on the kitchen table. Then she went out to the stop and took the bus to Glory’s neighborhood.

#

Glory’s house smelled of cinnamon and warm wax. Her parents, she said, were “at a thing,” as they generally were, and the thing was never specified. Glory was practically a latchkey kid. Donna wondered whether that bothered her, then shrugged it off. At least Glory had parents somewhere. That was more than Donna had.

Orange lights were strung along the porch rail, and a bowl of full-size candy bars sat on the hall table beside a card in Glory’s neat handwriting: Take one. Take two and face the consequences.

The costume lay across Glory’s bed like a patient waiting for surgery. It was hard to make sense of at first: boots, a belt, wrist wraps, a cropped top, and shorts. One thing she was sure of was that there wasn't enough of it to cover very much.

Glory came in from the hall.

“Whose costume is this?” Donna asked.

“Yours.”

“I was afraid of that. Is it Tomb Raider?”

“Close. It’s Ruby Roundhouse.”

“That’s no better. Crop tops and short shorts aren't my style! I’ll be gawked at all night.”

“Ruby is an outfit for a character who kicks people through walls,” Glory said. “Nobody pushes her around. She’s the best fighter on her team, and everybody learns to respect her.” She held up one of the boots. “You’re a kind of tomboy. Ruby’s the perfect role for you to play. And by the way, I have a holster and gun for you, too, if you want it. In the movies, Ruby doesn’t use a gun, but I'd bet she'd carry one if she needed to.”

“Yeah, I'll take it. I like the idea of packing. 

Donna contemplated her friend's dark gray robes lined with green and silver. A platinum wig slicked back from her face. A wooden-looking wand, and a tie in gray and green knotted with the precision of a professional strangler. "What's that outfit you're wearing?”

“Draconia Malfoy. She’s a Harry Potter sorceress. I especially like the Platinum wig. It’ll be fun being a blonde for once.”

“Fun isn’t the word I’d use for being blonde.”

“Then you’ll appreciate Ruby's auburn wig. Hurry up. It’s close to 7:00. People will start arriving soon.”

With Glory’s help, Donna brought the pieces together and started squeezing into them. There the costume was sparse, the top, the shorts, and the boots were all tight fits. And the accessories, mostly straps and buckles, took two people to figure out.

The wig went on last. Long and glossy, it had a weight and swing her own hair didn't. Glory adjusted it slightly, then stepped aside so Donna could face the full-length mirror.

A stranger looked back at her.

It wasn’t Langdon, and it wasn’t Donna. She had Donna’s face, but the girl looking out at her looked tough, in spite of being lightly built and pretty. 

“This is crazy. It shows off too much skin!”

"Your skin is beautiful."

“And the wig is itchy.”

“Wigs always itch at first. It’ll stop soon,” said Glory. "One more thing,” she added. “There’s dancing tonight. If a boy asks you, you should be ready.”

“Me dancing with boys? I don't know how!”

“Anybody can do a simple dance. A slow song plays, somebody leads, you follow.”

“I’d feel silly.”

“You’ll feel sillier if the whole room finds out you don’t know the first thing about dancing. Come on. Be a sport.”

The dance lesson took ten minutes. Glory gave each step a number, counted under her breath, and steered Donna across the rug. By the end, her feet had more or less understood what they were supposed to do.

Glory led her downstairs, where a good many guests had already arrived and filled the living room with a treasure chest of Halloween identities. Mia was Wonder Woman, with a tiara and a lasso of gold rope. Kaylee was a vampire whose cape kept catching on furniture. A Mantra attracting a lot of attention. There was also a pair of Mario Brothers, a girl in a flapper dress, and a boy in a gorilla suit. Mike and Jake had shown up and were setting up their equipment at one end of the room. They wore matching skeleton shirts.

“What do you think when you look out over the room?” Glory asked.

Donna shrugged. “It’s an ill-assorted pack. Cowboys and Martians drinking together.”

“Most people have forgotten what a Halloween party really is.”

“Besides foolery?”

“Don’t you see? We’re dressed as people from many times and places. We represent centuries of ghosts who have all been raised from the grave by the dark magic of Halloween to revel together.”

“Is that important to know?”

“Some people just enjoy knowing things.”

“Those are the people they call nerds.”

“As you say. But I’m the hostess, and I have a duty to greet people and tell them what to expect. I'll be back soon.”

Glory stepped away, and Donna stood alone. Being isolated in a crowd made her uncomfortable, so she drifted along the wall, wanting to avoid notice. Judging from their size and the sound of their voices, most of the kids around her were juniors and seniors. Donna was enrolled as a junior, though Langdon had been eighteen and a senior. But she looked young for her age, and so Elisa had claimed she was a year younger than she was. Donna hadn’t liked the idea, but preparing for graduation would have been a hassle with so many other problems on her mind. And, besides, she had no plans and nowhere else she wanted to be, so she hadn’t fought against the idea.

Abruptly, Kaylee and Mia caught up with her.

“Oh my gosh,” Kaylee said, circling. “The boots. Those look like the real thing. You're awfully cute, miss.”

“Who are you under your disguise?” Mia asked.

“Donna,” Donna said reluctantly, which earned her delighted shrieks.

“Coming as Ruby Roundhouse is so imaginative,” Kaylee said.

By then, the living room had warmed with the body heat of the crowd, and the air was thick with pizza grease, candy sugar, and cinnamon-candle smoke. Melted wax hung in it too, and candy wrappers rustled every time anyone reached into the bowl.

When the band’s amp began to crackle, Mike swore and the music stopped. Donna looked across the room and saw a slight, dark-haired boy in a gray jumpsuit with a proton pack strapped to his back. He knelt beside the amp and started working on it with a screwdriver. Within a minute, the crackle was gone. Mike nodded approvingly and muttered his thanks.

The ghost-buster was Neil Kowalski from Auto Class.

“I didn’t think Neil was the party type,” Donna whispered to Glory, who had materialized at her shoulder.

“I invited almost everybody from auto shop. Lucky for the amp that I did.” Glory eyed her companion's face closely. “Are you getting along all right? Pretty soon, the party fun will start and you’ll feel more involved. But a hostess’s work is never done. I have go back to the pizza in the microwave.”

At Glory's retreat, Donna scanned and crowd and picked out Neil again. He glanced her way but gave no sign of recognition. She gave a sigh. It was a relief to wear a disguise in public. It also felt a little funny to be walking among acquaintances and yet be regarded as a stranger.

When Glory came back from the kitchen, she clapped her hands and announced the first party game: a mummy-wrapping race. There would be teams of four and one member would be wrapped from head to toe in toilet paper while the other three carried out the operation while racing the clock. Donna was drafted onto a group with Kaylee, Priya, and the gorilla. At the outset, she intended to hang back and watch the gorilla and Kaylee to all the work of wrapping Priya, but her team started out in such hapless confusion that it made something old and fierce stirred in her chest.

“Not like that,” she heard herself shout. “Spiral it! You have to wrap in a spiral!”

She dropped to carpet on her knees and yelled instructions as if someone had elected her captain. Her boots were pinching every time she shifted her weight, while he head movements made the wig slide toward one ear or the other. She ignored the white paper dust floating in the lamplight and tickling her nose while she redid the manner of rapping, tearing it the perforations wherever necessary.

The team's effort beat the clock by six seconds. Kaylee ran up lifted Donna to her feet in a hug. The mummy-wrapped Priya exclaimed, "We did it!" The gorilla, silent to the end, held up a paw for a high five. Donna was breathing hard, laughing. She straightened her wig crooked, and drew her toy gun, shouting, “Yahoo! We’re the best!”

The doorbell rang at half past eight.

A ragged chorus outside chanted “Trick or treat!” from the porch, and Glory glided to the door. A gust of cold October air rolled in, smelling of dead leaves and wood smoke. The draft made the candle flames lean and flicker. Draconia’s wand lifted. “I hereby summon the demonic horde from the outer darkness!” she announced to the room.

A dozen senior high boys now piled in off the porch wearing many different costumes, all clutching pillowcases, and all trying to look as though they weren’t too old for this kid play. Under the orange lights, Donna picked out a hockey-masked psycho killer, a pirate with a patched eye, a Frankenstein’s monster with a foam forehead, and someone was wearing a Hulk mask pushed up to the top of his head.

“Trick or treat!” the pirate called out.

“Treats have to be earned,” Glory proclaimed in a drawl that hummed with authority. “Give us a trick, or become judges in the costume contest. Preferably both. But don’t do anything that damages my folks' property.”

There was a mixed reaction, and then the newcomers started performing tricks. A monster juggled three oranges and dropped two. The pirate sang "Blow the Man Down" badly and was cheered for his courage. The visitors were spreading through the room, a little rambunctious, a little loud, while the the other guests rearranged themselves around them.

Donna drew her share of attention. Most of it was expressed as admiration for her costume. But some of the boys were from her auto-shop class, which made her more uncomfortable to be seen this way. “Where did you find boots like that?” asked one. “The wrist wraps are perfect,” said another.

When boy in the hockey mask pointed his phone at her, Glory waved her wand in front of the lens. “House rule. No photographs of the guests without permission,” she said in so smooth a way that the boy apologized.

But Donna wasn't used to be admired for her physical appearance and she didn't know how to deal with it. Her arms crossed over the wrist wraps, then uncrossed in nervousness. Under the warm wig, her scalp had gone damp. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, almost loud enough to be overheard. She looked down at her boots, which kept pinching her toes.

But nobody got too far out of line. It was the volume of it that put her out of sorts, all those faces turned her way. She was getting looks like she had never gotten from boys before.

Donna straightened her wig again, excused herself, and retreated through the crowd. She came out near the front door just as the last of the trick-or-treaters were coming in. One of them caught her eye. He was worth a second look. The room got a little quieter around him.
 

The tall fellow wasn't carrying a pillowcase for candy. He wore a sharply-tailored black tuxedo with a white shirt, a bow tie, and a Union Jack pocket square folded to a point. His hair was immaculately combed. He seemed to be in command of the spot he occupied, straightening his cuffs and surveying the room. He said in a theatrical British accent, “I’m usually called Tanner. Tanner Brooks. But tonight I go under the name of James Bond.”

Someone snickered. “Hello, Mr. Bond. Did you bring your license tonight?”

The snicker set everyone nearby laughing. Tanner laughed along with it, head thrown back, perfectly delighted with himself.

Donna watched his mannerisms. He could be laughed at without wanting to throw punches. He just seemed to join in the fun.

This Tanner guy was handsome, she thought.
 

Then she blinked in startlement. Had she really thought that? Langdon had always been able to tell a good-looking guy from an ugly one, but he had been indifferent to male attractiveness. The sensation that was brushing Donna like butterfly wings had a warm edge to it. It conveyed a sense of wanting. Incongruously, it was like the feeling Langdon got when looking at a girl who was dressed to be sexy hot.

Donna didn’t like thinking that way in these circumstances. She tried to force it out of her mind.

“Dancing!” Glory shouted across the room. At her signal, the band boys swung into something slow and spooky, like they might play in the Adam's Family home. “Rules are simple!" explained Glory. "Boys choose. Any girl, one song. Girls may decline, if they don’t mind being outed as bad sports.”

The room sorted itself. Mia was offered a hand by the Frankenstein’s monster. Kaylee was claimed by the pirate. Donna pressed her back to the wall, hoping to be overlooked, but no one who had seen her Ruby Roundhouse outfit was likely to forget she was there.

“Excuse me,” someone said to her.

It was the Ghostbuster. Neil. He come up in front of her with his hands in the pockets of his jumpsuit, displaying a look of terrified determination. Kowalski had always struck Donna as one of the shy boys, but tonight he’d found enough nerve to cross the floor. Maybe his costume had enabled him.

“Would you like to dance?" he said. "I’m Neil.”

Her classmate still had no idea who she was. Dancing with a boy sounded crazy, but she didn’t want to be rude. She remembered how he’d helped her in auto shop. Before she had made any solid decision, she heard herself saying yes.

The boy took her acceptance with surprise, but only paused a moment before taking her hand. He led her out among the other dancers. But when it came down to the footwork, she realized he didn’t really know how to begin a dance. To help him out, Donna took his hand and put her left hand on his waist. Then she started counting in a whisper, one-two-three. They were awkward at first, but in about thirty seconds the couple was moving through a box step like the one Glory had taught Donna to do. Along the way, Neil stumbled, at which point she said in a low, impatient voice, “Left, Kowalski. Your other left.”

He froze.

“That voice,” he said. “Are you Donna?”

“Is that important?”

“Maybe not. But I’m glad to pair with someone I know.” He looked her over from wig to boots. “You’re taller now.”

“It’s the boot heels.”

They kept dancing, a little less tense than before, until the music stopped. Then they walked to the treat tables together.

“Your wrist wraps are really accurate,” he said.

“You must have seen the movie.”

“I’ve got the DVDs of both films. I liked your character so much that I couldn’t resist asking for a dance from Ruby Roundhouse.”

“That’s nice,” Donna said, unable to think of anything better.

The band struck up a different tune.

“Too bad the rules don’t allow two dances in a row,” he said.

Donna didn’t think that two dances would be a good idea. It might make things awkward the next time she and Neil shared the same class.

“I’ll see you in school,” she said.

“Right,” he said, drawing off.

Now Donna sensed the proximity of someone else.

“May I?” a male voice asked.

She looked back. Tanner was there with one hand extended, palm up. His smile was unhurried. She noticed how the Union Jack in his pocket caught the light.

Donna felt awkward. She had known Neil Kowalski was a good guy before they danced. but she didn’t know this bargain-basement James Bond, as good-looking as he was. But the chemistry around him was like a witch's brew. For no earthly reason she could name, she heard herself say, “Sure.”
Tanner's hand took her wrist and guided her back to the dance floor.

She quickly grasped that Tanner was the man in charge, and that he also knew how to dance. By following him, she her own dancing became easy, too. His motions told her feet what to do. She no longer needed to count. She didn’t have to steer. She just went where he guided her, and his guiding was so smooth that her feet instinctively knew what do to.

“Who are you supposed to be?” he asked.

“Ruby Roundhouse. Jumanji.”

“Ruby Roundhouse,” Tanner said, in the Bond voice. “Isn't that the jungle girl who fights with her feet”

“Jungle explorer,” Donna corrected him. “She only fights when provoked.”

He laughed. “I’ll have to be careful not to provoke you.” His easy laughter resonated somewhere deep in her chest.

When the song ended, Tanner walked her back to the tables. Instead of begging off and leaving, she stayed to listen while he talked, mostly about himself: his father’s boat, and his summer trip to London. He also talked about the Bond movies, saying that the whole franchise went to hell after Daniel Craig left the role. But Donna's attention was on her companion's long eyelashes, not the Bond actor. Over Tanner's shoulder, she saw Kaylee watching them, her eyebrows climbing halfway up her forehead.

Donna felt a stirring inside of herself. It was very like what Langdon would feel upon winning a fight, or accepting a dare.

Tanner never bothered asking her name, but persistently called her Ruby. In the strangeness of the moment, Donna thought it would be a mistake to correct him.

After the song ended, he bowed with a flourish. “Maybe later, again, Ruby?”

“Maybe,” Donna whispered, rules be damned.

He strolled away, but she stood where she was, trying to put a harness on the sensations still tingling inside herself..

#

A little before ten, Glory tapped her wand against the candy bowl and announced that trick-or-treat period of the party was over. The drop-in boys groaned and started to claim their. Then they filed outside in a chattering stream. Tanner was last to make his exit, saying good night to everyone in general, and letting the door closed behind him with a click.

Donna’s glance lingered on the door a moment longer than it needed to.

The official guests stayed however. Glory brought out a boombox, saying she had something suitably spooky to play. She pressed the “on” button and a narrator’s voice came thin and dry. The story was a version of "The Monkey's Paw," a story about an elderly couple, a withered paw, and three dark magic wishes that exacted a terrible price.

Donna listened with half an ear. Mostly she eavesdropped on the whispering going on at her left.

“Did you see who Tanner was with?” asked a girl.

“He danced with Ruby. What's with her tonight? She's a totally different person at school.”

“Tanner zeros in on a different girl at each party," spoke up Kaylee. "At he homecoming, it was Jenna.”

“And it was Amber on Columbus Day," added another. "He was all over her that night, but hasn’t looked at her once since then.”

“Tanner’s the stud type,” one of the boys volunteered. "Girls should stay away from him!"

But the girls weren't listening. “When he was dancing with me,” Mia said, “he kept looking back at Ruby. It made me want to stomp his feet! I was Wonder Woman. What kind of girl does he want? I was showing off more skin than almost anybody else in the house!”

Donna overheard that smugly. But she didn't want to think about Tanner. Instead, she tried concentrating on the audiobook. By now, the story had reached the part where the old man makes his first wish. At this point, the narrator’s voice dropped lower. The listener knew something bad was going to happen. As the story rolled out, the moral was clear. Unwise wishes will make a person's life worse, not better.

#

Glory drove Donna home a little before eleven. Both of them remained in costume. As with the chemise, Glory was letting Donna keep the outfit she’d been given. “I think you should take a little of Ruby Roundhouse home with you,” she had said. “She’s a good role model.”

Donna, being distracted, didn’t ask why she should need a role model.

The streets they passed were quiet and empty, many of the lighted ghosts and witches on people’s lawns already having been switched off against a backdrop of bare maple trees.

“Do you know the boy in the tuxedo?” Donna asked, trying to keep her tense sounding voice natural.

Glory maintained her eyes on the road. “Tanner Brooks? He’s a senior. His father owns half the car dealerships in town. Popular. Slick. Very good hair, don’t you think?”

“What’s he like?”

“Mostly, he likes pretty girls.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Why are you interested? Did you like him?”

“What if I did?”

“I don’t know. They say he goes with a lot of different girls. He even goes over to other schools to find new girls.”

Donna had nothing to say about that, and they drove the next couple of blocks in silence.

The living room light was on when Donna’s house soon came into view. Glory parked at the curb to let her out. “Bye,” she said before driving off.

#

Inside the house, Elisa was sitting on the couch with a book, reading glasses perched on her nose. Donna lingered in the foyer, wig still on, in full Ruby regalia. She wondered if Elisa would finally scold her for coming home looking so incredibly girlie and sexy. Anyone who heard the doctor's warning should know that her stepchild had been carrying on in a way that could ruin the rest of her life.

Elisa looked up and blinked. But she said only," Did you have fun?”

“It was a costume party.”

Elisa’s eyes explored the outfit with what seemed like real intensity. “I can see that. What kind of costume is that? Are you a rock climber?”

"I'm Ruby Roundhouse, the jungle explorer."

“All I can say is that your boots are wonderful," added Elisa. "Did you win the costume prize?”

“No. The Mantra won. Not even Wonder Woman could compete with a costume like hers. But my team won the mummy-wrapping contest.”

“Sounds good. Congratulations.”

“I’m going to bed,” Donna said.

“Goodnight, then,” replied Elisa, returning to her book.

Donna climb upstairs was a heavy tread. She felt dejected. She might as well give up on her experiment. If a costume this hot didn’t jar a reaction out of her guardian, nothing would. Elisa wasn't taking her role as a stepmother seriously? She was simply not going to stand up. She was not going to lay down the law. Probably nothing Donna could do, short of setting the house on fire, could get a rise out of her.

Once again, it felt like she was living in this house alone.

If that's how it is, fine, she thought. If nobody cares what happens to me, I just have to accept that I’m on my own. If I make a mistake, it’s nobody’s business but my own. No one in the world is going to shed a tear over me.

Donna paused in front of her bedroom mirror and couldn't resist its draw. She took another look at herself in costume. Wow! What a girl! she thought. She straightened the auburn wig and looked at those uncomfortable but eye-catching boots. Her ultra-tight hot pants were incredible! She shifted right while shifting her eyes to continue her visual feast. Then she shifted to see herself from the other side.

Standing there, looking, made Donna feel a kind of detachment. It dawned on her that she was seeing herself as a boy would see her.

As plenty of boys had seen her this night.

At first, she had been totally embarrassed. But the more attention she had received, the better she had felt. It seemed like the big shift had come when she was dancing with Tanner. Afterwards, the embarrassment became mixed with thrills. A strange chemistry had overtaken her tonight, and a weird feeling of satisfaction still lingered.

But she only understood one thing.

She had started to enjoy being looked at.

Being gawked at was still a little frightening, but it had also been like she was basking in a new light. She couldn't help thinking of a roller coaster. The ride was meant to be frightening, but it was a kind of fear that a person goes looking for. Such fear was the payoff that made the ride worth taking.

When one is on the roller coaster, he dearly wants off.

But when got off the roller coast, he soon wanted to go back again.

But what still bothered her was that most of her admirers had been boys. But somehow the fact that they were boys only added to the thrill. Why should that be?

Donna yawned and started to take off her costume, wig first, then the boots, the arm wraps, the accessories, the hot pants, and the top. Once she stood as nude as a centerfold, she pulled on her regular nightwear--the light jogging pants and t-shirt. Another glance at the mirror told her that Ruby Roundhouse was now looking damned dowdy. She didn't think she could draw many glances now.

Donna started thinking ahead to Monday, two days off. There was no longer any point in dressing to provoke Elisa. Elisa didn’t care about anything.

Damn but she was tired of nobody caring.

What did people want from a person?

How did people who were love become loved?

With a sigh, Donna took the earbuds out of their little box, and pushed them into her ears. Then she snapped off the lamp on the stand beside her bed. She needed to get the doctor's spiel again. The party had done something to mess with her mind and she was anxious to reinforce the Langdon side of her nature again.

The recording began its usual lecture about broad shoulders, a deep voice, and leaving girlhood behind.

Underneath the tracks of the CD, however, she was being brought along by life lessons she couldn’t audibly hear. Resonating in her skull was a quieter voice telling her comforting things. It spoke of enjoying the social system at school, of fitting in, of studying hard, of the pleasure of being admired by a crowd, and of how nice it was to be popular. And the sleep-teaching also reminded her how an attractive boy should send a shiver down her spine. The secret voice whispered all of these things into her mind patiently, confidently, and constantly.

Donna soon fell asleep.
 

The night’s lesson went on uninterrupted until the morning alarm clock rang.

 

 

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 10

To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna, Chapter 6, by Christopher Leeson

 To the Manna Born: The Life of Donn, Chapter 6 — The Pajama Party

By Christopher Leeson 

It was Saturday evening, and Donna finally switched her mind over to the pajama party at Kaylee’s house. Glory had told her to wear whatever she wanted, which didn’t exactly help. So she picked the most presentable pajamas she owned — a navy flannel pullover, long‑sleeved and loose, paired with non‑matching flannel pants held up by an elastic waistband. Peak casual. When it was time to head for the bus stop, she put the pajamas on, layered an oversized sweater and jeans over them, and topped everything with her hoodie. Parties were supposed to be fun, and stressing over fashion was the opposite of fun.

Kaylee’s house was a ten‑minute walk from the bus stop. It was lit up like a festival when she arrived, music thumping loud enough to feel in the driveway, and the warm smell of baked goods drifting from somewhere inside. Glory opened the door before Donna could knock — clearly she’d been watching for her — and pulled her inside by the wrist.

“You made it,” Glory said, wearing the smile she saved for moments when life was cooperating.
“Why the surprise? You said seven‑thirty,” Donna said. “It’s seven‑thirty.”

“Come in. Everyone’s been asking about you. And don’t worry about the bus — I’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks,” Donna said.

The living room was just past the foyer. It had been rearranged for maximum comfort: furniture pushed to the walls, the center transformed into a landscape of floor pillows, sleeping bags, and blankets. Six girls lounged across the terrain, all dressed like they’d raided a boutique. Jewel‑tone silk camisoles. Lace‑trimmed briefs. Satin sets in colors from ivory to deep burgundy. Six girls being pretty for one another, when half of them barely bothered to be pretty for boys. Being technically a girl herself didn’t help Donna understand the female mind.

She took one look and understood two things at once: she was in exactly the right place, and she was wearing exactly the wrong thing.

Kaylee spotted her from across the room and headed over with the urgency of a hostess who’s just seen a spill. She wore ivory satin shortie pajamas that Langdon would’ve found very interesting. She swept Donna into a hug.

“Go get changed for the party,” she said, nodding toward the nearest bedroom. “Pajamas on, street clothes off. When you come back, there’ll be popcorn and soda.”

Donna went to the bedroom, peeled off her hoodie, sweater, and jeans, and swapped her clogs for the bedroom slippers she’d brought. Now fully in pajamas, she checked herself in the long mirror and wrinkled her nose. Compared to the others, her navy flannel was going to be ground zero for jokes. She braced herself. Girls were girls, and at least there’d be free popcorn.

When she reentered the living room, one girl looked her over and said, with cheerful bluntness, “Whoa. Those pajamas are… vintage horror‑movie chic.”

General laughter, warm and harmless.

“This is what I wear to bed,” Donna said. “Don’t tell me you girls actually sleep in those outfits.”

“No,” said a girl. “My real PJs are way less prudish than these.”

“Well, sorry, but these are the best pajamas I had.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Glory said. “I brought you a rescue kit.” She crossed to an armchair where a cloth shopping bag waited. “When you told me you didn’t have good nightwear, I came prepared.”

From the bag, Glory pulled out a pale lavender satin camisole — tiny, with delicate lace at the neckline, unmistakably in the style the other girls were wearing.

“There has to be more to it than that,” Donna said.

“There is.” Glory produced a matching lavender satin thong, small enough to look like a slingshot.
“You expect me to wear that,” Donna said.

“Oh, yes,” Glory said.

“Not on your life!”

But Kaylee grabbed one of her hands, Glory grabbed the other, and they started towing her toward the bedroom. The other girls followed like a crowd eager to witness a spectacle. They swept her inside with tidal momentum, and everything happened so fast Donna barely tracked it. Her flannel was off in thirty seconds. She ended up lying on the bed’s discarded clothes while Glory slid the thong over her feet, and the others pulled the camisole over her head amid laughter.

They stepped back to admire their work. Donna felt dizzy from the speed of it all. The satin hit her skin with a cool, shivery shock that made goosebumps jump up her arms. The girls gave her no time to think — they hauled her upright and turned her toward the full‑length mirror.

She looked like something out of a magazine. The bewildered expression on her face wasn’t helping the overall effect.

“Hilarious,” she said. “But I want to go back into my own clothes now.”

“Why?” Kaylee asked.

“Because I’m cold.”

“You’re not cold. The thermostat says seventy‑five. The heat’s been on for hours.” Kaylee steered her toward the door. “Don’t rush. We’re not even close to done yet.”

“What do you mean you’re not done—?”

They brought out a push‑up bra and fitted her into it. When she saw her reflection again, she saw that she was displaying the same dramatic cleavage that she’d been admiring on real girls for her whole life. Then they marched her to Kaylee’s room, where a vanity mirror stood in the corner like a throne. Two girls in tiny satin sets flanked her like guards and eased her into the chair before she fully understood what was happening.

She considered resisting — a real, physical “stop this” — but she wasn’t afraid of them, and picking a fight would only make her look ridiculous. Her most dignified option was to sit still and endure the chaos with composure.

Makeup descended on her in a flurry of swabs and brushes. It was lighter than the stage makeup she’d worn before — this was a party, not a rock‑festival audition. Concealer came first. Then rose eyeshadow, which did something startling to her blue eyes. Mascara followed, then lip gloss.

By the time Donna was unrecognizable, Mia appeared holding a perfume vial and a cotton swab, wearing the expression of a mad scientist about to test a volatile compound.

“I’m giving her Midnight Magic,” Mia announced, with the confidence of someone who believed she was creating art.

“What’s Midnight Magic?” Donna asked, eyeing the bottle like it might explode.

She found out when Mia pulled the stopper. The scent hit her instantly — a flower garden in May, strong enough to make her dizzy. Mia applied it with ritualistic seriousness, and when she stepped back, the girls formed a quiet circle, admiring the result with collective satisfaction.

“Now she’s a real pajama‑party girl,” Mia declared.

Glory nudged her shoulder. “Stand up, sweetheart.”

Donna rose, a little wobbly. They positioned her in front of the mirror and stepped back.

The girl reflected there wasn’t the stage‑face danger in the black dress. She wasn’t the hoodie‑swamped girl with messy hair. She looked like a scullion transformed by fairy‑tale magic into a barely dressed princess — soft, harmless, unfamiliar. The lavender satin, the loose hair, the rose eyeshadow all combined into something that felt less like a costume and more like a stranger she was meeting for the first time.

“That’s the new you,” Kaylee said. “Do you like her or hate her?”

Donna stared at her reflection for a long moment.

“It’s like a Halloween party,” she said finally. “I’m not supposed to look like myself. I guess it’ll be okay for one night.”

The girls cheered — high‑pitched, triumphant, delighted. It was a victory for them, and in its own way, for her too. The evening’s activities began in earnest.

What followed was nothing like the keggers Langdon had gone to with the guys.

There was food — Kaylee’s mother had no desire to be surrounded by teenagers, but she’d stocked the kitchen generously before disappearing for the night. The pizza still held a trace of warmth. Brownies vanished at a rate that suggested either more than eight girls were present or the treats were evaporating. Popcorn bowls were attacked to counteract the sugar overload.

A beach‑party movie played on the TV — hunky guys, bikini girls — but nobody was watching. It was just background noise. The real activity was talking. The girls all knew each other well, and Donna, being the least familiar, became the focus of their curiosity. She had to invent a lot of quick fibs, which left her confused and occasionally contradicting herself.

Eventually the conversation drifted to normal topics: school, the junior class trip, a disagreement about destinations, and a situation involving two sophomores Donna didn’t know but pretended to follow.

Then someone spotted movement outside.

“The boys are on the lawn,” a girl near the window announced, sounding like she’d just seen a UFO.

The room’s energy reorganized instantly. All the girls except Donna began re‑grooming themselves — straightening straps, fluffing hair, adjusting satin.

“I thought this was a girls’ party,” Donna said.

“The best girls’ parties are the ones with boys invited,” Mia said. “Pajamas like these were invented for the male gaze. If boys don’t see us, the night’s wasted.”

Donna frowned. “I thought girls didn’t like the male gaze.”

Dotty replied, “Please. The male gaze is only annoying when the guys are crusty. Cute guys get a pass.”

The door opened, and several boys stepped in with the self‑conscious energy of people unsure of the rules. Donna recognized a few — a senior with famously broad shoulders, a chemistry‑class boy who had recently discovered parties and was embracing them with gusto.

One boy drifted toward her. He tried small talk, but his eyes stayed glued to her cleavage. She felt like punching him. She still hadn’t learned to tolerate the hungry‑eyed attention boys always sent her way.

He glanced at Kaylee. “Who’s this?”

“Donna Ellis. She’s new.”

He turned his gaze back to Donna. “I’ve never seen you around.”

“I know we’ve both seen each other,” Donna said. “You just never saw me dressed like this.”

“I’m sure you’d stand out no matter what you were wearing,” he said, grinning like he thought he was charming.

Donna felt tempted to tell him she was the hoodie girl nobody liked, but that would only drag the conversation out — and she wanted it over.

“Can I get you something?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said. "I've been stuffing myself for over an hour, and now I don't feel great." She excused herself to the bathroom. When she came back, the talkative boy was already crowding up to someone else.

She’s welcome to him, Donna thought.

“Having fun?” Mia asked, appearing at her elbow.

“Yeah,” Donna said. How could she not enjoy being surrounded by pretty girls in sparce lingerie? But that was not a thought she intended to share.

“So… anybody here you’re low‑key into?” Mia asked.

“I’m still finding my feet,” Donna said, which was true in more ways than Mia knew.

“That’s what everyone says,” Kaylee said, overhearing, “right before they go totally gaga over somebody.”

Laughter rippled through the group. Donna smiled — and realized the smile was genuine.

The boys were sent home a little before ten, ushered out with friendly firmness. Curfew was approaching. The girls cleaned the house with the efficiency of people who had done this many times before, and the party dissolved back into its components — pizza boxes folded, popcorn bowls emptied, the living room restored to something a parent could walk into without panicking.

Then Kaylee produced a nail‑polish rack with about fourteen colors and announced that it was “closing ritual time.” Everyone had to pick a different shade and wear it home. The painting session lasted fifteen minutes. Mia grabbed burgundy. Priya did her nails in silver. Glory settled beside Donna on the couch with a bottle of soft pink.

“I think pink is totally your color,” she said.

Donna eyed the bottle. “I’m not sure about that.”

“It comes off.”

“I know it comes off.”

“So?”

Donna extended her left hand. Glory worked with her usual careful precision, and Donna sat still, watching the pink go on. It felt strangely intimate — something she’d never imagined doing becoming, stroke by stroke, simply something she was doing.

By the time her right hand was finished, she’d lost her aversion to the experiment.

When it was time to go, Donna offered to give the lavender pajamas back to Glory.

Glory shook her head. “Like I said, lavender isn’t my color. And you need a pair of party pajamas of your own. Keep it — it’s a gift. For being my best friend.”

Donna blinked. Best friend? Did she have a best friend? She turned the unfamiliar words over in her mind, dazed.

“Thanks,” she said — insufficient, but all she had.

She put her street clothes on over the lavender satin, stuffed her flannel pajamas into her bag, and followed Glory out to the car. The night air was cold, the streets quiet. She sat in the passenger seat with pink nails and a tiny lavender nightie hidden under her clothes.

“Did you have a good time?” Glory asked.

“Yeah,” Donna said. “The worst part was all those boys coming in and seeing me in that scimpy camisole. But nobody recognized me, so it wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been.”

“What if they did recognize you? Are you afraid someone might ask you out?”

“I think the whole relationship thing between guys and girls is so messed up in this county that I want nothing to do with it.”

“I guess that's why the marriage rate is super low.”

“Seems logical.”

Glory smiled at the road. “At school you keep yourself at a distance. People don’t know what to make of you. But tonight the person you actually are came out, and everyone liked her just fine.”

“I don’t think anyone particularly likes me.”

“You act shocked every time someone likes you. It’s kinda your thing,” Glory said. “You shouldn’t be. If you do things right, you might beat the odds and get married in a few years.”

“That’ll be the day,” Donna said.

She looked out the window, not wanting to think past becoming a boy again next summer.

Glory pulled up to the curb. “Sweet dreams.”

“Thanks for the ride.”

Donna got out and watched the taillights of Glory’s Ford disappear before going inside. The house was dark and quiet. Elisa wasn’t supposed to be back until the next day. Donna went up to her room and undressed — but when she reached the lavender camisole, she left it on.

With a strange expression, she went to the mirror.

Her makeup wasn’t badly smeared. Her hair had mostly held. She looked at the girl in the mirror — pink nails, lavender satin, rose eyeshadow softened by hours of wear — and thought about being someone’s best friend, whatever that meant.

She was thinking about leaving the pajamas on and sleeping in them. What would it feel like to sleep in a girl's nightie? She thought they'd be comfortable. On the other hand, she thought she should should probably wash off the makeup, so her pillow wouldn't get smeared.

But Donna wasn’t feeling well. And this time her need to go to the bathroom wasn't a false excuse.

Since the house was empty, she didn’t bother with a robe. It felt strange--and somewhat thrilling--to walk the hall clad like a hot girl. But she had to hurry; her water wanted to come frantically. She fast‑walked into the bathroom and closed the door.

When she sat down and let things go, she saw the red flow. The shock of it forced out of her a sound somewhere between a gasp and a yell.

Internal bleeding! She needed an ambulance. She needed—

She leaped up and ran into the hall. Donna made for the phone stand against the wall, and grabbed for the receiver. She fumbled and, in her dive to catch it, knocked the whole stand sideways. It hit the carpet with a crash, the phone’s internal bell ringing loudly.

She dropped to her knees, trying to right the stand, when she heard a door open behind her.

Elisa’s bedroom door was open. Elisa stood in the hallway, wrapped in her robe, staring with her eyes wide.

There was Donna on her knees, her golden hair half-up and half-spilling-down, wearing a lavender satin camisole and nothing else. She had on rose eyeshadow, pink nails, and lip gloss. In her hands was the phone stand with the phone on the floor.

The two of them looked at each other.

"I heard a crash," Elisa said.

"I knocked over the phone." Donna's voice came out higher than she intended. "I was trying to call an ambulance."

"An ambulance? Are you hurt?"

"There's blood. I went to the bathroom and blood poured out of me!"

Something changed in Elisa's expression. The startled quality left it entirely, replaced by something much quieter and more specific.

"Ah," Elisa said with no tone of alarm.

"I need an ambulance," Donna repeated.

"You don't need an ambulance," Elisa said gently. "Come back to the bathroom. I'll explain what's wrong with you."

#

Elisa found her own pack of sanitary napkins under the sink, showed them to Donna, and explained the situation with calm efficiency. You saw me buy this product for you at the store. I told you to read internet printout I gave you about what to do with them. Did you?"

“No! There was too much gross stuff in it. And there were more important things to do.”

Elisa shook her head. “When you turned…into a girl…in such a strange way, I wasn’t sure if you’d have a normal menstrual flow. But I guess the magic has made you a hundred percent girl.”

Donna frowned.
 
"So you knew this was going to happen?" Donna accused.

"It happens to all normal, healthy women and girls. We don’t talk about it much to family, but I thought you knew more about adult life than you seem to.”

“I’m not stupid. I’ve seen your bloody napkins. I know it happens every month, and women don’t like it. But it took me by surprise.”

“That’s understandable. I’ll get you fixed up with napkins so you can keep your bedsheets clean.”

Then Elisa noticed the thong around Donna’s right ankle. “A thong? Was that what you were wearing for panties tonight? And where did you get those pajamas? Did you buy them yourself?

"No! My friend Glory gave them to me because the girls at the pajama party were laughing at the pajamas I usually wear."

“So, you went to a pajama party?”

Donna felt defensive. “Yeah. Why shouldn’t I?”

“Maybe you should explain this from the beginning.”

Donna scowled and shifted her weight back and forth on her feet as she spoke. Embarrassed to be dressed this way.

"I went to a pajama party. Kaylee Drummond's. Glory invited me. I was wearing my regular pajamas. The girls decided they weren't acceptable." She paused. "They gave me this pair of pajamas to put on.”

"Why did you agree?" Elisa said.

"They made a big deal of it, so I gave in to keep it from turning into a nagging session."

“Did they do your hair, face, and nails, too?”

"Yes. I let them do it. You know. Go along to get along. I didn't ask for any of it."

Elisa's expression remained determinedly neutral. “Tell me, while you were having so much fun, did you give any thought to what the doctor told you?”

“He wasn't talking about things like this. It's only supposed to be bad if I enjoy being a girl. I don’t like dressing this way. If I have to do something I don’t want to do, it doesn’t mean I’m enjoying doing it.”

“Isn’t going to a pajama party a very girly thing to do?”

Donna's jaw tightened. "No, it's not! I only went because it's fun being around a flock of pretty girls. Movie stars do it, so why shouldn’t I? I went because I’m a hundred percent boy. Any man would jump at the chance to hang out with a room full of pretty girls wearing skimpy pajamas. That's all it was. Don’t make this into something bigger than it is."

“If that’s the absolute truth, no harm has been done, I suppose.”

Donna stopped and stood like a statue.

Silence settled between them.

Donna had a funny expression on her face. “You’re giving me bull,” she said. “You're not saying what you actually think.”

“And what do you suppose I actually think?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, here’s what I’m seeing,” Elisa said. “You went to a party and came home in a tiny camisole, nails painted pink, eyeliner, lipstick, hair done.” Her sharp stare felt like a challenge. “If you don’t think what you've done is against the doctor’s orders, that’s your business. But if you’re wrong about it, you won’t have anyone to blame but yourself if you don't like the outcome.”

Donna felt her jaw tighten. “Here’s what I’m seeing. You don’t care if I never change back. You’re supposed to be like a parent to me. You’re supposed to remind me about the doctor’s advice — keep me working toward the reversal. If I'm really messing up and you actually cared, you’d warn me.”

“What’s the use?” Elisa said. “Ever since your father died, you haven’t listened to anything I say. If you had, you wouldn’t have been caught selling drugs. I know how you think. No matter what I tell you, you’re going to do whatever you feel like doing. You’re almost an adult now, and if you can’t think about your own well‑being, how can you expect anyone else to?”

Donna didn’t reply. Elisa thought she saw something like a sense of betrayal flicker across her stepdaughter’s face.

“If you change your ways immediately and get serious about doing what you need to do to become a boy again, there may still be time nullify your mistakes,” Elisa said. “If you need advice from me, fine. I’ll do my best to keep you  on the right track.”

Donna changed the subject entirely. "You said you'd be gone overnight."

"My client had to fly away to deal with a crisis in Minneapolis. Are you sorry I'm back early?"

"Maye I should be."

Elisa sighed. “There’s no point arguing about this at this hour. When you want to talk honestly, let me know. But right now, what matters is you learning how to use a sanitary napkin. Do you want me to show you, or do you want to look it up online? I'll get the stuff you’ll need. I’ll get it for you.”

Elisa went into her bedroom and returned with a bag of sanitary products. “Using these is simple. But they baffle you, let me know.” Then she went back to bed.

Donna stood there, holding the bag, feeling hollow.

It seemed to her that Elisa had finally let slip what she’d always suspected — that she cared very little about what Donna’s future might be. No surprise. Langdon had always assumed that. So why should Donna be surprised now. Why did it hurt so much?

What could she do about it? Was she supposed to hate Elisa for being like everyone else?

Langdon had had a mother once, and that mother had walked away to work for a corporation. She’d never checked back with the husband and son she left behind. Not even at Christmas. What was it about Langdon that not even a mother could love?

Maybe Langdon’s father had cared, but Langdon had never been sure. And the old man had died before Langdon could figure him out.

Where did that leave Langdon?

Where did that leave Donna?

Nowhere.

Langdon had never had a friend he could trust — someone who cared enough about him to show him respect, smart enough to not say stupid things that ruined everything. And Donna had never gotten out of the hole that life had dug for Langdon. Nobody cared about either of them.

Or… did Glory care? Really care? Was Glory the person she had always hoped to meet? Or would even Glory let her down eventually?

Langdon had lived two very different lives, and both of them were stuck in a miserable and lonely place.

What made people want to live anyway?

To Be Continued in Chapter 7.

To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna

Chapter 8 — Exploring Paradise

 By Christopher Leeson 

 

 
Heels became weapons of war on Thursday.

They were the ones Glory had given her along with the green dress — an inch and a half, block-heeled. She had started practicing in them in her room the night before. They were high enough to feel wrong, making her wonder how Playboy Bunnies had survived in five-inch heels. But she was determined, and by bedtime she could navigate a kitchen and a hallway without disgracing herself.

The new skirt was shorter than Wednesday's. But Donna had gone even further. She had broken down and struggled into a pair of pantyhose, which gave her legs the same finished quality she had noticed on the girls at school who'd been dressing like girls all their lives. Then she subjected her mouth to the berry lip color again, and selected a fitted blouse from the drawer — another of Glory's contributions.

Once her day's outfit was complete, Donna came downstairs carefully, the heels precarious heels requiring her full attention on the stairs.

Early as it was, Elisa was at work on the kitchen table with her laptop. She looked up, and her eyes moved from the heels to Donna's skirt to the blouse to the lip color and back to her face. For a moment — brief and unguarded — something moved in her expression that was no longer careful neutrality. Donna caught the difference and held it in her mind like an unidentified insect specimen, turning it over and trying to read it. Then her stepmother's expression faded back into mildness.

"You'll want to leave a few minutes early," Elisa advised. "The heels will slow you down."

"I hadn't thought about that," Donna said, which was true.

She ate quickly and left early. The heels slowed her down along the way to the bus, as predicted. She arrived at the stop slightly out of breath, but boarded without incident.

She dulled over her data. There had been something in Elisa's expression that she couldn't interpret, but it meant something, and a little bit of something was more than Elisa had shown her on Tuesday or Wednesday.

More escalation was still required, but she thought she was getting somewhere.

#

Donna had changed back in her hoodie and old jeans before going to first class. But the day was an uneventful one. At the closing bell, she hurried home before Elisa showed up and went upstairs. She believed that her stepmom need the shock treatment. Accordingly, she changed into the lavender chemise, with the thong underneath and her fuzzy bedroom slippers on her feet. Then she went downstairs to get something to eat. If the morning escalation had surprised her legal guardian, this evening's variant out to be even harder to ignore.

She prepared an evening snack, but before she finished it, Elisa came in through the kitchen door, both hands toting heavy valises. She blinked to see the lavender satin and Donna's bare legs under the table.

Elisa set down her bags. "Dressed for bed already?"

"I just thought this little thing makes a great lounge outfit," Donna said. "I don't know why, but I feel so darn good when I wear it."

"I see," said Elisa, sitting down. "Is there enough pasta for two?"

Donna tried to make her disappointment at her stepmother's tepid reaction invisible. "I made a double portion. Help yourself."

Elisa filled a plate and sat across from her. She didn't have much to say — and nothing at all about the chemise. Irksome! Someone comes into a kitchen to find a girl showing off her skin and has nothing special to say about it? When Elisa spoke at all, it was about unimportant things. Donna answered in short sentences and kept watching for signs of exasperation in her stepmother's face. Nothing came.

After supper, Donna went upstairs and sat on the edge of her bed.

The chemise had been the loudest bomb in her arsenal. It should have detonated something. What now?

For a moment she simply sat there, not fuming, but analyzing. She had known, in some corner of her mind, that Elisa might not react. But knowing it in advance and experiencing it were different things. Her stepmother had looked at the lavender satin like a starlet in a R-rated movie and only said, "I see," and asked about pasta. And that was it. That was all of it.

She lay back and stared at the ceiling.

Elisa must have realized that the way her daughter was carrying on was either real or not. Is she thought wasn't real, why was she so sure about that. If she thought it was on the level, why didn't she care if she was dooming herself to perpetual girlhood. Didn't she realize how bad a thing that would be? What did a person have to do to make someone in her own family care?

Was a little bit of caring asking for much? She wasn't asking to be loved or protected or championed. She was asking for a single honest reaction — for the evidence that another person had feelings about her future that went beyond mild pleasantness. Even anger would have felt like something. Even a scolding would have been proof that her stepson was more than a houseguest who needed occasional scrambled eggs.

Donna put the earbuds into her ears. If Elisa was going to be of no help, the sleep-teacher was the only ally she could turn to. Listening dejectedly to the same monotonous words yet again, she eventually put her to sleep.

#

Friday morning’s outfit was the most extreme her small wardrobe was capable of producing, assembled with the deliberate care of a spy laying out the elements of a disguise.

She had on the shortest skirt she owned. And she was wearing the heels, with more confidence now. A fresh fitted blouse. The berry lip color. And two additions she hadn't attempted before: the push-up bra she had that had been given her with the chemise. It produced a figure she barely recognized in the mirror — it made it look as thought she had stuffed a couple of rolled-up socks under her blouse — which she didn't. But, undaunted, she applied a light touch of rose eyeshadow with a fingertip, approximating Glory's technique as best she could. The result needed work. She worked at shaping it with a tissue until time ran out and she had to go to school the way she was.

But this time she stood looking at herself in the mirror longer than usual.

The honest truth was she wasn't sure the overall effect was right. She looked more like those girls who gathered at the coffee shop after school than someone in a hallway at eight in the morning. But that was the point. She needed to light Elisa's fuse, and nothing she'd tried yet had been extreme enough to do that.

Donna found Elisa downstairs making eggs.

"Scramble mine," Donna said, before she was asked.

She ate in silence while watching Elisa move around the kitchen. For the first time in this experiment she felt the anger shift direction — not entirely outward toward Elisa. It was bopping her own nose. Four days of escalation and not a single useful reaction. At what point did a failed experiment stop being Elisa's failure and start being her own? She had been so certain that the right outfit, the right provocation, would crack her stepmother open. Instead she was sitting at the kitchen table in a push-up bra at seven-thirty in the morning, feeling slightly ridiculous And she had brought it all down on herself.

Donna put down her fork and picked up her bags.

"Have a good day," Elisa said.

"Thanks," Donna replied. She fought back the impulse to ask what Elisa thought of her outfit. She the wanted truth to come out spontaneously, like a geyser, not be hand-pumped from a reluctant well. But once the bus, staring out the window while the older boys stole glances at the shape the push-up bra had given her, she found herself wondering whether she was carrying out the right experiment.

She filed this thought without acting on it and went to school.

And, like the days previous, she changed her clothing before very many people got a look at her.

The only thing that made her feel good that day was the idea she'd come up with for Saturday.

#

Since he’d turned sixteen, Elisa had been paying Langdon a twenty-dollar weekly allowance, and had continued paying Donna the same amount without discussion. Donna had spent almost none of it since the transformation. In her dismal mood, there had been almost nothing she wanted to buy.

But there was something she wanted to buy now.

On Saturday, she took the bus into downtown. She had left the house dressed  simply, wearing a snug, stretchy pair of blue pants, a white shirt, and a knee-length brown fall coat. She also wore the calf-high boots that Glory had picked up at a rummage sale. Glory must have a keen eye for sizes, because everything she had given to Donna had fit to a tee. 

Her campaign at home make Elisa show she carried was out of bullets. Her stepmom didn't care; she'd have to get used to that idea. Instead, she had decided upon this shopping trip with only a vague objective in mind.

She had often passed Victoria’s Secret before this. As with most males, it elated Langdon to see a good-looking girl wearing lingerie — which mostly happened on the movie screen. He had passed the local store regularly, with active, searching eyes. Unfortunately, teenage boys who walked into lingerie stores to get a better look at the dressed-up manikins were treated as problems. Because of that, he had developed a method for exploring hostile territory: walk slowly past the lit window, wearing sunglasses, preferably, looking out of the corners of his eyes. He had gotten good enough at this technique that it had been a long time since the staff had found it necessary to come out and ask him to move along.

But now Langdon was living the life of someone called Donna, standing at the window openly, without sunglasses, not using the corners of her eyes, but looking directly at anything she damned well wanted to look at.

Then she went in, determined to give the place the most intense eye-balling she had ever been able to give it before.

The interior was warm and lit with tented lights, smelling of something floral — air freshener, probably — an atmosphere of femininity that was so thick that it felt vaguely oppressive. She stopped short a short distance down the aisle and stood there for a moment, orienting.

A female staff member appeared — young, professional, with the efficiency of someone trained to appear friendly. “Can I help you find something?”

“Just looking,” Donna said.

And look she did.

The girl continued her exploration of the shop with the careful attention like the discoverer of a lost land, with the deliberate, unhurried ease of someone who belonged there. It passed through her mind that this wasn’t really a scam. She wasn't wearing a sham disguise. She actually did have the right and privilege to go into lingerie shops for the simple fact that she had a girl’s body — which she hoped she would not have for longer than eleven months. The confusing idea that she was a girl but not really a girl was a combination that produced a feeling she didn’t have a word to describe.

She touched things.

And, man, did they feel good!

Donna no longer had to follow a look-but-don’t-touch-rule. She picked up a camisole in a color between ivory and blush and felt the fabric between her fingers—light and cool, like her own lavender chemise. She held a lace-edged pair of hot pants shorts against herself as if to check the size. She looked at colors with genuine interest, imagining  great-looking girls wearing such garments. As she moved through the shop, of a feeling like hunger started to grow inside her.

There was something about these playful garments that spoke of fun and naughtiness. It seemed that the designers of lingerie had deliciously evil minds. But they also had shown consummate skill in their designs.

Suddenly, it was as if a barely-heard voice was whispering, “Oh, this is paradise.”

It was so much like a real voice that it made her stop and blink.

But then she passed it off as the waxing of her overwrought imagination.

She wasn’t thinking now about her frustration with Elisa. She was thinking about what she was going to try on next. She was thinking about the satin and the lace and the colors, and about the fact that she could buy things here and take them home.

That, also, seemed like paradise.

It was like she could pick the forbidden fruit and get away with it.

Donna thought back on the pajama party and how hot the girls looked in their pretty, dinky things. But honestly, those pjs were kid stuff compared to what was on display for women the age of magazine models. There were things that made her own lavender chemise look tame by comparison.

But thinking these thoughts with intensity started her quiet inner voice speaking again. Now it was saying to her that a magazine models had nothing on her. She could wear the best of these outfits and look naughty enough to deserve an array of photos.

For the first time she was glad that if she had to be a girl for a while, she didn't have to look dumpy, like most girls did. 

And another thought also became clear.

Her mirror told her that she had a good shape and a face that was better than what some film actresses had. If she put these things on, she could get a real kick just by gazing at her reflection. She could come up close enough to touch the image. She could imagine the image was warm and solft. And nobody needed to know. Nobody needed to see. The secret fun would be hers to privately enjoy. 

The trouble was the prices. Hardly anything she saw worth having was marked under fifty dollars. She couldn’t buy much without burning through her savings.

But she wanted to take something home, and so she had to select carefully. She went back to the rack where she'd seen a short night slip she’d liked. If she wore the lavender chemise it would start looking old. She wanted to treat it special, since it was a gift from Glory. It would be better to have something else to wear in its place.

Next she checked out a manikin that had on a plaid miniskirt even shorter than the shortest one she owned. A girl wearing something like that would have to walk carefully to keep her panties from showing. And, speaking of panties, there were many thong panties on display. There was something about a girl wearing a thong that thrilled her. She couldn’t help but pick up a three-pack, red, white, and blue. 

She next took two packs of hose, which were reasonably priced. From the cosmetics section, she selected a mascara kit and an eye-shadow palette with tones that would make her eyes look great. She found a bullet-shaped lipstick containing a dazzling red paint that she held up and looked at for a long moment before adding it to her selections.

Donna would have bought even more, but didn’t want to spend herself broke. After taking the slip off the rack and asking for a skirt like the manikin was wearing, she called it a day.

On the ride home, she ruminated about being so poor. That brought to mind Elisa’s standing offer — five dollars an hour for doing useful chores around the house. That was an offer that Langdon had never taken her up on because he hated manual labor; selling drugs was so much easier. Donna disliked work just as much, but couldn’t help thinking that five dollars an hour for chores might be worth considering. Maybe next month she could buy that knockout minidress the store had. It was something that would look great on a body like hers.

Who needed a friendship with privileges if she had clothes like these, a body like this, and a full-length mirror at home?

The girl carried her selections to the counter, trying not to feel self-conscious. The woman at the register received the items with professional neutrality, folded them in tissue paper, and handed the bag across the counter pleasantness. Donna accepted the bag, said thank you, and walked out.

The girl stood on the pavement outside the shop for a long moment, listening for the quiet voice she'd been hearing. It wasn’t whispering now, but she continued as a sensed presence, a warm, low note running through her unconscious—as if it were sleep-teaching her.

Donna walked to the bus stop, in happy contemplation of her purchases. Before long, she was home.

 TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 9 

To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna, Chapter 7, by Christopher Leeson

 To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna

Chapter 7 — Operation Outrageous

 By Christopher Leeson 

 

Langdon had never felt a strong affection for his stepmother Elisa. The best he could say was that there had been no particular reason to hate her. She had even served a useful function as a legal guardian — which he'd needed to keep the social service busybodies from institutionalizing him — and had done the job with the decency that public opinion and law required of her. At least she wasn't the sort of stepmother that Cinderella had. When Elisa held unwanted opinions, she generally didn't push them too hard.

But her stepmother had never found her way into Langdon’s heart, either. Up to now, he felt no injury upon realizing her lack of positive feelings. She had done the job that fate had foisted on her. She was still doing that job. But beyond the requirements of the parenting task, Elisa’s heart seemed to be elsewhere.

The impact of it surprised Donna.

The doctor had been clear: if she liked girlhood too much, if she stopped fighting the feminine situation that the magic had imposed on her, the reversal next year might not work. For that reason, she needed to hold the line. She needed, at minimum,  someone to remind her to hold that line. And Elisa, who had found her in a lavender chemise and thong and lip gloss and pink nail polish at midnight, had only said, “You look beautiful,” and gone back to bed.

No warning of danger. No reminder that Langdon’s manhood was at stake. No uncrossable line was drawn.

It sounded less like considered acceptance than a warning that Elisa's heart was out to lunch.

And the more she thought about it, the worse her misgivings grew. Elisa was doing her parenting job as decency required. But her obligations would obviously end when Donna turned twenty. After that — whether she had reverted to Langdon or was still Donna — she'd be on her own. The property Langdon owed to Langdon at his majority might or might not be paid if Langdon no longer existed. Everything seemed to depend on what kind of person Elisa really was inside. Emotionally, Elisa's investment in their relationship had always seemed minimal and, so far, showed no signs of growing.

The idea of emotional poverty hurt. It hurt more than Donna would have expected, and the unexpectedness of feeling hurt by it was its own uncomfortable data point. It wasn't that she and Elisa had ever been close. Usually, they found one another annoying. But Elisa’s presence had at least kept her from feeling totally alone. But if that buffer was illusory, then she was, in fact, totally on her own in a situation that was almost more than she could take.

Donna mulled this over for two days. Then, instead of simply writing Elisa off, she came up with a plan to give her the ailing relationship one more chance.

It would be one more chance to prove for Elisa to prove that she actually cared.

The plan had the clean logic that Langdon had always applied to problems confronting him. If ordinary girlish behavior couldn't wrest a reaction from her stepparent, she would have to escalate. Her idea was to dress and behave in ways totally opposed to the doctor’s instructions. She would do things the doctor had explicitly warned against. Her eyes and ears would then monitor Elisa's face for a response. A stepmother who cared about the outcome of her stepchild’s “mistakes” should not be able to go on speaking in detached platitudes. She would say something. Warn her. She would draw a line.

And if she did, it would mean that her heart had a living birdie in it. It would mean Donna was not entirely alone.

Donna formulated the plan over the weekend with methodical preparation. By Tuesday morning, she set out to start Operation Outrageous.

#

Donna set her alarm a little earlier for that morning. She combed out her hair and used a holder to maintain a small, upswept section, while leaving the rest loose around her shoulders, the way it naturally lay. Then she put on the blouse and knee-length skirt selected the night before, and slipped her feet into the girliest-looking shoes Elisa had bought for her so far — low-heeled, strapped, unmistakably feminine. Finally, she applied lip gloss, the way that the girls at the pajama party did.

Once she’d put herself together, Donna stepped back and looked at herself in the mirror. She had made herself look like an ordinary schoolgirl. Nothing extreme. But it surprised her to see how very different she looked from the covered-up person who had been boarding the bus for weeks.

Despite the strange impression she drew, she told her reflection that she was still in control. This was an experiment. Wearing a different outfit was not the same as accepting a female identity.

Then Donna went downstairs.

Elisa looked up from the kitchen counter where she was making breakfast. Her wide eyes moved over Donna — the blouse, the skirt, the shoes, the lip gloss — and something shifted briefly in her expression before snapping back into careful neutrality.

"This is a new look for you," she said. "Are you going to school like that?"

"Yes," Donna said, keeping her voice flat and factual. "I'm tired of that old outfit. Clothes are just clothes. What do they matter?"

Elisa looked thoughtful for a moment. Then she said mildly, "Fine. You're free to wear whatever you want. In a year from now, maybe we'll find out that clothing was never all that important."

"Fine," Donna said, her jaw tense. These were not the words of concern she had been hoping for. If she turned out to be wrong a year later, would she do more than shug and say, "I guess I was wrong"?

The girl picked up her school bag and the gym bag, prepared in advance.

"What's in the bag?" Elisa asked from the kitchen.

"Gym clothes," Donna said, and left.

 # 

The gym bag in fact contained her hoodie, jeans, and sneakers. On the school bus, several of the other kids gave her new outfit interested looks. She let them gawk while keeping her face neutral and her eyes forward. She owed none of them any explanation.

At school, she went straight to the girls’ bathroom, changed back into her usual jeans and hoodie, and wiped off the lip gloss with a paper towel. Then she went to first class sporting her usual look.

While Mr. Torres droned on about Twentieth Century fiction, Donna thought about her experiment. Its first data points were hardly satisfactory. Elisa had merely said, “Fine.” Elisa hadn’t stomped her foot or drawn a line. How could she be so cold about a subject as important as this one?

To shake her out of her complacency, escalation was required.

#

Got up even earlier Wednesday so she could don an even more provocative outfit. She wanted to look like she was going all the way girlie.

Today’s skirt was noticeably shorter than the last. Tuesday's lip gloss had been pale and hard to see. Now Donna chose to wear a deep berry lipstick, a gift from Glory, who frequently shared her rummage sale shopping with her.

Donna was new to makeup, and the results of her paint job were unimpressive. But time was short, so she decided it was good enough and went downstairs.

Elisa looked up from her coffee when Donna entered the kitchen.

"Good morning," Elisa said.

"Morning," Donna replied, waiting for a reaction. But none came. Her lips were berry red, and her knees were showing. How could she possibly say nothing about it?

The girl finished her oatmeal and ate her toast standing next to the toaster on the counter. Still watching Elisa out of the corner of her eye, she still saw no reaction. Donna clenched her teeth in frustration. Didn’t the woman have any feelings at all?

When her coffee was finished, she picked up her bags and left.

#

In the school bathroom, Donna again changed back. It added to her bad mood to find that the berry lip tone was considerably more resistant to a paper towel erasure than had been Tuesday's gloss. It left a faint stain at the corners of her mouth, forcing Donna to apply more soap and elbow grease. Then she hurried into English class looking like her usual self.

Slumped at her desk, she could hardly hear what the teacher was saying. Her thoughts were fixed on Elisa's patient tolerance for bad behavior. Donna was determined to attack it even harder.

 # 

On Thursday morning, Donna escalated by slipping into high-heeled shoes.

She'd put on the block-heeled shoes that Glory had given her along with the green dress. They were subtle yet intentional. She had briefly practiced walking in them the night before. She could now get where she was going without disgracing herself.

And the new skirt she'd pulled on was even shorter than Wednesday's. She even swallowed her pride and struggled into pantyhose, which added tone to her visible legs. And with no better choice on hand, she once again put on the berry lipstick. A sharp-looking used blouse from Glory’s rummage sale hoard replaced her plain shirt.

Donna took care descending the stairs, lest the heels make her fall.

Elisa, seated at the kitchen table with her laptop, looked up at the unfamiliar footfalls. Her wide eyes traveled from her daughter’s footgear to the shorter-than-ever skirt, to the colorful blouse, to the bold lip color, and back to Donna's alert eyes. For a moment — brief and unguarded — Donna thought she saw something new in her mom's expression. But before she could interpret it, it faded back into mildness, vanishing like the morning mist when the sun comes out.

"You seem to be unsteady in those shoes. You ought to leave a few minutes early, in case they slow you enough to make you miss the bus," Elisa said.

"I hadn't thought about that," Donna grumbled.

The girl ate quickly and left early. She arrived at the stop slightly out of breath and barely in time.

On the ride in, Donna kept thinking about Elisa’s expression. She didn't know yet what it meant, but it meant something, and something was better than her reaction on Tuesday or Wednesday. But why did she refuse to say anything?

Maybe, Donna thought, if she ratcheted things up even more on Friday morning, Elisa would finally be shocked enough to say what she was thinking.

# 

For Friday, Donna determinedly put together the most extreme outfit that her small wardrobe could produce.

She selected the shortest skirt she owned — a real miniskirt from the rummage sale stuff. It was as short as the ones the hot girls at school usually wore. She wished she had higher heels to put on, but she didn't. Nor did she have a blouse better than the one from the day before. Ditto for the berry lip color. To do this dress-up game right, she realized she would have to go shopping.

But she did have the push-up bra from the pajama party. She wasn't prepared for the extreme change it afforded. With that skirt and that bra, she looked like a totally different person. Or at least one who had stuffed rolled-up socks under her blouse.
 
She almost lost her nerve and took off the bra, but her resolve held firm. After all, she only had to wear it to the girls' room. Instead, she enhanced herself further, putting on some rose-colored eye shadow that Glory had provided. 

When it didn't look right on her, she tried to shape it using a tissue until the clock hand forced her to set out to catch the bus.

Donna ate fast and left the house, unsure about the total effect of her costume. We worried that she looked more like the girls who gathered at the coffee shop after school than what they wore to class. But that was the point. She was desperate to get a reaction from Elisa. If what she had on didn't do the trick, nothing could.

Elisa was making eggs when her daughter came downstairs. This time Elisa didn’t even look back at her. “Fried or scrambled?” she asked from the stove.

"Scrambled," Donna said.

She ate and watched Elisa move around the kitchen. She must be able to see her now, but still she didn't say anything. Not even the way the hemline rode up when she was sitting forced a rise out of her. What was going on inside Elisa's head? she wondered.
Didn't she care about her at all?

Finishing her orange juice, Donna put down her fork, stood, and picked up her bags.

"Have a good day," Elisa said, looking at her with eyes that still conveyed no special opinion.

"Thanks," Donna said. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. She was fighting back an impulse to ask her stepparent what she thought of her fashion choices.  But asking for opinions would be wrong. The reaction she wanted had to come unprompted from the heart, or else it would tell her nothing.

#

On the bus, Donna knew the older boys were looking at her and her bra-enhanced blouse. It embarrassed her, but she screwed up her courage and decided their opinions were outside her research scope.

At school, she went to the bathroom and took out the jeans and the hoodie and held them in front of her.

She stood looking at them for a moment longer than she needed to. If Elisa didn't care how she looked, why in hell should she care how the kids at school thought she looked?

But the part of her that was Langdon revolted at the idea of spending a day at school wearing a miniskirt.

So she hurriedly carried out the change of clothing. With equal speed, she removed the lip gloss and eye shade, then went to English class well covered up.

 TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 8 

To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna, Chapter 5, by Christopher Leeson

 
By Christopher Leeson

 To the Manna Born: The Life of Donna, Chapter 5 — The 

Band Girl

By Christopher Leeson

The Thursday rehearsal had been on Donna’s mind since Tuesday, though she wouldn’t have admitted this to anyone, including herself. She didn’t care about the music—those guys didn’t do music the way she liked it—but wanted to hang with Glory. She didn’t know quite what it was, but keeping her happy had become her priority.

Donna arrived at Mike’s garage in jeans and a dark top—as good as what she wore last time. She found the boys already set up. Jake gave her a nod. Mike was looking at the sheet music. Neither of them had anything to say to her, and so there wasn’t much for her to do except sit and listen to their tuning. The other two guys soon dragged themselves in, and Glory arrived a few moments after that. This time she had come over in her car, which she left parked by the curb.

Glory had a shopping bag over one arm with an eager expression. She greeted Donna warmly and then crossed to Mike,mom and they whispered for a moment. Mike nodded. Glory came back looking chipper.

“Okay,” she said. “Mike says we can use his bathroom to get you ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“Your audition, remember? Mike has to give the okay that you’re going to make the group look good on stage.”

“He’s got a lot of nerve!” 

 “Don’t worry about it. When I’m done with you, you’re going to look incredible. I just hope Mike’s sitting down when he sees you. It could be embarrassing otherwise.”

“I can’t dance,” Donna said. “I’ve told you that.”

“This isn’t dance practice. This is the audition! Before you can face an audience, prove to the boss that you’ve got something to give.”

“What do I have to give?”

“Just follow my lead, and you’ll be surprised.”

#

Mike’s bathroom was small and smelled of shaving soap and old tiles, and also some perfumy stuff that probably belonged to his mother. Glory lowered the toilet bowl lid and had Donna sit on it. She brought a dress out of the shopping bag—black with silver sequins. Donna thought it was just one part of some outfit, but when Glory unfolded it, it turned out to be the whole thing. It looked dauntingly smaller now than it had at Glory’s house.

“Hey! The whole bottom part is missing. I’m not into showing off my legs.”

“Your legs will be in pantyhose. All covered up.”

“Pantyhose can’t cover things up like trousers can.”

“Know thyself, kiddo! Your legs are great. It would be an affront to Nature not to show them.”

“What is there to gain in showing them off?”

“Admiration, for one thing.”

“Being admired by boys is another thing I’m not into. And if I’m supposed to dance, I don’t know how.”

“You’re not dancing. You’re auditioning for the band. When you find out how easy it is for you to light up a boy’s eyes, it’ll light up your eyes!” Glory held out the dress. “Try it. If you can’t make a go of it, we’ll go home.”

Donna accepted the dress with considerable reluctance.

Glory stepped out of the bathroom and let Donna change clothes. Somehow she got the pantyhose on without her toenails cutting a run into it.

Then she put on the special brassiere from the bag. Try as she might, she couldn’t reach the hooks behind her back.

But the brassiere had her flummoxed. “I can’t wear this bra,” she said through the door. “The hooks don’t hook.”

“Let me help,” Glory said. When she came into the small room, she looked at the problem and told her, “Turn around.”

Donna pivoted, and Glory hooked her in, but the capacity of the cups could hardly hold her girl-parts in place.

Donna, who already knew how sausage was made, had made a giant leap forward by discovering how cleavage was made.

She looked at herself in the mirror above the sink. She struggled to believe the busty beauty she saw was actually her. Donna wasn’t sure whether she should moan or yell in indignation.

Donna couldn’t help remembering that conversation with Glory. Everything about female beauty was phony.

But Glory was giving her no time to analyze her discovery. She next foisted a pair of shoes on her. They were not extreme, but they were still the highest heels she had ever worn. Donna’s first three attempts at standing, let alone walking, forced her to hold onto the bathroom fixtures in fear of falling.

“Smaller steps,” Glory said. “And lead with your hip, not your foot.”

“What good will that do?”

“Just try it.”

She soon learned that the technique actually did pay dividends, and the technique allowed her to exit the bathroom successfully.

But Glory soon brought her back to the toilet seat for a makeup job. She worked quickly and without second-guessing herself. Liner. Mascara. A lip color that was bolder than the gloss but softer than the red she’d worn before. A few minutes of work got Donna’s hair into order, making it fall into loose waves that looked incredible in the looking glass.

Glory stepped back and studied the results of her craft.

“Okay,” she said. “That’s exactly the look I was going for.”

Donna to the sink mirror again. It no longer surprised her to look like an entirely different person.

“Now let’s get you into the dress.”

“I don’t think it will fit. It’s child-sized.”

“It’s made to stretch, and when girls wear tight clothes, they look great!”

#

Donna returned to the garage with Glory leading her by the hand to keep her from stumbling in those heels.

The guys’ yammering stopped when they came through the car door.

Mike’s put his drumsticks down. Jake put his pick into his pocket. The other two band members simply stood and stared.

The surrounding ambiance felt different from before.

“Well,” Mike said finally, “don’t you look nice?”

Jake concurred. “Yeah, nice.”

Mike took a deep breath and tried to get his star-struck mind working again. “Well, you disguised her as a hot dancer, but looks aren’t everything. She won’t help the group if she can’t move right.”

“She’s going to move fine,” Glory assured him. “Give us a week of practice.”

“Fine, it’s all up to you. Now let’s get this jam into high gear!”

The practice came off as it had the other two times, but now Glory directed her to jingle the tambourine standing up and to move her feet in a simple box step, approximating a dance. But even while the guys played their instruments, their eyes were mostly fixed on Donna’s legs and neckline.

#

When the band wrapped up, Mike gave his verdict regarding Donna. “She’s in. Provisionally. You’ve got until the gig to make her stop counting out her so people can hear.”

“That’ll be an easy habit to break,” Glory said.

“Then we’re good.”

# 

Glory drove Donna home afterwards, not saying much until they were drawing close to Donna’s house. The blonde girl had changed back into her street clothes before leaving Mike’s. 

“I keep forgetting to mention that we’re having a pajama party,” Glory said. “Saturday before Columbus Day. Kaylee’s house. You absolutely have to come.”

“What do I wear? I don’t own real pajamas. I sleep in jogging pants and a T-shirt.”

“Wear whatever you want to wear,” Glory said. “Anything that makes you comfortable. If I were you, I’d pick something that made me feel pretty!”

“But you’re not me, and feeling pretty is the last thing I want to do.”

“Why?”

“Prettiness is overrated. And, you said yourself, there’s no genuine beauty in the world.”

“You misunderstand. I didn’t say there was no real beauty in the world. I said, beauty made from paint and appliances is a fake out.”

“If beauty is only a disguise, why live like it’s permanently Halloween?”

“What an attitude! Don’t overthink things. You’ll recognize beauty when you meet it.”

“Well, I already I think you’re pretty,” said Donna.

“Ditto from me,” Glory replied. 

“Oh, there’s your house ahead,” she said. “Just don’t miss the party. It’s at seven-thirty Monday night at Kaylee’s. I’ll text you the address if you don’t have it.

“I don’t.”

“Also, we have to work harder on your dance lessons for the gig. We can practice some at the party. The other girls will be glad to join in.”

“I don’t belong dancing on a stage. It creeps me out to think of dancing in front of a group.”

“That’s stage fright. You’ll get over it. You’ll soon love dancing as much as I do.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Donna. 

At that moment, Glory slowed, hit the turn signal, and smoothly pulled into the parking lane in front of Donna’s house.

“See you tomorrow,” she said as Donna stepped out the passenger door.

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” the blonde replied. 

#

But Donna didn’t see her friend on Friday because Glory missed school. This surprised Donna, since Glory hadn’t mentioned feeling ill the evening before.

Donna checked her phone for messages and found a new one from Glory. Sorry, not coming in today. Feel terrible. Save me notes. 

Donna gave a quiet damn. She felt as though the biggest planned event of the day had been cancelled. That was what Glory had become to her. She was the biggest event of every day.

But Glory’s absence held a special inconvenience today. When the auto shop instructor called the class to order, he immediately announced a bright new idea for introducing a competitive class project.

He told his students that today’s diagnostic exercise would be performed in pairs. That meant each student had to find a classmate he’d want to work with.

Damn it! This would have been no problem had Glory come to class. As Donna looked around the room, she saw a couple of guys eyeing her. She didn’t like being looked at like a special car option that the shop guys wanted.

She looked around the room, trying to find the person least likely to make a pest of himself if they worked together. The boys found it easy to pair up with their close buds. However, there was an odd man out. Neil Kowalski was doing the same thing she was doing, looking around, trying to pick out some near stranger he could pair up with. 

Kowalski was one of those boys who always seemed to be off by himself, including when eating alone in the lunchroom. He was a shy boy, and Donna—and Langdon before her—had never noticed him much. But they also never noticed him giving any girl a hard time. But like most nerds, he seemed to lack male friends, too. The teachers seemed to like him, though, and his name had frequently appeared on the honor roll.

She thought Kowalski might be the least annoying person available in the class. She got up and went over to his desk, where he was sitting, looking forlorn and awkward.

“Hello, Neil,” she said. “Are you available to partner with me on this project?”

He looked at her suspiciously, as if suspecting she was putting him on. 

“Guess I could, if you really need a partner.”

Donna understood his lack of enthusiasm. The girls in school chased after only a handful of boys—those lucky enough to look like film stars, those from rich families, and the notable athletes. But down-to-earth boys like Langdon, and bookworms like Kowalski, got the invisible treatment. Pretty girls talked honestly to them; they only teased, attempting to make them feel foolish.

Then Donna saw the teacher, Mr. Briggs, pushing a metal dolly loaded with older model carburetors. He started putting one at each workstation in the workroom. 

When he came out, he said, “Each of these carburetor parts has an identified problem. Each team will check one over and see if it can identify what’s wrong. Do the standard diagnostic report for it. One on the team can do the disassembly, while the other writes the report. Monday is Columbus Day, but when you come in Tuesday, I’ll have your work graded. Now, get on the stick!

“One thing, people,” Bringgs added as an afterthought, “put down plenty of newspapers. The janitors don’t like it when you leave oily messes.”

Donna went into the workroom and chose an empty spot with a carburetor on it. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands with some measure of familiarity with its make.

“I can take it apart,” Neil said. “It’s going to make your hands greasy.”

“This is an auto shop. If I were afraid of grease, I wouldn’t have signed up.”

He shrugged. “It’s all yours, then. I’ll do the paperwork.”

Once they went into action, they did little talking, except about the carburetor. Donna disassembled the unit with confidence. Neil mainly worked on the diagram sketch, a task he seemed to have a knack for. Donna called out components as she worked, and Neil together recorded and cross-referenced the individual pieces using the manual.

“What’s the most likely thing wrong with it?” Donna suddenly asked.

Neil frowned. “Check if the needle valve seat isn’t at fault. The float height on these jobbies can drift.” Donna recognized the sense in this and decided that the boy was no dummy.

While they worked, Donna asked, “Are you familiar with this make of carburetor?”

He nodded. “It looks familiar. I’ve worked on old cars. My grandfather had a machine shop, and I learned a lot from helping him.”

But time was pressing hard. Neil concentrated on the report, but while Donna worked, he casually offered her one pointer after another. Some things he cited she already knew, but some of them she didn’t. Overall, Neil was more of a help than a hindrance.

While Kowalski was busy with his notes, Donna found what seemed to be the problem—a worn accelerator pump that someone had tried to compensate for rather than replace. It had been a botched job, probably because the shirk had wanted the problem to go away temporarily, without doing the sweat work of actually fixing it.

She held it up. “Here.” She then explained what she had seen.

Neil leaned over and checked her work. He especially eyed the worn pump, applying to it the focused attention of someone who found car tinkering genuinely interesting.

“Yeah,” he said. “You found it. Good catch.” And then, with what sounded like sincerity, he said, “I mean it. You recognized the real problem. Most people would have wasted time checking out the obvious stuff first.”

With the diagnosis accomplished, Neil and Donna applied themselves to finishing the project report. 

When the clean-up bell rang, most of the pairs were still deep into their incomplete work, but Donna felt confident in what they had accomplished with minutes to spare.

Neil hurriedly gathered the notes and diagrams. “We’ll have to turn this in now. I hope Mr. Briggs will be satisfied.”

In that moment of calm, he asked a personal question. “Do you plan to become a car mechanic when you leave school, Donna? I think you have what it takes.”

“I’m not sure,” she replied. “I just took this class because I needed an elective.” 

“But you must have been at least a little bit interested in cars.”

“I can tell you I was more interested in cars than I was in Home Economics.”

“I feel the same way,” unable to keep from smiling. 

“Say, Neil, I usually team with Glory,” Donna said. “But whenever she’s not here, I’d be glad to team up with you again.”

“You bet we can! That’ll be great,” he said with a nod.

“That’s it for now, class,” boomed Mr. Briggs. “Clean up the spilled grease and leave the parts on fresh newspapers. We’ll refer to them on Tuesday for the project reviews and demonstrations.”

When the class bell rang, Neil got up and nodded goodbye. Donna went to the sink to clean up. It occurred to her that Neil hadn’t asked her out for a soda after school. Maybe that meant he wasn’t interested in her and that his compliments had been sincere. That thought gave her satisfaction.

But on the way home, a contrary thought arose. If Neil had wanted to be friends, why hadn’t he suggested a soda? Can’t a person like a person and also respect them at the same time? Thinking in this new way made her lose some of her buoyancy.

 

TO BE CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 6