Chapter 22:

WE ARRIVED AT the Hancock's house at 11:50 or so. I had no sooner walked up to their door before it was flung open and I was pounced on by Amy. "You look so pretty Tiffany!"

"Thanks," I choked out, somehow managing to not drop my box of photos.

She released me and we walked into her house. "Mom told me you looked pretty today, but she wasn't kidding!"

"Thanks."

"Hold on a sec, I'll be back down in a couple minutes!" She said running upstairs for something.

"Tiffany, are you happy with what we worked out?" I heard Mrs. Hancock's voice behind me.

I turned around and faced her. "It was better than I hoped for... I wish I could really be Tiffany on the trip, but I'll definitely settle for what I got." I replied to her.

"I know you're not going to be as obviously Tiffany on this trip, but I want you to be really careful on this trip – don't leave one of our sides. Your parents, us, Amy, and the other girls should be able to keep you safe... But I could see something going wrong if the boys discovered that you were wearing panties for instance." She said looking somewhat grim.

"I know... but this is me, they're going to have to come to terms with it sooner or later." I said, a little teary eyed.

She came over to me and gave me a hug. "Yes they are. And, no matter what they say or do please know that we'll always be here for you okay?"

"Thank you Mrs. Hancock."

"You're very welcome Tiffany." She hesitated for a second then said, "Tiffany why don't you call me Melanie instead of Mrs. Hancock?"

I felt very awkward right then... "Why?"

"Well... I can't ask you to call me Mom, although I think of you as my second daughter – that would be wrong. But, I think Melanie would be okay." She told me.

"Um... okay Melanie, thanks." I replied. I sat there and talked to her for a few more minutes before I heard feet pounding down the stairs. I turned around and saw Amy in her jumper that was like mine.

"So what do you think?" She said as she came up to me.

"Well, I don't think we'll be confused as twins... but you never know!" I told her giggling.

"Well let's get to scrapbooking!" She said and led me to their formal dining room. In there I saw tons of scissors, paper, pens, and other stuff. For a while she spent some time showing me what all they had – and how to use it.

From there she handed me several stacks of pictures that she said were mine. The stack of photos was mainly from the ski trip and the slumber party. There must have been six dozen pictures though from those two things, and that didn't even include some other miscellaneous photos of the two of us that I didn't even know Mrs... I mean Melanie had taken of me. Pictures like one from the first time I went swimming in Amy's swimsuit. When had she taken it? There were also several clippings from the newspaper about our project.

The two of us had been working hard on scrapbook page after scrapbook page for the better part of an hour when her mom came in and asked if we were hungry. I had completely forgotten about lunch – I'd been too busy with everything else.

We sat down at their breakfast counter to eat the macaroni and cheese her mom had made for us.

"So Mom said that they decided you have to go on the trip as Brandon?"

"Yeah... unfortunately." She looked as downtrodden as I did. "But they said I could be Tiffany with my friends! And they said I can wear girls' clothes when I'm in the room, and I can wear panties underneath my clothes... They also told me I could wear a girl's pair of shorts one day, and tops that are girls as long as they're not too girly..."

"Well that's better than nothing I guess." She said.

"If the other kids found out how do you think they would react?" I asked her.

"I think it would vary... I think you would have seventy, maybe eighty percent behind you. I'm sure there would be at least one kid that would be a jerk about it just because they could. But, you have Ashley, Nikki, Lindsey, Amber, and me that would be behind you a-hundred-and-fifty-percent. I'll make sure that we all stay together in our group during the trip."

"Thanks Amy." I replied to her with a smile.

We moved onto another bit of conversation. As we were getting up from lunch she said, "Tiffany, I have really really really great idea!" She exclaimed.

"What?"

"Well, I'm supposed to get my hair done tomorrow morning... We should get yours done too and get the same style!" She was clearly excited about this.

"Well... What are you going to get done?" I asked her. I actually really liked what she was going to do. If the two of us had the same haircut that would be one more way of making it look like we were sisters to anyone who didn't know us. I decided that would be kind of handy on the trip. The only unfortunate thing was I didn't know if it would be too girly to be allowed under the 'Brandon is attending the trip' guidelines.

"I like the idea, but I'd have to ask my mom first to see if I can do it..."

"Do what?" Amy's mom asked.

Amy filled her in and she said, "I think that would probably be an acceptable idea. Tiffany I'll set it up if you want. It'll be my treat for the trip."

"Really?"

"Yes, but we do need to call your Mom. Tell you what, why don't you two go keep working on your scrapbooks and I'll call your Mom, Tiffany?" She suggested.

"Okay," I said. We left to go back to the table to work on our scrapbooks. I was amazed at how slow I had been going at first compared to now with the pages. My first page had taken me a good fifty minutes, now I was doing one every seven to ten minutes depending on what I was doing. I had gotten through all of the pictures I had brought, the ski trip, and two of the slumber party when Melanie came in.

"Hey Tiff, your mom said okay to getting your hair done. So I called the salon up to see if they could work you both in tomorrow. They said they were fully booked tomorrow though."

I was disappointed, but not everything can go my way right? "Thanks anyway for trying," I told her.

"Now hold up just a second, I said they couldn't work you both in tomorrow. They do, however, have three openings in half an hour if you two want to get ready to go and leave right now."

"Cool!" I said. I hadn't even said that one word, when Amy ran upstairs and back down with her shoes.

We all jumped into her car and drove into town. Between traffic and the distance we just barely made it there before our appointment.

When we pulled up I was instantly glad that Melanie had said she was going to pay... I had in my mind some run of the mill hair stylist salon, this was anything but that. The building was designed in a really pretty adobe style. It featured the typical posts coming out of the roof, but definitely somehow took on a new level of sophistication. All of the cars in the parking lot were worth at least fifty-thousand dollars.

The name of the place itself was in Spanish, and I guessed the meaning to be something about Life's Dreams... I don't speak Spanish so don't put that down as a for sure translation, that's just a guess.

Amy's mom led the way inside the salon and we were immediately met by a lady dressed very stylishly.

"Ah... Mrs. Hancock, I'm so glad that you were able to come today." She said. She turned to Amy, "Amy it's very nice to see you again as well. And I take it this is Tiffany?" She asked.

"Yes, ma'am." I replied to her.

"I'm Elizabeth." She said giving me a feminine hand shake that I returned. "Well ladies, let's go ahead and take you on into the salon." She began leading us down a hallway. We followed her to a large open room that had skylights letting in large amounts of natural sunlight.

Off to the side of that room were several doors – she led us to a room and we were given pink robes to change into. Amy's mom whispered to me, "We'll turn around here and change. You just change the other direction okay?"

I stripped out of my jumper and quickly donned the robe. I told them, "I'm done." They then let me know when they were finished (Amy's mom took the longest). We left the room and met Elizabeth right there and she showed us each to our station in the large room.

I say 'station' because there really is no comparison to any 'normal' hair salon I had seen before. I was seated in a very nicely upholstered leather chair. The leather was that really soft leather. The chair was actually more comfortable than any chair in my parents' living room. We each had an attractive lady come to attend to us at that point.

Mine introduced herself as Lynette. "How are you doing miss?" She asked me.

"I'm doing well, and yourself?" I asked back.

"I'm doing great!" She said enthusiastically. I guessed she was probably about twenty-five or so, so she was fairly young. "I was filled in a bit on what we're doing here for you, but I was told you weren't?" She asked.

"Umm... I thought I was just coming in for a hair cut?" I said in a tentative manner. "Are we doing more than that?"

"Absolutely! You're in one of the finest salons in the country – and the Hancock's are our favorite clients – I'm not just saying that. So, here's the deal. We're going to start off with washing your hair out, then I'm going to work on it for a bit, then we'll let it sit for a while. While your hair is setting we'll go ahead and do a facial on you as well as a manicure and a pedicure."

"Wow..." I gasped.

"Sound good?"

"Yes!"

"Okay, I would like you to make a couple decisions though about your nails. I notice that they're pretty long already, would you like me to add to that?" She asked.

I didn't even hesitate on that one. "No thanks, not with us going on this trip."

"Okay, fair enough. Mrs. Hancock said that we had to go with a clear nail polish color for this trip, but if she brings you back sometime, we can do something prettier."

"Cool." I replied... I might come back sometime? Not on my money...

"Well let's start with your hair!"

She leaned me back into a sink and began washing my hair and in the process massaged my scalp. It was like the ski trip session, but even better! After what felt like an eternity of pleasure, yanking on my hair, scissors snipping, and rollers going in the bottom of my hair, she then began the rest of the process.

The whole experience was so extraordinarily wonderful that I can't put much of it into words. The facial, the manicure and pedicure, and the finishing of my hair seemed to fly by. After a bit she led me back to the room where I had changed earlier and told me to go ahead and put my dress back on. My hair was still covered, so it took some doing to get it over my head without messing it up.

Once I was done I found her waiting for me again leading me back to the same spot. She worked with my hair for about ten more minutes and then moved back to my face.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Putting makeup on you." She said. "Mrs. Hancock wanted me to evaluate you and get you a set of makeup that would work well for you."

"Oh. Thank you." I said.

"You must be like a daughter to Mrs. Hancock for her to bring you here," she told me.

"If I didn't have parents that loved me so much, and wouldn't give me up, I'm sure they would adopt me in a heartbeat," I replied to her softly.

She turned my chair to face the mirror. She spent about fifteen minutes trying different looks on me before explaining how to do the one we decided on. She put together a bag of makeup for me and led me to another room where Amy and her mom were sitting at a table drinking bottles of water. They handed me one as I walked in.

As soon as I saw Melanie, I rushed up to her and hugged her tightly. "Thank you so much for all of this!" I told her.

"It's my pleasure Tiffany." She gestured towards the makeup bag when I released her, "I see they took care of getting you your makeup?" I nodded. "Good, then we're ready to go."

Amy stood up at that point and I looked at her. She looked really pretty – something that I commented on. She told me at that point, "Tiffany, you look basically the same as I do. I fear we might have to watch out for each other on this trip! Boys will be leaping from burning buildings just to try and impress us." She giggled.

"Umm... I don't know if I want that or not..." I replied... "I'm supposed to be Brandon on this trip... and Tiffany isn't interested in dating yet!" I replied to her.

She giggled a bit and her mom led us outside to the car. It was already 4:30pm at that point, I couldn't figure out where we were going as we drove away.

WE WERE GOING the opposite direction from home, and she seemed to be in a bit of a hurry.

"Where are we going Mommy?" Amy asked. Apparently, she was in the dark as much as I was.

"It's a surprise for both of you okay? We'll be there in two more minutes." She said.

We both took that as a sign that we weren't going to get anything else out of her and started focusing back on our new looks. Both of us were ecstatic with our new hairstyle and everything else.

"By the way Tiffany, I think you've got to do your makeup that way at school next year everyday!"

"Is it really that good?"

"Tiffany, when school starts and people hear about you, they're going to expect you to look like a boy in a dress. When you were wearing boys clothing, more than once I heard people say to each other that you looked like a 'tomboy' in boys clothing - now that you're in girls clothing, I don't think anyone would even guess that you were ever a boy. With that makeup on I guarantee every boy that you pass will be staring at your pretty face."

I blushed. "You're exaggerating," I told her.

Amy's mom piped in, "no, she's not exaggerating. Though I have to say I think Amy is in the same boat!" A moment later she pulled into the lot of a building that said 'Rogers Portrait Studio.'

"We're getting our pictures taken?" Amy asked.

"Yes, and I've got some surprises waiting for you inside Ladies. But we only have till six to get this done before we have to meet Tiffany's parents at Chili's for dinner. So hustle up!" She ordered.

When we got inside the photographer was ready for us. The first thing we did was take several dozen shots by ourselves and together in about ten different scenes he had setup around a massive warehouse type room. Then he asked, "Do you two have your next change of clothes?"

Amy's mom walked up then and said, "Yes they do, they're in the changing rooms." She said. She led us to two changing rooms that were both unisex.

"Both of you change into the green dress that's in there. Don't worry about tying the bow girls; I can do it better and faster out here okay? Don't forget to put on the white tights that are there!" She said pushing us inside the room.

When I saw the dress that she was referring to I just about froze up completely. It was absolutely gorgeous! I was sure I had never seen a dress that pretty in all of my life. It was a dark green taffeta skirt and puffy short sleeves. The bodice was also in dark green, but it was embellished with embroidery crisscrossing back and forth making diamond patterns. At alternating points across the tips of the diamonds were little pink flowers and pearl looking beads.

I pulled my jumper off carefully to avoid ruining my makeup. Then I saw the tights and pulled them on first. I know a lot of people say this is such a tricky thing, but to me it was honestly just like pulling up soccer socks. I still enjoyed it very much though. The dress had a built-in petticoat so I was able to just slip it on. Of course, by just slip it on that was the process of getting into it.

The feelings that went through me on the nature of this were unreal. I did as Amy's mom asked and didn't bother zipping up. I went outside and found Amy's mom putting a pair of Mary Jane style shoes on Amy's feet. She zipped me up, tied my bow, and then did the same for me with the shoes. We both looked adorable!

I had seen some dresses like this on a website from an Italian dress maker before – they weren't cheap, but I had dreamt about them since I had first seen them. Amy and I talked briefly while her mom touched up our makeup, but we didn't have much time to talk because we got right back to the picture taking. Again, several dozen were taken at each scene, plus a couple others, before we were led back to the changing room.

We went through several other sets of clothes. Jeans and T-shirt, Shorts and T-shirts, skirts, a prom-dress style dress, a sundress, a swimsuit (that one was scary with the possibility of someone figuring out stuff...), and even pajamas followed before we were done. In most of the cases we wore the same thing – though sometimes in different colors. Oftentimes we put on jewelry, tiaras, or other accessories to add more appeal.

When we were done with the last outfit Amy asked, "Mommy can we wear the green dresses to dinner? Please?" She begged.

"Yes, please?" I asked as well.

"You two will be a little overdressed for Chili's." She said.

"That's okay, we'll be pretty!" Amy told her.

"Alright, but you only have four minutes to change and help me get all of this stuff packed up!"

"Alright! Thank you!" I told her, and we both rushed to quickly put the dresses back on. We were both out in two minutes for her to help us again, before helping her move everything to her car on the way out.

"So when will we get to see these pictures?" I asked her as we drove away.

"Well he said he would have proofs of everything tonight, and would bring them to us at our house to pick out the packages if we wanted. I told him to drop by at eight and your parents could help us pick them out Tiff."

"Cool," I said.

I was excited. No really, I was beyond excited! Amy and I were both bouncing off the walls of the car on that ride to Chili's. We walked into the restaurant and found my parents and Mr. Hancock sitting at a table. When they saw us their jaws all collectively dropped!

My mom was the first to speak, "Where did you find these Melanie?" She said as she came over and started examining my dress.

"A friend of mine owns a dress shop – she told me about them a while back but I thought they would be perfect for our trip to photographer. I hadn't planned on us going today, but thankfully she already had them and dropped them off at the studio yesterday."

"They're absolutely gorgeous." My mom reiterated. "You two are a bit overdressed for here though," she chuckled.

"We don't care. We're pretty Mommy!" I responded.

"Actually I don't think pretty does you both justice," my dad proclaimed.

"I love the new hair," my mom said as I sat between her and Dad. Amy was sitting across from me, Melanie across from Mom, and Amy's dad across from my dad.

The waitress came by and fussed over us quite a bit. "Where ever did you find those dresses?" she asked the moms. "You two look like princesses," she told us. It made me smile from ear to ear, and blush in the same moment.

The conversations all continued about Amy and I being gorgeous princesses well through dinner before switching to plans about the trip. They all discussed about meeting together to walk in so that we would be a cohesive group meeting everyone else. I think they were hoping that it would help with any potential, 'problems' we could run into. We all knew that those unspoken 'potential problems' that might arise all involved me. Oh well.

Following dinner, we split a few desserts around the table with my parents picking up the check. Mom and Dad both agreed to come over to Amy's house to look at the proofs after we finished. The six of us drove to their house and Amy and I got busy frantically cleaning up our mess on the dining room table. We put all of our pages into boxes – we were going to finish up after we got our pictures back from the trip. The photographer arrived minutes later with a mountain of proofs in hand.

I never was able to get a full count – people kept moving pictures too much – but I think we must have had a good eight-hundred pictures we had to look through to choose just a few. There were so many comments of, "How cute!" that kept flying by, that Amy and I were in a perpetual state of blushing. We ended up placing a couple separate orders for each family, with us taking about thirty pictures each to get made into various shots. We also jointly bought the proofs, which the photographer would drop off at our houses tomorrow.

"How are you doing this so fast?" I asked the photographer.

"Well I'm in kind of a lull for the year right now. Plus, I have several printers and staff to help out with this stuff. This was also a fun shoot though, so I'm probably putting a little more into it than normal."

"Well thank you for doing so." I said to him.

He left with the orders in hand and Amy and I helped sort out which clothes were going to which house that night. Mom had tried to pay Mrs. Hancock back for some of the dresses and such but of course they wouldn't have any of that. My parents and I all profusely thanked her. I gave her and Mr. Hancock big hugs before we headed home for the night.

After a good thirty minutes of rearranging my closet to fit everything I finally was talked into taking off my dress and putting on a pair of the pajamas that we had used in the shoot earlier. The pajamas really weren't anything that special, but they were in a cute pink color and were really comfy. That night when my head hit the pillow I was out like a light bulb.

***************************************************************

Please press the Like Button Above! Comments are also appreciated!