Chapter 20: 20. Nicola

"How do you like your eggs, sweet?"

It's Sunday morning, and Jessie's mum stands over the frying pan. The two of us, bleary-eyed after a late night spent talking, have finally surfaced--not a million miles from midday. I've not really spent much time with Jessie's mum before. As we lay in bed, Jessie warned me that her mum would try to feed me--"she's basically a ready-made grandma"--but I had expected to make it at least as far as the kitchen table before being offered breakfast. No such like. Her mum had practically pushed me into a chair and shoved a plate in front of me. Jessie made her excuses and disappeared to take a shower. I'm not sure what that says about the quality of her mum's cooking, but I've never been an especially fussy eater--food's food, so far as I'm concerned.

"Not too runny," I tell her. "Just a little bit of brown."

She nods and cracks a couple of eggs into a mug, before committing the runny eggs into the frying pan. "I'm sorry there's nothing else. If Jessie had told me you were stopping the night before yesterday evening, I'd have got some bacon and sausages in."

"It's fine," I assure her. "I have a small appetite." A white lie--but I don't want to come across as greedy.

As she cooks, Jessie's mum talks to me. "Jessie's told me all about you, of course, but I always like to hear from her friends directly. And I have to say, the name she gave for you doesn't seem to fit you one jot."

That freezes me. I realise that I don't know the first thing about what Jessie says to her mum. If she knows me as Hannah, she'll have been expecting somebody who looks a good deal more feminine than I do. Whether she's transphobic or not is yet to be established--but I had hoped that would be something I'd discover when Jessie was with me, or even better something Jessie could find out when I'm not around and give me advanced notice. Instead I can't help but feel like I'm going to find out just where Jessie's mum stands any second now. In her kitchen. With no back-up if she turns out to be a bigot.

I decide to play for time. "I don't understand," I tell her. "In what way doesn't it fit?"

Mrs Porter turns to me. "Well, she said your name was Harry," she says. "But... and forgive me if I'm out of place in saying this, or if I'm completely wrong... well, dear, you're a girl, aren't you? I've never met a girl called Harry."

Which, I have to be honest, was entirely the opposite of how I expected this conversation to go. "What makes you think I'm a girl, Mrs Porter? Looking like this, I mean."

"Please, call me Nicola," she says. "And how you look doesn't really come into it. It's the way you hold yourself. The way you act. The fact that Jessie is clearly smitten with you, even though she's a self-described lesbian. And it's the way your eyes lit up just now when I called you a girl. I'm right, aren't I?"

I nod. "Yes," I say, hoarsely. "Is that a problem?"

"I hardly think so," says Nicola. "There's nothing wrong with being a girl, dear, and even if there was I hardly see how it would be your fault you were born a girl."

"I was... born a boy," I say, flushing red and casting my eyes down at the kitchen table.

"On the outside, perhaps," she says, "but I think on the inside you've always been a girl. And now I'm at a disadvantage, because you know my name but I don't know yours. Your true name, that is."

I lift my head. She's smiling at me, the eggs simmering away in the pan behind her. And I can see in her eyes that she's not just saying the right words. Mum might have put her bigotry aside, but it's obvious that she doesn't truly believe I'm a girl, not yet. Nicola Porter does. Fuck, what is in the Porter bloodline that makes Jessie's family so pure?

"I'm Hannah," I say.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Hannah," says Nicola. "And Hannah? You should know that in this family we tend to get very weepy at weddings. When you and Jessie are a little older and the two of you get married, expect plenty of tears."

"Uh... how did you know--?"

"I was young and in love once, dear," Nicola says. "And Jessie isn't as sneaky as she thinks she is." Behind her, the frying pan hisses. "Oh, your eggs are done."

*

Once Jessie and I are both breakfasted, it's well past mid-day. I text Mum just to let her know that I'm alright, and that I will be home by this evening--I don't have my school uniform here, for a start, and I also don't think it's fair to leave Mum in the house alone all weekend immediately after Beth's moved out--and the two of us return to Jessie's annexe. "Have fun, girls," Nicola calls after us, and I can see the wink even without turning to look behind me.

"Girls?" Jessie hisses. "I swear, Hannah, I didn't tell her you were trans. That's not my truth to tell."

"It's alright," I tell her. "I think your mum just has an eye for these things. She was really sweet about it. Oh, and she knows we're together."

"She does?"

I nod. "She also knows you're gay, though I get the impression from how she spoke about it that you actually did tell her that particular truth."

Jessie nods. "I came out to Mum and Dad when I was thirteen. Dad had a harder time of it, though he came round quickly. Mum I think just fell in love with the idea of having a daughter-in-law. She'll get to go shopping for two wedding dresses instead of one, stuff like that."

 "I'm not sure there's a wedding dress in the world that would look good on me," I tell her.

Jessie, to her credit, looks scandalised. "Nonsense. How many times do I have to tell you you're cute before you understand how cute you are?" She nudges my shoulder. "Hey, how would you like to be the belle of the ball today? Come on. Pick something out of my wardrobe to wear."

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She practically bounces across her bedroom to the wardrobe door, a white-painted panel door with a picture of a kitten pinned on it, and flings the door open. At once I'm blown away. The wardrobe is not the small closet I was inspecting, but rather a room unto itself. Easily big enough for us both to go in and rummage around with ample room to spare.

Honestly, I find it a bit intimidating.

"Are you sure you don't mind me borrowing some of your clothes, Jessie?" Faced with the entirety of her wardrobe--not much smaller than the downstairs toilet at home; being rich must be great--I'm having to contain my widening eyes.

"Of course not," she says. "I can only wear one thing at a time. And we're practically the same size--face it, Hannah, it's destiny. We were meant to share clothes." A glint crosses her eye. "And yes, that does mean I'll be wanting to borrow that cute green dress of yours one day."

I turn my attention to the contents of Jessie's wardrobe. There's just so much stuff in here--dresses, skirts, tops, jeans, a couple of dozen pairs of shoes. Her clothes run the gamut of colours, in styles and cuts I don't have the vocabulary to describe. Some of it looks like it would never look anything but hideous on my frame. All of it looks delightful. "I, uh, don't know where to begin."

"I forget you've yet to be introduced to the wonders of feminine fashion," says Jessie. "Tell you what: why don't I pick out something for you to wear today, and sometime soon we can start your education in all things pretty."

I nod. "That sounds great. Thanks."

Jessie kisses me on the cheek. "My honour, Han. I won't be a moment. I know just the thing."

She disappears momentarily into the throng, leaving me starry-eyed around all the raiment. I would love to have such a wide array of beautiful outfits in my own wardrobe; one of the most exciting things about being a girl is being able to wear so many varied things. But not yet, of course. First will come hormones, and the feminine curves I hope they'll give me. That, and a fuckload of building my own self-confidence. Not only would I probably look a fool in a skimpy strappy top, right now--I'd feel like a fool, too.

Soon, Jessie's back. She holds a top--a t-shirt, but with a more feminine cut than I'm used to wearing, and in a cute pastel blue--and a white knee-length skirt with a slit in the side. "Here," she says. "Try these on."

I take the clothes and go to Jessie's bathroom to put them on. Yesterday's icky male clothes--which I had put on again for breakfast today, because in my infinite wisdom I forgot to pack a change of clothes; I didn't plan on being invited to take my pick of Jessie's wardrobe, though it has proven a lucky boon--are discarded gratefully. Horrible, sweaty, itchy things. The new outfit, by contrast, is delightfully, wonderfully soft. Without a bra beneath it the top sits a little flat on my chest--I'll have to invest in a few of my own, but for now I don't really feel comfortable using one of Jessie's. I'm not sure if it's a holdover of my male socialisation, but there's something profoundly awkward about the idea of asking a girl, even my girlfriend, if I can wear her bra.

The skirt, on the other hand, fits perfectly. It has an elasticated waistband, which means it sits snugly around my hips, and the way it swishes around my legs gives me a burst of euphoria. I know it sounds silly--clothes aren't inherently gendered; you don't have to be a woman to wear a skirt, and you don't have to wear a skirt to be a woman--but it makes me feel so feminine. So... me.

"That looks great on you," says Jessie, when I return to her bedroom. She's sat on her bed, swinging her legs off the side. "I mean, it fits perfectly, which helps, but you look happy in it too. You're a happy little cutie."

"Stop it," I say, sitting beside her.

"I'll stop calling you cutie when you stop being cute," she says. "We've established this."

I feel my face reddening again. Damn her and her magic words. We sit there for a while, in silence, just enjoying each other's company. Jessie makes me feel at home in a way I've only ever felt from Mum and Beth before. Slowly, my head drops. I don't mean to, but I find myself leaning on her shoulder. Rather than be offended, though, she smiles and leans in towards me.

"This might sound silly," says Jessie, breaking the silence. "but would you help me do my lines?"

"Lines?"

"For my play."

I look at her. "I didn't know you were in a play."

She nods. "Yeah. I go to youth theatre on Thursday evenings. They do two shows a year--this time, it's Twelfth Night. I'm playing Viola."

"The lead role? Jessie, that's incredible."

Jessie blushes. "It's not as impressive as it sounds. The talent pool is... really sparse."

"No," I say. "It is as impressive as it sounds. My girlfriend the leading lady!"

"So you'll do my lines with me?"

"Of course," I tell her. "You're going out of your way to help me flourish. I want to do the same for you. Cutie."

She beams. "Brilliant," she says, jumping off her bed. "Let me just grab the script." Jessie's back in a matter of seconds, hopping back onto the bed beside me with a ring-bound photocopy of a playscript, marked in several places by bright yellow highlighter pen. Her lines, I assume.

She looks at me, a smile in her eyes and on her cheeks, and begins: "What country, friends, is this?"

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