33 A Fitting Start

Nikki came back Friday afternoon to continue our lessons. “So, how are the rehearsals going?” she asked as she took several dresses from my closet.

Rehearsals. I had tried to put the issue out of my mind until Sunday, but Jared’s little stunt was making me more than a bit uncomfortable. I had tried to put on a brave front for Lee Ann, but the long time between our disastrous “get acquainted” session and the next rehearsal was allowing my nervousness to grow. It must have shown on my face, for Nikki suddenly shifted from casual friendliness to concern, and I had to tell her everything. She was livid.

“I don’t know whether to be angrier at Jared for propositioning you, or at Alvin for suggesting that you two somehow force a friendship,” she hissed. “Alvin is definitely going to hear from me on this!”

“Nikki, wait. Maybe it was my fault. I’m sure Alvin…”

“No, Marsh it was not your fault.”

“I mean, it’s not as if Jared invented the whole idea of hookups – and lots of girls do go along with them…”

“That’s not the point, Marsh. There is a way to ask for a hookup, and you don’t do it face-to-face with the girl you want unless you are sure, and you certainly don’t do it when you are supposed to be establishing a friendship!”

“Oh,” I said, surprised. “Have you been asked?” I hadn’t been part of Geoff’s hookups, but had had the sense that one of our other roommates had been. I was a little bit hazy on the details.

“Yes, before I started seeing Alvin. A couple of times. And both times it was the friend of the guy who invited me, and I just ignored him – everybody had ‘plausible deniability.’ I could pretend I’d never heard the invitation, and the guy could pretend that his friend had asked me on his own.”

“So then…” I started, but she wasn’t listening.

“Alvin knows you’re particularly vulnerable now, and shouldn’t have allowed you to be put into this kind of position. If he wanted you two to be friends, he should have had you just sit next to each other at rehearsals or something.”

“Jared could have made the same suggestion there.”

“Probably not, with the rest of the cast nearby, and if he had, you would have been among friends, not all alone with a jerk.”

I couldn’t argue with her; my inclination had been to hope that Jared would just drop it, and to be on my guard. Maybe that would work, maybe it wouldn’t. But the discomfort certainly wasn’t going to go away on its own. Maybe if Nikki spoke to Alvin, it would help? Or would it just make things worse?

“Under the circumstances, do you want to forget about the sewing lesson?” Nikki asked, watching me carefully.

“No!” I protested. “Whatever happens with Jared, I also need this. I can’t make enough money to stay… to stay in school.” I was actually thinking, “to stay with this challenge I’d undertaken,” but that wasn’t something I was going to share with her.

“OK, if you’re sure…”

I nodded, firmly. I couldn’t afford to push off my other problems, just because one of them was bothering me.

“The first step in learning about fittings, Marsh, is understanding how dresses are made. Come look at the seams on these dresses.”

I got her point almost immediately. “So you’re saying that fittings are always going to be about adjusting seams?”

“Pretty much always. There are times when you’ll have to do more, but that can be kind of tricky, and we’ll ignore those cases. But look carefully at these. Note that there are certain types of seams that you’re pretty much always going to find.”

All of Marsha’s dresses were pretty similar, in that they had modest necklines and long sleeves and skirts, so she picked one off the garment rack that was different. It was a formal gown that was supposed to be taken in, and she held it up against herself to show me.

“See? This one is strapless, so the seams are different. Look at the neckline, and what’s necessary when you have a dress that has to rely on other things besides the shoulders to stay up. We’ll work with this one. This is a bit too large for me, so you can practice pinning it on me. One sec.” She quickly threaded a needle and make short stitches in the garment. “I’ve marked the places this will need to be taken in so that I can take the pins out. I’ll put them back in when we’re done.”

As she changed into the gown, she explained, “When trying on a fitted gown like this, Marsh, it’s important that the girl is wearing the same kind of underwear she’ll be wearing with it.”

“It’s that tight?” I asked, a bit surprised.

She laughed. “It can be, but more often you need to be able to check for VPL. That’s visible panty line,” she added, when I looked confused. “You don’t want the outline of her underwear to be obvious through the dress, and you don’t want her bra straps to show.”

Following her instructions, I pulled the dress close to her body along the seams and the darts, pinning as I went. She showed me some shortcuts, but was generally very surprised at how quickly I was catching on. Perhaps if I’d had the experience she did, I would have known to be surprised as well, but it all somehow seemed so obvious once she had shown me, although I was sure I had never seen it done before, and my hands almost naturally knew exactly how and where to insert the pins to hold the measurements without jabbing the wearer.

She checked the fit against the mirror on my closet and pronounced herself quite pleased. “I think you know a lot more than you’re letting on, Marsh. This seems like old hat to you.”

“I’m guessing that I must have overheard my mother doing it many times and somehow just remembered. I promise you that I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“First time or not, you clearly knew what you were doing. I don’t see any reason that you couldn’t fit your roommate for her gown anytime you like.”

She doffed the garment and replaced the pins in their original positions, following her markings, which she then removed. “At this rate, you’re going to be able to do alterations yourself by the end of the term. I’ve never seen anybody pick up these techniques so quickly. Let’s see what you can do with the zippers I brought last week.”

So I took a look, with her supervising. The zippers actually exhibited two very different problems. The first was trivial – the bottom teeth of the zipper were bad and she showed me how to stitch a new stop to avoid them. The second was much more difficult – the zipper actually had to be replaced. Quick learner or not, it took me over an hour to follow her directions, because the seams that held the zipper were a bit complicated. But once again, once I got into it, it all felt incredibly familiar and obvious, as though I actually had once learned how and forgotten.

Nikki was full of praise again, which gave me something positive to hold on to. I might be failing as an “actress” but at least I was picking up the sewing well. “OK, take care,” she said as she left. “And I am going to talk to Alvin about this.”

After she was gone, it occurred to me to wonder how Alvin would take Nikki castigating him for send Jared and me off together like that. I almost called her back, but decided that she knew him a lot better than I did. If she felt that he would handle it well, I just had to trust her.

I called Tina. We hadn’t spoken in almost a week, and I had promised to do better about keeping in touch. The big problem was, what to tell her? I had already spoken to both Lee Ann and Nikki about Jared. Surely I didn’t need to tell Tina as well? Besides, she would be worried about the sewing thing, since I had told her that it was threatening this little experiment.

“So everything’s OK now?” she asked, hopefully, after I told her about my progress, thanks to Nikki’s help.

“I wouldn’t say OK, as much as ‘moving in the right direction’. Nikki’s teaching me, but I’m not sure how much money I’m going to be able to earn, with her having to take on the bigger and more expensive jobs. At the rate I’m going, I’m only going to pull in maybe $300 for the rest of the semester, and that’s not going to be enough.”

“I did have one idea…” she offered.

“Oh?”

“You could bring some things home and I could help you do them on Mom’s machine.”

“Would we have enough time? I mean, you’d pretty much have to do them, since right now I’m totally useless at anything non-trivial, and I don’t want Mom knowing that. So we’d have to hope she goes out for a while. How much could we really do in, say, three hours?”

“Probably not much,” she admitted. “Maybe you could leave some and come back for them another time? I could work on them on my own.”

“Wow, that’s really generous of you, Teen, and I really appreciate the suggestion, but don’t you think Mom and Dad would wonder why I was coming home so often? I mean, that wouldn’t be usual, would it? And the train fare back and forth would really eat into my earnings. It’s not that it’s a bad idea; I just don’t see a way to make it work.”

“Um, what if we do it the other way? What if I come up to visit you? That shouldn’t be really odd, should it? Me going to visit my sister at college? And then I could help you there.”

To say that I was touched would have been an understatement. “That is an absolutely incredible offer, Teen, and I’m really tempted to take you up on it…”

“I can come up this weekend.”

“… but it’s not realistic. I’d love to have you here, although I’m really not sure where I’d put you up…”

“I’d sleep with you, of course. You’re a girl now, so what’s the big deal?”

“Um, right.” I had so far managed to avoid being undressed around girls, and I had managed not to see girls undressed – or mostly. Lee Ann and Terry did sometimes walk around in their underwear, but you get used to that when you do theater, and we have a private bathroom, so I haven’t had to share it so far. But if Tina slept over, we’d have to change in front of each other; plus, we’d have to share the bed or one of us would have to sleep on the floor. She might be comfortable with that, but I sure wasn’t. And it wasn’t something I even wanted to discuss. So I pointed out something else.

“How would we explain it to Mom and Dad?” I pointed out, and it was only partially an excuse. “I mean, sure we can say that we miss each other, but – after just a few weeks? They’d know we were up to something. Besides, even if you didn’t have choir practice, it’s really not fair to you.”

“I do have a motive, you know. I don’t want you calling an end to this and… you know.”

“I know, Teen. And it’s not going to happen. I promise. I’m really sorry I panicked. I said that I would wait until after Christmas…”

“… at the earliest, right?”

“Right – at the earliest.” There was no harm in letting her think I was considering extending this. “I think I’m just going to have to depend on Nikki to help me here, and assume that it’s enough. I do have some money that Marsha earned in the first half, after all.”

That had made me a bit uncomfortable, at first, when I discovered the account. After all, it was really Marsha’s money, not mine, wasn’t it? Or was it? How do you even work out that kind of issue? When I changed back, where would she go, and where had she been before? A philosophy major probably would have had a ball, playing with the possibilities. In the end I justified using by remembering that I was going to be paying the same bills as she would have, even if it mattered.

Tina agreed to keep looking for ideas that did not require my coming home or her coming here. Then she remembered something else. “Oh! Chad came by. He said he had some thoughts that he wanted to share with you on your… situation. Did you want to call him? I’ll get his phone number.”

“Don’t bother,” I told her. “I remember it. If for some reason I don’t get through and he calls back, you can just give him my cell number. Thanks for passing on the message, Teen. Bye”

I had probably been a bit brusque in saying goodbye, especially since we hadn’t had the kind of chat she seemed to expect – in fact she hadn’t told me anything about herself this time, or possibly I hadn’t given her a chance. It was just that I was eager to call Chad; I hadn’t spoken to him since I got back to school, and if he had an insight, it was bound to be worth hearing.

25 Comments

  1. von says:

    You completely lost me with this chapter. Completely. You de-tensionized the tensions, and it was completely non-believable from beginning to end.

    If this was where you were going (and I have NO idea of why) then I see why you rejected several of my earlier suggestions.

    Wow.

    Don’t get me wrong, it was rather well written style wise. It was easy to read.

    But plot and characterization wise, you absolutely lost me.

  2. Russ says:

    Non-believable? Really? Conflicts and tensions don’t get resolved right away. Sometimes you have to go on with your life. My intent is for Marsh to put the Jared thing in the back of her mind for now. Nothing can happen on that score until Sunday, anyway. My intension was indeed to lower the tension from the initial panicky reaction. That should have happened at the end of the previous chapter. If it didn’t, I need to fix it.

  3. von says:

    No, I mean the entire chapter is non-believable. Almost too many things to list, but I will try:

    1) The whole ‘seeing another girl naked’ thing. First of all, she wasn’t naked, but ignore that. I refuse to believe that, without alot of work (and thus tension), she had managed to avoid this before now.

    2) The reaction vs Alvin is wrong. It spoils the tension and is unbelievable. He had a dramatic problem, which was making one of his most important roles unworkable. He needed to fix it. He did MUCH less than I would have done, and his request was perfectly reasonable.

    3) “you could even sleep in my bedroom, since I’m a girl for now,” Wrong. If Teen suggests it, cool. She doesn’t really believe the whole thing. But we go from ‘wow, I just handled my first naked girl’ to ‘you can sleep in my bedroom in one easy leap? Not for me.

    4) The premise that Marsh is acting under shifts too much for me. Whenever you need it for your plot, you have him imagining some imaginary sister type person whose body he is borrowing. But that violates the entire tension with Teena, where they are in agreement that if he fixes things, she will suddenly ‘lose’ a sister. If that was really their premise, then she would be the one desperate to dump the brother and get her sister back.

    5) Nicki is a total loss for me. Having Teen come for the weekend is great. I would use Teen instead of Nicki from the beginning.

    6) You are losing all of my tensions. The book is becoming ‘how a girl saves her sewing business from disaster’.

    You say:

    Conflicts and tensions don’t get resolved right away.

    This completely misses my point. All of the conflicts and tensions that you have built for me are not getting resolved or building… they are getting ignored or trivialized. And not replaced.

    Imagine a book about some small dwarf like creatures that are told they need to steal a rod of power from the king, because he is an evil king who is going to use it to destroy the country.

    Now, he may be a very nice king. And the person that told them that may be the evil person who wants to destroy the country. But we need to keep our tension about the king going until the big shift. We may have thought that he drowned his wife, and be disabused by the castle doctor talking about her long wasting sickness with the king at her side. But then we need to think he created the sickness, and sat at her side to gloat.

    We would be seriously disappointed if the small dwarf like creatures, who took jobs in the castle kitchen as cover, became more and more interested in cooking and ended up deciding to stay on as cooks. And we would even be disappointed if we ended up hearing more and more about various recipes, and how well they tasted, and how interesting it was to make them.

    I would lose Nicki completely, and replace her with Teena right from the start. His best friend needs to be brought in. Lose the Euro-lit thing. Jared and Alvin were going OK till this chapter, building the sex-with-a-boy vs the-play-is-important tension. Use the sewing as a vehicle for other things… and emphasize the other things, not the sewing.

    For example. If a couple of weeks ago this scene had happened *with Lee Ann*. And she had whipped off her dress without warning. and you had focused *then*, at that part of the scene, on his amazing control. How he had tried both to not look and to not NOT look, and how surprised he was by his lack of reaction, etc.

    (I actually wrote that scene in my head, except it happened in the bathroom. Marsh was brushing his teeth and Lee Ann barged in ‘sorry, I’m in a desperate hurry’ stripped, showered, and he was standing their trying to figure out how to handle it, and she makes some comment about, ‘Marsh, are you back to that whole prude thing again? I thought you had gotten over that.’ etc.)

    Even here, there should have been the tension at the point in the scene where the strip tease happened, not as a small footnote later.

  4. von says:

    They may even stay and be cooks. That would be a fun ending, ironic and amusing. but that has to happen *after* the tension is resolved, as a fun denuoument.

  5. von says:

    Good grief, now I am tempted to write the book.

    Argh.

  6. von says:

    Oh, and I still like your titles. You should work harder to make both halves of the pun work, tho.

  7. von says:

    All of Marsha’s dresses were pretty similar, in that they had modest necklines and long sleeves and skirts, so she picked one off the rack that was different. It was a formal gown, and she held it up against herself to show me.

    This didn’t make sense to me.

  8. Russ says:

    OK, substantially rewritten. And now I need to rewrite parts of the next two as well.

  9. von says:

    Better, much better.

    You move the whole ‘seeing girls in their underwear thing’ back to the past and deemphasize it. Past is good, deemphasize I think lowers a tension you want to build. But still, better. I will be interested in how you deal with Teena.

    To complete the emphasis, it might be better to merely say, ‘she tried on the gown’. In a boy turns into girl plot the ‘she stripped down to her underwear’ phrase raises things you don’t deal with.

    The bit later about, no problem because I had seen others, then raises it at the point you want to deal with it.

    Question: How many beds in the room? If a boy slept over there would be zero percent chance he was thinking of sharing the bed. If a girl-sister, probably 90% chance… at least the girls I know.

    I’ll get his number,” she said. While she was gone I thought some important thoughts.

    You seem to force the ‘don’t give me his number’ thing, and I don’t know why. That he knows it, sure. She says, 555-1212 and he says, ‘yep, that’s what I remember’, sure. But why the force on not getting it?

    Much, much better. You keep me going with the rewrite. Many previous comments still valid, but muted 🙂

  10. Russ says:

    Some more good points. Adjustments made.

  11. von says:

    If he wanted you two to be friends, he should have had you just sit next to each other at rehearsals or something.”

    If he needs you two to be more comfortable with each other…

  12. von says:

    I had already spoken to both Lee Ann and Nikki about Jared. Surely I didn’t need to tell Tina as well?

    >> Protect little sister from boy girl, casual sex issue.

  13. von says:

    “Um, right.” I had so far managed to avoid being undressed around girls, and I had managed not to see girls undressed – or mostly. Lee Ann and Terry did sometimes walk around in their underwear, but you get used to that when you do theater, and we have a private bathroom, so I haven’t had to share it so far. But if Tina slept over, we’d have to share the bed or one of us would have to sleep on the floor. She might be comfortable with that, but I sure wasn’t.

    >>Oh, oops, I miscommunicated.
    >> He is the guy-ish-thing.

    “Oh.” She said it casually, but it made me nervous. I had so far mostly managed to avoid getting dressed or being undressed around my roomates and Tina. Sure, once or twice Lee Ann or Terry walked around in their bra or a nighshirt, but not often, and, being in the theater, I was kind of used to those occasional exposures.

    But with Tina in my room, I would have to just change right in front of her, and she would change in front of me. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, no matter if it hadn’t been too hard with Nikki putting on her gown in front of me.

    “Well, that’d be great Teen, but I only have the one bed, and my room is kind of small for you to sleep on the floor.”

    “Silly. I will sleep with you! Great, I’m so excited, I will tell Mom as soon as she gets home. A college visit for me!

    Oh, and by the way, Chad…

  14. von says:

    And now I need to rewrite parts of the next two as well.

    Feel free to send me what you have, if you want pre-pub comments.

  15. von says:

    Tina agreed to keep looking for ideas that did not require my coming home or her coming here.

    Whoa, I missed this. Major de-tensioner, and nothing in the previous conversation leads up to this. I saw tina as committed, and Marsh as having failed to put her off. I so missed this, and don’t like it either 🙂

  16. von says:

    “Don’t bother,” I told her. “I remember it. If for some reason I don’t get through and he calls back, you can just give him my cell number. Thanks for passing on the message, Teen.”

    I had probably been a bit brusque in saying goodbye, especially since we hadn’t had the kind of chat she seemed to expect – in fact she hadn’t told me anything about herself this time, or possibly I hadn’t given her a chance. It was just that I was eager to call Chad; I hadn’t spoken to him since I got back to school, and if he had an insight, it was bound to be worth hearing.

    He didn’t say goodbye.

    “I hung up, eager to call Chad. As I dialed I realized…”

  17. von says:

    But this certainly wasn’t going to go away.

    What is the ‘this’?

  18. von says:

    “That’s not the point, Marsh. There is a way to ask for a hookup, and you don’t do it face-to-face with the girl you want unless you are sure, and you certainly don’t do it when you are supposed to be establishing a friendship!”

    >> I haven’t found this on the web. Is this something real, or just invented for the plot.

  19. Russ says:

    Hookups were not in vogue when I went to college, so I did some web searching on “how to ask for a hookup.” The most common answer seems to be – “don’t ask – it will just happen or it won’t.” The next most common was the scenario that Nikki mentions, in which a friend makes a suggestion, which can either be followed up or ignored.

  20. von says:

    Ah.

    The problem I have with Nikkis statement then (unless it is presented as a specific ‘rule’ for that campus) is that Jareds concept makes WAY to much sense to be insulting. Sure he wants the sex. Sure he broke the rules. But the situation was handed him on a silver platter.

    I would expect the girls to be ‘irrationally’ upset. As I said, ‘violated’ is a key word for me here. I expect a lot more feeling words, and a lot less logically discussing the subject.

    Feelings, feelings, feelings… key to making the break between a guy conversation and a girl conversation.

    (Von ducks the various bricks thrown at him by the women reading this.)

    Again, Dave Barrys post works here. And the better that you have Marsh doing a girl talk… without saying it!!… the better the other stuff will come. Have him do an entire girl talk conversation and never notice.

    >>It must have shown on my face, for Nikki suddenly shifted from casual friendliness to concern, and I had to tell her everything. She was livid.

    Make this into several paragraphs, tears, etc. What did she SAY that shifted from friendliness into concern. What did she say and do that made him tell. She hugged him as he told it, she cried too, etc. etc. etc.

    Show, don’t tell!

  21. Maiden Anne says:

    >> I had tried to put on a brave front for Lee Ann,

    My initial reaction to this was confusion. After sobbing in Lee Ann’s arms, I don’t see how she could put on a brave front, but looking it over, I think you mean that she was attempting to put on a brave front regarding the play. Is that correct?

    >> Whatever happens with Jared,

    Missing a ” .

    >> but that wasn’t something I was going to share with her.

    Didn’t Marsh tell Alvin about this? Wouldn’t Alvin have told Nikki?

    >>I had so far managed to avoid being undressed around girls, and I had managed not to see girls undressed – or mostly.

    Not sure that is believable, especially considering:

    >> As she changed into the gown, she explained,

    But I see there has already been quite a bit of discussion on the subject.

    >> There was no harm in letting her think I was considering extending this.

    That was really mean of Marsh. Why build up hopes on Tina’s part if he is planning to dash them? Just to keep the peace temporarily?

    >>A philosophy major probably would have had a ball, playing with the possibilities.
    Now?!? A philosophy major would have had a ball from the very beginning, and the bank account would have been the least of his worries.

  22. von says:

    >>bank account would have been the least of his worries.

    Yes, interesting that that is his moral dilema… avoiding the huge elephants in the room.

  23. Russ says:

    >> >> I had tried to put on a brave front for Lee Ann,

    >> After sobbing in Lee Ann’s arms, I don’t see how she could put on a brave front, but looking it over, I think you mean that she was attempting to put on a brave front regarding the play. Is that correct?

    After the sobbing, Marsh claimed that she had overreacted and could deal with Jared, even though she wasn’t really certain that she could.

    >> Missing a ” .

    Fixed, thanks.

    >> Didn’t Marsh tell Alvin about this? Wouldn’t Alvin have told Nikki?

    Not about the boast, no. Only Tina and Chad know that part.

    >> That was really mean of Marsh. Why build up hopes on Tina’s part if he is planning to dash them? Just to keep the peace temporarily?

    Would it really be kinder to tell Tina, “I’m planning on reversing this and wiping your memories in a couple of months”? If it happens, Tina will never know.

  24. von says:

    >>Would it really be kinder to tell Tina, “I’m planning on reversing this and wiping your memories in a couple of months”? If it happens, Tina will never know.

    I think this is an overall issue in the entire book; the whole nature of relationships and ‘white lies’. I find the fact that he hasn’t told his parents appalling, for example. And that he is allowing women to disrobe in front of him while considering himself a man… under the pretence that he is a woman, I think anyone that has a wife, a daughter, sisters, or even friends that are women would consider this immoral in the extreme; a form of visual rape.

    My wife and I had a conversation about this in light of the various news articles that have been coming forth recently about men who consider themselves women. I read a whole article about how public schools are handling the restroom issue: a boy who considers himself a girl wants to use the girls restroom, but the parents of girls (and, one presumes, the girls themselves) are understandably appalled at the idea of a boy in the girls restroom.

    One thing that has interested me most about this book is the huge moral issues that it raises. I stand with Anne here… Marsh’s relationship with Tina (and his parents, and his roommates, and Nikki, and Jared!!) has been deceitful from the beginning. And as a result he has denied himself a huge amount of support in dealing with the difficult issues he faces.

    Had he been my son, and had I been informed, I would have not allowed him to go back to college; we would have handled the whole thing together as a family at home. I would never have allowed him to go to college ‘in drag’. Regardless of whether I believed it to be a psychological disorder or I had believed the whole time travel thing, I would not have allowed him to face it alone, or to subject his roommates to an impostor and pervert.

    And indeed, had he been my son, we would have seen through his deception at the first meal. There is no way a stranger could come into our house and deceive us into thinking that they were one of our children for very long: even if they wore the body of that child. Even a child that had grown up in our home would find it exceedingly difficult to pose as a sibling they never knew (or one they did). I think Anne has commented on this as well.

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