She said that she has helped you with picking your classes before and she recognized you when you got in the van”“Wow this is getting really weird... You being in my mom’s class and your mom working at my school”“I know I thought it was really weird when Mrs. Connor said that she was your mom.” It was Mrs. Connor, because my mom had retaken her maiden name, and I still had my father’s last name.“Haha, I bet that was a strange conversation to have with your teacher”“Actually your mom is always. Complications, to put it mildly. More than once, I thought that death would come visiting from either her parents or mine, but throughout all the screaming, yelling and threats, I kept suggesting that we get married. The law was a bit different at that time, but it still took an attorney and a sympathetic judge to get us married with me sixteen and her fourteen. Not that her parents ever really forgave me back then. To top it off, our bedroom walls were so thin that you could hear a cat fart. I was curled up half way down the bed, holding my hand to Stephanie's lower back and pressing gently to ease the ache. We read like this for some time. Stephanie got off the bed, dug into her bag for her cigarettes and went out onto the balcony. She smokes a little, mainly on holiday. I find her smoking a deeply sexy; her handling of cigarette and lighter, the sharp inhale and the slowly released plume, the hooded eyes and face obscured behind the smoke, the smell in her hair and the taste on. " Maybe I'm wrong. You know how Mrs. Meyer is sometimes, she can be alittle intimidating." Yes she can. Would you like to dress as Amanda?" I don't know, Mom, but I guess I would sometimes. I hadn't thought ofbeing Amanda while Dad's been in the hospital, but when I dressed thismorning, I did miss being a girl."Mom was silent again. We were almost to the Carquinez Bridge before Momspoke again."Mark, if you'd like, I'll allow you to be a girl now and then. You haveto see who you want to be and.