When It Happens to You by Molly Ringwald Page B

haircut.
    â€œNO, MOMMY!” He held out his arms to her, his gray eyes widened in terror. The experienced stylist tried to distract him with cartoons and, when that didn’t work, to bribe him with lollipops and Hershey’s Kisses, but Oliver continued to howl in protest. When it was clear that Oliver would not submit, Marina scooped him up and paid the woman anyway, overtipping as she mumbled an embarrassed apology and rushed out of the salon.
    Now, at six years old, Oliver had dark, curly, shoulder-length hair. Marina mastered the French braid so that she could fake a short haircut when necessary, but most of the time Oliver wore his hair loose in soft glossy waves that arranged themselves around his delicate face. He was beautiful, but more than that, he was pretty. Marina was used to people asking her the name of her little girl. “ His name is Oliver,” she would say. “He’s a boy,” she would add, and smile at the ill-disguised looks of disbelief.
    She wasn’t exactly sure when Oliver became Olivia at home. Most of the time she called him Oll, or Ollie, but just after his fourth birthday—shyly at first and then with more insistence—he asked that she call him Olivia.
    â€œBut Oliver honey, you’re a boy.”
    â€œI want to tell you a secret,” he said.
    They were snuggled in her bed reading Raggedy Ann in the Deep Deep Woods . She put the book aside and looked down at him.
    â€œOkay, honey. What’s the secret?”
    â€œWell . . .” He looked nervous, and then grinned at her. “I wasn’t going to tell you, but you’re my mommy.”
    â€œThat’s right, hon. I’m your mommy, and you can tell me anything. Anything at all.”
    â€œI’m really a girl,” he said in a whisper.
    She stared at him, wanting to say the right thing, fearing to say the wrong thing.
    â€œYou may feel like a girl sometimes . . .” she began.
    â€œNo! I am a girl,” he said, his voice rising.
    She waited a moment for him to calm down and then, gently, she tried again to explain. “Do you remember when we had that talk how what you have between your legs is different than what mommy has and—”
    â€œMy penis is going to fall off,” he said. “And when it does, everyone will know that I’m not lying. I’m a girl. My name is Olivia!” He put his head down in her lap and cried. She ran her hands through the tangle of his hair and did the only thing that she knew how to do. She comforted him.
    Â 
    Marina sat in the shade of a silver maple tree next to the father of Oliver’s best friend while they watched their respective offspring swing from the monkey bars. Though it was April in Southern California, the promise of spring seemed to have become the unseasonably punishing heat of summer. Marina hid beneath her sunhat while her friend sat beside her, exposed, getting redder and redder.
    â€œDon’t tell me you aren’t wearing sunscreen,” she said to him.
    Phillip fanned himself with the sheaf of papers in his hand.
    â€œI’m a man,” he said.
    â€œYou’re an idiot,” she said, grinning, and punched him in the arm. She opened her bag and took out a packet of moistened sunscreen wipes.
    â€œYou aren’t going to put that on me, are you?”
    â€œAre you kidding?” she said. “These things are expensive! I don’t like you that much. Charlotte!”
    She yelled at the blond girl dangling from the monkey bars behind her son. “Ollie, honey. You and Charlotte come here!”
    The kids dropped to the soft dirt and raced over to their parents.
    â€œFeel how hot I am,” Charlotte said as she climbed up on Phillip’s lap and touched her cheek to his.
    â€œYou are hot,” he said. “And Daddy wasn’t thinking when he didn’t put any sunscreen on you this morning. . . .”
    â€œMama always puts sunscreen on me,”