SUBSTITUTE GIRL

 

Mandy and Andy are best friends.  She needs someone to fill for her shifts at the restaurant from time to time and Andy is just about her size…

 

“So do you want the extra shifts or not?”

Mandy was, if nothing else, direct and to the point.  Things were wither black or white, hot or cold, up or down.  There was never an in between, never a gray area.  Me…I was all about the gray.  It’s probably why we had been such good friends for so long.  Mandy had moved next door from some big city, when I was twelve.  She had been a bit of Tomboy, so it was safe to be her friend and not worry about getting harassed.  Being twelve, and being ‘just friends’ with a girl was not viewed as being possible in the eyes of my peers.  If you were friendly to a girl, you loved her.  If you loved her, you were teased.  It didn’t make sense to me either, but those were the rules, handed down from generation to generation of sixth-graders.  They were black and white.

But Mandy wasn’t like the other girls.  She was tough.  Tougher in fact then most guys, including me, and much smarter the most guys too...including me.  Yet, for all of her toughness, she was still easy to hang around with.  I remember the one time someone gave me a hard time about being friends with her, she popped him in mouth and dropped him where he stood.  And that was, as they say, the end of that.

Fast forward to today and little about her had changed, except her tomboyish ways.  Puberty had brought about the curves that the boys craved and the other girls felt threatened by.  She and I both worked at an upscale restaurant in the heart of the city.  We had both gotten the jobs while attending university, where she had studied theatre arts, while I studied to be a business analyst.  She had decided that she wasn’t making enough money as a waitress to live the kind of life-style that she wanted, so she found herself a second job at a club down the street where they could serve cocktails for big tips.  The problem was, the restaurant’s owner was a very strict, conservative lady that would almost certainly be disapproving of her Mandy missing shifts to work somewhere else, which is why Mandy had come to me with the strange proposal that she had come up with. 

She knew that if anyone would do it for her, it would be me.

I had always been the one to help her out when she needed it, and vice versa, when I needed her help she was there for me too.  Of course I had to go through the motions of being totally against the idea.   I mean, it really was absurd to think I could be dressed up as a girl and take her place as waitress, at the same restaurant where I already worked as a waiter.

“Its ridiculous”, I blurted out loud, “No-one is going to buy me standing in for you, we don’t look anything alike…notwithstanding the fact that I’m a guy and you’re a girl.”

“Well when you use words like ‘notwithstanding’ of course no one will buy that you’re me” she chuckled, “but if you can ‘dumb-it-down’ a bit…”

I just scoffed.  Mandy was always telling me that I used words that were bigger than they need be.  But given the fact that she was offering me her job, I felt that my lexicon was entirely apropos.  It had started two days ago when a friend of Mandy’s had dropped in our apartment with the news that she’d been waiting for.  Gretchen had been the makeup artist while Mandy was in the theatre program, and had remained friends with her even after graduation.  She was the one that had been working at the club for a few months, and when she heard he boss lamenting about not having enough cocktail waitresses, she offered Mandy the job.  Mandy’s initial problem was that she would have to stop working at the restaurant on the weekend…which as I said before was quite a gamble.  I, on the other hand, didn’t work weekends, which was fine by me, until I realized what Mandy wanted of me.

I had lied for her, covered for her, even loaned her money (I think she still owed me for that) and I would do it all again in a heartbeat.  But this…this was asking a little much. That, of course, did not stop her from whining and whining and whining some more for me to agree, but I would not be persuaded.  Why the heck would an unemployed business analyst and part-time waiter want to dress up on weekends like his best friend? 

I tried to dumb my vocabulary down to a level that Mandy would understand.

“There is no f-ing way!”

Mandy’s face fell.  She shrugged her shoulders then turned to walk away.  I was being given the ultimate guilt-trip.  And it was working.

I could feel the tidal wave of guilt wash over me as I watched her sulk.  I knew that I was the only obstacle standing in the way of her living her dream, and I was supposed to be her best, and oldest, friend.  As she disappeared from view I felt my stomach tighten…what had I done?

The guilty thought stayed with me through the night.  I tossed and turned in my bed, weighing the pros and cons of becoming Mandy’s twin.  On the one hand I would be helping my best friend.  On the other I would be setting myself up for a potential humiliation like I had never experienced.  What if I got caught?  What if someone recognized me?  These questions remained as I went to work the next day.  What would Mandy think of me if I didn’t help her?  When I didn’t see Mandy for our usual coffee break in the afternoon, I could only imagine what she was thinking of me. 

By the time my shift was over, the guilty feelings were starting to eat me alive.  It wasn’t like I had a lot of friends.  My fellow waiters were hardly sociable.  Without Mandy, it dawned on me that I would be living a very lonely life. 

By the time I got back to my room that night I had reached my breaking point.  I texted her from my cell-phone, “Lets talk. Maybe I can help you after all.”

Her response was almost instantaneous.  She texted me back a giant smiling happy face.  Later that night there was a knock at my bedroom door.  I knew instinctively who it was…who else would it be?

“So what changed your mind?” she chirped as she came into my broom-closet sized room carrying a duffle bag the size of a body bag.

“I haven’t…yet” I replied, “I just want you to tell me what you’re thinking I would be doing….and just how the heck this is supposed to work.”

She chuckled, “Well…let me just start by saying that we are nearly the same size…which by the way I still hate you for…”

“What?” I asked, “Why?”

“Remember when our Moms thought it would be cool if we dressed the same?”

I remembered back to the fifth grade.  Mandy’s mom and my Mother had gone shopping together and purchased matching overalls and flannel shirts for us to wear.  From a distance with her short boyish hair, it looked like we were almost identical twins.  Mandy had moaned and complained the entire time were dressed together.  Apparently she wanted to be best friends, but not a matched set.

“This is some kind of payback for you then…isn’t it?” I chuckled.

“Maybe,” she cocked her head to one side, “But isn’t it a strange coincidence that we’re the same size…and we’ve almost got the same name…Man-dee, An-dee…right?”

“Go on…” I said.

“So anyhow, who knows me better then you?” she asked an obviously rhetorical question, “No-one.  So all we need to do is work on your mannerisms and stuff…”

“And the fact that I look like a guy….” I interjected.

“That will be the easy part…trust me,” I’ve already talked to a friend of mine in the makeup department and we’ve got it all planned out.”

The thought of wearing makeup made my skin crawl, but…if she could make a compelling enough case…and guarantee I wouldn’t be made a fool of…I’d have to consider it.  She would do the same for me. 

“I figure it’ll take a couple of weeks…minimum” she continued, “You’ll have to learn how to walk and talk and act like me…and I’ll have to start laying the groundwork in public for you to take over.”

“Groundwork?”

“Yeah, you know…like wearing a bandage over my boobs, wearing more makeup…changing my hair to match yours….”

“Whoah-whoah, what?” I interrupted.

“If this is going to work my dear, I have to start changing my…character…now, while you learn to change yours.”  Mandy was obviously thinking of this as student of theatre would.  This was more about imitating the image of Mandy the waitress, then Mandy my friend.

As she started to unzip the bag things were starting to make sense.  She was more serious about this then I had originally thought.  This was something that she had been planning for a while and I knew that I was basically being backed into a corner that I couldn’t get out of.  But such was the basis of our relationship.  Mandy had always been the leader, and I was the follower.  It had served me well so far, so why would I want to mess with it?

I sighed, looked up at her from me desk chair and said, “When do we start?”

Mandy smiled and opened her bag, “Right now”

That night, Mandy started me off by learning to walk in a pair of one-inch heeled loafers, as well as a corset, panties and a training bra with small breast forms attached.  I just pranced around my tiny room, with Mandy critiquing me constantly.  “Heel-toe, heel-toe, shake that booty….no-no, not like that” were the words most commonly heard.

After nearly two hours, she was spent…and so was I.  My feet and legs were so numb from pain that no amount of advil would help.  As I sat on my bed rubbing my calves I could tell by the expression on her face that Mandy wasn’t quite as sure about this working out as she had been when we first started.

But I also knew that Mandy wasn’t going to give up.

After a week of torturous training, I was finally starting to show promise.  I thought things were going well until Mandy reminded me that walking in one-inch heels was one thing…the waitresses at the restaurant  were all required to wear three inch heels.

“Three inch?!” I cried, “Are you kidding?? What kind of sick…”

She interrupted me before I could finish, “We’ve been complaining for years.  Apparently it’s a long standing tradition that goes back to the fifties when the place opened…so it’s just the way it is”

I rolled my eyes.  This meant that I wasn’t even close to being ready. I had a long…long way to go!

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