Notes: This chapter makes reference to several things that happened in my fic Trouble. Title is from Paper Moon by Nat King Cole.

Disclaimer: All characters and environments belong to Michael MacLennan and Adrienne Mitchell/Global/Shaw Media.

It's Friday night, and all the young people in town are crowding the dance hall. From kids of thirteen, right up to old-timers of twenty-one, rich girls and poor boys, people who work and people who go to school, this is the place to be seen.

Betty wouldn't have turned up at all, only her girl cousins landed her in it by yammering about the dance in front of Betty's mother. Betty almost had Mom convinced that she would much rather stay in and help with the mending – until Nora just happened to drop into the conversation that Betty had been asked to the dance by none other than Calvin Sturbridge. Apparently, he's quite cute now that his pimples have cleared up. Personally, Betty can't see it, but Mom sure could.

Bloody Mavis. Bloody Nora. They didn't even want me here, they just wanted to see me squirm, Betty thinks, scowling at the tiles in the girls' cloakroom, where she's been hiding for the past hour and a half.

Mavis is a year older than Betty, and Nora is a year younger. Their sister Lillie was two years older than Betty, but she died three years ago. She knows that Nora and Mavis miss Lillie something fierce, but Betty doesn't. She's sorry Lillie died, but she can't pretend she liked Lillie all that much. It's Betty's biggest secret, the fact that she doesn't miss Lillie. At Lillie's ninth birthday, she got all her friends to chase Betty around the house, screeching, "Are you a boy or a girl? Are you a boy or a girl?" until Betty locked herself in the outhouse to try and escape them.

"I'm a girl, I'm a girl," Betty yelled.

They pounded on the door and walls with feet and fists, chanting, "It says it's a girl!" Betty doesn't believe in Hell, but if she did, she'd bet anything that souls in torment sound like nine-year-old girls screaming. They didn't let up until Betty's Aunt Joan called them in for birthday cake. Betty waited until she could hear them singing Happy Birthday to creep out of the outhouse, climb over the fence, and walk home.

There's a picture of that day in her cousins' photograph album. Betty is wearing her Sunday dress with two layers of petticoats and a bow in her hair. She looks just like any of the other little girls in the picture (in fact, she's almost indistinguishable from Nora - they looked very alike as children, but not so much now). Why did they keep calling her a boy?

Other girls have always been able to tell that there's something funny about Betty. Marge Thompson and Josie Cutler have been cloistered in here for the past ten minutes, exhaustively discussing the boys they're sweet on. They keep looking at Betty and spluttering with laughter. Betty would pull a hideous face at them (her brothers taught her to make truly terrifying ones when she was two), but she's fifteen now, a working woman. She doesn't do kid stuff like that any more. Instead, she just glares.

Finally, Marge addresses her. "Hey, Girl McRae! D'you know Cal Sturbridge is looking for you?"

"Well, I ain't lookin' for him. Don't you dare tell him I'm here."

Marge and Josie exchange a glance. "I think your cousin Mavis already told him," says Josie.

Betty's shoulders slump. Trust Mavis! "Either of you got a cigarette?"

They shake their heads, giggling incredulously. Betty forgets about being grown up long enough to cross her eyes behind their backs as they leave.

They haven't been gone for half a minute when a new flock of girls comes streaming into the tiny bathroom. Betty gets elbowed into a corner. Usually, she would elbow them back, only she's become momentarily paralysed, because one of the girls is Shirley Rose, the prettiest girl at this dance or any other.

Shirley and Betty went to the same elementary school, but Betty left after her thirteenth birthday to start work, whereas Shirley went off to the big high school in town, because her dad runs the store there. Rose is her last name, not her middle name. Shirley's brother Albert gets razzed sometimes, for having a surname that sounds like a girl's name, but no-one ever teases Shirley.

They haven't been in the same space for a few months, but Betty is still swamped with feelings: a surge of joy mixed with a creeping panic, topped off with four or five new worries. Betty always feels strangely worried, when Shirley Rose walks in. She figures most people probably do.

Betty could count the number of times she and Shirley have spoken on one hand. They ran with very different crowds in elementary school: Shirley with the popular girls who were chosen to run errands for the teachers, and Betty with the boys, or no-one at all. The fact that they barely know each other hasn't stopped Betty from having frighteningly vivid dreams about Shirley asking Betty to go with her into the back room at her dad's grocery store. The dreams always end before anything good happens. In a way, that's even scarier, because Betty is uncomfortably aware of what she would consider a good end to the dream.

In a sense, going out with Pete Flaherty last year was not good for Betty in the long run. Before she went out with him, she never thought about touching Shirley with her hands. She didn't really know what you were supposed to do with your hands when you kissed, particularly if – if it was with another girl. Suffering Pete's big puppyish hands all over her chest was one of the most embarrassing experiences of Betty's life so far, but it did teach her a little about what people did together in the dark.

Shirley's girlfriends leave without her, and Betty and Shirley are left excruciatingly alone. Shirley examines herself in the mirror. Betty stands off to the side, watching and trying to stop herself watching, all at the same time.

Pete always told Betty she was good-looking. Yet somehow, whenever Shirley walks into the same room as Betty, Betty feels as plain as an empty page. How is it that Shirley can stand four feet away from Betty, under the exact same lights, and somehow manage to look like she's being photographed through gauze? Girls like Shirley just don't make any sense. She knows she ought to despise Shirley for being so gorgeous and rich and utterly untouchable – she does hate her a little, sometimes, for making her feel this way – but mostly, Betty just feels unnerved by her.

Shirley puts her lipstick down on the rim of the sink. It rolls off, clattering audibly to the floor. She doesn't bend to pick it up, doesn't even look at it. It's like she thinks some obedient handmaiden will retrieve it for her.

Betty loses all her pride, whenever she's around Shirley. "Here," she says, picking up the lipstick and handing it to her.

Shirley blinks. "Oh, thank you," she says, taking the lipstick in her perfect princess hand.

She probably doesn't even remember my name, Betty thinks. I've never heard her call me by it. I'm such an idiot.

Betty has asked every single girl who's walked in here tonight whether they had a cigarette. She doesn't ask Shirley. Instead, as Shirley wafts her way out of the bathroom, Betty says quietly, "Bye, Shirley." She cringes inwardly as soon as she says it – she sounds so soppy – but at least nobody overheard.

"Bye, Shirley," mimics a voice from the corner. Betty gives a start. It's Ruth Morgan, coming out of one of the stalls. Ruth washes her hands busily, snickering to herself. Betty tries her damnedest not to show that she's dying of embarrassment.

"Having fun holed up in here, Girl McRae?" Ruth asks, taking Shirley's vacated space at the mirror.

Sweet, blessed irritation rises inside Betty, distracting her from her humiliation. "I've got a name, you know," she snaps. "I remembered yours, Ruth."

"Girl McRae remembered my name! I'm honoured," says Ruth, smirking as she starts to fix her hair. Ruth is a year older than Betty. She's a big girl, and she wears it well, dancing the Charleston better than anyone in town. Not that anyone is dancing the Charleston tonight; it's strictly waltzes and foxtrots.

Why am I even here? thinks Betty. She can't dance. She can never tell her mom that she can't dance. Mom sent her off to dancing lessons at the church hall when she was twelve, but Betty spent the dancing money on movies and cigarettes instead. Betty hasn't been spanked in years, but Betty suspects Dad might make an exception and wallop her around the legs if he ever finds out about Betty treating herself with the dancing money.

"I didn't realise you were here tonight," Ruth says conversationally. "I haven't seen you out on the floor. You waiting for somebody?"

"I was meant to meet Cal Sturbridge," Betty finds herself saying. She figures everyone probably knows by now.

"Well, he's out there." Ruth looks expectantly at Betty. When Betty doesn't move an inch, Ruth says, "He was asking about you."

Betty scowls. This is why she can't stand other girls. Why did Ruth have to be so sneaky, asking if she was meeting anybody, when Ruth knew full well that Cal was looking for Betty?

"Don't be shy," says Ruth, grinning like a cat at Betty's obvious reluctance. "Go on out there. He's waiting for you. You look fine."

"I'd rather stay in here a bit longer," Betty says stiffly.

Ruth eyes her. "Say, can I try on your shawl? It's real nice."

Betty shrugs. "If you want." She hands it over.

Ruth wraps it around herself and turns this way and that. "You're lucky to be so flat-chested. Clothes hang better off you than they do me."

"I'm not flat-chested," Betty protests.

"Everyone's flat-chested compared to me." Grinning, Ruth unwraps the shawl and stretches as if to underscore her point. Betty hates herself for it, but she can feel herself going the same colour as Shirley Rose's lipstick. She doesn't know Ruth, doesn't like her that much, but looking at her, she still feels like a bloody boy: hot all over, and embarrassed, and wanting something she doesn't like to think about but which is getting clearer by the day. The lines of Ruth's breasts and waist are like a roller coaster. Betty's never ridden one, but she's seen picture postcards.

Ruth wouldn't be drawing attention to her curves if she knew what Betty was. If she knew, she'd be running straight out of the bathroom like her skirt was on fire.

"Quit showing off," hisses Betty, snatching back the shawl.

Ruth doesn't seem hugely perturbed by Betty being annoyed with her. She starts fixing the two bead necklaces hanging around her neck. She pulls a face when they won't hang straight. "Ugh, they always go one way or the other," she complains. "I really hate having such big tits."

Betty makes an irritable noise and stomps to the other end of the bathroom. This night couldn't possibly get any worse than Ruth Morgan commanding Betty to look at her curves.

Ruth looks at Betty over her shoulder. "Hey, you got a cigarette? I forgot mine."

Betty shakes her head.

"Guess I'll be going back out there, then," says Ruth, finishing her primping and giving a little sigh of satisfaction at her own loveliness in the mirror.

"If Cal Sturbridge asks, you never saw me," Betty says, as threateningly as she can.

Ruth frowns. "Why don't you like Cal Sturbridge?"

"Huh?"

"I said, why don't you like Cal Sturbridge? He likes you."

"You don't have to like somebody just because they fancy you." Me and Shirley Rose are living proof of that.

Ruth turns around, bracing herself against the rim of the sink. "Is there a reason you don't fancy him?"

God, she's such a gossip, Betty thinks, exasperated. "I don't need to give anybody a reason."

Ruth laughs. "You're awful picky about boys. Cal Sturbridge isn't my type, but I'd go with him if he asked me. Plenty of girls would. You waitin' for a millionaire or what?"

"I ain't waiting for anybody. I just don't like him, and that's all there is to it."

Usually, this would be the point where Ruth – any girl – would fall about laughing and dash out of the bathroom, calling for her friends to come and listen to the latest kooky thing that Girl McRae just came out with. Instead, Ruth stands perfectly still, eyeing Betty. It's making Betty decidedly uncomfortable.

"Betty?" Ruth says at last.

"What is it?" Betty replies a fraction of a second too quickly.

Ruth smiles as kindly as she can, which isn't very. Ruth has a face like a kewpie doll, but her expression always looks like she's making fun of whoever she's talking to. "How 'bout I make you a proposition?"

"What kind of proposition?"

"I'll get rid of Cal Sturbridge for you, and all it'll cost you is that shawl."

"How?"

"That's not your concern," Ruth says, eyes glittering.

"You're not gonna tell him I didn't wanna meet him in the first place, are you?" Betty asks warily. She has no interest in dancing with Cal Sturbridge, but she doesn't need it getting around that she's been asked out twice and has dumped both boys. It'll look too suspicious.

Ruth gives a snort. "I like to think I'm a bit more subtle than that."

Betty frowns. "Why would you help me?"

Ruth gives a languorous shrug. "I've taken a fancy to your shawl. I want it, and unless you're feeling generous enough to hand it over for free, I can see I'm gonna have to do something to earn it. Now, what do you say?"

Betty considers this. "Lady, you got yourself a deal."

Ruth offers a hand, and they shake on it. Betty finds that she's smiling, in spite of the miserable evening she's had. There's something heartening about running across another girl her age with a pronounced mercenary streak. Betty's always thought she was the only one.

"You stay in here, and don't come out for ten minutes," Ruth says, dusting down her dress like a soldier shouldering his bayonet. "I'll have gotten rid of him by then, and you can make a run for it." With that, she strides out of the room, beads clacking softly with the swing of her walk.

There's no clock in the girls' cloakroom, so Betty has no way to tell when ten minutes has gone by. Inside her head, she sings a bawdy song her brothers taught her, several times in a row, because she figures it goes for about two minutes. When she finishes her fifth silent rendition of the song, she knows it ought to be safe to go.

She knows they are the same, but she doesn't know whether to trust Ruth. Betty trusts so few people. She's not even sure she would trust Shirley, if they were ever to really talk. She's so used to hiding everything that it feels scary to have Ruth know a fraction of how she feels on the inside.

But I have something Ruth wants, Betty thinks to herself. It gives her courage, because she might not be good with feelings or friends or any of that girly nonsense, but Betty understands what it is to want something just out of your reach. She understands it all too well, like wanting is a language she knew before she was ever born.

She peeps out of the girls' room, but the hallway is mostly dark. This place is such a dump, they can't even spring for a new light, she thinks. The disdain soothes Betty enough for her to make her cautious way into the hallway.

That's when she sees. Cal is leaning against the far wall, deep in conversation with Ruth. Unfortunately, the main door out of the dance hall is behind the two of them. There's no way Betty can get to it without Cal seeing her.

Betty stops dead in her tracks. As soon as she wonders about flinging herself back inside the bathroom, Cal looks up and spots her. She dares to hope that he might give up on her and stick with Ruth, but he frowns in recognition and she knows that he's sore about being stood up.

"Hey! Hey, Betty!" he calls, stepping around Ruth and moving toward Betty.

Ruth set me up, Betty thinks, agonised, furious. She planned it this way from the start. She got him to stand there so he'd see me -!

For some reason, Ruth doesn't look like she's gloating. She looks surprised to see Betty, she looks – well, exasperated, like her plan's been completely wrecked. For one long second, Ruth fixes Betty with a steady gaze before she shoots out a hand, grabs Cal by his shirt, pulls him to her and kisses him. Betty has never seen anyone kiss somebody so ferociously, not even in the movies. Ruth's hands are mussing Cal's hair and her body is pressed right up against his. It's sort of disgusting and impressive all at the same time.

After what seems like an eternity of loud, sloppy necking, Cal and Ruth break apart, panting. "Forget Girl McRae, she's a kid," Ruth says breathily. "Come outside with me."

Cal looks back at Betty briefly. Betty tries to paste a stricken expression on her face. She wonders if she should be ashamed of just how little she cares, that the boy she was meant to be dancing with tonight is going outside with another girl. But as Cal shrugs and goes outside, arm in arm with Ruth, Betty mostly just wants to laugh.

It's funny how when Betty was trapped in the bathroom, all she wanted to do was leave, and now that she can leave, she finds herself watching the dancers. Shirley Rose is dimly visible among the dancing throng, looking like Cinderella at the ball. Betty can tell from here that her dance card is thick with boys' eager signatures. She wonders how it would be to march over to her, ask, "Can I cut in?" and whirl away with Shirley's hand in hers.

Betty gets crushes on girls, and she wants to do the things that boys do. People would probably think that means she wants to be a boy. Maybe that's it, thinks Betty, maybe I ought to have been born a boy. Ben McRae, Bobby McRae, something like that.

But the thought doesn't fire her, doesn't feel like an epiphany. It's because she knows it's not true. If she got to do what she wanted – wear trousers in town instead of just on her parents' farm, and kiss girls, and never have to marry a man – Betty thinks she'd probably be just fine with being a girl. But it's useless even to think about, because girls are not allowed to do any of the things Betty wants. She's going to be stuck in this endless in-between, forever.

She tries to remind herself that even if she could turn back time and be born a boy instead, Shirley would never go for her. If Betty were a boy, she'd be more the middle child than ever, yet another dirty blond McRae son with a cheeky grin, with nothing to make her stand out. Her brother Sam is a real slick dancer, and Bill can make even the sourest old spinster crack a smile, and Joe can drink anyone under the table. She can tell that Tom, George and James Jr, her three younger brothers, are in the same mould. If she were obliged to try and chat up the same girls as them, she wouldn't have a prayer of getting a single date. Perhaps it's better that she doesn't have to compete with anyone, girls or boys.

Ruth Morgan likes kissing boys. If they were better friends, Betty might ask her if there's some kind of trick to it, some switch you flip to get yourself worked up over a boy. All boys tend to look the same to Betty – Mom rubs her temples in slow circles when Betty can't describe any of the boys or young men she works with, beyond "brown hair, taller than me, grey eyes – or maybe green, I can't remember." Ruth knows the secret that keeps eluding Betty. She can kiss a boy and think nothing of it.

Would Betty kiss a boy for Shirley Rose? She doesn't know. She doesn't think so. Maybe that means she's getting over her crush on Shirley. Betty hopes so. If she can just get over Shirley, and then never notice any other girl, ever again, she'll be at least one step closer to being normal.

Suddenly, Betty feels someone's hand on her shoulder. She flinches before she catches a whiff of perfume and realises it's Ruth.

"Told him I forgot my shawl," Ruth says boldly, pulling it off Betty and draping it ostentatiously around her own shoulders. "Did I deliver, or did I deliver?"

"Thought you were gonna swallow the man whole," says Betty, laughing. "It was something to see, let me tell you."

"I'd better get back out there," Ruth says, smirking. "When I'm through with him, he won't look your way ever again."

"Talk about going above and beyond," Betty says. This is as close as she ever gets to gushing. She wouldn't kiss a boy for a hundred dollars, let alone a lousy shawl. Nobody's ever done something so vile just to help her out before.

"It's only fair; you should get your money's worth. Or shawl's worth."

Before she knows quite what she's saying, Betty asks, "Do you really wanna go outside with him?"

"Why shouldn't I want to?" Ruth asks.

"For a shawl?" Betty asks sceptically. "You've got the shawl, I'm not about to ask for it back, and we've gotten rid of Sturbridge. We could get outta here, go and find us some real fun. I know where my brothers stash their liquor..."

She doesn't know why she suddenly feels so friendly toward Ruth, so inclined to steal off into the night with her. Maybe it's because neither of them acts the way girls are supposed to. Girls aren't supposed to be stubborn and strange, like Betty, and they're not supposed to act as pleased with themselves as Ruth does.

For the first time, Ruth looks a little uncertain. "I have to follow through," she says, and opens her mouth like she wants to say something else, before thinking better of it and closing her mouth again.

"Suit yourself. Whatever makes you happy."

"Hey, I snagged me a boyfriend and a shawl. I'm very happy," says Ruth, with a wink.

Betty laughs softly. "Glad we were able to do business. See you around, Ruth."

Ruth gives a small smile. "See you around, Betty." For once she doesn't sound or look like she's laughing at Betty. After a beat, she asks doubtfully, "You're really gonna hoof it back to your place, all by yourself, in the dark? Won't it take hours to walk? And it's dark out there..."

"S'nothing new to me," Betty says airily. "I'm not scared." With that, Betty waves goodbye and slips out into the night, to walk home under the stars.