Most 13-year-old girls do not have a beard.
But I did.
My junior high drama club held auditions for the Christmas play, called “Skullduggery At Santa’s Place.” I had to look up skullduggery in the dictionary when the play’s title was announced. The definition pleased me enough to sign up for the after-school audition.
I wanted the part of Cookie Claus, Santa’s beautiful daughter of marrying/kissing age. I poured all my energy into becoming Cookie, believing the part would launch me into a Love’s Baby Soft scented stratosphere of Junior High fame. I read my lines with delicate but passionate intensity, with a tinge of sweet spunk and the ability to swoon at the sight of the nearest imaginary but C. Thomas Howell-handsome Canadian Mountie.