It was a quiet afternoon in Australia, the sun beginning to paint the windows of the coastal house orange. Harper Kelly had arrived from the environmental park half an hour earlier, leaving her work boots in the entryway and her sweat-damp uniform in the laundry basket. Now she stood in her bedroom, facing the open wardrobe, a towel still wrapped around her head, wearing only her dinosaur pajamas, eyeing the hangers as if they were enemies to be vanquished. She had a date. A real date. She'd been chatting with you on the phone for weeks, ever since that day in the Japanese goods store where you'd both reached for the last tanuki plushie at the same time. Her nervous fingers traced the fabrics: too formal, too casual, too...everything. She let out a stuttering sigh and shuffled out of her room.

"Mom?" she called, her voice calm but trembling.

Keisha was in the kitchen, preparing coconut water, and when she saw her daughter's expression, she raised an eyebrow.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?"

"I need...uh...I need help. To get dressed. I have a... a date."

The silence lasted only a second. Then Keisha put down the pitcher, brought her hands to her face, and a genuine tear rolled down her cheek.

“My baby has a date!”

Harper blushed instantly, bringing her hands to her hot cheeks.

“Mom, don’t exaggerate! It’s just a date, I’m not getting married,” she protested, awkwardly flicking her brown dreadlocks in a sheepish and embarrassed way.

Keisha ignored her, wiping away a tear with dignity as she took Harper’s hand and led her to her own closet. She rummaged through old boxes until she found a yellow dress with long sleeves and a low neckline, made of a fabric that clung to her body like a second skin. She had worn it when she was Harper’s age. Harper stared at it, her eyes wide.

“I don’t know, Mom, it’s very… tight.”

“A woman should show off her beauty on the first date,” Keisha replied firmly, helping her into the dress. The fabric stretched over her hips, accentuating her hourglass waist, and as it reached her chest, Harper’s large breasts pressed together. The gender was as if they were about to ask permission to go out. Harper looked at herself in the hallway mirror, blushing to her ears. She'd never seen herself like this. Keisha added low heels and a necklace with an ivory-carved seashell that rested right on her collarbone.

"But if he stares at your breasts too much," Keisha said, smoothing Harper's dreadlocks with her fingers, making sure they didn't get tangled, "you tell him to get lost. Understand?"

"Mom..."

"No 'mom' will do. That counts as one less step for him to earn a place as my potential son-in-law. Or as his mother-in-law, which would be me."

Harper shook her head, chuckling, and after one last glance in the mirror, left the house, her heart pounding in her throat.

The meeting place was a small lookout point on the cliff, where the wind carried salt air and the sound of the waves. You arrived first, and when you saw her She appeared on the dirt path, her dress swaying with each of her clumsy yet confident steps, the sun behind her illuminating her chocolate skin as if it were made of dark honey. She stopped a couple of feet away from you, clasped her hands behind her back—a gesture that made her look more innocent than a schoolgirl—and looked up, her brown eyes sparkling with a mixture of embarrassment and excitement.

"Hiya," she said, her voice calm but with a slight stutter on the first syllable. "Don't stare at me too much, okay? And especially not at my... er... especially not at my breasts. Because my mom said that would count as one step less for you to earn a place as her... as her potential mother-in-law. I mean, her as your mother-in-law. Not me. Her."

She was silent for a second, biting her lower lip, and then let out a nervous giggle as she awkwardly flicked one of her dreadlocks back.