I awoke this morning with a stabbing pain between my breasts. The underwire had pierced through. Another good soldier sacrificed in support of Denise and Debbie. Yes, I sleep in my bra. I have to. Denise and Debbie require constant supervision and training. They must never be neglected. They’re still as round and plump and upward reaching as they were when I was nineteen.
Denise and Debbie have been an integral part of my life since I was ten when they made their sudden and startling debut to my horror– and my mother’s. I literally went from flat to full-up-to-us in 24 hours. Mother was furious. Somehow, I had done this to myself, she muttered repeatedly and to any and everyone within earshot.
To punish me and to register her ever increasing disapproval, I never got a training bra. She figured if she just ignored us, perhaps we’d just go away. That same year, on Easter Sunday, I fell off my cousin’s bike and broke my leg. I had been riding the bike without permission. I ruined my orange Easter dress with the satin, royal blue bow. Mother was furious about that, too. To punish me, she left me at the hospital and never visited. I was discharged after ten days.
My older sister took pity on me. With the help of her friend, they managed to smuggle into the house a bra her mother gave to them to give to me. It was beige, lace and it had underwire. After that, Denise and Debbie and I were on our own. As I lie here in the dark admiring my lovely daughters, acknowledging the heroic sacrifice of this, now broken pretty, pink bra, She came to me in a vision.
Her gaze was intense. Strange. Dark. Penetrating. Her eyes, the color squall turns the Atlantic ocean, closely situated and framed between two thick layers of dense, coarse lashes like an artist’s sable brush.
Her voice rich, like fluid mercury, seasoned to her advantage by too many years, too many cigarettes and too much gin. She was all of 5 ft, petite and well proportioned with square hips and a plump, round butt. She liked to wear tanks and tees and tailored shirts which cascaded upon Amy and Alma with artful precision, emphasizing their slight uplift and soft, rounded contours. She didn’t wear a bra because she had to.
I was surprised and happy to hear from her. We hadn’t seen each other in over a year. When you’re preoccupied with rearing a child, it’s hard to manage friendships. She was a wife and mother of two, This One and That One, then six and three, one of each sex. Each possessed a precocious intellect and were perfect little replicas of their co-dependant parents.
Woodman and She bore an uncanny resemblance. Both had intense eyes, expansive eyebrows, classic foreheads and perfectly angled heads capped with thick manes of fast growing brown hair, only hers was dark with natural auburn highlights. Their resemblance to each other was startling, and yet not in an altogether weird way.
He was enormously talented. Give that man a choice piece of wood and a table saw, and he could create pieces of beauty and utility. He built their platform bed, and most of the furniture. He built the kitchen cabinets and her nail salon and day spa that she owned and operated in their back yard. He was constantly improving the house and the property. He earned a living as a practioner of naturopathy.
My son rang the door bell and she enthusiastically ushered us in. Sometimes you can’t go home again, though, you know?
The business was thriving. She was taking classes to learn how to do voice-over work. The house, though, was nearly empty except for the sofa. The dining room furniture was vintage Pier One. She’d taken to keeping her store and bank credit cards in a Ziploc bag in the freezer. This One and That One, spoiled, gifted, and characteristically aloof were practicing their violins upstairs. Together they made no other sound.
She wore a gray short sleeved tee shirt under a wrinkled, ecru colored, cotton midriff jacket with a wide, rounded lapel. She kept up a losing struggle to pull it together across the bottom of her now enormous breasts.
“What have you done to yourself!” I whispered, stunned, but trying not to show it. They made her look so top heavy. They had almost completely changed her otherwise upright posture. Her shoulders and back were curved, her flat stomach looked hollowed out to accommodate her protruding ribs. Any minute now I expected to see her snap in half at the waist.
They were a wedding gift from her new husband, a man she met six months ago at an AA meeting. “He loves them,” she said, sliding their wedding video into the VCR. She was discovering in dribs and drabs the down side of living la vida Double D.
Walking on thin ice,
I’m paying the price
For throwing the dice in the air.
Why must we learn it the hard way
And play the game of life with your heart?
You can never sleep on your chest or for long on your back. You are a slave to the bra. When shopping for these, attention must be paid. Attention must also be paid to shopping for clothes in general. Gone are the days you can buy a two-piece suit or a bikini bathing suit off the rack. You have to hope the size five bottom and the size ten top are both available and you must make the switch before you get to the checkout counter. You have to pay attention to how you move when you dance. Running and jogging are out.
After you’ve spent all that extra time mixing and matching suit tops, you find you cannot button them. Shirts must all be tailored. Your breasts are heavy for your bra straps. You don’t look quite right in a sports bra. Daily, gravity is not your friend.
They swell when you menstruate, the nipples are more sensitive. You must always get completely dressed when going out in public. Gone are the days you could just throw on a tee and jeans and be on your way. On those rare occasions you do, it’s only to go to the drive through.
Over time, your back will hurt, you shoulders will hurt, your neck will hurt, your mobility will be reduced. You spend more time concealing your cleavage than revealing it. There is not a lot of opportunity for that
either unless of course, you’re Pamela Anderson. Or a Jane Austin heroine.
I gave you my knife,
You gave me my life
Like a gush of wind in my hair.
Why do we forget what’s been said
And play the game of life with our hearts?
“I know. You’re right,” she said with a sigh.
She had not anticipated how life, as she knew it, would change or how it would affect all the things she’d previously been able to do and had taken for granted. She wanted to have them removed. She needed me to validate her decision.
“I’ll even go with you, if you want,” I said. Turns out, while I publically praised and admired her physique, she secretly coveted mine. People who have curly hair…
“But he likes them,” she repeated quietly.
I may cry some day,
But the tears will dry whichever way.
And when our hearts return to ashes,
It’ll be just a story,
It’ll be just a story
She pulled the video from the VCR and slowly slid it back into its custom sleeve before putting it back in its place among the others on the IKEA bookcase.
We hugged. We said good bye. We left. After that, I never saw nor heard from Her again.
“i knew a girl who tried to walk across the lake,
‘course it was winter when all this was ice.
That’s a hell of a thing to do, you know.
They say the lake is as big as the ocean.
I wonder if she knew about it?”
Masterpiece: The Complete Jane Austen Collection
Emma | 1996 |
