Full Support

by Woods, Natalee

  rolling stone

  As Tina Turner blasted from the living room downstairs, casting an astounding realization that I wasn’t in LA anymore, I mentally checked the distance between us while I staggered to my feet, all 1,136 miles of it. Quietly closing the bedroom door, I moved toward my parents’ bedroom at the end of the hallway, welcoming the break of day, and absolute heartache. Somewhere in my chest sat a feeling of hopelessness and despair, striking with an iron fist as I inspected my surroundings. A floral duvet spread to each corner of my parents’ bed without one visible crease, reinforcing Larry’s rigid, lonely routine.

  After finding my mother’s satin brief underwear and thick padded bras folded along the inside of a dresser drawer, I moved to the bathroom. All her belongings remained untouched. Her Sonicare sat in its holder next to the sink. Body lotions and perfumes covered half of the counter. The clothes in her closet, organized by season, hung on hangers directly above her extensive shoe collection. I kept thinking she was going to walk in and ask why I was in her closet, bowled over and stuck in a misery I had yet to fully unload.

  “There she is!” Larry smiled with enthusiasm as I entered the kitchen. “Coffee?”

  My eyes darted in every direction, moving from the kitchen table over to a freshly painted office.

  “Forest green,” I remarked, studying his makeover.

  “Yeah, you like it?” he asked, guiding me over to a painting of the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland.

  Nodding gently, I stopped at a handcrafted tic-tac-toe game that still sat on top of the coffee table. Another iron fist came hammering down as I remembered the quiet matches held days before my mom’s death. “Sit with me, Nat,” she’d say, easing her way down onto the couch. I made sure she won every time. The raid happening inside of her brain as the cancer settled into the back crevices made her question her own sanity, and it was terrifying to watch. I understood it as an ink spill, sullied and reckless, covering every last portion of clarity. It didn’t seem fair to have her lose at something so trivial, especially when I saw her at her most vulnerable, deep into the night, desperately trying to piece together a pulverized existence.

  I’d lie on the couch next to her while she rocked in agonizing pain. First, she’d take a winter jacket from the hall closet and wrap it around me so that she could have all the blankets, and then the darkness would slowly envelop us. I fought to sniff back tears as the rocking chair clicked with every forward motion. Then I’d wait.

  “Natalee,” she whispered softly. “You see the fireworks?”

  Staring at the tanned creases along my father’s neck, I sucked down some coffee from his new Keurig coffee machine that he couldn’t wait to show off.

  “It’s genius,” he said, pulling out tiny containers of tea and hot chocolate.

  “You drank instant coffee for years,” I replied, looking around for an old jar of Taster’s Choice.

  Pulling on his golf shirt’s collar, he smiled demurely. “Well, you know, I’m trying new things.”

  Examining the silver linings along his mustache, I was happy to see that he had created his own private space, though it felt weird and difficult to digest. I had so many questions about how he was feeling emotionally, but I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable, as he struggled immensely with my mother’s absence and internalized every throbbing emotion he ever had. But I always chalked it up to his capacity for reasoning, His aptitude to grasp truths was unparalleled, making him one of the most intelligent and deeply enigmatic people I’d ever known.

  Six days, three hours, and seventeen minutes later, I sat drinking more Keurig coffee at the kitchen table, knowing I had reached new levels of desperation. Per the usual, I hadn’t thought everything through as far as bringing in money while I lived rent-free for the next six months. I couldn’t exactly sign up for a teaching job and expect an employer to understand a sublet in LA. Not to mention I missed all the deadlines while still feeling emotionally inept for the part. I heard “defer student loans” and sprinted toward whomever was going to make it happen—and then the lingerie department, reluctantly.

  “You’re fit certified!” the lead manager, Kristy, shouted through the holes of the phone, barely controlling her excitement. “Can you come by today to meet?”

  My head dropped as my stomach sank. Visions of swaying boobs, lost dollars, and a profusion of shoppers overcrowding every pocket of space bombarded my thoughts.

  Damnit.

  “Uhhh.” I tried delaying the process as I noted the time. Rush hour traffic was soon to be in full swing, and I dreaded the idea of being around large groups of people. But I knew the right answer; it beckoned all along.

  “Absolutely,” I finally replied, gritting my teeth. “Can’t wait.”

  Scoping my new digs, I barreled straight into familiar territory and parked my Ford Escort right next to a shiny Benz on the second floor of a parking structure. Well-groomed shoppers emerged from all over, holding multiple retail bags, designer handbags, and fancy cell phones.

  Dollar signs came rolling in as I spotted the sign to my department store, a short sky bridge away. I hadn’t been in the parking structure for more than five minutes and I could already feel suburbia’s chokehold, cookie-cutting its way into my soul. And though I purposely chose Seattle’s largest suburb, bustling with high-tech employers, affluent residents, and guaranteed foot traffic, it was hard to dismiss how misplaced it made me feel. It didn’t have LA’s quirky charm and diverse landscapes. Instead, I had Microsoft, Amazon, and American Express in my corner, fueling my drive to get in and get out.

  “You can do this,” I whispered quietly, thinking about Gladys and her wise words as I leaned into the steering wheel. “You can do this.”

  When I approached the lingerie department on the third floor, I froze in awe. The department was ginormous, taking up two sections while successfully owning the floor. Sexy, modern, well-placed lingerie reeled everyone in, stopping shoppers on their way to the store’s café a mere five feet away. Crystal chandeliers hung brightly overhead, shining just enough light on a mannequin’s strategically chiseled bones and well-built cleavage. Bra fitters hustled around the sales floor, plucking items from a wide variety of merchandise. This lingerie department carried everything from an entire Spanx collection to every kind of bra, panty, negligee, and body adhesive possible.

  “Oh my god, welcome!” Kristy burst out, gripping my hand at the counter. I smiled as she moved her frenzied gaze along my double-Ds, clearly checking to see if I was wearing the right size bra.

  “Thank you.” I tried returning a quarter of her enthusiasm. “I’m excited to be here.”

  My throat nearly closed from lying.

  “Come with me,” she said, leading me toward her office in the stockroom. “Let’s talk!” I quietly took in her energy as I followed her back, realizing nothing much had changed about the trade as far as management went. Our superficial exchange was par for the course. She had a checklist to manage, consisting of two major key points: One, will I show up for work? Two, can I make her enough money so she can keep her job?

  Amazed by the size of the stockroom, I took a seat next to Kristy and began answering a set of light interview questions, allowing the formalities to pass. Her desk was crammed up against the back wall and covered with business cards from vendors, stray measuring tapes, illegible paperwork, and the proverbial wedding snapshot of her saying “I do” to an exceptionally tall man. Various styles of panties and heavy-duty body slimmers lined rows of bars, forcing fitters to climb ladders in order to retrieve needed items. Size rings were jammed into bundles of bras, separating the 30 A cups all the way down the alphabet to 44 Js. It was packed to the brim, like nothing I had ever seen, including more J cups.

  “It’s always so nice to get return bra fitters,” Kristy said while opening up a screen on her computer. “And you’ve been with us for a while.” I thought about her statement at length, going all the way back to my f
irst day as a nineteen-year-old college student hustling to make a dollar.

  “Off and on,” I replied, looking over the dark roots and yellow-blonde waves of her hair.

  “And now you’re a full-timer!” Her lively zest returned. The impact of “full-timer” almost made me choke on my own saliva. Full-time bra fitter? No. Hell no. I’m going back to LA. I will not get stuck here. I have a plan. Sort of.

  “Alright.” She enlarged the schedule, adding my name to the bottom of a nine-woman list, which meant no seniority and a majority of closing shifts. I was peon status, hopelessly treading on vast new shores. “I’ve got you on as permanent!” She smiled. There was that feeling again. Permanent?

  “I’m only here for—” I quickly stopped myself. Wait a minute. Why would I disclose my six-month timeline, or sublet, so that I could stay at the bottom of the barrel? I was no stranger to the operation; they wanted lifers, which made sense for business purposes, but I wasn’t in the business to stay. Nor was I in the business to lose.

  “I’m here!” I recovered, smiling far and wide as she handed me my hours and led us back out to the sales floor.

  “Welcome aboard,” she replied, picking up a phone call. “See you tomorrow!”

  Before heading over to human resources to sign on the dotted line, I decided to spend a few minutes getting acquainted with the merchandise so that I was prepared for the full department tour the following day. While circling a collection of new French bras and matching panties, I noticed a man also moving in circles around a thong tree, his dark hair dripping with grease and his cold stare menacing. I watched as he stuck his head between the small, eye-level gaps in the fixture, carefully observing someone from afar.

  “Can I help you?” One of the sales associates approached him from behind, eyeing his scruffy white jawline framed with panties.

  I stood glued to the carpet, processing his ET-like hands and black-rimmed glasses.

  “Yes,” he quickly replied, handing over a pair of black G-string thongs. “I’d like to buy these.”

  They both walked over to the register. His faded blue jeans barely cupped his flat backside. Something was off. The peculiarity of his movements had me feeling uneasy, as I, too, looked alarmingly creepy with my head lodged between an assortment of thong underwear. But I didn’t care. I was convinced I had spotted one of Seattle’s top lingerie regulars, whose intentions would soon become clear.

  total bust

  Managing a wad of nerves, I was as ready as I could be for my new lingerie department and new team, leaving me with a series of what-ifs and WTFs. It all happened so fast, so urgently fast, like it always had. I had no idea how to proceed other than to completely throw myself back into the mix. Again. Disoriented and desperately seeking some kind of stability.

  “Welcome back,” Kristy smiled, rearranging a corner area into a surplus of body shapers. I couldn’t believe how many more options existed. Spanx had rapidly taken over the world of retail, offering firm tummy smoothers that hooked to the bra’s bands, creating one flesh-sucking bodysuit. The evolution persisted in full force. And as I ran my hand along the shaper’s sturdy grip, I noticed an oval-shaped hole in the crotch, allowing for just about anything to peek through or assist with a quick bathroom break. This hot getup was pure genius.

  Moving on from the collection of shapewear, Kristy began to lead a tour around the rest of the department until a store page came in, loudly repeating her name overhead. “I’m going to have Caroline finish for me,” she said, motioning for help. “Feel free to start taking customers when you’re ready.” I looked at Caroline and smiled.

  She returned the gesture with an awkward hand wave, and then delved straight into the facts. “You gotta be quick around here,” she said, taking me back to a second stockroom right next to the dressing rooms. There was a large wooden table that sat in the corner, accruing piles of customer go-backs by the second.

  “This is Ruby, Jena, and Susan,” she introduced other members of the team as they sat hanging bras and panties on hangers. I nodded with another smile and continued to follow Caroline over to a wall of shelves stacked with plastic containers.

  “Your personal box,” she said, gesturing to my name printed neatly in black marker. Water bottles, cups of coffee, perfumes, lotions, and piles of receipt paper with obscure markings packed the shelves.

  “Thank you,” I replied, catching a whiff of Caroline’s body odor while she stood fanning herself with a pair of panties. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes as small drops of sweat made their way down her forehead. “I’m just losing my hair, and my vagina feels like sandpaper.”

  Laughter ensued in succession, and Caroline joined in. Her contagious giggle and matter-of-fact response made me feel more welcome than ever.

  “We love you, Caroline.” The girls comforted her from arm’s length.

  Dabbing her face with a napkin, she erased the subtle remnants of light brown makeup that had spread across her limp cheeks. “You just wait,” she added. “Menopause is a real bitch.”

  Caroline led us back out onto the sales floor as she continued to fan herself with a pair of hardwearing briefs. Her relaxed and easygoing circuit was perfect for my pace. She introduced all the new bras, including new fashion lines, colors, styles, and a surprising availability of sizes. Even some of the “smaller” vendors who historically catered to itty-bitties seemed to have jumped on board, realizing that an abrupt stop toward the beginning of the alphabet wasn’t remotely realistic as far as our clientele was concerned.

  “There’s the sleepwear section, our Hanky Panky thong tables, which is still the number-one seller, high and low rise, though the low gets lower, and the high gets higher, as does the price,” Caroline babbled in a subdued manner before exhaling loudly. “What else?”

  “Umm.” I tried to think of something that I might have missed.

  “Oh, yeah!” She perked up. “The Cutlet Collection.”

  The Cutlet Collection? I followed Caroline to the large stockroom where Kristy’s desk sat.

  She stopped toward the entrance and said, “Voila,” wittily unveiling a bookshelf of stacked breast adhesives cut into floppy pieces of silicone. “You’d be surprised how fast these suckers go,” she said, her voice tiring. “Especially the big daddies. Prepare yourself for a lot of back and forth.”

  Looking around the stockroom, I let it all sink in, mentally placing each item in my head while trying not to feel too overwhelmed. LA’s lingerie department was half the size and much easier to manage.

  “You’ll get the hang of it.” Caroline winked, leading me back through the double doors just in time for my first customer.

  “We need a fitter,” a salesgirl said as she jogged past us.

  “She’s all yours.” Caroline smiled with relief. “I’m off to stick my face in a bowl of ice water.”

  Cognizant of my newbie status, I didn’t waste any time greeting the customer. I needed to get my feet wet so that I could gain momentum and get my name on the payroll. Fortunately Kristy was nowhere to be found, which eased the pressure of having to “perform” in front of our sometimes-needy clientele.

  “I think I’ve got it,” I said to the customer before repeating her requests. “A few sexy bras mixed in with a few everyday bras.”

  “Yep!” She offered a thumbs-up, eager to get started.

  Turning the corner, I couldn’t believe how long and lit up the hallway was. I’d never seen so many dressing rooms, packed in side by side. I opened the first door and immediately noticed the dark floral wallpaper and soft velvet chair planted in the corner.

  The room was spotless, providing a contemporary touch with the standard full-length, three-section mirror illuminating every inch of one’s body.

  “Alright,” she said, getting down to business by unbuttoning her top. “I recently underwent breast reduction surgery, and I’m pleased to say that I’m starting all over!”
Her bronzed-over face lit up as her own words sunk in. “I’m somewhere around a 36 D, maybe a double-D, but I specifically told the doctor that I wanted to be a D.” The first and only word that came to mind was four letters long and passionately unprofessional, so I decided to repeat it ten times in my head before attempting to move forward.

  “How about I measure you just to make sure?” I tread lightly, knowing that the stinging undertone in her voice had potential to boil over at any moment.

  She was quiet and extremely focused while she stared in the mirror. I moved in from behind and wrapped the measuring tape around her rib cage, stopping at 37 inches around, and a triple-D—to a possible G—for a cup size. The insides of my hands felt clammy and my chest warm as I contemplated a plan of action. Somewhere along our brief introduction I picked up on her strong need for certainty, which undoubtedly made my role precarious and problematic.

  “Okay,” I said, considering my revelation. “I’m not sure the 36 D is going to fit you.”

  “What do you mean?” her voice cracked.

  “Well,” I hesitated to form a complete sentence as her eyeballs, bloodshot and topped with winding lines, practically sprung from her head. “I can bring back a few different styles to try, which isn’t a bad idea since this is your first time in after surgery.”

  As soon as I hit the sales floor, I searched the scene for Kristy. And then I walked in circles, desperately trying to find, and gather, a good amount of bras for my customer, including the single-D she thought she paid for. I figured the larger the pile the easier it would be to mask some of the sizes. The process of elimination had to work.