“I’ve got bras!” I rejoined my customer in the dressing room after a few brisk laps around the department. “And you have options!” Hawk-eyed and unable to control her need to double-check the sizes, she read every tag one by one.
“These aren’t all 36 Ds,” she said with raised eyebrows. “They’re not,” I replied, picking up one of the two 36 Ds to try. “I brought other options just in case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case we need to go up a cup size.”
The longing that seethed in her veins came rushing forward.
“I told you I’m a 36 D,” she countered, her diamond-clad hands moving with every bite.
“Okay.” I matched her tone, swiftly unhooking a 36 D T-shirt bra from off a hanger before passing it over. “Would you like me to step out?”
Shaking her head, she eased her arms into the straps. Deep-set scars from the incisions traveled directly down her breasts and around her nipples, adding an array of colors. After she squeezed her way into the bra, she turned her back toward me so that I could fasten the band. Coppery flesh spilled over from every part of the bra’s edging, including the sides and tops of the cups. I quickly backed away so she could examine the fit in the mirror without my meaty silhouette crowding her vision.
Silence ruled as our gazes narrowed.
“Do you want to put your shirt on?” I asked, wondering if it would help disguise the large bubble of breast protruding from the cups.
“This is a D!” she exclaimed at full volume, triple-checking the size on the tag. “Oh my god.”
She lowered herself into the chair and sat quietly. I delayed every body movement and oral response possible until she was able to speak. The magnitude of her dismay wasn’t completely clear. But I didn’t know what she needed or wanted to hear. Something was happening inside of her that was beyond my bra-fitting expertise.
“I was told I was a D.” She dropped some of her tough disposition.
I looked around the room.
“It’s your body, you can wear whatever you want. I just want you to be comfortable. And we have the double-D to try, which could very well offer the little bit of coverage you need.” She looked at me as if I was speaking another language. “We can also experiment with the band size.” I tried to sound encouraging.
“You can take these,” she finally said, handing me all the bras I picked out. “Go ahead and bring back an assortment of 36 and 38 Ds that I can try. There’s no way I’m a double-D.”
Staring at her boobs pouring out of the cups, I closed the door and set out for another disoriented jaunt around the department. The number of customers seemed to have multiplied during my time in the dressing rooms, making me question whether or not I should pick up another customer. My instincts told me to hold off, it was too early; I would’ve been shark status in seconds. So I followed my customer’s demanding instructions and gathered a large collection of single Ds. I figured if she was going to buy them and wear them then I had no other option but to sell them to her. What she chose to wear was none of my business, however, my time was.
“Natalee, right?” a fellow bra fitter asked as she moved in from the side. “Are you available to ring up a customer really quickly?”
“Uhhh, sure.” I hesitated, stuffing my customer’s bras under my armpit.
I signaled for the next customer to step forward.
“Jena was helping you today?” I asked. The woman nodded quietly and placed her credit card on the counter. The screen in front of me was completely unfamiliar and filled with a variety of boxes that read sale, return, customer info, alterations, time, and store numbers. I had no idea where to start or what to push, given that I hadn’t had any formal training with the new high-tech registers, which were already incompatible with Luddites like myself. What the hell happened to keying in the price before hitting the total button? Everything was so complex with too many steps to follow. I was bound to mess something up.
Looking out at the women waiting to be rung up, I tried tapping on a few different options within the “sale” box, but nothing seemed to make sense.
“I don’t have all day,” the woman snapped, responding to my blank stare as I rushed to understand the order of things.
“This is my first day back after a little break,” I replied, still staring at the screen. “I’m learning the new system, bear with me.”
Just then, a sales associate finally stepped in and guided me through the process, punching buttons with incredible swiftness as my hands continued to build with sweat.
“Hit this box for credit card.” She spoke fast, prompting me to grab the customer’s payment sitting on the counter so we could slide it through the computer.
“I have ‘see ID’ written on the back,” she said, pointing to her credit card.
Blood raced down my artery walls. Yeah, bitch, I see you, I thought to myself, noting the Roman centurion’s headshot against a black backdrop as I placed her plastic alongside her driver’s license. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to make it through my first day back without delivering a left hook straight into a woman’s jawbone.
“Thank you, Cheryl.” I smiled with my mouth closed while handing over her shopping bag.
And then boorish, crude noises hit the air. “My receipt?”
After grabbing a couple more options for my customer, I ran back to her dressing room and quickly hung the bras on the bar, separating sexy from boring.
“All new selections,” I said, hoping for some kind of resolution, though that part wasn’t my business either.
She hurried to make sure all the bras were Ds, but of course I misread one of the tags and accidently brought back a double-D.
“I’m not a double-D,” she snapped, promptly passing back the bra.
“Sorry about that. I thought I had grabbed a single-D.”
“I’ll take it from here,” she replied, reaching for the doorknob.
I spent the next twenty minutes pacing the department while trying to look busy. I hid behind bathrobes, tidied up a Hanky Panky table, and then wandered across the way to the juniors’ fashion section where I attempted to look incognito while trying on a pair of plastic aviators smeared with dirty fingerprints.
Time was a challenging concept for me, ticking slowly at all the wrong moments. And right as I contemplated another visit back to check on my single-D, I spotted her hightailing it out of the department, empty-handed and on a mission. I scrambled to hide behind the small table mirror, clumsily knocking over a display of sunglasses onto the floor while still wearing a pair of teen aviators with the price tag dangling in my periphery.
My heart raced as I watched every one of her long, purposeful steps. I quickly knelt down to the ground, looking out from under the table as customers continued to shop in close proximity. I was convinced she was coming straight for me. But then, as the gray clouds parted through the skylight above, she took a sharp turn toward the elevators, leaving me with a short supply of air and questionable security footage.
After picking up my mess, I hurried back to her dressing room only to be greeted with a bigger mess. All but two bras were left on the floor, including scattered price tags and a measuring tape. The room was no longer glowing in appearance. My opening record was 0 for 2. And though each scenario was a realistic representation of retail’s unfavorable moments, I hoped it wasn’t typical for my new store. The thought alone made me recoil. It also drove me to feel anxious and extremely frustrated with myself.
What am I doing? My decision to sublet my kickass apartment in sunny Los Angeles suddenly seemed impetuous and irresponsible and so fucking far away. But I had to stick it out. I had to find my groove, sort of similar to my first customer’s needs, but with vastly different frameworks. She needed to find what was going to make her new breasts, and body, feel good to her, even if she never surrendered to a size she refused to wear. Though crushingly difficult, she was the only person who co
uld make things better, a reminder that came with another iron fist. Change was hard. So goddamn hard.
Slowly closing the dressing room door, I left the bras on the floor and eased my way into the chair. Every tight punch of panic shot through my body. My vision went fuzzy as my head spun in circles, making all four of my limbs feel overpoweringly loose, as if I was on my way to becoming unhinged and gutted into an outer shell for someone to find sprawled on the floor. I leaned into the bar and closed my eyes, retracing every one of my steps as sand symbolically trickled down an hourglass amid a shield of darkness. Time had a cruel way of showing itself sometimes.
piggy in
a blanket
“Are you ready for your first weekend back?” Larry asked with a sheepish grin. Quietly pondering his question, I went through the sequence of events that transpired during my last honorable moments in the lingerie department and the ten hours of sleep that followed. I had to get some kind of harmony in play or else I wasn’t going to make it. A total redo was in order, as was a change in attitude. There was no way I could spend another seventeen minutes hiding in a dressing room when I had money to make, even though the thought of returning made me feel dreadfully anxious. I hated the dizziness and the trapped airway and how it all came on so suddenly. Plus the inner interrogation taking place wasn’t helping me feel any less irrational, which was a difficult state to measure. I needed to focus. I needed to put my business panties on and start fresh, knowing a new dawn brought a new day ... and whatever else.
“How about I meet you for dinner and a movie?” Larry proposed. His offer had a way of resonating woefully, bringing to light the aching that anchored itself in seemingly safe places within him. Having observed the day-to-day, I started to monitor his escape routes: the office, golf courses, Google, and two IPAs every evening. I understood that he needed to keep himself occupied and organized, and I respected his plight.
It was a drastic change from my earlier sentiments as an adolescent, however. Our relationship had many long moments of silence. We didn’t fully grasp each other’s differences. My rebellious acts had resulted in a lot of wear and tear. But he came around in subtle ways when I least expected it, and offered a different assessment on things. He was always so sly about it, too, like the time he caught me sneaking back into the house at four o’clock in the morning when I was fifteen years old. I didn’t see that he was in the kitchen right next to the sliding glass door, pouring himself some water. I stood paralyzed, wearing my ripped Levi’s, an oversized flannel shirt, and a fresh hickey on my neck that was bound to turn into a full lunar eclipse by daybreak.
“Early morning jog?” he’d asked sarcastically, waiting for the darkness to swallow me up whole. “You know, Natalee,” he continued calmly, drinking water from his coffee cup. “We were destined to meet.”
“Yeah,” I had replied, swaying from the Smirnoff.
“Yep.”
Fuck.
“Can I offer you some water?” he asked, moving out from behind the kitchen counter, wearing his one and only bathrobe from the year 1975.
“Um, that’s okay.” The words came out gradually.
He waited as I fought to shuffle saliva around the inside of my mouth, creating a mix of lumbering noises.
“Since you’re such an early bird, I’ll be sure to get you up tomorrow at the same time. Maybe even the next few days.” My tongue felt like cotton as I tried to speak. “Goodnight, Natalee. Glad to see you’re alive.”
The weight of his words hit like bricks. He never needed to say much to get his point across, which is why his silence often spoke volumes. It was never empty. He’d seen too much in his lifetime to be even remotely free from mental exhaustion. And it all made sense the second my mom became terminally ill. I watched him, watch her, disappear—and it nearly ate him alive. He feared as quietly as he loved.
Back in lingerie, I embraced the last of my shortened “trial” shifts and jumped right into the mix. Kristy had completed an entire floor remodel, shuffling every piece of merchandise into new corners in an effort to keep customers on their toes, as well as employees. Just as I conquered the lay of the land, or at least half of it, everything changed in the blink of an eye.
“Sales associate to sleepwear. Sales associate to sleepwear,” Kristy’s call came in over the microphone. The lack of movement from some of the other fitters led me to believe it was my turn to pony up, so I headed over to the other counter and smiled with every ounce of excitement I could invoke.
“She needs some alterations done.” Kristy offered context with her smooth managerial charm.
“Sure.” I struggled for a response as I stared at a pile of long cotton briefs pulled from a plastic bag and spread out along the counter. A variety of light and dark hues ran parallel from the seams.
“I’m sorry.” I tried gathering more context. “What are you looking to do with the underwear?”
She moved in closer and ran her hand along one of the briefs. None of her fingers straightened out and her knuckles looked like rocks.
“I’d like to resew the top stitching on the panties. Do you see that it’s coming undone?” Her voice split as she motioned for me to take a closer look. I quickly eyed the department for Kristy, who had conveniently disappeared, and then back down to the woman’s worn underwear spread out on the counter in front of me. The only thing coming “undone” was me.
“Don’t worry, I washed them!” she added, smiling.
Carefully picking up each pair of underwear with the tips of my fingers, I threw them back into the plastic bag and prepared an alteration ticket, refusing to make eye contact with the inner parts of her “white” briefs. I then scribbled down her information as fast as I could and sent her on her way, hoping the packaged deal I was about to drop off for our alterations team wouldn’t blacklist me indefinitely. “I’ll call you when they’re ready.”
Though I was hesitant to hang the underwear on our outgoing alterations bar in the stockroom, I did it anyway. My departing duties included alteration drop-offs, so I figured I’d wait and take everything down at once. It was hard to decide where to place the underwear, however. The bar was filling up fast, mostly with bras that required prostheses pockets, therefore having no room for a woman’s returned chonies absent of price tags. But they still hung on a hanger at the end of the bar, swinging in full view for everyone to see. My “new girl” rank was off the charts.
“There’s a woman waiting in room seven who needs a fit,” a sales associate yelled from the front. I took one last glance at the briefs, making sure their placement sufficed, and headed back to the dressing rooms.
“Welcome.” A tall, fifty-something woman smiled. I stepped inside and stood in front of the full-length mirror, stunned by the color of her blue eyes. I waited as she readjusted her purse and shopping bags on the hook plastered against the wall. A variety of items were scattered around the dressing room, including lace push-up bras, cotton briefs, thongs, and beautiful silk bathrobes and negligees. Aside from the briefs, her taste was exquisite, reminding me of a controlled kind of sexy that seemed slightly restrained at first sight.
“I really need some help.” She sighed, examining her long, slim body in the mirror, her voice deep and composed. I stood behind her as she talked, easing my stare along her pronounced Adam’s apple and then up to the fire red lipstick spread into the corners of her mouth.
“I have new breasts,” she continued. “And I know how important a proper bra fitting is.”
“Most definitely so,” I replied, nodding my head in the direction of her new round breasts as she confidently unveiled their command.
“I’ve been at this for a while now, and nothing seems to fit right,” she added, placing her hands above her head as I unwrapped the measuring tape from around my fingers. “I just want a bra to feel good and look good.”
“Amen,” I rejoiced, moving her arms closer to her sides. She watched as I examined her broad rib cage
and defined midsection in the mirror.
“Have you been doing this for a long time?” she asked, trying not to move while I placed the tape.
“Sort of.” I leaned in to focus before taking one last look at her body in the mirror. I could tell her new silicone was going to require a round of trial and error, which wasn’t out of the ordinary. But first I needed to rid our space from too many guesses.
“Let’s start fresh,” I proposed, checking some of the size tags. “I love your style, and I should be able to keep everything you’ve got, but in different sizes. We’re going to go down in the band and up in the cup.”
She took in a long breath and looked around the room.
“I should’ve asked for help a long time ago.” She shook her head while passing over a stack of bras. “I’m sorry that you have to clean all this up. I’m so overwhelmed right now.”
I could tell she was serious and sincere.
“This is not a problem.” I smiled, looking over her tight perm. “I’ve got you covered.”
She picked up on my pun with a nod and then moved her body so that her back was turned toward the mirror.
“I’m so ...” She hesitated before continuing. “I’m transitioning and trying to get my sizing right. It’s been daunting and really exhausting, so I grabbed all of these sizes thinking I could do it on my own and ...”
Everything suddenly made sense. The bearing of the word transition resonated without a trace of ambiguity. I wondered if she was a transgender woman but knew not to assume. The exhausted tales of “I’m too fat” or “my tits look like sandbags” or “my vag can’t breathe because my thighs are suffocating it” fell short by a good distance given the woman’s demeanor. And though my intent was never to minimize one’s struggles—because I know what it feels like to have sandbags for tits and two very generous thighs—something felt different about our meeting, and I was eager to understand it.
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