by Barbara Dee
I tapped her shoulder. “Hey, Marley.”
She just kept drawing. It looked like a knotty tree with swirly branches that went on forever. A fantasy tree.
“I love your tree,” I said. “You’re such a good artist.”
“Thanks.”
She didn’t look up. So I just took the seat next to her.
“Hi, Lia,” Ruby Lewis said, as she flopped into the seat in front of me.
“Hi,” I replied. Ruby was nice enough, but she was the opposite of me in terms of development, and it was weird how she never wore a bra. In fact, a bunch of boys in our class called her Booby Ruby and other names that were even worse. Didn’t she hear them? Didn’t she care?
Maybe she could borrow one of Marley’s sweatshirts, I thought. Because Marley had a million of them, one for everywhere she’d gone in Chicago, it seemed.
I turned to my right, where Marley was sitting. But she wasn’t there.
When I wasn’t paying attention again, she’d slipped away.
♥ ♥ ♥
At lunch Marley didn’t sit at our table. And as soon as Mak sat down, she told Abi that she’d “just remembered” about a “swim team thing” she had to go to that weekend, which meant she couldn’t do the sleepover. That was when I mentioned that Aunt Shelby was supposed to visit on Saturday, so probably I couldn’t come, either.
Abi’s eyes filled with angry tears. “Fine,” she snapped. “Then it’ll just be Jules and me!”
What about Marley? I almost asked. But for Marley’s sake, I decided not to.
We didn’t talk very much that day; we were all a bit grumpy, I guess, and after school Marley was staying late for tutoring, while Mak had band rehearsal. At dismissal I saw Val drive by to pick up Abi and Jules. They didn’t tell me where they were going, and I didn’t ask.
I was just about to start walking home by myself when Val’s car pulled up.
She rolled down the window and smiled at me. I could hear a twangy, ballady song on the radio and feel the cold gush of air-conditioning.
“Want a lift home?” Val asked sweetly.
I should have said no. If Abi had wanted me in her car, she would have invited me herself. I knew she was mad about me bailing on the sleepover—I was sure she’d taken it as an attack on her feelings. And frankly, by now I was getting pretty sick of Abi’s feelings, the way they shoved everybody else out of the room.
But there was something so inviting about getting into a mom-mobile after a weird day at school. Val was always so comforting. I was tired and sweaty. And I was about to have a crap weekend with my aunt, which made me feel sorry for myself.
So I got in.
Jules smiled at me, but Abi barely even looked in my direction. She was just going on and on to Val about her Spanish test, how unfair it was, focusing on a chapter the teacher hadn’t even covered yet. Then she started telling her mom about Natalie Palmeiro, who got sent to the assistant principal’s office for cheating off Graydon’s math test and was crying so hard she had to stay with Mrs. Garcia, the school nurse, for the rest of the day. The whole time Abi was describing all this, Jules was nodding and making little agreement sounds and Val was asking questions like, “Did anyone say anything?” and “Then what happened?”
I asked myself, If Mom were around, would I tell her the same meaningless gossip? And when we were in private, would I talk about my friends, and the Truth or Dare game, and maybe Aunt Shelby, and ask her questions about my Lack of Development?
Would she answer like Val, if I did?
Or tell me something I don’t already know?
“Here you are, Lia, safe and sound,” Val announced in a cheery voice as she pulled into my driveway. A look crossed her face; I guessed she thought she probably shouldn’t have said “safe and sound,” even as a joke.
“Thanks for the ride,” I called, waving at my friends as I got out.
“See you Monday,” Abi said. She didn’t smile or wave back. “Have fun with your aunt.”
The way she said it, it was like “your so-called aunt.” Like she thought I was using Aunt Shelby as a made-up excuse. Or no: as a lie.
♥ ♥ ♥
By the time I got up for breakfast on Saturday morning, Aunt Shelby was already sitting in the kitchen with Dad. Right away she jumped up to hug me. “Niecelet!” she cried.
I watched Dad’s face over her shoulder as we hugged. He looked tense and uncomfortable, I thought, as he chewed his English muffin. Maybe Aunt Shelby had been criticizing his job again.
“So how are things?” Aunt Shelby asked as she studied my pajamas. “Any fascinating new developments?”
Seriously? Had she actually just used that word—DEVELOPMENTS?
“Nope,” I muttered. I crossed my arms over my chest. “How are the cats?”
“Oh, they’re fine, except now Escobar needs dental surgery. Can you believe that? The vet says it’ll cost a fortune.”
Dad harrumphed. “Well, talk to me if any of them need reading glasses.” He poured some sugar into his coffee. “Lee-lee, your aunt was thinking of taking you shopping today.”
“Oh, you don’t have to,” I told her quickly.
She grinned. “Sure I do! That’s what aunts are for! Now you go get your breakfast and do your homework or whatever, while I finish up here with your dad.”
I glanced at Dad again, but he just drank his coffee, refusing to give away hints about what needed “finishing up” between them. So I grabbed a bowl of cereal, brought it upstairs to my room, and read Book Three of HiberNation until it was time to get dressed.
Whatever Works
AN HOUR LATER AUNT SHELBY and I were strolling through Maplebrook Mall, eating banana walnut froyo (her) and a double scoop of chocolate peanut butter ice cream (me). Dessert before lunch—it was kind of crazy, but I wasn’t about to argue when Aunt Shelby offered to buy me a cone. I’d even started thinking that maybe this mall trip wouldn’t be too horrific, when she suddenly said, “So, Lia. I see you’re not wearing any of the bras we bought in Maine, including the new ones I sent home with you.”
I froze. It was that obvious?
“You’re dripping, buttercup.” She pointed to my ice cream cone. “Why not? They didn’t fit?”
“It wasn’t a question of them fitting.”
“No? What was it, then?”
Blerg. We were going to have this conversation; I didn’t see any escape route.
I asked if we could sit. We found an empty bench in front of Candie’s Candles, a store that smelled like fake cinnamon. When the fake-cinnamon-candle-smell mixed with the taste of my chocolate peanut butter ice cream, I suddenly felt mall-sick. I tossed my drippy cone in a nearby trash can.
“So?” Aunt Shelby said.
Part of me just wanted to get up and zoom out of the mall, but I also knew that if I didn’t speak up, I’d never forgive myself. Because it wasn’t as if I didn’t think things, or feel things, about the way my aunt had acted this summer. Besides, she always said how she wanted “special time” for “girl talk.” Well, so we should finally have it, right?
I took a deep breath of cinnamon mall-air. “The problem is that I didn’t want any bras in the first place. You made me buy them. Then you stuffed them into my bag, along with these other ones I didn’t even choose. That had padding. Which, truthfully, I don’t understand.”
“You don’t understand what? How to wear them? I could show you—”
“No,” I said. “What I don’t understand was why you’d give me something so fake. Especially after telling me there was nothing wrong with being a late bloomer, how Mom was one, and you—”
“It’s true. We were.”
“So then if it’s that just the way we are, why would you give me bras that say it’s not okay? That I should basically fake having boobs?”
She blinked. “You mean the padding?”
I nodded.
“Oh boy. Oh boy. Lia, I’m so, so sorry.” My aunt grabbed my ice-cream-sticky hands. “
That’s not what I was thinking at all. You’re beautiful; I’d never, ever suggest that you weren’t! I only gave you those extra bras because I thought you cared.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Oh, a lot of reasons. How you wouldn’t model any bras for Winnie and me. The way you never wore bathing suits to the beach. How you freaked when I asked you about it. How you snapped at me when I suggested suit shopping—”
I watched a mom drag her wriggling little kid into the Gap. “Well, yeah. I did feel kind of self-conscious on the beach. I mean, compared to Tanner’s girlfriend in her stupid bikini. And I definitely wish something was happening with my body by now. But I’d never lie about how I look.”
“That’s good to hear,” Aunt Shelby said. “It makes me proud of you! I’d just been worrying that maybe—” She left her sentence stranded.
“Maybe what?”
Aunt Shelby sighed. “Well, back in Maine you mentioned Val. And her daughter.”
“Abi. What about them?”
Aunt Shelby ate her last bite of froyo. She put her empty cup on the bench. “You really wanna hear, Lia?”
I didn’t know if I did. Maybe I didn’t. But I nodded.
“Okay. You remember that Val and I went to school together, right? So. When we were in seventh grade, Val used to torment me in gym. In the locker room. She called me names like Pancake, Tortilla, Ironing Board—”
“Wait. Really? Why?”
“Well, for one thing, I was sort of your standard weird kid, I guess. My voice was too loud, I dressed funny, I constantly challenged people, all that stuff. Everyone thought your mom was Miss Wonderful, and I was like her mutant little sister who didn’t fit in. Maplebrook was not a good environment for me.”
I nodded, even though I’d never thought about my aunt as a middle schooler before.
“Plus, in seventh grade I was almost completely boobless,” Aunt Shelby continued. “Flatter than you, Lia, if you can believe it. And Val got all her friends to join in the teasing. One time they stuffed a baby-size undershirt in my locker. I accused Val, and she just laughed. The next day there was a diaper. After that a onesie. This went on for a while. I didn’t know what to do.”
“That’s horrible!” I said. “Did you tell Grandma?”
She shook her head. “Your grandmother was always too freaked by body stuff. It was a generation thing, I guess. Anyway, I finally I told my big, strong sister—your mom. We fought a lot as kids—as grown-ups, too, you know—but I knew she’d always be there for me.”
Aunt Shelby paused a few seconds, took a few breaths, then continued. “Jessie wanted to confront Val herself, but I begged her not to, because I was convinced it would just make things worse. So then Jessie took me shopping for bras with just the slightest bit of padding. Not to lie about myself, you understand—just to stop the bullying.”
That shocked me. Mom would never have worn boob enhancers herself. I didn’t even have to look through her underwear drawer to know this. “And it worked?”
“Actually, it did. Val and her friends moved on to another target, a girl who obviously hadn’t gotten her period yet, because she was flat.” Aunt Shelby leaned toward me and combed her fingers through my hair. “Sometimes I wished I’d stood up for myself another way, you know? With brilliant words, or a hilarious joke. A magic potion, maybe. For a while I had this fantasy I’d march up to Val in front of her friends and shout something like, ‘Yes, I’m flat, okay? Deal with it!’ But the truth is, I couldn’t have pulled that off when I was twelve. And when someone’s picking on you, you do whatever works, I guess.”
My brain had emptied; I couldn’t speak. Val, the sweetest, nicest mom in Maplebrook, who drove me in her mom-mobile and brought feasts to our house every Tuesday and hugged Abi’s friends all the time and let us eat chocolate cupcakes in Abi’s room—she’d bullied Aunt Shelby in middle school? She’d made my aunt wear bras in self-defense?
And then picked on another girl for the same stuff? I didn’t think Aunt Shelby was lying. Why should she? But still, how was this even possible?
Not to mention the part about Mom buying her little sister padding. Which went against everything I knew about my sports-bra-wearing, hardly-any-makeup-wearing mother.
Then something occurred to me. “Did you think someone was bullying me?” I asked my aunt. “Is that why you bought me those padded bras?”
“Listen, Lia, I have no experience with daughter stuff, you know? So I mess up sometimes, like I did with Yazmin. But I only hired her because I care about you. I worry about you. And I’m not around very much; I don’t have access to facts. All I have is my intuition.” She patted her chest, as if that’s where she stored her intuition.
“And your intuition told you I was being bullied?” I pressed.
“Yeah, actually.” She studied my face. “Are you?”
“No, I’m not,” I answered firmly. “The only girl I know who gets teased is Ruby Lewis, and it’s for the opposite reason. And it’s by the boys, not the girls. Besides, if anyone tried to bully me, my friends would protect me.”
Aunt Shelby patted my knee. “Then I shouldn’t have worried, niecelet. Sorry I even brought it up.”
Rubber Band
ON THE RIDE HOME FROM the mall, Aunt Shelby talked mostly about Herb ’n’ Legend, the new store she wanted to open. She said she had the perfect space picked out two towns over, near Winnie’s Intimates, but she still needed an investor. Unfortunately, Dad told her this morning that he wasn’t interested, but maybe she could still convince him—
My aunt went on and on about her new store, but I stopped listening. Something about what she’d said in the mall had begun to trouble me: How Val could just tell the other girl hadn’t gotten her period.
Because that girl was boobless.
And the rule was: If boobless, then no period.
Like Marley.
And like me.
Even though I’d told my friends the My First Period story.
This meant: My friends knew it wasn’t true. OR
They suspected it wasn’t true. OR
They’d figure out that it wasn’t true.
And if they didn’t figure it out on their own, Val might even tell them.
Also I thought this: According to Aunt Shelby, Val used to be a Mean Girl. Now Val was officially the nicest mom in Maplebrook. Do mean girls outgrow their meanness when they grow up? Or, underneath the sweet, cupcake-baking outside, maybe Val was still capable of meanness. Maybe she was even teaching Abi how to be mean.
Not that Abi needed a whole bunch of lessons. Really, she was already plenty mean enough.
I started chewing my thumbnail, even though my thumb skin was turning red. Any way I looked at it, I knew I was in trouble. And it seemed as if I had only two options.
Option one: Admit to my friends that I’d lied to them—about getting my period, my first kiss, the whole dumping Tanner business. But then my friends might not still be my friends. Especially after Abi’s speech in the diner about best friends trusting one another and telling the truth.
Option Two: Stop being boobless. This would entail wearing padded bras to school and lying about myself, but it would also mean not blowing the My First Period story. Or the My First Kiss story. Or the Tanner saga. And therefore not being exposed as a liar and therefore also keeping my friends. Who I needed ridiculously.
Although I really, really did not want to wear a stupid padded bra. To school or anywhere else.
It was so unfair how my whole life was suddenly Pads and Padding!
But then I remembered what Aunt Shelby said about solving her own problem: You do whatever works. And the fact that her big sister—my mom—had bought those padded bras for her: Well, it almost seemed, in a funny way, as if she’d bought them for me, too.
♥ ♥ ♥
On Monday I felt as if I had a giant rubber band around my chest and that if I breathed too deeply, or coughed, it would snap. The funny thing was, the br
a barely made me look any different. I mean, yes, the cups had padding, but under my sweater, the padding barely showed. I’d been terrified that I’d walk around the corridors looking as if I’d stuffed a couple of socks in my undershirt and anytime someone bumped into me, you’d hear psssssss, like the sound our sofa pillows make when you accidentally sit on them. But no. The cups were okay. They didn’t deflate or make weird noises. The problem was the entire bra, how it made me feel as if I had a neon sign flashing on my chest: Yes, people of Earth, I am wearing a padded bra. Move along. Nothing to see here, folks.
Although wait: You’re allowed to look just long enough to prove that I’m no longer boobless. Then you should move along. Thank you. Signed, The Management.
In homeroom Mak didn’t comment about my appearance, and Marley just spent the whole time sketching. And when Abi came running into our room she didn’t stop to focus on my chest.
Instead she handed chocolate lollipops to Mak, Marley, and me. Around the stick of each lollipop was a red ribbon and a tiny note that said SORRY
“What’s this for?” Mak asked. She sounded a little suspicious, I thought.
Abi smiled sweetly. “Well, I was a little bit evil on Friday, wasn’t I? But over the weekend I got my period, so PMS mood swing, I guess. You forgive me?”
“Of course,” I answered.
“So I’ll see you guys at lunch?”
“Sure,” said Mak, shrugging like she didn’t care one way or the other.
I glanced at Marley. She didn’t answer Abi or smile or even look interested in the chocolate lollipop, which she stuffed into the front pocket of her Chicago Bulls hoodie. I tried to read her face, but I couldn’t see her eyes behind her glasses. And when the end-of-homeroom bell rang, I knew I wouldn’t see her again until lunch. I thought of running after her and asking, Are you still mad at me, for some reason? Or possibly: Are you having symptoms, and is that why you’re acting so weird, all of a sudden? But I had the feeling she wouldn’t answer—or that if she did, maybe I wouldn’t want to hear it.