Sima's Undergarments for Women

by Ilana Stranger-Ross

  Timna had come in late again that morning, and Sima noticed, as she always did these last few weeks, how unwell Timna looked—her skin blotchy, her face drawn. As Timna removed her coat, Sima saw that she was wearing a pair of black cotton drawstring pants that she’d bought from the store a few weeks ago, saying they were for yoga. Sima realized it wasn’t the first time she’d worn them to work; it’d been at least twice this week, and in between not the blue jeans or black cords, both of them tight, faded down the thighs and across the back, that Sima was accustomed to admiring, but instead a pair of shapeless gray slacks.

  There was that as evidence. And then Timna had been so tired lately, going so far as to lay her head on the table between customers, sometimes in seconds falling asleep. Sima had blamed Timna’s late nights—who knew what she did, or with whom—but when Timna again refused a second cup of coffee despite the darkness under her eyes, Sima wondered if evenings out were only half the story. Timna had taken out a bottle of water instead, said something about a celebrity diet, and indeed she had gained weight: her breasts pulled at her lavender sweater, the wool creasing under her armpit.

  While Timna stood beside the dressing room, waiting for Leah to pull back the curtain so she could check the fit, she ran a finger beneath the drawstring waistline of her cotton pants, loosening them.

  My God, Sima thought, the words on fire: Timna is pregnant.

  “See how it holds in your tummy,” Timna said, smiling as Leah turned before the mirror. “Especially if your dress is beige, you want something like this, because there’s nothing for the dress to catch on—it’s smoother than your own skin could be.”

  Leah frowned with approval. “It’s very nice,” she said, running her hands along her sides, “no lines or anything. My sister always has panty lines—it’s so embarrassing, I hope her daughter checks her before the wedding so she doesn’t ruin the pictures.”

  “Well, you’ll look perfect, at least,” Timna said, and Sima wondered again at how she knew just what to say. “You need anything else? Bras? Panties?” Before Leah could answer, Timna continued, “We just got in some wonderful stuff from Olga’s, and I think we have in your size this great set, just a hint of lace and so comfortable—”

  Sima watched as Timna walked over to the shelves, stepped up one level on the ladder, and grabbed a box. She was a good worker. Better than good. She took naps, coffee breaks, she didn’t like to clean—but the women fell for her, bought whatever she recommended, because she was young and beautiful and when she smiled, they felt they’d won something.

  But if she were pregnant they’d whisper, stare, look from her face to her ring finger, searching. It was not acceptable, it was not okay—an unmarried pregnant woman could not work in her store. Never.

  Leah liked the bra and the underwear, chose one set in beige and one in black. Timna carried the purchases to the cash register; Sima, without speaking, took them and rang them up. “Cash or charge?” she called to Leah, wondering how she should tell Timna that she knew.

  “Cash,” Leah answered, and appeared a few minutes later, dressed, counting out the twenties from her wallet, full of gossip for Sima about the wedding plans—“Can you believe a buffet, not sit-down? The lines will take forever, and for that food, who would bother?” Sima nodded, clucked in sympathy, but concentrated on Timna—noting how quickly she went to sit down again.

  “You’re tired, huh?” Sima asked after Leah left.

  “I guess. I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”

  “Maybe you’re sick? Your skin is blotchy.”

  “Maybe. I think it’s the winter—I’m just tired all the time. I’m not used to this weather.”

  Sima looked at her. Was she lying, or could it be she hadn’t noticed? She’d heard stories—women taking months to realize, as much from denial as ignorance, and Timna had every reason to hide from such a truth. It wouldn’t be Alon’s, of course; Shai was the only other man Sima knew by name, though she suspected there were more. Timna went to dance clubs, concerts, and looking like she did, having resolved to explore, there would be no lack of opportunities. Just one night, one time, and her whole life would be changed. Ruined.

  Timna was pregnant.

  Sima was furious.

  Here was a life so young, so capable of doing so much. The travel, the education—all the things Sima could not have, would never have. And to throw it all away. The man was probably already out of the picture, or would be soon enough—it was an old story, ending Timna’s too soon.

  She was too irresponsible, Sima thought, watching as Timna lifted her head, checked the polish on her nails for chipping. She wasn’t like the neighborhood women, raised to raise children. She wanted too much—she’d feel the disappointment of all she would not be, could not do, too cutting. And who would help her, her own mother distant, her father preoccupied with his own family? She needed support; she’d have none.

  No. It couldn’t be. But then the alternative—

  Sima imagined for a moment Timna on a cold metal table, saw her old doctor standing over her, smiling through yellow teeth. She sat down, rested her head in her hands. The alternative was unthinkable.

  The bell rang, and Sima started, jumped quickly to her feet. “You were resting too?” Timna asked, as Sima stepped out from behind the counter. “How about I go make another cup of coffee for both of us?”

  “And your celebrity diet?”

  “Screw the diet. I need a cup of coffee.”

  Sima watched her go; said nothing.

  After the hysterectomy Sima was put on a hormone regimen. She took the Premarin pills each night and watched her body change: she gained weight, her breasts, belly, and thighs expanding as they had when she was a teenager while her hair, previously thin, thickened into stiff waves to be forced back into a bun each morning, bobby pins pressed between her lips. The changes were internal as well. She became quick to anger, the feeling rising as a heat inside her until it burst out like steam from beneath a pocked and potholed city street. She yelled at Lev for forgetting to buy stamps, misplacing the car keys, leaving the newspaper spread on the kitchen table. “You always screw things up!” she screamed when he’d overwatered the spider plant so that it dripped in five thin streams onto the carpet below, “Why can’t you do anything right? Why is everything such a mess with you?”

  He didn’t respond.

  She wished, sometimes, he would, wished he would scream as she did and with hands on her shoulders pull her back to a place where they’d been happy. But he didn’t. He allowed her, instead, to care for him—sacrificed his role as husband for that of child.

  She didn’t have the words to say, I need you.

  He didn’t know how to hear her through the silence.

  22

  WHAT SHOULD WE DO?” SIMA ASKED LEV, WATCHING him as he captured a piece of cauliflower from the soup with his spoon, brought it to his mouth.

  “I don’t see we can do much of anything. It’s her life.”

  Sima looked at him. “How can you still say that, now that you know she really is in trouble?”

  “You haven’t proven that,” Lev said, pointing his spoon at her. A drop of soup fell to the table; he quickly wiped it up with his napkin.

  “How were you ever a vice principal,” Sima asked, “given you see so little?” She shook her head, began to count on her fingers. “First, she’s tired all the time. Second, her skin is blotchy

  “Since when is blotchy skin and tiredness a medical symptom?”

  “Third, her breasts are larger. Fourth, her roots are showing. Fifth, she hardly drinks caffeine—”

  “But you said she did the once, no?”

  “So, once is okay. The point is—”

  “Okay. Go on. What’s the other evidence?”

  “Sixth,” Sima paused over her new hand. Was there any more evidence than that? “Lev, look at how you got soup on your shirt,” she said, pointing to an orange stain along the button-line. “I should get you a bi
b or something.”

  Lev half-stood. “If you just want to pick on me—”

  “No,” Sima said, waving him back down, “stay.” She wanted his advice; needed him on board. “What do you think?” she asked, “what should I do?”

  Lev shrugged. “Timna might be pregnant,” he said, emphasizing the might, “or she might be tired or sick or depressed or anything else. Maybe she has that new disease, that seasonal depression syndrome.”

  Sima clucked her tongue in disapproval. “Timna’s not the type to have a syndrome.”

  “There’s a type?”

  “There’s a type of person prone to depression, and Timna’s not one of them. Believe me,” Sima said, taking away the soup plates, “I should know.”

  She returned with two dinner plates—fish and a side of rice—served Lev and then herself. They ate quietly; it wasn’t until she stood to again clear his plate that she spoke. “You love Timna,” she said, saying it and knowing it was true and how odd, she thought, that they should love the same girl when she couldn’t really say if they loved each other. “Don’t you care what happens to her?”

  Lev looked at her. “If she wants to let me in, she will.”

  “If she wants to let you in, huh?” Sima tasted a bitterness in her mouth, an anger rising. “That’s your excuse for never asking, never pushing to help anyone.” She put the plates in the dishwasher, not bothering to rinse them clean. “You just sit around and wait for an invitation while ignoring the suffering right in front of your face.”

  “That’s not true, Sima—you’re the one who locked me out. You sacrificed everything to keep your secret, and then blamed me for not being there.” He stood, faced her. “Now Timna has a secret, maybe has a secret, who even knows for sure, and you want to expose it. Why?”

  “Because of that, because of that exactly.” She closed the dishwasher door, smoothed the puffed pockets of her housedress. “Because I know what regret can be, I know how it can strangle and kill—”

  “Do you think we’ll get her baby?”

  “What?”

  “Do you think Timna will give us the baby?”

  She looked at him. His face was pale; the veins on his neck just purple. “Lev, now you’re the one out of his mind.” Even as she dismissed it, her heart jumped at the thought—a baby, Timna—but she swallowed, pushed the longing deep down.

  “Come on, Sima, admit it: the daughter we never had, the grandchild we never even dreamed of—”

  You never dreamed of, she thought. She glanced at Lev’s hand lightly resting on the counter: the fingernails a little long, the hair turned to white—when? “I have to help her, Lev. It wouldn’t be right not to.”

  He shook his head, turned away. “Whatever you say, Sima. Whatever you say.”

  “You have got to do something,” Connie said when Sima called that evening. “She needs you. Here she is all alone, thousands upon thousands of miles from home, and now pregnant—”

  “So you think, based on what I told you—”

  “God, yes. Haven’t I always said, Sima, that you’re one of the most observant women I know? That’s how you run such a successful business. Notwithstanding that you destroyed my own marriage—”

  “Connie, I—” Sima felt her heartbeat quicken.

  “Kidding, kidding. The point is you see things, you notice what your customer needs even before she sees it herself.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember Shirley, how you told her she needed more support before she even said anything about it, and then it turned out she was about to get reduction surgery before your bras made the difference?”

  Sima nodded, sat down on the bed.

  “She’s pregnant. My God. Do you know whose?”

  “No. I don’t know anything, we haven’t spoken about it.” It was cold in the room; she brought the comforter up above her legs.

  “Can you imagine—it could just be some guy. I swear, if Nate ever did anything like that—”

  “What? What would you do? Because this is what I’m trying to figure out, what my role is, whether I should interfere or not.” Sima leaned back against the pillows.

  “Well, keep in mind I’m his mother, so of course I’d have a role. I’d call the girl myself. I’d take her for lunch, explain how disappointed I was in my son, but between her and me things would be open. She was carrying my grandchild after all, I’d say, and I wasn’t about to let my grandchild be raised in poverty—”

  “I don’t want the speech, Connie, just what you think I should do.”

  “Sorry, I got caught up. Listen, as far as Timna, I think maybe you should call her mother, explain your suspicions—”

  Sima sat up, moving a pillow to the small of her back for support. “Really? Just like that, call her mother?” Sima tried to keep her voice even, hide her disappointment—she wanted to be the one to save Timna, didn’t want to defer to Timna’s mother.

  “Of course her mother. Why not?”

  “Because they’re not that close. Timna told me—”

  “So they’re not close. All the more reason for you to call, because Timna probably won’t.” Connie paused. “Listen Sim-sim, I know how much you love this girl—”

  Sima pressed her eyes closed, tears hot behind the lids.

  “But this is too big a job for you. If she’s not going to call her mom herself, then you need to do it.”

  “But she’ll be furious—”

  “Maybe so. But it’s the right thing. You can’t just stand by and do nothing while she destroys her life. Sima, you of all people—”

  “But is it my place to interfere?”

  “If not you, then who? Here she is, young and alone in New York City, of all places. Imagine she has an abortion and never tells her mother—think of that, the distance between them.”

  Sima nodded, smearing away tears with the back of her palm.

  “Sima, it’s up to you to heal that relationship. All along I’ve said to Art—” Connie paused, and this time Sima could hear the catch in her throat, “I’ve said, there’s a reason Timna was given to Sima. Now I see why.”

  After Sima hung up the phone, she sat in bed, quietly smoothing the covers across her lap. It wasn’t the role she’d wanted—the bridge between Timna and her mother, stepping back as they reached forward—but perhaps it was the only one she could claim. The important thing wasn’t her own desires but Timna’s needs. How to protect Timna, how to keep her safe, how, she thought as she ran her fingers along the quilted comforter, to preserve for Timna wonder and joy, the happiness that, so long ago, she herself had lost.

  FEBRUARY

  23

  SIMA PUT HER HAND ON THE PHONE RECEIVER, FELT the curve of the plastic beneath her palm. She lifted it up slowly, tucking it between her ear and shoulder while she carefully dialed the numbers she’d found written in Timna’s date book. She’d felt all the stereotypes of the thief when she opened Timna’s purse, searched for the book: fast-beating heart, pricked ears, every noise outside the approaching footsteps of witnesses ready to condemn.

  She had waited for Timna to go upstairs for lunch with Lev, a tradition that took place a few times a week, before circling Timna’s desk, readying for the attack. She counted twenty, thirty seconds, listened closely to the noises upstairs: the kiss of the refrigerator opening, closing; the scratch of chairs pulled out and in; the rising whisper of voices: Lev’s rushed, tumbling out the thoughts he’d saved for this one bright listener— “You’d be interested in this,” and “I came across that”— Timna punctuating his stories with “I never realized” and “Isn’t that amazing?” offering discrete scenes from her own past, a plastic-dome still life—plastic palm trees, blue ink sea—for him to marvel at, shake softly in his hand.

  At the count of fifty, Sima grabbed Timna’s purse.

  She kept her eyes on the staircase as she felt for the date book, reaching between lipstick, tissues, and a leopard-print wallet before running her fingers along the spiral spi
ne, pulling it to light. A tiny book, the kind sold at bookstore checkout counters: Monet’s water lilies on the front cover, one of Picasso’s clowns on the back. Sima opened it, fumbled to “S.”

  She found him right away: had first noticed a name of just two Hebrew letters and then, sounding them out, spelled Shai, her mouth open with the whisper of his name. She copied the number into her own date book, hiding it below October’s reminder to clean the leaf-filled gutters.

  She watched Timna carefully all afternoon, noted the way she sat down between customers, her yawns never quite hidden behind her hand, her gaze distracted. She let her off a half-hour early, feigning a headache as an excuse—“Go, I need to rest a little”—afraid that if she waited too long, she’d lose her nerve.

  Despite Connie’s advice she’d decided to try Shai first—she’d met him, at least. He might be able to help approach Timna’s mother, and he might even be the father—an outcome Sima both hoped for and railed against. She prayed for an answering machine—she’d hang up, try again some other time.

  On the third ring someone picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello. Is Shai there?”

  She heard the man calling Shai’s name and then footsteps coming closer. She felt like a teenager, calling a boy from the hallway phone while her mother prepared dinner, mouth close to the receiver, ready to whisper.

  Shai picked up the phone. “Yes?”

  “Shai,” Sima said, her voice coated with an enthusiasm she did not feel, “It’s Sima, Timna’s boss.”

  There was a pause. She could feel the press of his palm to the receiver, hear him whispering something to his roommate.

  “Sima, hi.” She could hear a question in his voice.

  “Hello,” she said, trying to sound friendly, warm. “How are you?”

  After an exchange of small talk—the usual comments about February in New York, how cold, how gray and wet—she forced herself to move the conversation forward. “I’m calling about Timna,” she told him, wrapping the cord around her wrist—of course he’d know she was calling about Timna. “I was calling,” she said, choosing her words carefully, “because I was wondering, if, well, does she seem sick to you lately?”