Sima's Undergarments for Women

by Ilana Stranger-Ross

  No, Sima had admitted, taking in the black lace stretched across Timna’s skin, she hadn’t.

  “Still,” Louise told her, “I don’t think this is really me—”

  Sima crossed her arms across her chest. “So, what’s you?”

  “I just, I like to keep my body to myself.”

  “Louise,” Sima said, “you’re too young for that attitude. Me, I couldn’t pay a man to look. But you—here, put your shirt back on.”

  Louise slipped on her sweater, stepped back to see the effect.

  “Is that not sexy?” Sima asked, gesturing with her chin at Louise’s reflection: just the faintest hint of cleavage was visible at the top of the V-neck, but her breasts swelled against the fabric. Sima knew she was being too aggressive, but couldn’t resist. This small rescue—just to help one woman enjoy her body every now and then—this she could do, had to do.

  Louise laughed. “Okay, okay. You’ve convinced me; I’ll take it.”

  “Yeah? Good for you. Really, it’s good for you.”

  Timna came back just as Louise was leaving. “I sold her your favorite push-up,” Sima told her, and Louise laughed as Timna asked, “The one with the birds? You’ll love it.”

  Sima watched Louise disappear up the steps, a brown plastic bag, filled with three minimizers along with the push-up, swinging from one arm. She waited for another customer to appear, hoping for an excuse to delay confronting Timna, but none did. Now or never, she told herself, turning away from the empty staircase.

  Timna sat down at the sewing table. “I have to tell you,” she said, putting her purse on the floor beside her, “why I left just now—it wasn’t a birthday card I had to buy for my mom.”

  Sima looked at her. “Oh?”

  Timna placed her hand in her chin, frowned. “Her birthday isn’t until April.”

  Sima waited for what would come next. Timna would tell her the truth: she’d been at a pay phone pleading with Shai; she’d been to the doctor for a blood test; she’d been at the children’s boutique, fawning over soft pastel nightgowns. She held back a smile as she anticipated the confession, thrilled that Timna had come to her in the end, she hadn’t had to force it. Just like that, she imagined telling Connie, she opened right up to me, told me everything.

  “I bought her a card because we had a fight,” Timna said. “She broke up with her boyfriend, Udi. You saw his picture—the man making breakfast in our kitchen.”

  Sima watched Timna as she spoke, described what had happened—her mother calling for the first time in months, alternating between tears and giddy laughter as she recounted the breakup. “Nothing she said made any sense,” Timna told her, “first she was hysterical and Udi was a bastard, then she’d met someone else who I was just going to love.” She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, sighed. “I’m so sick of it, you know? He was the first guy in so long who made her laugh, made me laugh. They were together almost two years, and I just really hoped—” Timna took a deep breath, smiled weakly at Sima. “It’s just—no matter how much I try to distance myself, no matter how far away I go—”

  “Oh, Timna,” Sima said, fully won over now to the delicious attraction of her tragedy. Without thinking, she crossed the shop floor, wanting to gather Timna to her, but once in front of the sewing table she paused, unsure of how to move—Timna was sitting down, her body unavailable. “If there’s anything I can do,” Sima said, “if there’s anything you need—” She placed a hand on Timna’s shoulder, lightly squeezed the narrow bone beneath.

  Timna rubbed her eyes. “Look at this,” she told Sima, removing a brown paper bag from within her purse. Sima reached into the bag, pulled out a greeting card. On the cover yellow sunflowers bloomed in a green field, inside it was blank. “It took me thirty minutes to decide on a card. Thirty minutes for a blank card. And now I have to figure out what to write.” Timna sighed as she crossed her arms on the desk, rested her head on top of them.

  Sima reached forward to stroke Timna’s hair, unable to resist its soft pull. “It’s nice of you though, to write her—” she offered, aware of her own jealousy at Timna sending her mother a card, worrying over what to say. She smoothed Timna’s hair once, twice, before forcing her hands back to her own side.

  Timna shrugged, explained that she bought it out of guilt—they’d had a fight, her mother had accused Timna of caring more about Udi than about her. “And maybe it’s true,” Timna said, sitting up. “Maybe I would rather keep him in my life than her.”

  Sima held her hands together, unsure what to say. She was thrilled, partly, to hear how little respect Timna held for her mother: there was nothing to envy in that relationship, and as for the phone call—even Connie would agree that Timna’s mother shouldn’t be brought in at this point. At the same time, Sima couldn’t help but feel sorry for Timna’s mother; she imagined her as a customer in the shop, shaking her head sadly as she told Sima, “I don’t know why she hates me, I can’t imagine what I’ve done.”

  “I just hope I don’t end up like her,” Timna said. “It scares me sometimes, the thought that I might.”

  Sima was about to dismiss Timna’s fears—of course she wouldn’t end up like her mother—when something stopped her. “You’re afraid of that, then,” she asked, “of being like her?”

  “Terrified.”

  Sima nodded. She thought of everything that had changed for Timna in the last few months—breaking up with Alon, staying out late with Shai and Nurit, and finally the changes of the last few weeks. “What about being like her do you fear?” Sima asked.

  “I don’t know; it’s not easy to say, exactly.” Timna reached for a spool of navy thread beside the sewing machine, began to roll it back and forth across the table. “The way she needs men, I guess, but then always pushes them away.”

  “And do you ever think,” Sima asked, excited now as the clues fell neatly into place—so observant, she could hear Connie say, so insightful—“that this thing with Alon, breaking up with him because you felt too settled, too dependent—” she paused, looked at Timna. “Do you think maybe you pushed Alon away from fear of becoming your mother?”

  Timna tapped the top of the spool, turned it over. “What?”

  Sima hesitated, once again knowing she should stop but unwilling to do so: everything had changed when Timna left Alon; bringing him back might return her to joy. “You told me,” Sima said, “back when you showed me those pictures, that your mother was afraid to be alone, that she always needed a man.”

  “Maybe. I don’t really remember—”

  “But at the same time she’s unable to really commit to a relationship. She needs men, but then she pushes them away, right?”

  Timna waited a moment before responding. “Right.”

  “Timna,” Sima said, her gaze soft—how young Timna was, how in need of guidance. “When you broke up with Alon, saying you didn’t want to stay with him out of fear of being alone—do you think maybe you were afraid of being like your mother, of needing men?”

  She felt like one of the experts on the talk shows, how quickly, how clearly, she exposed the truth, the audience breaking into applause.

  Timna rolled the navy spool back and forth beneath her palm.

  “Because to be so afraid of being dependent on someone else that you push them away—that’s what your mother actually does, that’s how she hurts you.” Sima had to concentrate to keep her voice calm. She felt both terrified and triumphant as she explained: out of fear of becoming her mother, Timna had acted just like her, pushing someone wonderful away.

  “It’s not that simple, Sima,” Timna said, her voice strained thin, “I was with Alon for years—”

  “I don’t mean to make it simple,” Sima told her, “believe me, I know how far from simple it is.” She looked at Timna, smiled. “I just want to tell you, so you should know—you’re not your mother, Timna.”

  Timna nodded.

  “I know it’s hard to hear this, and maybe it’s not fair for me to say�
�” Sima hesitated a moment, but only for display. “You broke up with Alon so you wouldn’t fear being alone, but it takes as much courage, maybe even more, to stay with someone.”

  “Sima—”

  “Timna, your mother may lack that courage, but you have it. I know you have it.” Sima crossed her arms before her, holding on. She wanted to tell Timna she understood her secretiveness, sympathized with how ambivalent she must feel about becoming a mother, but hesitated, hoping Timna would come to her first. “Timna,” Sima said, imagining for a moment the joy of the months to come—Timna taking her hands and drawing them to her belly as they felt together the swell of her baby’s kick—“you haven’t been yourself lately. How come?”

  Timna kept her gaze steady on the spool of thread. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Sima nodded, checked her disappointment: she’d have to wait for Timna to make the final move. She reached again for Timna’s hair; let a few strands cascade through her fingers. “Think about it then, will you? Remember that what you had with Alon, that was brave.”

  Timna looked up. “Maybe,” she said, “maybe so.”

  Sima leaned back in her orange-plastic chair at the Dairy Delicious, registering what Connie had just told her. How many times had they sat here, the two of them, how many times a cup of coffee, an omelette, a slice of cake shared with two forks, the food the grease for their conversations: Lev, Art, Howie and Nate, this one, that one, have you heard, and wow, I never knew? But now Connie was whispering, was rushing her words, and Sima had to ask twice until she understood: Connie had contacted an escort.

  “Escort, shmescort,” Connie said. “This wasn’t some phone-book advertisement. I found him in Jewish Week.”

  Sima stared in amazement. “What did the ad say?”

  “You’ve probably seen it. Or you would, if you were looking. He calls himself the Chasana Man. Available for all occasions: weddings, bar mitzvahs, brit milot, et cetera.” Connie waved her hand. “How did he put it? Middle-aged divorced CPA, fit, willing to dance.”

  “Oh.” Sima had an impulse to turn away, even leave; she didn’t know what to make of Connie’s exploits. She fingered her purse, an excuse already forming in her mind: the car was due an oil change, she’d been meaning to take it in.

  But then she glanced at Connie.

  Connie was watching her, waiting for her response. But what could she say?

  My best friend just contacted an escort, Sima thought. She imagined telling Timna, solemnly repeating the words in her mind. But before she could finish the sentence, the hilarity of the situation struck her.

  “A Chasana man out of Jewish Week,” Sima said. “Only in New York.”

  When a wide grin spread across Connie’s face, Sima realized how much Connie had been hoping for her approval.

  “I know, I know,” Connie told her, laughing. “And when I first saw the ad, well, I never thought. But then—”

  “What do you have to lose?”

  “Exactly.”

  Sima smiled. “Tell me everything,” she said, allowing herself to give in to curiosity, even excitement. Connie needed her, after all. “What did you say when you called? What did he say?”

  Connie leaned in, told the story. She’d left a message, he’d called back, and they arranged to have him accompany her to her great-niece’s bat mitzvah. “I just couldn’t do it alone,” she said. “All those relatives, all those looks of pity and the unwanted advice. You know me, Sima—I’m not up for being single.”

  Sima nodded. She did.

  “So—it was nice. He was nice.”

  “That’s it, nice?” She sensed there was more, and wanted to hear it.

  “He’s better than the orthodontist, that’s for sure.”

  “Anyone’s better than the orthodontist.” Myrna Silver’s brother had turned out to have both an eye twitch and a jumpy leg; Connie had said he made her seasick.

  Connie laughed. “That’s true.” Then she whispered, “I took him home.”

  “No!”

  Connie nodded. “Well, I mean, he drove me home. And it seemed rude not to invite him in—”

  “Did anything—”

  “Oh, Sima.” Connie covered her face with her hands, but Sima could see she was smiling. “I feel like a kid again, to be even talking about this—”

  “Me too,” Sima said. It was a good feeling.

  “There’s not much to say. We sat on the couch—the bed felt too creepy. We kissed. Remember that, kissing on a couch? How long has it been?”

  Sima shook her head, amazed.

  “I’d forgotten how uncomfortable a couch can be, to tell you the truth—”

  Sima looked at her again, and laughed again, and this time Connie joined in, and before she knew it, they were giggling like schoolgirls.

  But then Connie’s laughter caught.

  Sima looked on as Connie cried, knowing there was nothing she could say.

  “What a mess, huh?” Connie asked, when her breath had evened out again.

  “You know what?”

  “What?” Connie pressed a napkin to her eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Connie paused, and then put down the napkin. “You know what?”

  Sima waited.

  “That may be one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me.” Connie squeezed Sima’s hand; their eyes met and held.

  Four months after Faye sold her business, Sima opened Sima’s Undergarments for Women, financed by the money in the purple tallis bag plus a decade’s banking interest. It was not, Sima considered as she waited in line at the bank, how her mother would have wanted the money spent. The savings was not a gift to enjoy or money to take a risk with but a lesson in thrift: all this I saved on the few dollars a week your father gave me. It spoke of denial rather than wealth, and as Sima tucked the cashier’s check into her wallet—almost all of which would go to buying Faye’s stock from her, along with the cash register, counter, some chairs and the dressing-room bench—she flushed with pleasure to think how the money would buy her independence, a life fully different from her mother’s.

  In the first few months Sima felt like an impostor, just some woman feigning authority and expertise. She worried she’d made a terrible mistake; the customers wouldn’t come, she’d be left alone, buried, she half-joked to Connie, by all the boxes in her basement.

  But the customers did come. Every time the doorbell rang, she felt flush with the miracle—they were here for her, and just some flyers she’d paid a neighborhood boy to distribute and word of mouth from Faye to account for it. And although she’d worried, too, that once in the shop she’d disappoint them, she soon found that the authority of shopkeeper gave her a new confidence to make small talk—a joke here, a compliment there—she’d never had before. As Faye’s stock ran out and she began to replace it, getting to know the salesmen and developing her own opinions of brands—what was worth the price and what wasn’t—she began to feel that her authority was earned. One afternoon Sima returned to Bloomingdale’s, this time as a spy, and was shocked to see the shoddiness of the lingerie they sold, the ignorance of the saleswomen, the complete lack of concern for fitting a customer properly.

  “I could have walked out of there with a bra completely the wrong size, and no one would have cared,” she told Connie. “Is that not appalling?” Though Connie was not as shocked as she might have been—“You went to Bloomies? Why didn’t you call me?”—Sima knew she no longer needed Connie’s confirmation to make a thing true. Compared to department store clerks, she was an expert, and so an expert she became. She became more confident fitting women, pulling aside the curtain to check size and shape, forgetting, in the moments she evaluated the bra, that it was another woman’s body, as imperfect and insecure as her own, that she observed. Because she forgot, they forgot, and when the women smiled at their reflections Sima was proud to think that like Faye before her, she gave each woman just a little more comfort, a little more happiness, than she’d had before.<
br />
  One day a customer surprised Sima by touching her on the arm, telling her it’d been a year since the shop opened, hadn’t it, and where had she ever gone before?

  It was August, the air outside thick with the sort of still summer heat that made it impossible to believe the ocean bordered the borough, dark blue waves and pebbled sand and the rounded edges of glass shards worn by the sea. Sima thanked the customer, flush with pride—a feeling she had not known since the earliest days with Lev. After the customer left, Sima reached under the cash register for a photograph Faye had sent when she first moved to Florida: Faye on the beach in white slacks and a blue-striped sweater, her hands thrown open as if to say—here it is. “Thank you, Faye,” Sima whispered to the picture, “I owe you.”

  The shop grew. From bras and underwear Sima expanded to slips, nightgowns, bridal wear, swimsuits. Sima’s Undergarments for Women became a neighborhood fixture, word of mouth spreading sales through and then beyond Boro Park. Women came from Bensonhurst, Brighton Beach, Coney Island, Crown Heights, and Flatbush; retirees visited from Miami and Boca Raton; children returned from Houston, Chicago, and Los Angeles to shop at Sima’s, stock up until the next trip home.

  It was from one of the visiting retirees that Sima learned of Faye’s death. She hadn’t even known Faye was sick—they’d lost touch years before—and even as she sighed and clucked through the details—breast cancer, a double mastectomy and chemotherapy, a two-year fight, a hospice at the end with a sliver of ocean visible from her bed—Sima folded the news away, waiting for a free moment to think it through.

  She didn’t remember until she washed her face for bed that evening—the cold pull of water unfurling the knowledge of Faye’s death from a gray fold somewhere. Sima saw Faye as she looked in that picture, long since thrown away after being stained with diet soda: her arms spread wide on the beach, an endless expanse of sun and sand and sea cradled within that embrace.