by Justin Sayre
“Oh my God, you have jugs!” Shelley says, turning around quicker than we agreed. Even Sophie is surprised, she’s never seen them out like this. Nobody has.
“I think you’re at least a C. Maybe even . . . ,” Shelley says, backing out of the dressing room.
When we’re alone, Sophie asks me, “Are you okay?”
I tell her yes, crossing my arms as many times as I can over my ginormous boobs and trying to act like it’s not a big deal to be this naked in front of your friend. Sophie’s not acting like it is, so I’m just following her lead. She starts to ask me if I’ve ever had a real bra before and I’m sort of embarrassed to say no, but it’s the truth.
“Well, didn’t your mother ever take you?” Sophie asks.
“No,” I answer. My mom’s not around enough and besides, she’s not a bra-buying kind of mom. Sophie gets it. She doesn’t have the kind of mom who would take her either.
Shelley’s back in a flash with three new bras, each one worse than the first, but at least these fit. When I try on the first, Shelley looks at me in the mirror and says, “Well, that must feel a lot better at least.”
But it doesn’t. I mean, yes, I’m not being squeezed to death, but now they’re just out there. Sticking out in front of me, announcing me before I’m coming, saying that I’m this kind of big-boobed woman when I don’t want to be that. I don’t know what kind of woman I want to be, but I don’t think being some sort of huge-boobed girl is even close. The second bra fits better, so Shelley goes out and gets three more in that size. We head down to Bubbe and Aunt Debbie and the dresses. This awfulness will just not end.
Aunt Debbie almost swallows her tongue when she sees me and my newly released boobs. But Bubbe just smiles. She puts her hand on my face and says, “We’re going to find you something beautiful.”
I try on everything they’ve picked but nothing is right. They didn’t have me pick anything, but both Bubbe and Aunt Debbie want me to be happy with what I’m going to wear. It’s my big day after all, and I should be happy. I ask for maybe a jumpsuit or pants, but no one seems to hear that comment at all. I think they’re ignoring me.
We find nothing at Macy’s or the three other stores we go to, and by then we’re all a little miserable and need something to eat. I knew this day was going to be tough, but I didn’t know just how tough. Bubbe takes us all to a restaurant that she used to love to go to with Zayde when they lived in New York. It’s old and stuffy, but it makes Bubbe so happy that it’s still open that none of us mind.
During lunch, Aunt Debbie starts thinking out loud of all the other places that might have something perfect for me. Shelley starts arguing a little about some of the choices. Bubbe sees me getting sad that I’m making all this trouble for everyone, myself included, and puts her hand on mine.
“Don’t worry, darling. We’ll find you something,” she says. “We went through all five boroughs to find something for Shelley.” Aunt Debbie nods and starts telling about how picky Shelley was about her dresses. She wanted something that looked Cinderella. Shelley laughs at that now. They all laugh about things that happen when trying to find a dress, and getting ready for the party, and then the party itself.
“Do you remember when Ira fell over during the Electric Slide?” Bubbe asks them. Aunt Debbie and Shelley start laughing out loud, and Bubbe joins in. They’re laughing so hard that it’s hard for Sophie and me not to join in. So we do. It’s a funny story, even if I don’t know exactly what happened or who Ira was.
It’s sitting there in the booth, watching them all talk about the memories of being together, that I start to see that while it’s my day, it’s not just about me. It’s about all of us. It’s about this crazy loud family that I’m lucky and cursed to be a part of. I’m becoming a woman, but I’m also becoming like these women, and for the first time, that starts to sink in and feel good. And as soon as it feels good, it starts to feel bad, because the woman I want to be like the most isn’t here. The woman who I want to be here the most is still in Chicago until Monday, last we heard.
We finish lunch and head to a few more stores, but nothing seems to work. Aunt Debbie seems defeated and upset, but Bubbe says we’ll just try again. There’s time. Plenty of time. There’s no need to worry, everything will be perfect, I shouldn’t worry.
Aunt Debbie and Shelley put us all in a cab home, and we’re back over the bridge before I know it. Right as we’re dropping off Sophie, my phone dings with a message from Mom.
How did it go? Did you get a dress?
I don’t know what to answer, so I just type,
Fine.
But I don’t send it. Let her wait.
Chapter 11
It’s Monday night, and my mom still isn’t home. Dad says she’s been tied up but should be home this week. Bubbe isn’t happy about it either, but none of us says anything. Bubbe and Zayde are only at our house until Friday, when they will go up to Aunt Claire’s for a few days. We’re all a little disappointed that Mom’s not home, and it takes Zayde to finally break the mood.
“Well, I guess that means more egg foo young for me! Who’s ordering? Am I?” Zayde smiles. We all sort of laugh but sort of don’t. And I don’t know which is better. By Tuesday night, we don’t mention it again and just move on to other subjects. I still need a dress. Bubbe says maybe she can take me when we go for our special brunch.
We’re going to a very nice restaurant, Bubbe hints, so nice in fact that all the waiters wear gloves, and I wonder if they expect me to as well. I only have mittens, and they’re blue. Bubbe says it’s going to be a wonderful day just for us. “You may get to have a sip of wine,” Bubbe smiles, patting my face.
Shelley told me a little about the brunch when we were shopping, and she says she’s confirmed it with her mom. The whole brunch is about bringing you into the family of women as an equal, so as an equal, you get to ask anything you want, and since Bubbe started the tradition and takes it very seriously, she’ll answer anything you ask her. Anything. Shelley stressed that. A-NY-THIN-G. I’m a little shocked by that, but also excited. Do you know how hard it is getting the truth out of anybody older? I mean, Dad doesn’t know what day Mom’s coming home. I need to start thinking about what I want to ask. I don’t want to screw it up. Not like I’m screwing everything else up.
Things aren’t great between Charlie and me at the moment. Some of it is him being weird, I know that, but a lot of it by now is my fault almost entirely. I keep pushing for him to talk to me about what happened with Ducks, but he keeps saying he doesn’t want to. He was embarrassed a little, but I have no frigging clue why. I mean, I knew Charlie was gay for, like, ever, at least from the first day we met at soccer camp. He passed me an orange slice and we started talking. I said I was there because I wanted to get better at dribbling and maybe learn a few tricks. Charlie told me his dad was making him play sports so maybe he wouldn’t be gay. Done.
“So he picked soccer?” I smiled and that made Charlie laugh. We were friends after that. Now it’s more complicated than I think either of us knows how to deal with. Charlie’s been quiet since I texted him about it. Now, I didn’t go in, like, “Hey, I heard you asked out my friend and he turned you down.” I’m not that stupid. But I did push him on the whole thing. Asking him big long questions about what’s going on and getting at best one-word answers, if he bothered to answer me at all.
Tuesday night, we were playing Call of Duty together when I really started to talk about it, and it didn’t go well. I started in just talking about myself.
“Ugh, I can’t believe I have to go back to Hebrew school with Allegra tomorrow.”
“That sucks,” Charlie said as he changed over to his flamethrower.
“Yeah,” I said, following behind him. “And you know how she gets around boys. She’s so gross about it.”
“Gross about it how?” Charlie asked.
; Now here was the moment, when I probably could have turned it around, but I didn’t. I just charged ahead because I didn’t know what else I could do. Or maybe I did, and I just made the wrong choice. I’d like to blame the fact that I was trying to save the universe, but I wasn’t even doing that well.
“You know she’s, like, all over them. She laughs at all their jokes and takes all their numbers, and she’s practically attached at the hip with Noah already.”
“Noah is the one you like?” Charlie asks as he sets the wall on fire and jumps through. “Are you keeping up or do you need to pause?”
“I got it!” I yell, shooting up a bunch of flesh-eating monsters and running after him. “And you don’t have to say it that loud. Jeez, I shouldn’t have told you that.”
“Why not?” Charlie asks. “You know I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“No, I know. It’s just that I hate, like, people knowing stuff about me, when it’s something that’s embarrassing like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like liking someone,” I say, frustrated that he’s not picking up on exactly what I’m saying, but also because there are three dogs attacking my face.
“It’s not embarrassing to like someone, Ellen,” Charlie says, trying to save me from the dogs as they’re chomping at our heels. He’s telling me exactly what I’m trying to tell him, but it’s not working. The dogs are getting too powerful, and I don’t have the right sort of weapon to mow them all down at one time. I’m losing on both fronts.
“No!” I yell. “I’m not saying that. I don’t think that. You know I don’t think that.”
The dogs are coming quicker and quicker and I’m trying to fight them off but I just can’t and in a few seconds my life is gone. I’ve been absolutely destroyed.
“Damn.” I throw my controller down. Bubbe jumps behind me and doesn’t like the language.
Charlie is still playing a little, but he asks, “Are you done for the night?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I answer.
“All right,” he says.
“All right,” I say back. There’s a lot more I want to say, want to clear up especially. I wanted to start talking about liking people and how it’s okay if they don’t like you back or if you have to find someone else, or even if you do and they do but there’s something else like an Allegra or whatever keeping you apart. But it all got jumbled and that’s the last I’ve heard from Charlie, which for us is pretty crazy.
Wednesday at school, Sophie and I eat lunch together, and she’s in full let’s-find-you-a-dress-right-now mode. She’s all excited to show me some dresses she’s seen in magazines, and she’s really happy to explain all the fashion terms she knows, like what an A-line as opposed to a B-, C-, or Q-line dress is. I mostly listen to her, but I’m thinking about other things. When she asks me what I think of an empire waist, I try to get out an answer, but before I can say anything, she’s on a whole new tangent about colors. Today’s choice is blue. There’s a whole debate about the blue “family,” when Allegra walks over to our table to talk but not to sit down.
“So, do you, like, still want to walk to Hebrew school or whatever today?” Allegra asks without really saying hello to either of us.
“I guess,” I answer. I’m unsure what Allegra wants with me. I can’t ever really tell what she’s thinking and I’m barely interested, but the question as to why she still wants to walk with me comes right to the front of my brain and almost screams to be let out.
“Well, it’s not a big deal if you don’t want to.” Allegra sighs. As if the ordeal of asking me this one question has totally exhausted her for the rest of her life. I almost want to splash some of my orange drink in her face, just to wake her up a little. But I don’t.
“I do. I do.” I don’t. I don’t. But I agree to meet her at the side of the building and we can walk to Hebrew school so I can watch her throw herself at Noah, the handsomest boy in the world, and ruin my life forever.
He’s really all she talks about on our walk there. “He’s, like, really smart, you know.”
I do know. Not that I talk to him so much, but I know how smart he is. I’ve listened to him answer Rabbi Jessica’s questions for months. I’ve debated things with him, I mean, not just me and him but in class and mostly looking away from him. It’s the only way I could ever concentrate on what I was saying because if I looked into those eyes . . .
“His eyes are so sick! They’re, like, sky blue but, like, not.” Allegra snorts to herself, looking at her phone. They’ve been texting, she tells me, but it’s not, like, a big deal or whatever. But maybe it is. It’s a big deal for me. I’ve barely said a word to Noah in all the time we’ve been in class together, and in only one week, Allegra’s already got his number and all his attention.
“It’s really between him and Jake,” Allegra says, finally looking up from her phone. Jake Bauer is a jerk, so of course Allegra would go for him. He’s one of those awful boys who think they know everything in the world just because they’re boys. He likes to debate things in class, but it’s mostly just him showing off, for stupid girls like Allegra. And it’s apparently worked.
We get to class without having to talk too much, which is just fine by me. Allegra goes and sits in the back with the boys, but I sit up front because that’s where I like to sit and I don’t have to sit anywhere else just to be close to stupid Jake or gorgeous Noah, who isn’t even in class today. At least he’s not in the back when we get there. Allegra asks out loud where he is, but no one answers her. I wanted to say why doesn’t she text him and find out, but I don’t want to say anything ever to her, so I just sit in my seat and wait for Rabbi Jessica to start.
Just as Rabbi Jessica begins, Noah flies through the door, looking wild, and wonderful, let’s be honest. He apologizes for being late, and rather than sneaking his way to the back where he would usually sit, he sits in the front seat right next to me. Now I’m sweating.
I wish I could say that I didn’t care or notice. That I just paid attention to class and wasn’t constantly looking over at the hairs on Noah’s arms. I would love to tell you that it was just a normal day, and that it didn’t matter that Noah was sitting right next to me, but none of that is true. The only thought that came into my head the whole time I was sitting there was, Noah. Noah. Noah. Noah.
“Well, what do you think about this, Rachel E? You’ve been pretty quiet today,” Rabbi Jessica asks me out of the clear blue.
“I don’t know,” I answer. “What’s the question?”
Noah laughs at that, which would usually make me hate him, but when he laughs I get to see his teeth, so I’m at least happy with that. Rabbi Jessica tells me that she’s been talking about the role of charity in our lives, how we should do for others, and how we need to think of our fellow man.
“Sure,” I answer. “I agree with that.” This makes Noah laugh again. Maybe Noah likes dumb girls, and in that moment, I think it would be so nice to be dumb if it would make Noah smile at me all the time.
But I hear how dumb that sounds and I snap out of it. I don’t want to be dumb for Noah, no matter how beautiful and nice he is, and if he were really beautiful and nice, he wouldn’t want me to be dumb at all. So I start talking about doing good. Feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, curing the sick. Now I’m on a roll of saving the world all by myself, and Noah isn’t laughing at all. I guess you can’t have both.
“All these things are certainly mitzvahs, Rachel E. I do hope you get to do them and I’m sure God does too.” Rabbi Jessica smiles. “A mitzvah is a good act or deed you do in the world that not only pleases the person you do it for but also pleases God.”
I wonder if it would be a mitzvah to kiss Noah. How did I go right back to that?! I’m such an idiot. And an idiot is all he wants. I hate his big, beautiful face.
After class, I start to walk home alone when I hear Allegra call my
name. I turn and there she is, standing with Jake and Noah. She waves me over to them, and at first I don’t move. I don’t want to. I figure she can yell whatever stupidity she has for me from there. I don’t have to go over. I’ve been so close to Noah all class, do I have to keep suffering now? After the wave, Allegra follows it up with a “C’mon,” so I guess I’m expected to walk over.
“We’re all thinking about maybe going and getting pizza or something. Do you want to, like, come with us?” Allegra asks me.
“No. I have to get home, my mom gets home from Chicago tonight and I don’t want to miss her.” Which is a total lie. I have no idea when she gets home.
“Cool. What does your mom do in Chicago?” Noah asks.
“She’s a heart surgeon. She’s one of the best in the country,” I say, sounding almost annoyed, which I don’t want to be, but I do need to get away from talking to Noah right now, because I can literally feel myself getting stupider. Or at least wanting to be.
“All the girls in your family are, like, super smart, aren’t they?” Allegra asks.
“I don’t know,” I say, slowly backing away.
“Sounds like it.” Noah smiles. “Well, maybe next week then?”
I yell sure as I practically run away from them. I can’t believe I was talking to him for that long and that he wants me to go for pizza. I also can’t believe that he seems to like smart people, or at least be impressed with them. Maybe he’s a liar, or maybe he’s just being nice. I try to figure it all out on the walk home, and by the time I hit the door, I’ve figured that he’s either madly in love with me or hates my guts. I think both could be equally right.
