by Sarah Title
“Wait, you’re coming with us?” Bernie asked him. Part of her didn’t want to be alone with Makeda. Who knew what the woman would talk her into? But another part of her didn’t really want Colin along while they were bra shopping.
“For the story,” he said.
“Don’t worry, I won’t let him see anything he’s not supposed to see,” said Makeda, and Bernie believed her. If there was one thing she could take away from all of this, it was that Makeda got what she wanted.
Chapter Sixteen
COLIN HAD BEEN LINGERIE SHOPPING exactly one time in his life. He’d been a junior in college, flush with his summer job cash, dating a woman who was a few years older and basically the living embodiment of all of his sexual fantasies—tall, curvy, confident, with lots of experience and the patience to teach him pretty much anything. He was just a kid then, but he was play-acting grown-up with her. He took her shopping, like a grown-up, and she asked him his opinion and did a fashion show for him, and then they got kicked out of the store because they started having sex in the dressing room. He’d had to buy a whole pile of stuff to appease the manager—and the woman—and all he got for it was a credit card bill he couldn’t afford and dumped the next week.
It hadn’t quite soured him on lingerie, though.
He understood that his role in this situation was to stand back, hold the purses, and let the women shop. But he couldn’t stop his brain from wandering. First, from thinking that even the most practical item sold in this store would be way too fussy for Bernie. He couldn’t picture her in any of this, he told himself. It was all so lacy and frilly and girly—so not Bernie. Then he tried, and he found, to his surprise, that he could. His wandering brain told him that she would look good in purple. Deep purple, almost black. And this one, he thought, this see-through one. With the matching panties.
“Is this a sports bra?” he heard Makeda exclaim from behind the curtained dressing room.
He didn’t hear Bernie’s muttered response, but whatever it was, Makeda didn’t seem to care. She poked her head out of the curtain and signaled to the saleslady with the measuring tape around her neck. There was a quiet conference behind the curtain, then Makeda and the saleswoman came out and dispersed into the store.
Poor Bernie, he thought. First the eyelashes, now Hurricane Makeda. He walked up closer to the dressing room curtain.
“You okay in there?”
Bernie poked her head out, but held the rest of the curtain in place, covering what he guessed was her sports bra. “I hate you.”
“I know,” he said. “Listen, if it’s too much . . .”
“No, it’s fine. I mean, what’s a little abuse if I get free bras, right?”
“Right,” he said, hoping she wasn’t being sarcastic. He didn’t really know what he would do if she wanted to bail at this point. Well, he would take her out of here, and somehow work her refusal to be made over into the story. Which probably wouldn’t fly with Clea since fashion was a big part of the women’s lifestyle they peddled at Glaze, and Makeda did fashion. Probably Clea’d give the story to Pia. He couldn’t quite imagine Pia handling Bernie.
Not that he was handling Bernie.
“Bras are expensive,” Bernie explained to him. Which he knew, unfortunately. “And I’ve never had a real bra fitting. Why am I telling you this?”
“Because I’m your trusted confidant?”
“Ha ha.”
“So if you’ve never had a bra fitting, how do you know what size to get?”
She looked at him like he’d sprouted two heads. “You just try some on until you find one that fits.”
“But how do you even know where to start?”
“I don’t know. How do you know what size pants to buy?”
“I just buy the size I always wear.”
“Why are we talking about bra shopping? Is this going in the story?”
“No, no. It doesn’t have to. Not the specifics, anyway. Although Makeda will probably want to do something on the importance of good foundation garments.”
“Look at you, knowing that women’s underwear serves a purpose besides just visual appeal.”
“Job hazard.” he shrugged. “She talks about foundation garments a lot.”
“I gathered that.”
“Anyway, it’s kind of fun, getting to peek behind the curtain. The mysterious world of women and all that.”
“What curtain?” Makeda was behind him, holding a pile of colorful, lacy, frothy things he was sure Bernie would hate.
“I thought you agreed no lace,” Bernie said.
“I lied. Get out of the way,” she said, hip-checking Colin.
“Good luck,” he told Bernie.
“I hate you,” she said back.
* * *
Colin would never find lingerie stores sexy again.
Two hours. They’d been in the store for two hours. He couldn’t check his e-mail because his phone was dead, they’d been in here so long. Besides, every time he started to do something else—to check his e-mail, to suggest he go out and get them something to drink—Makeda made him wait, then, when their salesperson was occupied by other customers, go out into the wilds to find different sizes. Even with very specific instructions, he had a hard time figuring out which bra was which. They were all hot. Some were black. Some were tan. Some, he was happy to see, were purple. But beyond that, he couldn’t really tell them apart, and every time he brought the wrong one back, Makeda would throw it at his head, then stomp off to get the correct item herself.
“You’d think she’d have learned the first time,” Colin said to the curtain.
“I almost feel bad for you,” said Bernie.
“Good.”
“Almost.”
“Do you know how long we’ve been in here?”
“Longer than I’ve ever been shopping for anything in my entire life,” Bernie said. “I hate shopping.”
“Makeda hasn’t shown you the light?”
“Why do they call it retail therapy? It’s stressful.”
“You don’t find it nice to get new things?”
“I guess. It’s not really a priority for me. Especially when you have to stand naked in front of a stranger for two hours to get them.”
“Can I quote you on that?”
“Shut up,” she said.
“Move,” Makeda said.
“Hey, Makeda, are we almost done here?” he asked her.
“Are you trying to rush genius?”
“Uh, no. I’m trying to rush underwear shopping.”
“Haven’t I told you about the importance of foundation garments?” She stuck her hand into the curtain. “Here, try this on. Colin’s in a hurry.”
“I’m not,” he argued.
“Sorry, Colin’s bored.”
“No.”
“Really?”
“Okay, yes. But we have a lot of other stuff to do, too, you know.”
“How does this one even work?” Bernie said from behind the curtain.
“You see what I’m dealing with?” Makeda asked him; then she disappeared behind the curtain.
* * *
Bernie couldn’t believe how much money Makeda was spending on her. It’s not your money, Makeda reminded her. “And it’s for the story. I’d hate to have you mess up this story for Colin.”
“And for you,” Bernie muttered, unkindly.
“Hey, I can do a makeover story any old time. I can probably go to your work and get half a dozen librarians who would be grateful for my expertise. But Colin’s in a slump. He needs this.”
Bernie looked into Makeda’s thick-lashed eyes. She really meant it.
Great, another woman under Colin’s spell.
“And before you get all huffy about it, I’m not one of Colin’s groupies, okay? I’ve got a man, and he suits me just fine. I don’t need to be looking elsewhere.”
“Okay, sorry.”
“Good. Now how are your boobs?”
Bernie looked down, as if her boobs would
be anywhere else. “Fine.”
“No, honey. They were fine before. Now they’re fabulous.”
Bernie shrugged, but secretly, she agreed. They were fabulous. She’d never think bad things about underwire again.
“Okay, fine. You can play this cool. But someday, when you’re batting off compliments left and right, you’ll think of me and think, Makeda was right. It’s all about the foundation garments.”
“I don’t want to be batting off compliments left and right.”
“Well, too bad. Why are you even doing this if all you want to do is sit in your sad little house and be alone forever?”
“That’s cold,” Bernie said, frowning. She didn’t even try not to frown at Makeda.
“I think it’s a fair question. Your cats don’t care what your boobs look like.”
“First of all, I do not have cats.” But only because she was severely allergic. “Second, you think I haven’t asked myself that question?”
“You probably have. And the answer was yes, because despite that sourpuss, I can tell you’re not the sort of woman who does anything she doesn’t want to do. So now it’s time to try on some new clothes.”
“But I don’t need—”
Makeda held up a hand. “Here’s the thing. You’re doing an experiment, right? Because you’ve got this idea in your head that you’re undateable. You want to know why you’re undateable? Because you don’t try. You say you don’t want men falling at your feet, but that’s exactly what you expect when you go out wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt older than me.”
“Hey, it’s not—”
“You don’t try. And if you don’t try, no man is going to say, hey, there’s a woman who’s interested in trying, and I’d like to try it with her.”
“This shirt isn’t that old.”
“Let me ask you: why did you pick that shirt when you got dressed this morning?”
Bernie thought back. She’d rolled out of bed, remembered that she had agreed to meet Colin at his office uncomfortably early. She remembered eating breakfast, and getting on the bus. She didn’t remember making a decision about her shirt.
“I think you either picked it out because it was the first clean thing you saw, or you wore it because you know it’s frumpy and you wanted to give Colin an f-you for making you do things that make you uncomfortable.”
Both of those things sounded equally plausible.
“I thought so,” said Makeda. “Let’s forget all this, okay? Let’s just agree that we’re here, we’ve got the company credit card, and we’re going to make the most of it.”
“I don’t have cats.”
“I know, honey.” Makeda took her arm and led her out of the store. “And now, Cinderella, let’s get you ready for the ball.”
Chapter Seventeen
Dear Maria,
What’s the best way to grow out a mullet?
Not As Hip As I Thought I Was in West Portal
Dear Hip,
The lady mullet is an unfortunate trend. How did it even start? Did people look at hillbillies and think, I want that? Are they just being ironic? And who was the second person to get that cut? I can understand the first—we all make mistakes. But the second had to have seen the first and thought, Hey, that’s a great idea! But why? WHY?
Origins aside, the easiest thing to do is probably to shave your head.
Kisses,
Maria
BERNIE STOOD IN FRONT of her bathroom mirror, considering her new eyebrows and her sleek, sleek hair. She didn’t look so different. Just sort of updated. Bernie 2.0. Jeanaeane had done a good job of making her look natural. It still felt weird to blink, but Jeanaeane said she wouldn’t have to wear fake eyelashes again.
Fake eyelashes. What the hell was she doing?
Preparing to date. This is what normal girls do when they get ready for dates, she reminded herself. They don’t have a glass of wine and read one more chapter. They put on fake eyelashes and sleeken their hair. And she had a date tonight she was supposed to be getting ready for. New bra and everything. She had some time, but she was afraid to lie down lest she flatten her hair even more. It was really flat. And smooth. And weird.
And Colin’s face when she walked out of the bathroom /salon/whatever—that was what normal girls went for. She wanted to walk into a room and have the guys stop and pick their jaws up off the floor.
She started, giving herself a surprised look in the mirror.
Was that what she wanted?
Bernie had grown up knowing that her best assets were not physical. She relied on her brains to attract guys, believing her mother’s assertion that smart guys liked smart girls.
So she’d focused her romantic energy on the smart guys. She’d gone out with a few who weren’t that smart, too, but who didn’t seem to mind that she was. But that was the problem. She was always settling for guys who let her be herself, but only at their pleasure. She could be didactic and cynical and sloppy, and they found it charming, until they didn’t. Then it became inconvenient that they had a girlfriend who couldn’t keep her opinions to herself. Or who didn’t mind that she barely shaved her legs in the winter, until they got tired of her not shaving her legs.
Still, she looked good now. Jeanaeane was great at her job; Bernie would give her that. Of course, after tonight, she wasn’t going to be able to recreate this look, ever. She hoped Jeanaeane didn’t plan on coming over every day for hair and makeup. What would sweet, porcelain-faced Jeanaeane think of her decidedly non-sleek apartment stuffed with books?
She was shaken out of her post-makeover haze by her doorbell. She looked at the clock on her nightstand. Well, crap. Colin was here to pick her up for the date.
Except when she looked through the peephole in her door, no one was there. She opened it, cautiously, and still didn’t see anyone, but she heard voices. Al and Maddie voices. And a distinct Starr voice, the happy one she did when someone was scratching that exact perfect spot behind her ear.
And another voice.
“So it’s not a real magazine?”
“No, it’s a magazine. It’s just on a Web site.”
A Colin voice.
“But we can’t buy a copy.”
“Well, you can’t buy a physical copy, but you can look at the Web site.”
“But it’s a real magazine?”
Al was eighty-one, and he didn’t do computers. Too old, he told Bernie. Never mind that Maddie was eighty-three and could Facebook like it was going out of style. Thanks to Maddie, Starr had a very popular Instagram account.
Neither of them seemed to comprehend Glaze.com’s business model.
“Bernie!” Al spotted her first. “Where have you been hiding this nice young man?”
“Your hair looks different!” Maddie exclaimed. Starr barked at her from her perch in Colin’s arms.
“Do you like it?” Colin asked Maddie.
“It looks different!” Maddie repeated.
Bernie wanted to arch a cynical brow at Colin, but she was afraid to dislodge an eyelash.
“You’re not dressed,” he said, dragging his eyes down over what she could admit was a very unflattering pair of sweatpants.
“Oh, are you two going out?” Al asked, taking Starr from Colin.
“Yes,” said Colin.
“No,” said Bernie.
“It’s complicated,” she clarified. “You’re early,” she said to Colin.
He just shrugged. “Nice to meet you,” he said to Al and Maddie, and started up the steps to her apartment.
“Where have you been hiding him?” Al asked. Maddie reached out and touched a strand of her hair.
“He’s just a friend,” Bernie said. A friend who was walking into her cyclone of an apartment. Oh, God, had she left anything embarrassing out?
She raced up the stairs behind him.
* * *
The second date was not off to a great start.
Bernie looked good, he couldn’t deny that. She wore a funky blouse tha
t cinched in at her waist and slim black pants. Bernie had curves. She looked really good.
The effect was somewhat marred by the hobble she had adopted when faced with the heels Makeda had picked out. They didn’t look that bad to Colin. Maybe a little pinchy in the toes, but he’d seen women with much less fortitude than Bernie walk gracefully in shoes three times as high.
“You’re being a baby,” he whispered as they walked up the block to the restaurant.
“You want one of these pointy shoes up your ass?”
“Can you at least try? You look good. Just quit walking like a penguin.”
She muttered something under her breath he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to run in tomorrow’s story. Which was too bad. Maybe he’d let Maria borrow that line.
“Who am I dazzling with my new face tonight?” she asked.
“Paul. He’s a software developer.”
“Another one?”
“If software developers were a hard pass, you probably shouldn’t be dating in the Bay Area. Besides, it’s a nice control for the experiment, remember? How you’re obsessed with the control?”
“The control is supposed to be me.”
“You’re the variable. If you were the control, you wouldn’t need my help finding dates.”
“To be clear, I don’t need your help.” Then her knee buckled and she grabbed his arm for support. “These shoes,” she said, “are a weapon of the patriarchy.”
“So you’ve said. Are you ready?”
“No.”
“Nervous?”
“Paul? Wasn’t last night a Paul?”
“Last night was a Pete. God, you just think of software developers as interchangeable pieces of meat, don’t you?”
He was pretty sure he saw her smile at that.
They found Paul inside the restaurant. He did look a lot like Pete, except Paul showed a little more enthusiasm when he saw Bernie. Colin took a seat at the bar and watched Paul lead Bernie to their table. She almost fell on the way, but Paul caught her, and they even shared a laugh.
It was the last pleasant thing to happen all night.
Paul looked like he was having an okay time. He was telling stories that involved wild gesticulations and boisterous laughter. Bernie mostly just sat there and blinked.
