His fingertips still brushed her shoulder. “Did you think I didn’t know you were scared?”
“I ....” She swallowed and dropped her eyes.
“I’ve known it since before I met you. I’ve watched you hiding behind sweaters and purses and even your violin ever since I first got here, but I thought if I took it slow, if I showed you that other things came first with me, you’d ...He made a gesture with his palms, then his hands went limp. She felt her face heating up again, radiating with the embarrassment she felt at confronting this issue. It seemed impossible that she was actually talking about it ... and with a
man.
“Theresa, don’t look away from me, damn it. I’m not some pervert who took a bead on you and came here to see if he could make another score, and you know it.”
Her tears grew plump and then spilled over, and at the moment of her discomposure, she drew her knees up tightly, circled them with her arms, dropped her forehead and emitted a single sob.
“B ... but you don’t know wh ... what it’s like.”
“I understand that when you feel something as strong as I feel for you, it’s natural to express it like I tried to.”
“Maybe for you it’s n ... natural, but for me it’s awful.”
“Awful?
You find being touched by me
awful?”
“No, not by
you
,
just ...
there.
On my breasts, I ... kn ... knew you were going to and I was so ... so ...” She couldn’t finish but kept her face hidden from him.
“My God, Theresa, do you think I don’t know that? The village idiot couldn’t miss seeing how you hide them. So what should I have done? Bypassed them and touched you someplace else? What would you have thought of me then? I told you, I wanted—he stopped abruptly, glowered at the fire, ran his hands down the length of his face and grunted, almost as if to himself, “Oh, damn.” He seemed to gather his thoughts for a minute, then faced her again and gripped her shoulder to force her to meet his eyes. Her own were still streaming, and his were angry. Or perhaps frustrated. “Listen, I knew about your hangup before I stepped off that plane. I’ve been trying to come to grips with it myself ever since I’ve been here, but I like you, damn it! And part of it is physical, but that’s how it is. Your breasts are part of you, and you like me, too, but if you’re going to shy away every time I try to touch you, we’ve got a real problem.”
She was surprised with his directness in stating the issue. Even the word
breasts
had inhibited her all her life. Now here he was, pronouncing it with the candor of a health teacher. But she could see he didn’t understand how difficult it was for her to cast off her mantle of self-consciousness. It was seated in too many painful memories from her teenage years. And he, Brian Scanlon, long lean, perfect, the target of admiration of countless enamored females, could hardly be expected to fathom what it was like to be shaped the way she was.
“You just don’t understand,” she said expressionlessly.
“You keep saying that. Give me a chance, will you?”
“Well, it’s true. You’re ... you’re one of the lucky ones. Look at you, all lean and trim and handsome and ... well, you take for granted being ... being
normal
and shaped like everyone else.”
“Normal?” he frowned. “You don’t think you’re normal, just because you’re built like you are?”
“No!” She glared at him defiantly, then dashed away a tear with an angry lash of her hand. “You couldn’t possibly understand what it’s like to be ... to be gawked at like a ... a freak in a sideshow. They started growing when I was thirteen, and at first the girls were jealous that I was the first one to need a bra. But by the time I was fourteen the girls stopped being jealous and were only ... amazed.”
Oddly Brian had never considered how girls had treated her. This was a secret hurt even Jeff hadn’t known. He felt Theresa’s remembered pain keenly as she went on.
“In school when we had to take showers the girls gaped at me as if I was the ninth wonder of the world. Gym class was one of the greatest horrors of my life.” A faraway look stole over her face, and her eyes closed wearily. “Running.” She laughed ruefully, the sound seeming to stick in her throat as her lids lifted again. “Running wasn’t only embarrassing, it hurt. So I ... I gave up running at an age when it’s a natural part of a teenager’s life.” She blinked once, slowly, staring at a distant point while wrapping her arms around her knees. Brian gently closed a hand over her forearm, urging her to meet his gaze.
“And you resent it? You feel cheated?”
He understood! He understood! The knowledge freed her to admit it at last. “Yes! I couldn’t____...” She choked and tears came to her eyes. “I gave up so many th ... things I wanted. Trading clothes w ... with my friends. B ... bathing suits. Sports. Dancing.” She took a deeper gulp. “Boys,” she finished softly.
He rubbed her arm. “Tell me,” he encouraged. Her gaze shifted to his face. “Boys,” she repeated, and again stared at the patterns in the fire. “Boys came in two categories then. The gawkers and the gropers. The gawkers were the ones who went into a near catatonic state just being in the same room with me. The gropers were ... well ...” Her voice trailed away and she looked aside.
Brian understood how difficult this was for her. But it had to be said to clear the air between them. He touched her jaw. “The gropers were ...”
She turned and met his eyes, then hers dropped as she went on. “The gropers were the ones who ogled and leered and liked to talk dirty.”
A shaft of heat and anger speared through Brian, and he wondered guiltily if there were times in his youth when he might have tormented a girl like Theresa. Again she continued.
“I went on a couple of dates, but that was enough. Their side of the front seat hardly got warm before they were over on my side to see if they could get a feel of the ... the notorious Theresa Brubaker.” She turned and asked sadly, “Do you know what they called me, Brian?”
He did, but he let her admit it so the catharsis might be complete.
“Theresa Boob-Acres. Acres of boobs, that’s what they said I had.” She laughed ruefully, but tears like sad diamonds shot with orange from the fireglow dropped down her cheeks. She seemed unaware they had fallen. “Or sometimes they called me Tits Boobaker. Jugs. Udders—oh, there are a hundred insulting words for them and I know every one.”
Brian’s heart hurt for her. So much of this he’d learned from Jeff, but it was far more wrenching, hearing it from Theresa herself.
“The gropers ...” she repeated, as if steeling herself to face one memory worse than the rest. Brian sat without moving, one hand along the back of the sofa, the other still lightly resting on her arm. Her voice was thick and uneven. “When I was in the ninth grade a bunch of boys caught me in the hall after school one day. I can remember exactly what I was wearing b ... because I came home and b ... buried it in the bottom of the g ... garbage can.” Her eyelids slid closed, and he watched her throat working. He’d heard it before and wished he could prevent her from going on, but if she shared it all it meant she trusted him, and this he wanted very badly. “It was a white blouse with little pearl buttons down the front and a tiny round collar edged with pink lace. I’d always I ... loved it because it was a C ... Christmas present from Grandma Deering.” A tear plunged over her eyelid and she dashed it away, then gripped her own sleeves again. “Anyway, I had an armful of books when they ...they caught me. I re ... remember the books skittering along the floor when they ... p ... pushed me back against the lockers, and how ... c ... cold the lockers were.” She shivered and rubbed her arms. “Two of the boys held my arms straight out while the other two f ... felt me up.” Her eyes closed, lips and chin quivered. Brian’s hand squeezed the back of her neck, but she was lost to all but the memory and the hurt it revived. She drew a deep, shaking breath and her lips dropped open. “I was too sc ... scared to tell mother, but they’d torn the b ... buttonholes of my blouse, and I d ...” She shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t know how I’d answer questions about it, so I ... I threw the blouse away where I was sure she wouldn’t find it.” A sob erupted at last, but she immediately firmed her lips and lifted her chin.
He could bear it no longer and gently forced her close, circling her neck with one arm, urging her into the curve of his body until her updrawn knees pressed his chest and her feet slipped beneath his thigh. She was trembling terribly. He rested his cheek against her hair and felt a devastating sting at the back of his eyes. He closed them and uttered, “Theresa, I’m sorry,” and kissed her hair and made futile wishes that he could change her memories to happier ones. She remained tightly curled in the circle of his arms. Again her voice went on tremulously, and she unconsciously plucked at the fibers of his sweater.
“In eleventh grade there was a boy I liked a lot. He was nothing like those other boys. He was quiet and musical and he ... he liked me a lot. I could tell. Prom time came, and I’d catch him staring at me across the orchestra room—not at my breasts, but at my face. I knew he wanted to ask me to the prom, but in the end he chickened out. I knew he was scared of my ... my enormous proportions.
“But s ... somebody else asked me. A boy named Greg Palovich. He seemed nice enough, and he was handsome and really polite ... until ... until the end of the evening when we were in the c ... car.” All was silent for a long, tense moment. Her voice was sorrowful as she finished. “He didn’t t.. .tear my dress. He was very careful not to.” She turned her face sharply against Brian’s chest. “Oh, B ... Brian, it was so humiliating, s ... so degrading. I still cringe every t ... time I hear the word prom.”
Brian’s hand found her head and smoothed her hair, holding her face protectively against the aching thud of his heart. Again he experienced the deep wish to be sixteen, to be able to invite her to the prom himself and give her a glowing memory to carry away with her. He tipped her face up and ran a thumb beneath her eye, wiping the wetness aside. “If we were in school now, I’d see to it you had some happy memories.”
Her heart swelled with gratitude. She watched the fire light the planes and curves of his face. “Oh, Brian,” she said softly, “I believe you would.” She sat up regretfully and resumed her former pose, feeling his eyes on the side of her face as she again stared at the fire and hugged her knees. “But nobody can change what’s past. And neither can you change the nature of man.”
“It’s still happening?” he questioned quietly. When she only gazed ahead absently without answering, he caught her chin with a finger and forced her to look at him. “Look at me Theresa. Tell me the rest so we can put it behind us. It’s still happening?”
She lifted her chin aside and dropped her eyes to her crossed arms. “It happens each time I walk into a room where there’s a strange man I’ve never met before. I tell myself this time it won’t happen. This time it’ll be different. When we’re introduced, his eyes will stay on my face.” Theresa’s voice was nearly a whisper now, filled with chagrin and an edge of shame. “But no man ever meets my eyes when he meets me. Their eyes always drop straight down to my chest.” She fell silent, sensing his frowning scrutiny. His hand was gone from the back of her neck. Only his gaze touched her. When he spoke, his voice was firm.
“Mine didn’t.”
No, his didn’t. And that was why she’d begun liking him almost immediately. But she knew why.
“You were forewarned.”
He couldn’t deny it, or the fact that if he hadn’t been, his eyes very likely would have widened and dropped. “Yes, I’ll admit it. I was.”
She stared at a spurting blue flame that gathered a sudden surge of life, even as the fire dwindled. The shadows in the room were deep fingers of gray.
“I’ve never talked about this with anyone else before in my life.”
“What about your mother?”
She turned her troubled eyes to his, and each of them saw the glint of the dying flames reflected beneath unsmiling eyebrows. “My mother?” Theresa gave a soft, rueful chuckle deep in her throat, closed her eyes and dropped her head back against the sofa cushion. Brian watched the curved line of her throat as she spoke. “My mother’s answer to the problem was to tell me all I needed was a heavy-duty bra. Oh God, how I hate them. Wearing pretty underclothes is just another one of the things I had to give up. They don’t make pretty ones for girls like me, and when you tried to ...” She lifted her head but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Well,
before,
I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing me either with my bra or without it. I’m not a very pretty sight either way.”
“Theresa, don’t say that.” He eased closer and laid a hand on the top of her head and stroked her hair, then let his palm lie lightly on her bright, airy curls.
“Well, it’s true. But it was never anything I could talk about with my mother. She’s generously endowed herself, and once when I was around fourteen and came to her crying over how big I was getting, she treated the problem like it was something I’d get over when I got older. After all, she said,
she did.
When I asked if I could talk to somebody else about it, like our doctor or a counselor, she said, ‘Don’t be foolish, Theresa. There’s nothing you can do about it but accept it.’ I don’t think she ever realized she’s got a totally different personality than mine. She’s ... well, brazen and domineering. A person like that
can
overcome their hangups more easily than someone like me.”
They sat in silence for several long minutes. She heard Brian draw a deep breath and let it out slowly. “So how do you feel about it now, now that you’ve talked about it with me?”
“I ...” She glanced up to find him watching her closely. His hand had fallen from her head, but those knowing eyes held her prisoner. “Surprised that I really managed to tell you everything like I did.”
“I’m glad you confided in me, Theresa. Somehow I think it’ll help you in more ways than just ... well, letting go.”