I want to see. I want to see.
But beneath her armpits tiny tubes were inserted to drain the pleural cavity and prevent internal bleeding and pneumonia. For now, Theresa had to be content with imagination.
__________
AMY CAME TO VISIT
that night, filled with smiles and flip teenage acceptance of the momentous move Theresa had made. She produced a letter bearing familiar handwriting, but teased her sister by holding it beyond reach. “Mmm ... just a piece of junk mail, I think.”
“Gimme!”
“Gimme?”
Amy looked disgusted. “Is that the kind of manners you teach your students?
Gimme?”
“Hand it over, snot. I’m incapacitated and can’t indulge in mortal combat until these tubes are removed and the stiches dissolve.”
Truthfully, as the day wore on, Theresa’s discomfort had been growing, but the letter from Brian made her forget them temporarily.
Dear Theresa,
Less than four weeks and we’re out. And guess how we’ll be coming home? I bought a van! A class act, for sure. It’s a Chevy, kind of the color of your eyes, not brown and not hazel, with smoked windows, white pinstriping and enough room to carry all the guitars, amps and speakers for an entire band. You’re gonna love it! I’ll take you out for a spin the minute I get there, and maybe you can help me look for an apartment, huh? God, sweets, I can’t wait. For any of it—civilian life, school, the new band—and you. Most of all
you.
(Theresa smiled at the three slashes underlining the last word.) Jeff and I leave here on the morning of the 24th. Should be pulling in there by suppertime. Jeff says to tell your mother he wants pigs in the blanket for supper, whatever that is. And me? I want Theresa-in-the-blankets after supper. Just teasing, darlin’ ... or am I?
Love,
Brian
Theresa refolded the letter, but instead of putting it on her bedside table, tucked it beneath the covers by her hip. She looked up to find Amy sprawled, unladylike, in the visitor’s chair.
“Brian bought a van. He and Jeff are going to be driving it home.”
“A van!” Amy’s eyes lit up like flashing strobes, and she sat up straighter in the chair. “All ri-i-ight.”
“And Jeff says to tell mom he wants pigs-in-the-blanket for supper when they get here.”
“Boy, I can’t wait!”
“
You
can’t wait? Every day seems like an eternity tome.”
“Yeah.” Amy glanced at the sheet beneath which the letter was concealed. “You and Brian, well ... looks like you two got a thing goin’, I mean, since you went up and met him and everything, you two must really be gettin’ it on.”
“Not exactly. But ... ” Theresa mused with a winsome smile. Beneath the covers she touched the envelope hopefully.
“But you’ve been writing to each other for five months, and he sent you the roses and called and everything. I guess things are startin’ to torque between you two, huh?”
Theresa laughed unexpectedly. It hurt terribly, and she pressed a hand to her rib cage. “Oh, don’t do that, Amy. It hurts like heck.”
“Oh, gol ... sorry. Didn’t mean to blow your seams.”
Theresa laughed again, but this time when she pressed the sheets against herself, she caught Amy’s eyes assessing her new shape inquisitively.
“Have you ... well, I mean ... have you seen yourself yet?” Amy’s eyes were wide, her voice hesitant.
“No, but I’ve felt.”
“Well ... how ....” Amy shrugged, grinned sheepishly. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
“They feel like I’m wearing somebody else’s body. Somebody who’s shaped like I always wished I could be shaped.”
“They look a lot smaller, even under the blankets.”
Theresa turned the top of the sheet down to her waist. “They are. I’ll show you when we’re both back home.”
Amy jumped up suddenly, pushed her palms into her rear jeans pockets, flat against her backside. She looked ill at ease, but after taking a turn around the bed, stopped beside her older sister and asked directly, “Have you told him?”
“Brian?”
Amy nodded.
“No, I haven’t.”
“Gol, I probably shouldn’t have asked.” Amy colored to a becoming shade of pink.
“It’s okay, Amy. Brian and I ... really like each other, but I didn’t feel our relationship had gone far enough for me to consult him about having the surgery. And I’m scared of facing him again because he doesn’t know.”
“Yeah ....” Amy’s voice trailed away uncertainly.
She grew morose, then speculative and glanced at Theresa askance. “You could still tell him. I mean before he comes home.”
“I know. I’ve been considering it, but I’m kind of dreading it. I ... oh, I don’t know what to do.”
Amy suddenly brightened, putting on a jack-in-the-box smile and bubbling, “Well, one thing’s for sure. As soon as we spring you from this joint, you and I are going shopping for all those sexy, cute,
tiny
size nines you’ve been dying to shimmy into, okay?”
“Okay. You’ve got a date. Soon as I can put my arms up over my head to get into them.”
__________
THE FOLLOWING DAY
on his rounds, Dr. Schaum breezed around the corner into Theresa’s room, the tails of his lab coat flaring out behind his knees. “So how is our miniaturized Theresa today? Have you seen yourself in a mirror yet?”
“No ....” Theresa was taken by surprise at his abrupt, swooping entry and his first question.
“No! Well, why not? You haven’t gone through all this to lie there wondering what the new Theresa Brubaker looks like. Come on, young lady, we’ll change that right now.”
And so Theresa saw her reshaped breasts for the first time, with Dr. Schaum holding a wide mirror against his belly, studying her over the top of it, awaiting her verdict.
The stitches were still red and raw looking, but the shape was delightful, the perky angle of the upturned nipples an utter surprise. Somehow, she was not prepared for the reality of it. She was ..
. normal.
And in time, when the stitches healed and the scars faded, there would undoubtedly be times when she’d wonder if she’d ever been shaped any differently.
But for now, a wide-eyed Theresa stared at herself in the mirror and beamed, speechless.
Dr. Schaum tipped his head to one side. “Do I take that charming smile to mean you approve?”
“Oh ...” was all Theresa breathed while continuing to stare and beam at her reflection. But when she reached to touch, Dr. Schaum warned, “Uh-uh! Don’t investigate just yet. Leave that until the tubes and sutures are removed.” Only the internal stitches were the dissolving type. The external ones would be removed by Dr. Schaum within a few days.
Theresa returned home on the fourth day, the drainage tubes gone from beneath her arms, but the sutures still in place. Amy washed her sister’s hair and waited on her hand and foot with a solicitude that warmed Theresa’s heart. Forbidden to even reach above her to get a coffee cup from the kitchen shelf, Theresa found herself often in need of Amy’s helping hand, and during the next few days the bond between the sisters grew.
They were given the go-ahead for the long-awaited shopping spree at the end of the second week, when Theresa saw Dr. Schaum for a postop checkup.
That golden day in mid-June was like a fairy tale come true for the woman who surveyed the realm of ladies’ fashions with eyes as excited as those of a child who spies the lights of a carnival on the horizon. “T-shirts! T-shirts! T-shirts!” Theresa sang exuberantly. “I feel like I want to wear them for at least one solid year!”
Amy giggled and hauled Theresa to a Shirt Shack and picked out a hot pink item that boasted the words, “Knockers Up!” across the chest. They laughed exuberantly and hung the ugly garment back with its mates and went off to get serious.
Standing before the full-length mirror in the first item she tried on—a darling sleeveless V-neck knit shirt of fresh summer green, held up by ties on each shoulder—Theresa wondered if she’d ever been this happy. The sporty top was nothing extraordinary, not expensive, not even sexy really, only feminine, tiny, attractive—and utterly flattering. It was the kind of garment she’d never been able to even consider before. Theresa couldn’t resist preening just a little. “Oh, Amy, look!”
Amy did, standing back, smiling at her sister’s happy expression in the mirror. Suddenly Amy’s shoulders straightened as she made a remarkable discovery. “Hey, Theresa, you look taller!”
“I do?” Theresa turned to the left, appraised herself. “You know, that was something Diane DeFreize told me people would say afterward. And you’re the second one who has.” Theresa realized it was partly because her posture was straighter since her self-image had improved so heartily. Also, the absence of bulk up front carried the eyes upward rather than horizontally, creating the illusion of added height. She stood square to the mirror again, gave her reflection a self-satisfied look of approval and seconded, “Yes, I do.”
“Wait’ll Brian sees you in that.”
Theresa’s eyes widened and glittered at the thought. She ran a hand over her bustline, wondering what he’d say. She still hadn’t told him.
“Do you think he’ll like it?”
“You’re a knockout in green.”
“You can’t see my strap marks, can you?” The wide, ugly indentations in Theresa’s shoulders hadn’t been erased yet, but Dr. Schaum said they would disappear in time. The shoulder ties of the top were fairly narrow, but wide enough to conceal the depressions in her skin.
“No, the ties cover them up. I think you should make it your first purchase.
And
be wearing it when Brian gets here.”
The thought was so dizzying, Theresa pressed a hand to her tummy.
When Brian gets here. Only one more week.
“I’ll take it. And next I want to look for a dress—no, eight dresses! The last time I bought one that didn’t need alteration was when I was younger than you are now. Dr. Schaum says I should be a perfect size nine.”
And she was. A swirly-skirted summer sundress of pink was followed by another of navy, red-and-white flowers, then by a classic off-white sheath with jewelry neckline and belt of burnished brown leather. They bought tube tops and
V
-neck T-shirts (no crew necks for Theresa Brubaker this trip!) and even one blouse that tied just beneath the bustline and left her midriff bare. Jewelry, something Theresa had never wanted to hang around her neck before for fear it would draw attention to her breast size, was as exciting to buy as her first pair of panty hose had been, years ago. She chose a delicate gold chain with a tiny puffed heart, and it looked delectable, even against the red freckles on her chest. But somehow even those freckles seemed less brash to Theresa. Her choice of garment colors was no longer limited by available size, thus she could select hues that minimized her redness.
When the day ended, Theresa sat in her room among mountains of crackling sacks and marvelous clothes. She felt like a bride with a new trousseau. Holding up her favorite—the green shoulder-tie top—she fitted it against her front, danced a swirling pattern across the floor, then closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
Hurry, Brian, hurry. I’m ready for you at last.
Chapter Thirteen
I
T
WAS A STUNNING JUNE DAY,
with the temperature in the low eighties and Minnesota’s faultless sky the perfect, clear blue of the delphiniums that bloomed in gardens along Johnnycake Lane. Across the street, a group of teenagers were waxing a four-year-old Trans Am. Next door, Ruth Reed was standing beside her garden, checking to see if there were blossoms on her green beans yet. Two houses down, the neighborhood four-and five-year-olds were churning their chubby legs on the pedals of low-slung plastic motorcycles, making engine noises with their lips. Up and down the street the smells of cooking suppers drifted out to mingle with that of fresh-cut grass as men just home from work tried to get a start on the mowing before mealtime. In the Brubakers’ front yard, an oscillating sprinkler swayed and sprayed, twinkling in the sun like the sequined ostrich fan of a Busby Berkeley girl.
It was a scene of everyday Americana, a slice of ordinary life, on an ordinary street, at the end of an ordinary workday.
But in the Brubaker house, excitement pulsated. Cabbage rolls stuffed with hamburger-rice filling were cooking in a roaster. The bathroom fixtures gleamed and fresh towels hung on the racks. In the freshly cleaned living room a bouquet of garden flowers sat on the piano—marigolds, cosmos, zinnias and snapdragons. The kitchen table was set for six, and centered upon it waited a slightly lopsided two-layer cake, rather ineptly decorated with some quite flat-looking pink frosting sweetpeas and the words, “Welcome home, Jeff and Brian.” Amy adjusted the cake plate one more time and turned it just a little in an effort to make it appear more balanced than it was, then stood back, shrugged and muttered, “Oh, horse poop. It’s good enough.”
“Amy, watch your mouth!” warned Margaret, then added, “There’s not a thing wrong with that cake, so I want you to stop fussing about it.”
Outside, Willard had a hedge trimmer in his hands as he moved along the precision-trimmed alpine current hedge, taking a nip here, a nip there, though not a leaf was out of place. Periodically, he shaded his eyes and scanned the street to the west, gazing into the spray of diamond droplets that lifted and fell, lifted and fell across the emerald carpet of lawn—his pride and joy. The kitchen windows were cranked open above his head, and he checked his wrist, then called inside, “What time is it, Margaret? I think my watch stopped.”