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Deciding for the hundredth time that she doesn't like what the mirror has to offer, Heidi gives an exasperated little sigh. She takes off her shirt and tosses it on the ground with all the others.
A pile; red, pink, green, and white; the clothes she used to like all feel uncomfortable now. Getting an outfit ready for the first day of school should be fun, but it's just a headache.
She crosses her arms over her chest, shoulders stooped, and watches her own reflection. Her almond-brown eyes are heavy-lidded, their expression is sad but there is something a little barbed and ironic in there too. They wish, almost, to laugh at the quaintness of her spirit. They wish to conjure up the rigidity, the conservatism, the compliance of her anxious soul.
Heidi puts her pajamas back on and goes downstairs.
Her father's in the living room, illuminated only by the square blue glow of his sports news.
She turns the lights on and the TV off.
He looks up at her with raised eyebrows, mouth following a faint curve of annoyance. "Hey, Sugerpup."
"Dad, the mall is still open. I know you've been putting it off, but please, please, you have to get me a bra." Heidi chews at her thumbnail, hoping that by some miracle he says yes.
"Bra shopping? Now? You're kidding yourself."
"It's only seven." She murmurs. "Please. I can't go to school without one. I'll die. I'll go full emergency shut down."
Her father picks a beer can from the living room table and broods over it. "You know lots of boys will think you having a bra is a right of passage."
"I promise you, they will not."
"I mean, they're very alluring things. And what'll they say about me, a man, shopping in that aisle with you? I'm not a pervert. How would I even understand what to get anyway? I don't have tits."
Heidi feels her head start to ache with frustration. "It's not that complicated."
“Not that complicated? I’m sorry. Cup size, wires, padding, straps, clasps, little ornaments between the cups: You need a degree, a spec sheet. I don’t know what you need to truly understand bras, and you know what, I don’t want to know. Go ask your mother.”
“How? I can't wait another two weeks for her to come back, that'd be mortifying.” Heidi crosses her arms over her chest and rocks on her heels anxiously. Her mom has been in Japan half the summer for work. “Dad, please. School is tomorrow, and you know I've needed one for too long.”
He tugs at his stressed blonde mustache and shakes his head. “Heidi, I can’t. Sorry. It's girl stuff. Ask one of your friends to go shopping with you.”
Heidi knows better than to yell so she just balls her hands into fists and leaves. It's chilly and grey outside, she's dressed to match it.
Bebe is the obvious first choice, she's got the fashion sense of a goddess, more conveniently a goddess who lives just down the block.
Heidi runs, slip–on shoes clicking against the sidewalk, head aching with embarrassment. She wipes her eyes and rings the doorbell.
Instead of hearing the sound of footsteps, the leaves on the trees begin to clatter and shake; two seconds later it begins pouring down rain.
"Oh," Heidi mumbles. "Please stop." It doesn't. She knocks again, then in desperation tries the heady latch with her thumb and it gives. She pushes the door and resists the urge to cower like a wet street dog in embarrassment. "Hello?"
Bebe's mom comes out from the kitchen and smiles. "Oh?"
"I'm sorry, I know it's sort of a weird time. Bebe isn't busy, is she?"
Her mom employs the long-mastered trick of giggling at nothing and shakes her head. "She just went up for the night, but I'm sure she'd love your company."
"I'm happy to hear that at least." Heidi offers an awkward smile as Bebe's mom leads her to the stairs and shouts up them.
“Bebe,” She calls. “Your friend is here.”
They can hear the shuffle of soft footsteps on the ceiling above them and after a few seconds, Bebe appears around the corner. “What friend? I’m not expecting any…” When she sees Heidi, her eyes drift from her face to the arms crossed over her chest, and then back up, this time with a look of smugness. “Oh.”
“Hi Bebe.” She mumbles. “Sorry to burst through your door so late.”
“Girl, don’t even start it.” She waltzes down the stairs with a teasingly dramatic show of grace and delectation. “It’s my pleasure to dress a princess of such ethereal beauty.”
“How did you know?” Heidi asks.
“Because you have a shithead, mans–man father.” Even in her button-down pajamas, Bebe radiates poise and beauty. She grabs her hands and walks backward, back up the stairs, still putting on her theatrical ladies–maid's voice. “And you’ve been complaining about his God–awful bra–phobia all summer.”
“Jeez, I didn’t know it was that obvious.” She giggles, but she’s flushing in embarrassment.
"I don't know, maybe it isn't," Bebe shuts the door behind her, and puts an arm around Heidi's shoulder, mouth to her ear, gaze diving down to the pajama shirt; salacious, fun, benevolent, happy, she can never resist being a flirt. "But I'm observant."
"I can't even believe how dramatic you are." Heidi scoffs, pushing her away. "It's remarkable. One wrong move could mean the difference between you making out with me and killing me on the spot."
She snorts. Her wild, bleach-blond afro is well–kept and conditioned in lively golden ringlets, most are tied back, but the strays frame her face, swaying with every movement. "Well, which would you prefer?"
Heidi doesn't answer that, although she'd prefer making out with Bebe than doing a lot of things. She's already suffering through the daunting last day of summer before ninth–grade's hormone–hell, she does not need to worry about being gay either. "I'd rather you help me with my clothing than do either. Hopefully, that's not too hard for you."
"Some trials are difficult, but I will try to bear it." Bebe bats her lashes sadly, eyes an endless brown without her blue contacts, and gestures in Heidi's direction. "Alright though, you're right. Take off your shirt so I can see what size you are."
"What!" Heidi throws her arms over her chest. "No way. I am not taking off my shirt, that's way too embarrassing."
"Wendy and I change in front of each other all the time." She says. "And guess what, seeing her tits has never been for the worse if you know what I mean."
"Bebe, please. Wendy is a lesbian, that's the only reason she's okay with it."
"Bisexual."
"My point still stands. Bisexuals can leer at boobs just as well." Her arms tighten to keep out any surprise attacks or X-ray vision. "In fact, it's probably worse since she has double the practice."
"Uh oh. Sounds like you've been listening to Stan's heartbroken complaining over her new sapphic explorations."
"He's just saying that 'cause he's repressed."
"Chula, you're repressed."
"Please, if I was gay I'd spill it. And anyway, all the more reason to keep our shirts on."
“Oh please, Heidi.” Bebe takes off her own pajama shirt demonstratively and tosses it on her bed. She has no bra. “It’s whatever. We’re both girls.”
Heidi averts her eyes with a nervous little whimper anyway.
This is so embarrassing. Maybe if Bebe weren’t so beautiful, and if half the boys in the school didn’t swoon mouth–wateringly at her boobs, then it wouldn’t be weird. But a warm feeling of unease roils in her stomach.
“Oh, you’re such a square.” She scoffs, digs through her clothing drawer for a bra, and puts it on. “There. I’m all covered up.”
Heidi glances up. The bra is white and delicate, with teardrop-shaped cups and lace straps. It looks modest but playful and so, so mature. “Wow, that’s a lot… I— I mean it’s beautiful, but I haven’t really dressed up since the beginning of fourth grade.”
Bebe snorts out a laugh. “Don’t worry, you don’t start with lacy bras. Even I wear plain ones most days.” She says. “I was just trying to show you that it’s not like, this whole scary thing. They’re actually totally fun and sexy.”
“I know they’re fun and sexy.”
“Yeah, of course you know. But, like, do you know it in your heart?” Bebe stretches her arms out wide with a slow, thoughtful expansion as if to map out the vast treasury of knowledge radiating from her own ribcage. “I was a tit–hater myself for a while.”
It sounds like the beginning of the story, but of course, it’s only the end of one. At some point Bebe had given into that little self–loathing, discouraged, disillusioned voice for the last time, before giving it up completely: It’s very clear, that moment of renunciation, the confidence that shines through, she wears it like a gown or a metal.
But it’s different with Bebe, Heidi thinks, because the blonde is actually beautiful. “I don’t think my heart is really right for that.”
Bebe makes a face and pulls her up by the elbows. “You’re kidding me.”
“Wh– ah, I don’t know.” She says, looking away and flushing. “I’m just not super, like, fun and sexy.”
“Aye aye aye. You are fun and sexy, asshole. I know Fartman made you feel like you’re not worth anything, and your dad is crazy about keeping you a delicate little flower, but they’re just dicks, and I’m pretty sure I know a million more things than both of them combined.” Bebe brushes Heidi’s stringy brown bangs from her eyebrows. “Got it?”
Heidi looks down and mumbles. “Got it.”
“Kay good.” She turns away and starts digging through her closet. “Now I think I have some little bras around here, give me a second, I haven't been your size since, like, the fifth grade.”
“Ouch,” She lets a little giggle slip through. “No need to remind me how much of a late bloomer I am, Bebe. It’s not like I could inflate them with a bike pump any time I wanted.”
“What? No way, how’d you get them then? A helium tank?”
Shoes and dolls and mardi gras beads come flying out of the closet in her haphazard search.
“Oh, then they’d be extra perky.”
“Yeah, got that nice bounce.”
Heidi laughs more and looks at herself in the mirror of Bebe’s vanity. She forgot a while ago what it was like to feel pretty.
Cartman was a master of shoving his insults into even the smallest grooves of insecurity with that grating ice pick of a voice. ‘You know smiling too wide is gonna cause premature wrinkles? I get the point already.'
Heidi scowls, remembering how long she’d dwelled on that one, or, of course, the recurring comparisons. ‘God, couldn’t you have some stupid freckles, or a big nose or something? At least Kahl’s ugly in an interesting way. You just make my eyes go numb, white noise, maybe you should curl your fucking hair or something, I don’t know.’
A hand slides gently onto her shoulder, and Bebe smiles, holding up a small moss–green bra. “This should fit.”
Heidi stares at it blankly for a second too long, effecting a smile that’s small and stiff enough to not wrinkle her skin. “Thanks.”
“What’s wrong?”
She’s surprised by her friend’s observant gaze. “Oh, I just… I was thinking stuff.”
Wow, real slick.
“Stupid stuff or cool stuff?” Bebe asks.
“Stupid stuff.” Heidi looks in the mirror and she can feel her eyes start to water in seeing her plain corn–flake self against the elegant and unusual beauty of her friend. “I guess Cartman sort of ruined me, huh? Like I can never get that residue of ugliness off.”
“I think you’re beautiful.” Bebe stands behind Heidi and runs her fingers through her shoulder–length hair, putting it up into a beige sheaf with a hair–tie. “Let me put the bra on, okay?”
She stares into her eyes for a long time before answering, her stupid crush suffusing the atmosphere like pollen or perfume, a snaking heat coalesced between them, something engineered out of gossip and nostalgia, the knowledge of a shared history, wavering there like a faint layer of pollution.
“Okay.” She finds the confidence to pull the shirt over her head and let Bebe slip on the green bra.
Bebe puts her hands on Heidi’s shoulders and the both of them watch her reflection in the mirror. “See? A perfect fit. And it’s your color.”
“I thought my colors were pink at red.”
“Uh! No, pink and red are my colors.” She shakes her head in mock offense, and then, after a moment, her dark eyes glow with inspiration. “Unless you wanted to share colors.”
Heidi likes the idea of that, even though it sounds silly. Her stomach flutters. “I mean I don’t exactly have them copyrighted.”
“Okay, wise ass. Wait there, I have just the outfit for you.”
She watches Bebe excitedly perform a full-scale investigation of her closet and drawers, each item finding itself in a secret little pile out of her sight. In the end, her friend tells her to close her eyes.
“If you dress me up as a clown, I will never forgive you.” She says while she follows instructions.
“No. Trust me you’ll look super cute.” Bebe promises, while her hands methodically untie Heidi's pajama shorts. “Okay, step into this.”
As if her words are unwavering commandments, Heidi follows every instruction piously, allowing the clothes to decorate her like a doll.
In the end, Bebe ends up back behind her, hands on her shoulders. “Okay. You can open your eyes now.”
Heidi’s reflection flutters into view.
She’s wearing several layers of pink and green, undershirts and cardigans mostly, with a skirt here or there, and many different kerchiefs and bracelets. Her faded–brown hair is let down, now frizzed from the cotton.
She laughs.
“What? Bebe shakes her by the shoulders. “It sparkles with you, doesn't it?”
It does, weirdly enough. The strange, vaguely hippie–like maximalism feels new and endearing. Best of all, she knows Cartman would’ve hated it. “I look like a loser girl.”
“So what? The world needs loser girls now more than ever.” Bebe twirls her around.
“Ha ha, yeah? Says who?”
“Says me, qualified professional and enthusiast.”
Heidi holds both her hands between them and they stumble around the room giddily, an improvised and songless dance. “Enthusiast sounds so weird, like you’re a bird–watcher or something.”
“Oh. Don’t even try to insult me like that. Bird–watchers have absolutely zero game, all they do is sit around and observe,y’know? Take pictures maybe, sketch their sightings maybe, but I don’t just sit around waiting for the loser girls to come to me. No, nuh–uh. When I see ‘em, I lean in really close and—”
Their lips brush as she murmurs the last part, breathes intermingling. Heidi gasps, tightening her hold on Bebe’s hands, well aware of her lacy bra pressing against each layer of clothing.
“—I show them how much more fun and sexy we are together.”