“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
IT 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.”
“It’
s five forty-five, and there’s not a thing wrong with your watch, Willard. It was working seven minutes ago when you asked.”
In her bedroom at the end of the hall, Theresa put the final touches on the makeup that by now she was adept at applying. She buckled a pair of flat, strappy white sandals onto her feet, inspecting the coral polish on her toenails—they’d never been painted before this summer. Next, she slipped into a brand-new pair of sleek white jeans, snapped and zipped them up, ran a smoothing palm down her thighs, and watched herself in the mirror as she worked the kelly green top over her head, covering her white bra. She adjusted the knot upon her left shoulder, stood back and assessed her reflection. You don’t look like a Christmas tree, Theresa, but you look like—she searched her mind for a simile Brian had used—like a poppy blossom. She smiled in satisfaction and flicked the lifter through her freshly cut and styled hair, fluffing it around her temples and forehead until it suited perfectly. Around her neck she fastened the new chain with the tiny puffed heart. At her wrist went a simple gold bangle bracelet. She inserted tiny gold studs in her ears and was reaching for the perfume when she heard her father’s voice calling through the screened windows at the other end of the house.
“I think it’s them. It’s a van, but I can’t tell what color it is.”
Theresa pressed a hand to her heart. The hand wasn’t yet used to feeling the diminished contour it encountered in making this gesture. Her wide eyes raked down her torso in the mirror, then back up. What will he think?
“Yup, it’s them!” she heard in her father’s voice, before Amy bellowed, “Theresa, come on, they’re here!”
A nerve jittered in her stomach, and the buildup of anticipation that had been expanding as each day passed, thickened the thud of her heart and made her knees quake. She turned and ran through the house and slammed out the back door, then waited behind the others as the cinnamon-colored Chevy van purred up the street, with Jeff’s arm and head dangling out the window as he waved and hollered hello. But Theresa’s eyes were drawn to the opposite side of the van as she tried to make out the face of the driver. But the windshield caught and reflected the bowl of blue sky, and she saw only it and the branches of the elm trees flashing across the glass as the vehicle turned and eased up the drive, then stopped.
Jeff’s door flew open, and he scooped up the first body he encountered—Amy—lifting her off her feet and swirling her around before doing likewise with Margaret, who whooped and demanded to be set on her feet, but meant not a word of it. Willard got a rough hug, and Theresa was next. She found herself swept up from the ground before she could issue the warning to her brother not to suspend her. But the slight twinge of discomfort where her stitches had been was worth it.
Yet while all this happened, Theresa was primarily conscious of Brian slipping from the driver’s seat, removing a pair of sunglasses, stretching with his elbows in the air and rounding the front of the van to watch the greetings, then be included in them himself. Theresa hung back, observing the faded blue jeans slung low on his lean hips, buckling at the knees from a long day of driving; the loose, off-white gauze shirt with three buttons open; the naked V of skin at his throat; his dark, military-cut hair and eyes the color of summer grasses that smiled while Amy gave him a smack on the cheek, Margaret a motherly hug and Willard a handshake and affectionate pat on the shoulder.
Then there was nobody left but Theresa.
Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt as if her feet were not on the blacktop driveway but levitated an inch above it. The sensuous shock of recognition sent the color sweeping to her face, but she didn’t care. He was here. He was as good to look at as she remembered. And his presence made her feel impatient, and nervous, and exhilarated.
They faced each other with six feet of space between them.
“Hello,” he greeted simply, and it might have been a verse from the great love poets of decades ago.
“Hello.” Her voice was soft and uncertain and quavery.
They were the only two who hadn’t hugged or touched. Her tremulous lips were softly opened. The corners of his mouth lifted in a slow crescent of a smile. He reached his hands out to her, calluses up, and as she extended her fingertips and rested them upon his palms, she watched the summer-green eyes that last December had so assiduously avoided dropping to her breasts. Those eyes dropped now, directly, unerringly, down to the freckled throat and the V-neck of her new knit shirt, and then lower, to the two gentle rises within. Brian’s mouth went slightly lax as he stared in undisguised amazement.
His puzzled gaze darted back up to her eyes, while Theresa felt her face suffuse with brighter color.
“How are you?” she managed, the question sounding foolishly mundane, even in her own ears.
“Fine.” He released her fingers and stepped back, replacing the sunglasses on his nose while she felt him studying her from behind the dark lenses. “And you?”
They were conversing like robots, both extremely self-conscious all of a sudden, both trying in vain to regain calm footing.
“Same as ever.” They were scarcely out of Theresa’s mouth before she regretted her choice of words. She wasn’t the same at all. “How was your trip?”
“Good, but tiring. We drove straight through.”
The others had preceded them up the back steps, and Theresa and Brian trailed along. Though he walked just behind her shoulder, she felt his eyes burning into her, questioning, wondering. But she couldn’t tell his true reaction yet. Was he pleased? Shocked for sure, and taken aback, but beyond that, Theresa could only guess.
Inside, the Brubaker house was as noisy as ever. Jeff—exultant, roaring, fun loving—stood in the middle of the kitchen with his arms extended wide and gave a jungle call like Tarzan, while from somewhere at the far end of the house The Stray Cats sang rock, and at the near end The Gatlins crooned in three-part harmony. Margaret tended something on the stove, and Jeff surrounded her from behind with both arms, his chin digging into her shoulder, making her wriggle and giggle. “Dammit, ma, but that smells rank! Must be my pigs-in-the-blanket.”
“Listen to that boy, calling my cabbage rolls rank.” She lifted a lid off a steaming roaster, and Jeff snitched a pinch of something from inside. “Didn’t that Air Force teach you any manners?” his mother teased happily. “Wash your hands before you come snitching.”
Jeff grinned over his shoulder at Brian. “I thought we were done with C.O.’s when we got our walking papers, but it looks like I was wrong.” He patted his mother’s bottom. “But this one’s all bluff, I think.” Margaret whirled and whacked at his hand with a spoon, but missed. “Oh, get away with you and your teasing, you brat. You’re not too old for me to take the yardstick to.” But Jeff had leaped safely out of reach. He spied the cake, and gave an undulating whistle of appreciation, like that of a construction worker eyeing a passing woman in high heels. “Wow, would y’ look at this, Brian. Somebody’s been busy.”
“Amy,” put in Willard proudly.
Amy beamed, her braces flashing. “The dumb thing is listing to the starboard,” Amy despaired, but Jeff wrapped an arm around her shoulders, squeezed and declared, “Well, it won’t list for long cause it won’t last for long. I’d say about twenty minutes at the outside.” Then a thought seemed to occur to him. “Is it chocolate?”
“What else?”
“Then I’d say less than twenty minutes. Shh! Don’t tell ma.” He picked up a knife from one of the place settings and whacked into the high side of the cake, took a slice out and lifted it to his mouth before anybody could stop him.
Everyone in the room was laughing as Margaret swooped toward the table with the steaming roaster clutched in a pair of pot holders. “Jeffrey Brubaker,” she scolded, “put that cake down this minute or you’ll ruin your appetite! And for heaven’s sake, everybody sit down before that child forces me to get the yardstick out after all!”
Brian took it all in with a sense of homecoming almost as familial as if he were, indeed
, part of the Brubaker clan. And it was easy to see Jeff was their mood-setter, the one who stirred them all and generated both gaiety and teasing. It was so easy being with them. Brian felt like a cog slipping into the notches of a gear. Until he sat across from Theresa and was forced to consider the change in her.
“Take your old place,” Willard invited Brian, pulling a chair out while they all shuffled and scraped and settled down for the meal. During the next half hour while they gobbled cabbage rolls and crusty buns and whipped potatoes oozing with parsley butter, then during the hour following while they ate cake and leisurely sipped glasses of iced tea and caught up with news of each other, Brian covertly studied Theresa’s breasts as often as he could.
Once she looked up unexpectedly while passing him the sugar bowl and caught his gaze on her green shirtfront. Their eyes met, then abruptly shifted apart.
How? Brian wondered. And when? And why didn’t she tell me? Did Jeff know? And if so, why didn’t he warn me?
The kitchen was hot, and Margaret suggested they all take glasses of iced tea and sit on the small concrete patio between the house and the garage. Immediately they all got to their feet and did a cursory scraping of plates but left the stacked dishes on the cupboard, then filed out to the side of the house where webbed lawn chairs waited.
While they relaxed and visited, Theresa was ever aware of Brian’s perusal. He had slipped his sunglasses on again, even though the patio was in full shade now as the sun dipped behind the peak of the roof. But occasionally, as he lifted his sweating glass and drank, she felt his gaze riveted on her chest. But when she looked up and smiled at him, she could not be sure, for she saw only the suggestion of dark eyes behind the tinted aviator lenses, and though his lips returned the smile, she sensed it did not reach those inscrutable eyes.
“Oh yeah!” Amy suddenly remembered. “Glue Eyes called and said you should be sure to call her as soon as you got home.”
Jeff pointed an accusatory finger at his playful sibling. “Listen, brat, if you don’t can it with that Glue Eyes business, I’ll have ma take the yardstick to you.”