The Bra

The August air was humid. My clothing stuck to me like the skin of a grape-filmy and sticky.
It was my 13th Michigan summer, so the weather wasn’t unusual but always uncomfortable. I’d spent my days in between junior high grades hanging out with my friends trying to discover the newest nail polish shade or the exact amount of spray highlighter to turn my dark brown hair to a light shade of caramel. And wishing for boobs. My best friend Kim had just gotten a training bra and I desperately wanted a reason to wear a bra too. Until that point we’d done everything together, and suddenly she was taking off without me.

On one particularly quiet afternoon, where there were no invites to go to a neighbor’s pool or new books I was dying to read, Dad had called and invited me to come along while he looked at tree jobs. He picked me up as I sat on the front porch in my lavender Espirit tee shirt and matching shorts.

My dad was a tree-trimmer who owned his own business so he spent a great deal of time driving around looking at trees as free estimates had been part of his business he’d started before I was born. Riding shotgun was always a given with the big bench seat of the truck, but usually I had to share the real estate with my two brothers, but this particular Friday I had the seat all to myself.

But after sitting in the old green Chevy, for a few estimates while the smell of motor oil mixing with sawdust and stale summer air. I was antsy and wanted to go home. Dad relented and started the drive back to Milford where I lived with my mom and two brothers. Our conversation seemed to be filler at best, nothing of note comes to mind until he pulled into our cracked driveway and turned off the truck. Into the silence of the cab, he announced in a voice I was sure the next-door neighbor could hear:

“You need to get a bra.”

My cheeks got hot, and I suddenly needed a glass of water. The cab felt like a dollhouse, and I was a giant. It got even hotter in the truck and I started feeling like I was going to suffocate. I mumbled something about my mom taking me shopping soon, when I knew no such thing and began frantically shoving the manual metal door handle with the heel of my hand, it slipped a little from the sweat on my palms, but I quickly scrambled out of the Chevy and jumped to the ground with the agility of a gymnast, as opposed to my usual clumsiness that had caused me to bang my head against a closed door on more than one occasion.

My dad always called me his” little Goil.” I couldn’t believe he was telling me to get a bra. And as much as I wanted to embrace the idea that I was finally catching up to the popular cheerleader types, who had all worn bras for over a year and 7th grade would be something special because I thought maybe I’d become popular too, I’d wanted to wear a bra, but I wasn’t prepared for the rest of my life to be different. I was used to being one of the guys growing up and suddenly I was a girl?


When I woke Saturday morning, I stumbled into the living room to find my mom drinking coffee.
When she saw me, she fixed her gaze on me and announced:

“I need to measure you for a bra.”

My face got hot and I was having trouble swallowing. I thought I'd reached my embarrassment threshold the day before with my dad, but as my mom wrapped the yellow measuring tape I’d normally used as a weapon during sword fights with my brothers, the metal tape once again was unforgiving as she pressed it under the two tiny bumps that suddenly warranted everyone’s attention. Not quite sure where to look, I’d settled for straight ahead at my mom’s chest. It looked like two giant cantaloupes had landed on her front side.

That afternoon we headed off to TJ Maxx to go bra hunting, which had no glamour, no special racks. Just a huge bin full of discarded undergarments that no one wanted, A Land of Misfit Bras. After pawing through pile after pile, I settled on two-nylon bras, no bigger than a handkerchief and no wires.
One was pink and the other was beige because my mom said that beige was pracitical because it wouldn’t show through my shirt but if you couldn’t see it, why wear it?

As I modeled my new bra in the dressing room, I felt disappointed. How come I didn’t have that fold between my boobs like the women in magazines and on TV? And as soon as I put the thing on it didn’t look as if I even had any boobs so why did I need to wear this contraption?

My bra was an exciting pain in the ass. I was very aware of it rubbing, scratching and binding. It felt as if some foreign entity had landed on my chest. Much like the boobs themselves. I didn’t yet know how we fit together. After a few days, my fashion accessories were dirty. I was going to have to wash them without my brothers finding out.

I hid my new bras in a pile of dirty towels and sat watch over the washing machine like a rabid watch dog. I was afraid that if my brothers discovered them, they’d have the following conversation.

Shane: What’s this doing in here?

BJ: Want to play Mario Brothers?

Shane: Is this Kelly’s bra?

BJ: What?

Shane: Kelly. She thinks she needs a bra.

BJ: Who needs a bra?

Shane: You’re a dumb-ass BJ.


That fall I started 7th grade with the shaky adolescence confidence that I was part of something bigger. I was finally a bra wearer. Could head cheerleader be far behind? I secretly wished a boy would snap my bra. After all, handholding and bra snapping was considered a relationship in 7th grade.
If I could feel that sting from a snapped bra, I’d be a worthy girlfriend.

Turns out, my bra strap remained quiet for all of 7th grade.

In the end the huge ordeal was a very small A cup.

And it didn’t matter to anybody but me.