Chapter 47
CHAPTER 47
I n the shower on Sunday morning, I thought back to Mum’s reaction when I told her Matthew and I would host the wedding on Christmas Eve. She burst into tears. ‘Really, Kate? Really?’ She was overjoyed and so was I. Until panic set in. There was so much to organise.
Deep breaths. How hard could it be?
All I needed was a plan, one I could stick to.
Make sure all aspects of the wedding were covered: tables, flowers, menu, crockery, etc. It was a very long list.
Get into the festive spirit by erecting the Christmas tree, hanging fairy lights, etc.
Eradicate Graeme from my life.
Reminiscent of yesterday morning, I walked into my wardrobe, wrapped in a towel. Still nothing to wear. That was another thing. I needed to buy new clothes. I opened my enormous underwear drawers – three of them. They were overflowing with ill-fitting greying knickers with frayed elastic .
All the ugly underwear I’d ever owned in my life had come to live out their final days in my drawers. There were countless bras that didn’t fit. They were either too big, too small or had wonky wires which speared me. And all because I refused to get professionally fitted. For years, I’d guessed my size rather than suffer the embarrassment of having an elderly bespectacled lady with a tape measure draped around her neck fit me. I glanced at the beautiful black lacy lingerie Matthew had bought me last Christmas and persisted in asking me to wear for the next two months. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the set was two sizes too small.
I dumped the contents of my drawers on the bed and walked downstairs in search of a plastic garbage bag. One normally reserved for garden waste.
‘What’s going on?’ Lexi asked as she watched me throw piece after piece in the bag, including several sets of maternity knickers and bras.
‘Spring clean.’
‘It’s summer.’
‘I’m a bit late. Come and sit on the bed and watch me toss everything out.’ I wanted Lexi to join me. To chat. Or not. For her to sit on my bed and watch me the way she used to when she was four years old. Back when she was little and adored me. We adored each other.
‘No, thank you!’ Lexi was clearly repulsed at the suggestion.
‘Come on, stay with me. And for goodness’ sake, put in your retainer and stop grinding your teeth.’ I tried not to nag, but I was her mother, after all. When she was older, she’d thank me. No adult ever complained about having straight teeth.
‘I do it to stay in control, like you do.’
‘Pardon? If I grind my teeth – do I really grind my teeth? Anyway, it’s got nothing to do with control. It’s because I feel overwhelmed. Grinding my teeth is a diversion. It’s not something I use to get your attention.’
‘Really? Because it works.’ Lexi stood and walked out.
Half an hour later, I was left with two reasonable bras – at least they could be worn without cutting off circulation – and only three pairs of briefs. It was oddly satisfying staring into a full plastic bag of garments I’d never have to look at again. And then there were the empty drawers. The possibilities, the expectation… I peeked into my wardrobe, at a battle waiting to be fought… but one step at a time.
Besides, it was almost time to meet Mum and Robyn. We were going wedding shopping.
I called out to Lexi and surprisingly she responded.
‘What do you think?’ I asked her as I stood before the mirror, deliberating over my black spotted dress from three seasons ago. ‘Does this look okay?’
‘I guess.’ She paused. ‘You need one of those True Mirrors.’
‘A what?’
‘A mirror that has lots of different angles, so you get a three-dimensional view. You know, so you can see yourself as other people do.’
Truth: I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know how others saw me.
‘Before we meet Nanna, I’m buying new underwear,’ I said, after we’d parked. I was in search of gorgeous lingerie. Undergarments that would transform and inspire me. Give me the confidence I was seeking. And I knew just the place, a gorgeous lingerie shop. ‘Down this arcade,’ I said to Lexi, who was dragging her feet.
‘This doesn’t look like your kind of shop,’ Lexi remarked when we stopped.
Probably because the window display featured slim models in various suggestive poses, wearing skimpy black lingerie and tiny peek-a-boo bras and crotchless knickers.
‘Nonsense!’
We stepped inside. A petite strawberry-blonde stopped picking at her fingernails for a microsecond and glanced over. She looked incredibly bored. Bored or haughty, I couldn’t tell, but I could see her black push-up bra through her thin chiffon top. No doubt she was wearing a thong as well. Lexi was right. I felt immediately intimidated. I mumbled something about a black bra and scurried out of the shop.
Lexi followed. ‘Told you.’
Next stop, an upscale department store. Lexi wandered off in search of the computer section and I headed towards women’s underwear. The area was huge. Vast tracts of land featuring a multitude of bras and undies in every conceivable style and colour. Hipsters, G’s, boy leg, Wonder bras… on and on. Racks as far as the eye could see.
A woman in her late fifties approached me. Pearl, her silver badge informed me. I tried hiding behind a sheer black teddy, but she found me. Before I knew it, we were in a tiny changing room together, Pearl, myself and the twelve wall-to-wall mirrors. I took off one of the two bras I owned.
‘Hmm,’ she said, examining my shoddy worn bra. ‘Formfit haven’t made this model for over a decade.’
‘Really?’ I crossed my arms over my chest while trying not to appear precious or uncomfortable about my nakedness. ‘I thought it might have been eight years old, but ten? Really?’
‘When was the previous time madam was fitted?’ Without waiting for an answer, she pushed my arms away and hooped her tape measure across my back and around my front, over my embarrassed nipples .
‘Fitted?’ I repeated. ‘A couple of years.’ I had never been measured before and as I stood in the cubicle, shivering and exposed, I understood why.
‘Thirty-eight C, I think. I’ll bring you some samples.’ She disappeared from the closet, and I stood alone with the mirrors and my naked chest. Maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to turf out all my underwear.
I forced myself to look in the mirror. At least I still had my skirt on. No doubt Pearl would collapse if she saw the state of my cottontails. Moments later, she was back, fitting a new black bra to my reluctant body.
‘Here, I’ll fasten the snaps,’ she said, turning me around. ‘There. Now bend over, that’s right. Cup your breasts with your hands. No, inside the bra, so that your breasts feel comfortable and fill out the material. Now stand up. Straight up. Excellent. Now with both of your index fingers, separate your breasts.’
I did as I was told.
‘Let me look at them. See. Standing up at attention, not squashed and hidden from view. You have lovely breasts.’ Pearl was practically floating with joy. ‘You should show them off. How do they feel?’
‘Good. Great…’ And they did. No wires cut into me. And my boobs actually looked bigger, rounder, bouncier. The bra was pretty, too. It wasn’t a ridiculous slip of material a teenager would wear, but it was fetching, nonetheless. I was sold.
I bought three bras in black, white and nude, all with matching knickers. At the counter I spied a book, What Not To Wear , and added it to my booty. My clothes needed a complete overhaul and I had to start somewhere. I put it all on my American Express card without looking at the total. After ten years of wearing the same bra, I was entitled.
Even so, I choked slightly as I punched in my password.