I’d no sooner shut myself into one of the dressing rooms and unloaded my booty (no pun intended) when someone knocked on the door. “Is everything all right in there?”
I know the salesgirl was just trying to be helpful, but what did she think could have possibly gone wrong in the past five seconds?
“Everything’s fitting? You don’t need any other sizes? A consultation?”
Consultation? I thought. It was underwear, not rocket science.
Or was it? A little alarm bell went off in the back of my brain. What if “consultation” was code for “information transfer” or something?
“Actually … I could use a consultation. Hold on just a second, let me …”
I didn’t get to finish the sentence before the salesgirl flung open the door and barged into the room. Before I could manage a single word, she’d whipped out a tape measure and was halfway to wrapping it around my chest.
I’d like to clarify for a moment that I do not have personal space issues. I interact with others normally on a day-to-day basis, and I’m not one of those people who gets huffy when someone stands a little too close, but she was actually touching my boobs, and call me crazy, but that wasn’t exactly my idea of a good time.
“Thirty-two inches.” She surveyed my breasts through my shirt. “And an A by the looks of it.” She gave me a sympathetic look. It was like someone had died.
“Is that … bad?” I asked, thinking of my failed flirtation with Abercrombie boy.
“No, no, of course not.” She was somewhat less than convincing.
“So, is the consultation over?” I asked. For a split second, I’d thought that maybe this was part of the mission, that the girl measuring my breasts was a fellow operative, out to do whatever secret agents did (I was still a little vague on that point), but clearly, my sixth sense, the spy sense, was completely deficient.
“Let me just grab you a few things real quick,” the girl said brightly, as if I hadn’t asked her a question at all. “Thirty-two A …”
I couldn’t tell whether that last part was a musing or whether she was actually addressing me by my cup size. I didn’t have any time to ponder the question, though, because she was back in record time with a half-dozen bras. For one horrifying moment, I thought she was going to demand to stay in the dressing room with me while I tried things on, but she demurely stepped back, allowing me to close the door.
“Found anything yet?” Tara called over the door.
“Dead girl,” I called back, matching my tone to hers. “You’re a dead girl.”
I eschewed the underwear Tara had forced into my hands in favor of the bras the salesgirl had given me. I slipped off my own sports bra and reached blindly for a test subject. My hands closed around a flesh-colored bra, and I put it on, fastened it, and turned to the mirror. I moved back and forth, and the bra wiggled and jumped as I did.
“Tara,” I said flatly. “It’s moving.” I poked it. “What is this thing?”
“I’m not certain, but I think you’re probably wearing a gel bra.”
I poked it again. Weird, and yet, as much as I hated to admit it, comfortable. Feeling a little less daunted by the task at hand, I threw the gel bra aside and picked up the next one. I slipped into it, but the moment I did, something poked into my skin. I eased back out of the bra. It looked perfectly normal, but when I ran my hand along the inside of the cup, my fingertips caught on a tiny, uneven bump. I prodded the bump with my fingers, and as if by magic, the fabric parted, and out came a tiny, round disk, no bigger than a nickel.
“Found anything yet?” Tara called over the door once more.
I stared at the disk. “Yeah,” I called back. “I think I did.”
“Gel bra?” Tara continued conversationally, like we weren’t shouting over dressing room doors.
Still somewhat enchanted by the tiny disk, I nodded. “Sure,” I said. “Gel bra. Whatever.”
Fifteen minutes later, I was standing at the checkout, lingerie in hand, the minidisk hidden securely in my own sports bra. Tara surveyed my purchases: the befuddling gel bra, five pairs of multicolored, cotton bikini-style bottoms, and at her insistence, a turquoise thong with teeny-tiny sequins on it.
I didn’t even care about the underwear. Thongs? Sure! Sequins? What could be wrong with a little sparkle? I’d found the disk. I was on top of the world.
“Next.”
At the cashier’s call, Tara stepped forward. She sat her selections on the counter and held up a lime-green bra. “Do you have this in pink?”
The cashier looked at the bra, glanced at Tara, and then took the green monstrosity with her into the back room. She emerged a moment later with an identical pink bra, and handed it to Tara. “Is that all?” she asked.
Tara nodded.
