Truth or Dare (12 page)

“That's good to hear,” Aunt Shelby said. “It makes me proud of you! I'd just been worrying that maybe—” She left her sentence stranded.

“Maybe what?”

Aunt Shelby sighed. “Well, back in Maine you mentioned Val. And her daughter.”

“Abi. What about them?”

Aunt Shelby ate her last bite of froyo. She put her empty cup on the bench. “You really wanna hear, Lia?”

I didn't know if I did. Maybe I didn't. But I nodded.

“Okay. You remember that Val and I went to school together, right? So. When we were in seventh grade, Val used to torment me in gym. In the locker room. She called me names like Pancake, Tortilla, Ironing Board—”

“Wait. Really? Why?”

“Well, for one thing, I was sort of your standard weird kid, I guess. My voice was too loud, I dressed funny, I constantly challenged people, all that stuff. Everyone thought your mom was Miss Wonderful, and I was like her mutant little sister who didn't fit in. Maplebrook was
not
a good environment for me.”

I nodded, even though I'd never thought about my aunt as a middle schooler before.

“Plus, in seventh grade I was almost completely boobless,” Aunt Shelby continued. “Flatter than you, Lia, if you can believe it. And Val got all her friends to join in the teasing. One time they stuffed a baby-size undershirt in my locker. I accused Val, and she just laughed. The next day there was a diaper. After that a onesie. This went on for a while. I didn't know what to do.”

“That's horrible!” I said. “Did you tell Grandma?”

She shook her head. “Your grandmother was always too freaked by body stuff. It was a generation thing, I guess. Anyway, I finally I told my big, strong sister—your mom. We fought a lot as kids—as grown-ups, too, you know—but I knew she'd always be there for me.”

Aunt Shelby paused a few seconds, took a few breaths, then continued. “Jessie wanted to confront Val herself, but I begged her not to, because I was convinced it would just make things worse. So then Jessie took me shopping for bras with just the slightest bit of padding. Not to lie about myself, you understand—just to stop the bullying.”

That shocked me. Mom would never have worn boob enhancers herself. I didn't even have to look through her underwear drawer to know this. “And it worked?”

“Actually, it did. Val and her friends moved on to another
target, a girl who obviously hadn't gotten her period yet, because she was flat.” Aunt Shelby leaned toward me and combed her fingers through my hair. “Sometimes I wished I'd stood up for myself another way, you know? With brilliant words, or a hilarious joke. A magic potion, maybe. For a while I had this fantasy I'd march up to Val in front of her friends and shout something like, ‘Yes, I'm flat, okay? Deal with it!' But the truth is, I couldn't have pulled that off when I was twelve. And when someone's picking on you, you do whatever works, I guess.”

My brain had emptied; I couldn't speak. Val, the sweetest, nicest mom in Maplebrook, who drove me in her mom-mobile and brought feasts to our house every Tuesday and hugged Abi's friends all the time and let us eat chocolate cupcakes in Abi's room—she'd bullied Aunt Shelby in middle school? She'd made my aunt wear bras in self-defense?

And then picked on another girl for the same stuff? I didn't think Aunt Shelby was lying. Why should she? But still, how was this even possible?

Not to mention the part about Mom buying her little sister padding. Which went against everything I knew about my sports-bra-wearing, hardly-any-makeup-wearing mother.

Then something occurred to me. “Did you think someone
was bullying
me?
” I asked my aunt. “Is that why you bought me those padded bras?”

“Listen, Lia, I have no experience with daughter stuff, you know? So I mess up sometimes, like I did with Yazmin. But I only hired her because I care about you. I worry about you. And I'm not around very much; I don't have access to facts. All I have is my intuition.” She patted her chest, as if that's where she stored her intuition.

“And your intuition told you I was being bullied?” I pressed.

“Yeah, actually.” She studied my face. “
Are
you?”

“No, I'm not,” I answered firmly. “The only girl I know who gets teased is Ruby Lewis, and it's for the opposite reason. And it's by the boys, not the girls. Besides, if anyone tried to bully
me,
my friends would protect me.”

Aunt Shelby patted my knee. “Then I shouldn't have worried, niecelet. Sorry I even brought it up.”

ON THE RIDE HOME FROM the mall, Aunt Shelby talked mostly about Herb 'n' Legend, the new store she wanted to open. She said she had the perfect space picked out two towns over, near Winnie's Intimates, but she still needed an investor. Unfortunately, Dad told her this morning that he wasn't interested, but maybe she could still convince him—

My aunt went on and on about her new store, but I stopped listening. Something about what she'd said in the
mall had begun to trouble me: How Val could just
tell
the other girl hadn't gotten her period.

Because that girl was boobless.

And the rule was:
If boobless, then no period.

Like Marley.

And like me.

Even though I'd told my friends the My First Period story.

This meant: My friends knew it wasn't true. OR

They suspected it wasn't true. OR

They'd figure out that it wasn't true.

And if they didn't figure it out on their own, Val might even tell them.

Also I thought this: According to Aunt Shelby, Val used to be a Mean Girl. Now Val was officially the nicest mom in Maplebrook. Do mean girls outgrow their meanness when they grow up? Or, underneath the sweet, cupcake-baking outside, maybe Val was still capable of meanness. Maybe she was even teaching Abi how to be mean.

Not that Abi needed a whole bunch of lessons. Really, she was already plenty mean enough.

I started chewing my thumbnail, even though my thumb skin was turning red. Any way I looked at it, I knew I was in trouble. And it seemed as if I had only two options.

Option one: Admit to my friends that I'd lied to
them—about getting my period, my first kiss, the whole dumping Tanner business. But then my friends might not still be my friends. Especially after Abi's speech in the diner about best friends trusting one another and telling the truth.

Option Two: Stop being boobless. This would entail wearing padded bras to school and lying about myself, but it would also mean not blowing the My First Period story. Or the My First Kiss story. Or the Tanner saga. And therefore not being exposed as a liar and therefore also keeping my friends. Who I needed ridiculously.

Although I really, really did
not
want to wear a stupid padded bra. To school or anywhere else.

It was so unfair how my whole life was suddenly Pads and Padding!

But then I remembered what Aunt Shelby said about solving her own problem:
You do whatever works.
And the fact that her big sister—my mom—had bought those padded bras for her: Well, it almost seemed, in a funny way, as if she'd bought them for me, too.

♥  ♥  ♥

On Monday I felt as if I had a giant rubber band around my chest and that if I breathed too deeply, or coughed, it would snap. The funny thing was, the bra barely made me look any different. I mean, yes, the cups had padding, but
under my sweater, the padding barely showed. I'd been terrified that I'd walk around the corridors looking as if I'd stuffed a couple of socks in my undershirt and anytime someone bumped into me, you'd hear
psssssss,
like the sound our sofa pillows make when you accidentally sit on them. But no. The cups were okay. They didn't deflate or make weird noises. The problem was the
entire bra,
how it made me feel as if I had a neon sign flashing on my chest:
Yes, people of Earth, I am wearing a padded bra. Move along. Nothing to see here, folks.

Although wait: You're allowed to look just long enough to prove that I'm no longer boobless. Then you should move along. Thank you. Signed, The Management.

In homeroom Mak didn't comment about my appearance, and Marley just spent the whole time sketching. And when Abi came running into our room she didn't stop to focus on my chest.

Instead she handed chocolate lollipops to Mak, Marley, and me. Around the stick of each lollipop was a red ribbon and a tiny note that said
SORRY

“What's this for?” Mak asked. She sounded a little suspicious, I thought.

Abi smiled sweetly. “Well, I was a little bit evil on Friday, wasn't I? But over the weekend I got my period, so PMS mood swing, I guess. You forgive me?”

“Of course,” I answered.

“So I'll see you guys at lunch?”

“Sure,” said Mak, shrugging like she didn't care one way or the other.

I glanced at Marley. She didn't answer Abi or smile or even look interested in the chocolate lollipop, which she stuffed into the front pocket of her Chicago Bulls hoodie. I tried to read her face, but I couldn't see her eyes behind her glasses. And when the end-of-homeroom bell rang, I knew I wouldn't see her again until lunch. I thought of running after her and asking,
Are you still mad at me, for some reason?
Or possibly:
Are you having symptoms, and is that why you're acting so weird, all of a sudden?
But I had the feeling she wouldn't answer—or that if she did, maybe I wouldn't want to hear it.

♥  ♥  ♥

Third period was PE. As soon as I got to the locker room, I realized that I hadn't thought through this part of the day. Obviously, I had to take off my sweater—but I wasn't ready to show off Aunt Shelby's bra. This one was okay-enough looking: It didn't have a rhinestone or “My First Padded Bra” embroidered into it, and it was a completely decent shade of pink. But I knew that once my sweater was off, you'd be able to tell the cups were padded. And suddenly the thought of everyone seeing how I'd basically strapped
tiny pillows
to my chest made me feel like barfing.

So what I did was undress in the bathroom, then sprint into the locker room changing area like,
Yay me, here I am, totally stoked for volleyball!
When PE was over, I sprinted back into the bathroom like I desperately needed to pee and came out of the stall two minutes later, dressed for fourth-period English.

As I stepped out of the bathroom, Abi, Jules, and Mak were waiting for me.

“Lia, you all right?” Abi asked.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Why are you avoiding us?” Mak asked. “We suddenly have cooties, or something?”

I stared at my shoes. “I just . . . have this . . . sort of rash. On my chest.”

“Oh, gross. Is it itchy?” Jules scratched her elbow. Probably she was remembering her poison ivy.

“Incredibly. But I'm sure it's not contagious.”

Abi frowned. “But how do you know that, Lia? Did you go to the doctor?”

“Actually, my aunt Shelby knows a lot about skin things. So this weekend? When she visited? She brought me this lotion from some plant in the rain forest. I don't remember the name, but it's really kind of stinky, so . . .” I made a wincing sort of face.

“You could borrow some baby powder,” Jules offered. “I keep some in my locker.”

“That's really nice,” I told her. “But no thanks! Because I don't think I should mix baby powder and this Amazon lotion thingy. My chest might explode, haha.”

Abi put her arm around me. “Listen, Lia,” she said softly as she nudged me a few steps away from Mak and Jules. “If you need to go to the doctor and you don't want your dad to go . . . I mean, my mom would totally take you whenever.”

“Thanks, Abi,” I said.

“So if you still have this rash tomorrow morning, just tell me, okay? And my mom will make an appointment at our dermatologist. He's really nice.”