Over the Christmas break Polly’s mother announced she was taking her bra shopping. They drove out to the mall to the Hudson’s Department Store. The lingerie section was pink-walled and brightly lit. Everywhere stood racks of enormous, stiff bras and panties that were so huge she could have easily stuck both her legs through one of the leg holes. What the hell was she doing here? Her mother hated shopping. It made her sweat, she said, and also dizzy. But here they were.
“Excuse me,” her mother said to a gray-haired saleslady, “I’m looking for a training bra for my daughter.”
“Oh, yes.” The lady smiled at Polly. “Right over here.”
The training bras were white little things with triangle shaped cups on a rack that had a big picture of a girl smiling her ass off. Polly went into the dressing room and put it on. Her pale bubble-gum-sized nipples didn’t come close to filling out the training bra. She understood that wasn’t the point, the point was to hide her shame. Just the name of the bra confounded her. Training for what? Olympic boobs?
“Come out and show us!” the saleslady said.
“No,” said Polly. She heard them whisper, then giggle.
On the car ride home, she asked her mom, “Is Dad a fag?”
“What? Jesus Christ! Where’d you get that?”
“I’m just asking.”
“Your father is not a fag. For God’s sake.”
“Mike Turley says he’s a fag.”
“Mike Turley! That family has no class. All those kids and they’re all wild and stupid. A woman shouldn’t have more kids than she can take care of.” Polly’s mother’s face was red now.
“Well then how come he doesn’t have a job?”
They were at a red light. Her mother turned to her. “Your father is mentally ill. He’s not a fag.”
“Mentally ill?”
“Remember that time we visited him in the hospital? And he was making belts and little stools with stenciled paintings on them?”
Polly remembered. Her father making crafts, like a boy in shop class. She liked the stuff he made. It was nice. But that had been years ago, around the time of her chicken pox. She remembered he seemed quiet, but he was always quiet.
“You said he was sick. He was in the hospital.”
“He was sick. Mentally sick. They gave him electroshock in the hospital, a hospital for mentally ill people.”
The way her mother said mentally ill made Polly angry.
“He’s crazy. Dad’s crazy.”
“Mentally ill!” Her mother screamed. Then the light changed.
When school started up Polly wore her training bra. She put little cotton balls in it to fill it out. But gym class was a problem. What was she going to do? Take off her training bra and let the cotton balls fall out? There she was, in the fluorescent glare of the locker room, stiff with terror. She had to get naked and get in the shower. She had no choice. The raging, lesbian gym teacher who sported a crew cut and weighed a solid two hundred pounds was yelling at everyone, herding them in and out of the cold hard spray of water with a fierce delight noticed by all. The bra came off. The cotton balls fell. Breanna was the first to point it out.
“Look! Polly stuffs her bra! Oh my God! Look!”
Polly ran for the shower, and like all the girls, crossed her arms over her chest. The girls laughed, they pointed, they grabbed her bra and the cotton balls and tossed them back and forth between each other. Someone smacked her arm when she came out of the cold spray, probably Breanna, but Polly was seeing white. The gym teacher hollered, “Everyone in, everyone out!” It was the only thing she ever said in the locker room. Outside of the locker room she had more sentences, like, “Get the ball. What are you doing? Get the ball!”
Polly stopped wearing the training bra. Her mother said nothing and probably didn’t notice. Beer does that to people. Spring came and there was a fair at the Town and Country shopping mall right off the main strip, where teenagers cruised their cars high on dope and booze. The fair consisted of one small ferris wheel; a tilt-a-whirl; the very popular Himalaya, a fast ride that screeched out heavy metal music while it whipped everyone around forward, and then backward; a sawdust pit with a goat, a pig, and a spitting llama; and a food stand that sold corn dogs, soda, and cotton candy.
It was a Friday night.
“Mom, I’m going to the fair with Breanna and then spending the night at her house.”
“Okay,” her mom said, not looking up from the paper.
“I need some money.”
“My wallet’s on the table.”
Polly went over to Breanna’s house. The two of them applied black eyeliner, mascara, and used her mother’s curling iron. After they were all tarted up like miniature hookers, Breanna’s mother drove them to the shopping center and dropped them off.
“Call me when you want me to pick you up.”
“Okay.”
Polly bought tickets for the both of them; Breanna never paid for anything. They rode the tilt-a-whirl twice, then they rode the Himalaya three times.
“She was a fast machine, she kept her motor clean,” screeched the sound system. Polly’s ear burned and the bass of the music thumped inside of her chest in an uncomfortable way. She was happy to be there with her friend. At the food stand, Polly ordered them a soda and a cotton candy. Three boys, high school age, with heavy metal T-shirts and mullets, came up to Breanna.
“Aren’t you Angie’s little sister?”
“Yeah, I’m Angie’s little sister.”
“Want to go for a ride?”
The girls looked at each other like they’d won the lottery.
“Sure,” they said at the same time.
They all walked over to where the cars were parked. It was dark out, around nine thirty, and the air smelled of fumes from the rides and the rich pollen of spring. Lights from the ferris wheel glittered in front of them and crossed and bled into the lights of the cars coming up and down the strip. The smallest of the boys, a sandy blond-haired kid with bad acne, lit a small joint.
“It’s just a pinner,” he said, “but it’s really special.”
The stood in a circle, the five of them, and passed the joint around. At first Polly was intimidated, but she watched Breanna and did like she did. She held the tiny little white joint between her thumb and her forefinger and sucked real hard on it. The tallest of the boys said, “Damn, this is good weed.”
The boy whose joint it was nodded, seeming pleased. The other one, a chubby sort, stayed real quiet and looked at Polly in a funny way. After the joint was smoked the oldest looking boy asked, “Want to go for a ride in my van?”