Behind the Cotton Curtain

I have been doing this for so long, every year, and I’m used to it now because it always happens like this. I’m in a specialty shop, hardly a shop at all, really. You have to ring a bell to get in and nothing in the window suggests that the purpose of this place is to sell women’s underwear. It’s more like a clinic of some kind.

“I would like to buy a bra,” I say.

There are two healthy eastern European ladies on the other side of the counter of two different and completely unguessable ages. They both have the exact same hair colour. One of them looks me up and down a few times and stares hard at my chest. The other lady does much the same and then pretends to be filing nylon stockings in the cabinet beside me. She’s getting another perspective. I’m aware that there is some kind of betting going on here.

“A couple of bras, maybe,” I say.

“And do you know your size?” says the behind-the-counter lady, already turning her back to me and opening a few delicate, glass-fronted drawers packed with folded slabs of colour.

“I’m a 32dd,” I say.

“No you’re not,” she says and, slamming the drawers closed, she starts to Windex and wipe the display case, a highly dismissive gesture.

“Yes I am,” I say calmly, very calmly, as though a hostage were involved in this transaction somewhere. “32dd.”

“Never,” she says, scratching at a stubborn spot on the glass with her long red fingernail. Suddenly there is gum in her mouth.

“Oh yes, I am,” I say, this time loudly. Those slabs of colour have affected me strangely. They are intriguing, like the spines on a new lover’s bookshelf. “Indeed, I am,” I say again.