After that, there were a whole series of comments, a lot supportive and a lot completely vile (Peevish Pru takes down the threatening ones but leaves up the merely offensive so she can rant about them). There were lots of mentions of other bloggers who had addressed this issue, including Kelsey Tambor, who made a four-part series about the breast reduction surgery she got the day after her eighteenth birthday, before she went back to posting incredibly complicated makeup tutorials.
I know for a fact that Kelsey Tambor got some of the description of the procedure wrong, because that stuff is easy to find on clinic and medformation sites. What was more interesting, though, was that she talked about why she did it (back pain, breast pain, appearance, self-consciousness); what it felt like (woozy, nauseous, like someone stomped on her chest with cleats, then just bruisy, then just achy, then just a little touchy, then eventually pretty weirdly like herself); and finally what it looked like (some graphic clips of bruising, draining, and healing; and a couple months later, a photo series of herself in strapless sundresses and bathing suits). Kelsey moderates all the comments on her page, so there are only ever inspired fans telling her how amazing she is.
Those breast-reduction posts have hundreds of thousands of views—way more than her other posts. A lot of them are probably weirdos and perverts, but I wonder how many are girls like me.
I don’t watch the rest of Kelsey’s stuff because it’s usually about fun new shades that will make your eyes pop! but I have an alert set just in case she posts any longer-term follow-ups about the surgery. I watch Pru, though, even when she’s not talking about her breasts. I watch because she’s funny and thinks the world should be better than it is, rather than thinking she should be better than she is.
I live in the space between my large-chested internet sisters. I want to be able to stand by Pru and demand that the world make space (and bras and seat belts and crossover purses) for my kind of body. But it hurts. They hurt. My whole body hurts in all the ways you’d think it hurts and a bunch of ways you wouldn’t. And so I also want to wake up in the recovery room next to Kelsey, pop a couple Vicodin, and not have to wait for the world to be better than it is.
I am ashamed of being ashamed of being ashamed. And that is the part that no one else understands.
CHAPTER 37
Mr. Coles has rejected most of Maggie’s revisions to Seven Brides.
MC: How about one of the brothers is gay, so it’s six brides and one groom for seven brothers?
Mr. C: No. We’ve already cast the play.
MC: How about the girls from the village are a team of rural health-care workers who find the brothers living in squalor and treat them for tuberculosis and agoraphobia?
Mr. C: No. It’s a love story. People love a love story.
MC: How about we call the “girls” from the village “women,” because otherwise it suggests that they are minors and therefore Milly’s being pregnant is evidence of statutory rape?
Mr. C: No. A lot of the lyrics rhyme with girl. Nothing rhymes with woman.
MC: How about instead of cleaning up for them, Milly gives the brothers a copy of The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing and they do it themselves?
MC: Never mind. That was Greer’s suggestion.
Mr. Coles does agree that instead of kidnapping the ladies from the village, it would be better if they consent to go with the brothers to their lodge, and the whole group sneaks out of town together.
Tiny victories.
I head to the auditorium to wait for her after rehearsal. Practice today was dive and dig drills. My everything is sore, and I could really use a shower.
I slip into the back of the auditorium as a few kids filter out. Rehearsal is over.
Maggie is onstage with Rafael Ramos-Sikes, a very quiet junior who is in the pit orchestra. Now he’s at the piano, with Maggie standing next to him. Everybody else is gone or on their way out.
Maggie is singing from a sheet of music, finding her way through some lines.
I am on your side
There’s nowhere else
I’d rather stand
Than right beside your side
It’s not from the show. I’ve never heard it before. When Maggie can’t get the melody or the cadence quite right, Rafa sings the line for her and then she repeats it perfectly. It’s sweet, both the tune itself and the way they’re working on it together.
And if you’re never right
I still won’t see the other side
Of any of your fights
’Cuz you’re the only side I’ll be on
“Is it too repetitive?” Rafa says, still playing.
“No, it’s good like that. Like a circle.”
“I was thinking of doing it in a round!”
He comes in behind her, overlapping sounds and words. Now I know why I’ve never heard it: Rafa wrote it. His voice is just a little lower, and they sound really good together.
He stares up at Maggie through his big Clark Kent glasses, not even looking at the piano or the music. I think he might have written it for her.
“Wait, is this next part the bridge? You sing the bridge,” Maggie says.
And if you start a war or two
That you will never win
I’m in
The line is too high. He cracks, but I love it, because it sounds so real. I want to clap. He and Maggie start laughing, though, and the piano trails off.
“That’s it so far,” he says. “It needs work.”
“Maybe move it down a third,” she says. “But otherwise it’s great. Really.”
It gets dead quiet. I am nervous. Not for me but for them. I wish I was the one on the bench and at the same time I am glad I’m not the one on the bench. This will always be my problem. I can’t enjoy the not knowing.
Rafa says, “Would you maybe want to . . .” They have no idea I’m here and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want me to be. I try to slide out of the seat onto the floor but the seat bottom flips up and squeaks.
“Greer?” Maggie calls.
Rafa turns pink under the stage lights. I feel terrible for him. I have completely messed up his pitch, and he is so shy when he’s not singing.
“I’m going to wait outside,” I yell too loudly, and trip over my backpack. “You guys sounded really awesome,” I say on my way out the door.
She is out a minute after me, so I know Rafael didn’t get a chance to say whatever it was he was going to say. She immediately starts ranting: Lizzie Barnes aka Milly wants all the girls to wear braids for the show.