Anything but Ordinary(22)

“Are you kidding?” Gabby yelled back between lines. “I would never have let this thing out of my sight!”

As she nodded her head to the beat, Bryce dabbed sudden, grateful tears with the back of her hand. She smiled at her best friend. A thank-you for this little part of Bryce’s old life, and for letting the subject of Greg drop. They kept rapping and dancing as they entered the mall, doubling over with laughter at the shoppers who stared as they passed.



An hour later, everything was chiffon. Layers of the light-pink, netlike fabric surrounded Bryce. She climbed through them, the edges of each piece tickling her face. Suddenly she was in the open air again, staring at her own reflection. The dress was very puffy and very pink.

“I look like one of those shower pouf things.”

“Let me see,” Gabby said, and pushed her way into the dressing room. She caught Bryce’s eyes in the mirror, and there was an awkward pause. There had been a lot of those since Bryce had filled up her Macy’s bags with T-shirts and Gabby pulled an issue of Modern Bride out of her purse. She had asked if Bryce wanted to take a break while they looked through it, maybe get some Orange Julius. She even offered to take Bryce home to rest, but Bryce was determined not to let the mood fall, not when things were starting to feel normal between them.

“I just thought it would be interesting.” Gabby twisted a strand of her hair around her finger, looking worried. “You know, different from the average bridesmaid dress.”

“No, it’s nice,” Bryce said. The top of the dress was pretty. Kind of soft, not too shiny, with a cut right at her bust line. But then it exploded. “Different is good.”

“But not always good,” Gabby offered quickly. “Here, let’s get it off. Now we’ve narrowed it down. We need something more classic. Maybe slimmer lines.”

She stepped out of the dressing room while Bryce wriggled out through the forest of chiffon.

“See, my…er, dress is really traditional,” Gabby said in the eveningwear section when Bryce emerged, moving through different shades of red. “I was thinking bigger shapes, something more elaborate to provide a contrast.”

Gabby picked out a long, silky dress in vivid red. She pulled Bryce into an oversized dressing room with an upholstered chair in the corner. “But now that I think of it, maybe consistency would work better. Here.” She laid the dress out on Bryce’s open arms.

Gabby took a seat, looking at her, but Bryce didn’t move to change immediately. She had changed in front of Gabby a thousand times, but Bryce found herself setting the dress aside slowly and bringing her arms inside her T-shirt before she slid it above her navel, her eyes avoiding Gabby’s.

“Oh,” Gabby said, realizing, and busied herself with her purse.

Bryce had always been modest, waiting to take off her warm-up until immediately before she dove, refusing to be interviewed post-dive until she had put it back on. But ever since her body had failed her, it felt foreign to her. She understood her limbs and back and stomach as a diver’s, as an athlete’s who used every muscle for a certain purpose. When other girls were getting curves, Bryce and Gabby were “manly” together, as Gabby had called it. Built to be slick, aerodynamic, but not really, well, feminine.

Now neither of them were athletes. Their muscles lay dormant, covered by curves. Why here? Bryce had found herself asking of her newly thickened thighs when she squeezed into Sydney’s jeans, or earlier that day, when she had spilled out of a B cup.

Bryce stepped into the red dress, looking at Gabby’s turned back with a pang of guilt. I’ve been avoiding mirrors, Bryce wanted to tell her, but she knew that would sound weird.

Even now, as she stood in the center of her threefold reflection, Bryce blurred her eyes until she was just a long blob of red. “Okay!” she tried to say with enthusiasm. “Voilá.”

Gabby looked up and gasped. “Bryce,” she said, putting her hands up to her mouth. “You’re stunning.”

Bryce refocused her eyes and had to admire the shape the dress seemed to bring out. It cinched at the waist, hugging her sides, and sweeping folds of fabric came across her chest, gathering on one shoulder. Gabby always seemed to know what would look good on Bryce.

“You really are.”

She looked at Gabby. At the sight of her face filling with a trembling smile, Bryce had to smile back.

Gabby gave a quiet laugh. “You’re going to steal him back from me in that.”

Bryce’s stomach balled up at the joke. Gabby drew in a breath but said nothing more, looking at Bryce, searching for her reaction.

Bryce remembered waiting her turn at the bottom of the ladder at practice as Gabby climbed ahead, wishing with every ounce that she would nail the dive every time. And Gabby always went first in the diving order because she could tell Bryce was nervous, though Bryce never said so. Gabby knew Bryce better than anybody. Some things mattered over time, but maybe this didn’t. Maybe it shouldn’t.

“Never,” Bryce responded, shaking her head. “Never.”





hat night, Bryce got out of Gabby’s car, and a deep, melodic buzzing filled her ears. The air belonged to the cicadas now, there was no doubt about that. They were creatures of the summer, sometimes called July flies. Bryce had always liked that name.

Inside, she found her father snoring on a reclining chair in front of the last inning of a Texas Rangers game. Next to him, on the floor, her mother breathed heavily, doing bicycle sit-ups, an old portable CD player blaring Electric Light Orchestra in her headphoned ears. At least they were in the same room. Her father barely left the den these days, and her mother was always in her office. Sydney was upstairs, music blaring from underneath her closed door.