How to Boost Your Profile Read online

  ‘Right,’ she says, putting the phone away. ‘Where do we start?’

  At the moment we are surrounded by the most massive beige bras I’ve ever seen. I can’t imagine anyone having breasts large enough to fill them. There’s one near me that’s so huge my whole head would fit in one of the cups.

  Mum looks around. ‘We need to find an attendant,’ she says. I try to explain that we don’t need help because I already know what style and size I want. We just need to find the bras that aren’t big enough to live in and I’ll be fine. But as usual Mum isn’t listening. She spots a woman with a name badge and starts waving. ‘Excuse me!’ she calls loudly. ‘Can you come and measure my daughter for her first bra?’ I want to die. ‘Mum!’ I hiss. ‘I don’t need to be measured. I know all that already.’ But it’s too late by then – the woman is already coming over. She’s got grandmother-like short grey hair and there’s a tape measure draped around her neck. Looking at her, I suddenly realise who those massive bras are made for. It seems unfair – like this lady has been greedy and taken more than her share and left me with hardly anything.

  She smiles at me. ‘So, it’s your first bra, dear? How exciting!’ She’s speaking just as loudly as Mum was.

  I’m too mortified to do anything but nod. This is not how I imagined the shopping trip going.

  ‘Of course,’ says Mum, ‘she doesn’t really need one yet, but we thought we’d get one anyway.’

  ‘Oh, we’ll find one that fits,’ says the assistant. ‘I’ll just check what size we need.’

  And before I really understand what’s happening, she’s whipped her tape measure off her neck and wrapped it around my chest, right across my nipples, and then again beneath my breasts. She does it so fast it’s like a magic trick.

  ‘We’ll start with an 8A, shall we?’ she announces, so that Mum (and probably the entire shop) can hear.

  I shake my head. ‘No, I’ll need a B cup,’ I say. ‘At least.’ Carolyn wears a B and, seriously, it’s not that much too big for me. But the sales assistant and Mum both laugh like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard.

  ‘We’ll see how we go, shall we, pet,’ says the assistant.

  She leads us over to the teen section where I’m relieved to see that the bras look much more normal-sized. And I suddenly spot it. The Charm Bra. It’s even more perfect in real life than it looked in the ad.

  Mum has walked on ahead with the assistant, so I call her and hold up the dream bra. ‘Mum!’ I say. ‘This is the one I want.’

  Mum’s smile goes a little wonky then, like it’s trying to turn downwards but she’s forcing it to stay up. ‘That one?’ she says. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, really,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it awesome?’

  Mum’s smile fades completely. ‘Honey, I don’t think it’ll fit you.’

  But I know she’s wrong. ‘I’m going to try it on,’ I say, looking around for the change rooms. I can’t wait to see what my profile looks like.

  ‘Can I have a look at it?’ says Mum, walking back towards me. She examines it like it’s a particularly germy patient in the waiting room – one she doesn’t want to come too close. ‘It’s very … shiny,’ she says. When she spots the price tag, she sucks in her breath. ‘Outrageous!’ she murmurs, putting the bra back on the nearest rack. ‘So much money for something so tacky.’

  I take it back off the rack. ‘Carolyn has bras like this,’ I point out.

  ‘Carolyn has a job,’ Mum shoots right back at me. ‘She buys her own bras.’ Mum sighs. ‘There’s no way I can afford this, Anya. I’m sorry.’ It’s that same sorry she used when I told her about breaking up with Ethan. The one that means she isn’t really sorry at all.

  ‘You wouldn’t buy it even if you could afford it, would you?’ I say. I know this sounds sulky – which Mum hates – but I can’t help it. I feel sulky.

  ‘No,’ agrees Mum. ‘I wouldn’t. It’s not appropriate for someone your age to be wearing a padded bra. Thirteenyear-olds should look like thirteen-year-olds, not twentyyear-olds.’

  This is so frustrating! I want to point out that heaps of girls my age wear bras like this, but just then the sales assistant comes over.

  ‘How about these?’ she says, holding up two of the plainest bras I’ve ever seen in my life. One is pale grey and the other one is white. There’s not even the smallest amount of padding on either of them. No decoration. I feel myself dying of boredom just looking at them. There’s no way these bras will boost my profile at all.

  But Mum nods and says, ‘Perfect.’

  The attendant leads me over to the fitting rooms and then guards the door so I can’t escape.

  It’s while I’m in there that I see something. Something a little scary. I noticed a while ago that my left breast is smaller than my right one. Like, noticeably smaller. But in the bright lights of the change room, I see something else that’s weird about leftie – there’s this blue vein running up the side of it, really close to the skin. I check the right one, but I can’t see a vein on that side. That seems wrong and I start thinking, Maybe the vein is somehow connected to the smallness? Maybe leftie will never grow any bigger? Maybe I’ve got some kind of disease?

  I look at it for a minute, wondering if I should yell out to Mum. But then the shop attendant would probably come in too and I don’t want that. In fact, I don’t really want to think about the vein at all. I quickly get back into my clothes and get out of there.

  ‘You were supposed to call us when you had them on!’ says the attendant.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mutter.

  ‘So are we getting them or not?’ says my mum. ‘The shop is closing soon.’

  ‘I guess so,’ I say, handing them over. I figure ugly bras are better than no bras. Slightly better – in the way that having your foot amputated is slightly better than having your whole leg removed.

  The attendant chats away to Mum while she does the sale – like this has all been a huge success.

  Then she puts the bras in a bag and hands it over to me. ‘Cheer up, pet!’ she says. ‘It’s not that bad.’

  Cheer up? I want to yell. Would you be cheerful if you’d just been dumped via text message? Would you be cheerful if you found a weird blue vein on your breast that probably means you’ve got some horrible disease? But I don’t say it because I don’t want to freak Mum out. Anyway, the attendant isn’t even looking at me. She’s staring at the bag, frowning.

  ‘I did take the security tag off, didn’t I?’ she says. ‘If you leave the shop with them still on, they make a terrible racket.’

  Mum checks the bag. The tags are off, which is good. This day has been terrible enough without me setting off a bunch of alarms.

  As we leave, I ask Mum where she’s taking me for dinner.

  ‘What do you mean, honey?’ she says.

  I remind her that when she and Carolyn went bra shopping, they went out for lunch afterwards. Mum sighs and pushes her hair up from her forehead. Her fringe hovers for a moment before crashing like a wave back over her face.

  ‘Oh sweetie,’ she says. ‘Not tonight, okay? I’m so tired. We’ll go out another time, I promise.’

  I don’t say anything. Not, You’re always tired, or, That’s so not fair, even though both those things are true. Because I know there’s nothing I can say that will change her mind.

  We end up buying Thai and taking it back to the flat to eat in front of the television, like we do every night. Carolyn has just finished washing her hair when we get home and she’s sitting on the couch, combing it. She has completely straight hair and only has to blow-dry it, like Mum, while I inherited Dad’s crazy waves.

  ‘Where’ve you guys been?’ she asks. Mum makes me show her the bras we bought.

  ‘Oh, aren’t they cute!’ Carolyn says in this completely fake way of hers which only I ever notice.

  ‘They’re nice, aren’t they?’ says Mum.

  Then Max calls and Carolyn takes her food into her room so she can talk to him whil
e she eats. Because, you know, she hasn’t seen him for a couple of hours.

  I don’t eat much dinner. Maybe it’s because the smell of the ginger in Mum’s laksa reminds me of Ethan’s favourite juice. Maybe it’s because I still haven’t got used to how big our sofa looks in this little room – like an ocean liner stuck in a duck pond. Or maybe it’s because I keep thinking about the vein, wondering what it means.

  Mum falls asleep on the couch as usual, so I take the containers out to the kitchen and then go to my room.

  I lie on my bed for a while, looking through my phone at all the messages Ethan and I have exchanged over the last twenty-eight days. I look at that last one he sent me over and over, trying to think of a reply. Usually my problem is trying to stop texting. But right now, when it really matters, I can’t think of a thing to say.

  I wake up the next morning to the sound of the shower pounding away. It’s Carolyn, using up all the hot water again. Mum is clanging about in the kitchen. I know what that clanging means. Because we still haven’t unpacked everything yet, Mum often has trouble finding stuff. And when Mum can’t find stuff, she starts blaming Dad.

  I sit up and check my phone, in case Ethan has texted me during the night to say, Sorry, I made a big mistake and I hope you’ll take me back. He hasn’t, though. But suddenly I feel like I’m ready to tell my friends about it.

  Ethan dumped me, I text Leni and Soph. By text msg!!! Can u believe it???

  My friends are quick to reply – even Soph, who is usually hopelessly slow.

  Soph writes: What a loser. You’re better off without him.

  Leni writes: Oh no! :( Wish I could hug u.

  The messages make me feel a little better. My friends are so great.

  The bathroom door finally clicks open. I hop out of bed and wrap myself in my bathrobe. It’s a big white fluffy one that I got for my thirteenth birthday. Whenever I wear it I feel like I’m a guest in some cool hotel.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I call as I pad past the kitchen on the way to the shower.

  ‘I still can’t find the iron!’ Mum replies, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Your father must have taken it. Ridiculous! He’s never ironed anything in his life!’

  ‘Maybe he thought it was a sandwich toaster?’ I suggest. It makes Mum laugh, but I instantly feel a bit guilty. It’s like I’ve taken sides against Dad or something by saying it.

  After my (lukewarm) shower I go back to my room and check for the vein on leftie. It’s still there and I get this funny feeling in my stomach, looking at it. Like I can’t deal with thinking about it right now. I quickly grab a new bra – the white one – and put it on. If I can’t see the vein, maybe I won’t worry about it. Whenever I try on one of Carolyn’s bras I have to swivel it around so that the doinguppy bits are in the front. But today I’m determined to do my new bra up at the back, no swivelling. Carolyn’s bras usually have two hooks, but mine only has one. I do it up without looking, no problem at all.

  That’s the only good thing about this dumb bra, though. In every other way it’s a complete dud. I pull on my school uniform and then look in my mirror, standing sideways. My profile hasn’t been boosted at all. If anything, my chest looks even flatter than before. If Mum had bought me the Charm Bra, I just know Ethan would have fallen over himself to get back with me. This bra might make Ethan fall over too – but from laughing. That’s if he notices at all.

  My jumper is underneath my blazer on my chair, and as I grab it something falls from the blazer pocket and lands near my foot. I stare down and for a few moments it’s like my brain can’t actually register what it’s seeing. Because the thing that’s fallen from my pocket makes no sense. It’s the 5000+ mascara from Cosmetica.

  My first thought is that maybe Mum bought it for me to say she was sorry I had such a bad day yesterday. But this is very unlikely. Mum hates me wearing make-up and she’d never spend thirty dollars on mascara, even for herself. And then I realise what’s happened. I must have accidentally put the mascara into my pocket when I was in Cosmetica yesterday.

  I pick up the mascara, feeling weird. I didn’t take it on purpose, but I still left the shop without paying for it. Does this make me a thief? My heart loops. What if someone saw me? What if they’re waiting for me to come back to the shop so they can arrest me? But this is dumb. If anyone had seen me take it they would’ve said something straight away. And once I’ve calmed down a bit, I realise there’s an easy way to fix this situation. I zip the tube into the pocket of my uniform. The next time I’m at the mall I’ll take it back to Cosmetica and just explain what happened.

  When I get to the kitchen Carolyn is in there, eating toast and fiddling with her phone. I hear banging noises from Mum’s room and I know she’s hurrying to get to work. Some days she gives us a lift to school, but on days like today when she starts early we walk or catch the bus.

  ‘Hi,’ I say to Carolyn, reaching for the cereal.

  She ignores me, as usual. Mum told me once that Carolyn gets a bit moody just before her period, but that means she must be getting it pretty much constantly. Anyway, I don’t get like that when I get mine. Carolyn has changed. Sometimes I can’t believe she’s the same person I used to look up to so much that I would to cry when she went away on school camp.

  ‘Hi,’ I say again. Loudly.

  Carolyn puts down her phone and flashes me a phony smile. ‘Hiya, mathlete!’ she says. My sister knows exactly what to say to make me mad. And nothing makes me madder than being called mathlete. That word makes me feel like I’m a frizzy-haired freak again, back in a daggy, cacky-brown uniform.

  ‘I’m not a mathlete anymore!’ I yell at her. ‘That was three years ago!’

  ‘Once a mathlete, always a mathlete,’ says Carolyn in this sing-song voice that I hate.

  ‘That’s not true, spazmo!’

  Mum comes clumping in then, a hairbrush in one hand and bobby pins in the other. ‘Anya!’ she says. ‘Don’t use that awful word. And don’t shout.’ Because this is always how it works in our house at the moment. Carolyn winds me up and then I get told off when I snap.

  ‘It’s Carolyn’s fault,’ I say.

  Carolyn shrugs, like she’s completely baffled. ‘I was just asking Anya about that maths competition she helped organise back in primary school,’ she says. ‘Remember how proud everyone was of her for coming up with such a clever idea?’

  Mum starts shoving bobby pins in her hair, using the window behind the kitchen sink as a mirror. ‘We were all very proud,’ she agrees. ‘Anya won lots of medals.’

  ‘You should organise another maths competition for this year too,’ Carolyn says to me. ‘I bet Mr Cartright would be totally into it. And then you’d get to show everyone in high school how brainy and good at maths you are, just like you did at primary school.’

  I’m ready to destroy my sister now, but I know that it will only get me into more trouble with Mum. So I take a deep breath. ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not good at maths anymore?’ I say, through gritted teeth. ‘High-school maths is much harder than primaryschool maths. I’m only just passing.’

  Mum gives me a concerned look. ‘Are you struggling, honey?’ she says. ‘Maybe I should make an appointment to see your maths teacher.’

  ‘It’s okay, Mum,’ I say hastily, although I know there’s no real danger of this happening. Mum doesn’t have time to get a haircut, let alone set up meetings at school. ‘Just don’t expect me to get A’s in maths like I used to.’ I dump cereal into my bowl and splash some milk on top. ‘Especially at the moment – because of breaking up with Ethan.’

  I am stupid enough to think that when Carolyn hears this, she might actually feel a little sorry for me. I should know better.

  ‘Aw, the Wonder Dork dumped you at last, then?’ says Carolyn, picking up her phone.

  ‘Ethan is not a dork!’ I say. It’s true that he used to be a little dorky before we started going out, but I upgraded him. I showed him a cooler way of doing his hair an
d told him not to keep pens clipped to his blazer pocket anymore.

  ‘You’ll get over it pretty quick,’ says Carolyn. ‘It’s not like it was a real relationship.’

  This is so annoying. Just because I didn’t go out with Ethan for as long as Carolyn has been seeing Max doesn’t mean it wasn’t real. It felt real to me. And knowing that I now have to go to the school social alone feels real, too.

  To make things worse, Mum just sighs and says, ‘Just for once it would be nice to have breakfast without some ridiculous teenage drama taking place.’ Then she gives us both a quick peck on the cheek and says, ‘Don’t forget you’re staying at your father’s place tonight. He’s going to pick you up after school.’

  ‘I’m working after school,’ Carolyn says. She has a job as a sales assistant at a shop called Tude. The clothes are pretty cool – and really expensive. ‘I’ll go to Dad’s place afterwards.’

  Mum frowns at Carolyn. ‘You’re not supposed to work during the week. You’ll get behind at school.’

  ‘Mum, it’s important that I’m there tonight,’ Carolyn pleads. ‘The buyer is coming in with some of the spring samples and I really want to meet her.’

  ‘What is a buyer?’ says Mum. I’m glad she’s asked, because I have no idea either.

  ‘She’s the person who goes around the world sourcing things for us to sell in the shop,’ says Carolyn. It’s the most excited I’ve seen her in ages. ‘It’s the best job. I really want to meet her and ask her about how you get to be one.’

  Mum pulls a face. ‘That’s not the sort of career I’d like you to have,’ she says.

  Carolyn pulls a face too. ‘Well, it’s the sort of career I’d like to have!’ she says. ‘And it’s my life.’

  Mum opens her mouth and I know that if she says one more word, there’s going to be a huge fight. I don’t think I can handle any more fighting right now.

  ‘Mum,’ I say, pointing to the kitchen clock, which is propped up against the spice rack because no-one’s got around to fixing it to the wall. ‘If you don’t go now you’re going to be late.’