Target Underwear and a Vera Wang Gown Read Online Free PDF Page B

would have felt at the funeral from all the whispers! “Such a young girl has a heart attack?” the mourners would ask each other. “What were they feeding her?” I had to stop, just walk a couple of steps; I didn’t care if Jeanie Songheart, the class asthmatic, was lapping me as she ran, sucking from her inhaler.
    Soon enough, I was in dead last. Half the class had already finished, and I still had two laps to go.
    “What’s with her shorts?” Ritchie Jacobs screamed as I neared the bend in front of the resting class.
    “What’s going on there?” Sarah Miles shouted. “Hey, she split her shorts!”
    Pretty soon the whole class, including Seth Bonney, who I now knew for certain would not be asking me to Spring Dance, pointed and laughed as my Carter’s underwear exposed themselves to everyone.
    “Come on, Halpern,” Mrs. Willard shouted. “Just pack it in; you’re finished,” she said both literally and figuratively.
    I walked off the track, gasping for air as Julie and Amy came to my aid. They said nothing as they rubbed my back and uttered sounds of teenage angst and distaste.
    That day at lunch, word spread fast that my shorts had split. Some versions acknowledged my white Carter’s underwear. Another version had me not wearing any underwear at all. Somehow, I just had to let the whole thing roll over me, but it took years for that to happen.
    The following week on gym day, it was one hundred degrees in the shade. I wore my brother Michael’s red sweats, which were three sizes too big.
    I got a C—in gym that year, which suited me fine, since the following year Mr. Lowell, the eighth-grade girls’ soccer coach, had an affair with Kara Ellison, a ninth-grader, and my split Dolphin shorts became a distant memory.

It Was His
    ’ve always been envious of my girlfriends who grew up with sisters. Both Julie Pelagatti and Amy Chaikin had sisters, which afforded them double the wardrobe. I was not as fortunate. I had two athletic older brothers who could not have been less concerned with the clothes on their bodies. A shirt was a shirt to be worn, even if it had holes in it or hadn’t been washed in weeks.
    “I don’t know which one’s worse!” Laner, our housekeeper and second mother, shouted to them as she surveyed both their rooms blanketed in clothing and other debris. “You boys wanna be the death of me?” They ignored her as they did their daily situps. “Because I’ll tell you something. I’ll walk right out of this house right now and never come back before that happens! Now, clean up these rooms before I set you both over my lap and beat you till I see the whites of your eyes!”
    The thought of Elaine “Laner” Womble—all 4’11” and ninety pounds of her on a good day—throwing my varsity-wrestler brothers over her lap and beating them senseless always made for a good laugh. The thing was, whether it was the threat in Laner’s words or the respect she commanded, the boys inevitably picked up a couple of shirts and threw them in a drawer or emptied a trash bucket. Their efforts usually made no difference, but to Laner, it was the principle.
    “That should teach them a thing or two,” she grumbled under her breath as she nodded to herself in satisfaction.
    It was the truth, though. For my brothers, David and Michael, their worlds were not about fashion or cleanliness or respectfulness. In David’s .senior and Michael’s freshman year at Harriton High School, the boys wrestled at 105 and 126 pounds, respectively. Since I was the chubby little sister, and basically weighed the same as my oldest brother, David, even though he was seven years older than me, I was elected his grappling partner for training purposes. David had spit, sweat, and exercised relentlessly to get down to his weight while I ate Jiffy Pop popcorn, french fries with cheese, and Ring Dings to reach mine. No sooner than I would say “Please don’t hurt me,” David would have already grabbed me in a half