D-Cup Blues

The gang didn't. "Caryn?!" Audrey exclaimed when she arrived at their lunch table. Dave and Maureen weren't there yet; Valerie was silent but looked just as surprised. "Why are you wearing a skirt?!"

"'Cause I want to wear a skirt," Caryn said, feigning nonchalance and realizing to her relief that no one else had commented on the matter all morning. Just as she had hoped, neither of her friends seemed to take any notice of her breasts, or of the neon sign that she was sure had burned brightly through every class so far.

"Wow, who are you and what have you done to Caryn?" Valerie quipped.

"Guys, come on!" Caryn said with a smile that she could only hope masked her annoyance. "Can't a girl change her style a little?"

"This is more than a little!" Audrey said.

"But you look nice, Caryn," Valerie said. "Sorry if we came down too hard. It's just a surprise."

"It is for me, too," Caryn said as she got her lunch out of her backpack. "I'm surprised at how much I like it."

"Oh, God, don't tell me you had some big revelation, Caryn!" Audrey said. "As I walked to school, enjoying the swish of my skirt against my legs, I embraced my true femininity at last and was never, ever the same!"

Caryn, genuinely relieved that her ploy appeared to have worked, burst into laughter. Audrey and Valerie joined in, and they were all still laughing when Dave arrived a moment later. "Wow, looks like I missed something big!" he said.

Caryn cringed at his choice of words, but Dave didn't appear to notice as he was looking at Audrey. "Caryn's up to something, Dave," she explained. "Any ideas what it is?"

Dave turned to Caryn and smiled at her, but didn't appear to see anything unusual. "Can't see from here," he said. "Sorry, Audrey."

"Can't you see what she's wearing?" Valerie added.

Dave squinted and leaned across the table to get a closer look at Caryn. He leaned close enough to make Caryn blush as she was sure he'd take notice of her breasts, but she knew her friend well enough to know he'd be too much of a gentleman to comment on them.

"It's a white sweater," Dave said, settling himself back in his seat. "A little girlier than usual for you, but it looks great, Caryn. Did you just feel like dressing up?"

"Thank you, and yes!" Caryn declared giving Audrey and Valerie a triumphant look.

"No!" Valerie needled further. "You can't see because she's sitting down, but she's also wearing a skirt!"

"So?" Dave asked, though Caryn thought he looked pleased.

"So Caryn never wears skirts!" Audrey protested.

"Neither do I," Dave quipped, which brought on a laugh from all three of the girls. "No, seriously, Caryn, I think it's great if you want to change your style a little bit.

"Thank you!" Caryn felt more than gratitude as she looked into his eyes, and she couldn't deny that her tomboyish heart fluttered a bit as he smiled back at her.

Caryn wasn't aware that her face betrayed that reaction -- until Audrey let out a whoop, just like she'd always done back at Northside when she stumbled upon someone's secret. "Wait a minute, Caryn, are you dressing up for Dave?!"

"Of course it's not for me," Dave said with that bashful grin of his that, Caryn now realized, hadn't changed a bit in all these years even as everything else about him had. The shy little nerd was ancient history -- except for the adorable look he now had on his face. "Come on, we all know her too well for that!"

Caryn wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at that. But at least the neon sign over her head was dimming rapidly.

"Is it, though, Caryn?" Valerie asked her. "It's perfectly fine if it is, you know." Turning to Dave, she added, "We all kind of thought someday one of us would fall for you."

"Me too," Dave confessed, again with that grin. "But not the one I used to be afraid would beat me up after school!" he added with a knowing laugh.

Caryn slammed her half-eaten sandwich down on the table. "Dave! I would never have done that!"

"I know that now," Dave said. "But I didn't know it then. No sense in denying I was a shy little nerd, afraid of my own shadow back then."

"'Was' is right, Dave," said Audrey, whom Caryn could still recall saying worse things about their dear friend. "Come on, you're not that kid anymore."

"Thanks to you all," Dave said.

"Stop, you're going to make him sing it again!" Valerie quipped.

"Well, since you requested it..." Dave grinned.

"We didn't, Dave!" Audrey protested.

But Dave wasn't to be deterred. "Must be you that builds me confidently!" he sang with a triumphant flair, holding up one arm for the usual melodramatic twist he always gave it.

The girls all laughed, as they'd been doing all through the three years and change he'd been singing that line. As usual, Caryn was privately delighted at his unique way of letting them know how he felt.

"Seriously, though," Dave said. "I really do appreciate the way you all let me join you at Northside. I'll never forget that."

"Ugh, shot of insulin, please!" Valerie said -- but she said it with an appreciative smile.

They were still laughing when Maureen arrived a moment later, with little Tom Ciseros in tow. "I'm so damn sick of the jocks getting everything, you know?" Tom said, dropping his backpack by their table with a cathartic thud. Then, looking at Dave and the girls, he asked, "Sorry, can I join you for lunch? I don't think I'm welcome with the guys over there after what I said in math today."

"I'm amazed you were ever welcome with those losers," Maureen said. "And yeah, of course you can join us." Turning to the others, she asked, "What's so funny?"

"Dave's a sentimental comedian," Caryn said. "Who knew?"

"We all knew that!" Maureen said. "Must be us that build him confidently, isn't it?"

"Must be what?" Tom asked.

"Oh, it's this song Dave made up for us, if you can believe that," Maureen said.

"I didn't make it up," Dave said.

But his interjection was lost in the shuffle as Valerie wanted to know what Tom had said in math class. "Picking on the big boys again, were we, Tom?" she asked. Tom was a junior, but he'd skipped into top-track math with Dave and Maureen, who had enlisted his help more than once in helping Caryn, Audrey and Valerie with their homework.

"Missy Morrison was complaining about how Mrs. Jordan treats the girls, always putting them down when they ask a question, and I pointed out to her, it wasn't just the girls, it was everyone but the jocks."

"That was a brave thing to say," Valerie said. Tom was barely five feet tall and skinny as a rake, and he wore thick glasses -- the very epitome of a nerd, but he'd also saved her from flunking algebra more than once. "What happened, did Mrs. Jordan overhear you?"

"Worse," Maureen said. "Doug overheard him."

"Doug Corman?!" Caryn, Audrey and Valerie exclaimed in unison.

Tom nodded.

"You're lucky to be alive!" Audrey said. "Doug has a temper, you know."

"Our whole math class knows, now," Maureen said. "You should've heard him snap at Tom."

"That's all he did, because Mrs. Jordan walked in," Tom said. "But she didn't punish him or anything. She just told him to sit down."

"Which just shows you was right in the first place, doesn't it, Tom?" Dave said.

"So true," Caryn agreed.

"There ought to be a complaints process or something," Tom groused. "When a kid mistreats you and the teacher won't do anything about it. You ought to at least be able to do something about it, you know?"

"I think that's a great idea," Valerie said, and the others murmured their agreement.

"You think this Kelly gal who's running for president would set up something like that?" Tom wondered, his gaze turning to the bright pink "KELLY for PRESIDENT!" sign, decorated generously with glitter and hearts dotting the I in "president", that had lately appeared on the pillar near their table.

"Kelly Oswald care about bullying?!" Audrey laughed. "I'm sorry, Tom, but no freakin' way. She just wants to say she's president on her college applications. She doesn't care about fixing any problems. I sure hope someone runs against her, come to think of it."

"You know who else is talking about running," Dave said, with a knowing glance at Caryn. They all followed his gaze and looked at her.

"Who me?" Caryn said. "I'm not running for anything. I'm a senior, for one thing!" For reasons even the teachers didn't seem to know anymore, student council elections always took place in February and the newly elected took office in May, just in time to oversee the end of the year. Seniors could vote, but they couldn't run because they'd graduate just a month into the term.

"No, I meant Rick," Dave said. "Sorry, I figured you'd have heard."

"Oh, God, no!" Caryn said. "I haven't had anything to do with him since homecoming, and I want to keep it that way. But that's one way that twerp Kelly would get my vote, if he were running against her."

"I figured you'dve heard, too, Caryn," Valerie said. "He's been chatting up all the team captains, girls and guys both, to corner the jock vote."

"Well, here's an idea," Maureen said, turning to Tom. "Why don't you run, Tom? I mean, that's a really good idea, about the complaints for bullying. And God knows Rick won't do anything about it either."

"Me?!" Tom looked down at himself and laughed. "Look at me! I'm a nerd, aren't I? Who's gonna vote for me?!"

"Anyone who's ever been put out by Kelly or Rick?" Dave suggested. Once again a nasty memory roared through his mind of Rick kicking him in the back while he was standing at a urinal back at Northside. He'd never told the girls about that, even when Caryn had been dating Rick, and he kept that vow of silence now -- but revenge would certainly be sweet.

"And that's an awful lot of people right there," Maureen said.

"Yeah, run on an anti-bullying platform," Dave said. "And maybe something that'll corner a big group, like, say, reinstating library privileges for the freshmen."

"That'd be popular -- for the freshmen anyway!" Audrey agreed. The school's new policy barring freshmen from the library unless they had a note from a teacher had sparked all sorts of outrage even among freshmen who barely knew where the library was.

"Yeah, well, how could I do that as president?" Tom asked. "The most I could do is ask the principal and she'll say no!"

"Maybe," Dave said. "But do you think all the freshmen know that?"

"What a politician," Tom said. Then, with a look around the table, he said, "Fine, how about you all manage my campaign?"

"I'm in!" Dave said. "Ladies?"

"God, Dave, don't call us that when we've been friends since we were kids," Audrey said. "But yeah, I'll do it if you all will."

"If it means running against Rick?" Caryn asked. "Sure."

"Me too," Valerie said. Then she, along with all the others, turned to Maureen. "It was your idea in the first place," she said.

"Me and my big mouth," Maureen chuckled. "I guess I have to do it!"

"Great!" Dave said. "This'll be fun!"

"That's because you're not the one who's going to have to give a speech," Tom grumbled.

"I'd do a terrible job of it anyway," Dave said with a grin as he took out a sheet of paper. "Let's write down your platform now." Caryn watched him scribble "Tom's Platform" on the page, and she noticed he leaned over the page and looked at it closely, like her grandmother did.

"Who are you kidding, Dave?" Maureen grinned at him. "You'd do a great job giving a speech."

"Dave is in one of those I'm-still-a-nerd moods," Audrey said. "We were just talking about it before you got here. Dave, sometimes I think you're the only one who can't see how you've changed!"

"I still feel like I'm faking it half the time, you know?" Dave said with a smile. "Like I'm that geeky freshman who just signed up for all those extracurriculars so I wouldn't be sitting around like a bump on a log like I did all through middle school." With yearbook, dance committees, history club, French club and tutoring in French, there was no risk of Dave looking lazy now.

"What you got against geeks?" Tom asked.

"Now you're getting the spirit!" Dave said, clapping him on the back.

By the end of lunch, they had a platform set to present to the principal's office, and Caryn had forgotten all about the "I WEAR A 38-D" sign -- at least until she stood up to go, when it flickered and burned brightly again. At least none of her friends took any notice of it that she could see.

There was also no further teasing about her feelings for Dave, but with the cat nearly out of the bag on that one, Caryn decided to at least test the waters. As he was taking longer than the others to clean up, she hung back, using the apple she'd forgotten in her coat pocket as an excuse. "Say, Dave," she said between bites, "I'm sorry if we came down too hard on you for telling us your feelings there. I know that's not easy for guys."

"Thanks." Dave stood up and returned her smile. "I'm really sorry if I overdid it on the mushiness there. It's just -- honestly, I don't really know how I feel about going back east for college, and it's true, I'll miss you all."

"Same here, Dave," Caryn said. "I'll miss you too, but you know I'll be thinking of you all that first term. You're the reason I'm going to college at all, you know, the way you encouraged me to try harder, you and Maureen."

"You're still looking at California, are you?"

Caryn nodded. "I've got to get away from Gordon, you know? The man is such a creep. My mom doesn't mind, she's delighted I even want to go. And she credits you too, you know."

"Oh, geez," Dave said, looking down at the floor. "Stop!"

"It's true," Caryn said. "Just last night, you know, she got to asking about how you became friends with us in the first place. And it got me remembering."

"That's really sweet," Dave said. "Did you tell her how I used to be terrified of you like all the boys?"

"I don't think she knows about my old reputation," Caryn said. "God knows how I avoided ever getting suspended, but I did. So she never heard about it." Then she smiled, and almost welcomed the humiliating knowledge of her soft and supple breasts, as non-threatening as could be. "But Dave, you weren't really scared of me, were you?"

"Well, I knew you wouldn't pick on me if I left you alone," he said. "But yeah, we all heard in the locker room about how dangerous you were." Then he laughed. "When we first became friends, it was a big thing for some of the bullies to call me a bigger wimp than ever, hiding behind you. So I embraced that, you know? 'Yeah, I get to spend lunch period with Caryn and the others every day while you guys are mouthing off at each other. If that's being a wimp, I'll take it!'"

"Wow, I never knew about that," Caryn said.

"I didn't want you all to think I was using you or anything," he said. "I've always loved being, well, one of the girls, if you will. If it pissed off the bullies, so much the better, you know?"

"Couldn't agree more," Caryn said. "But I really hope you never thought I would beat you up!"

"Oh, of course not," Dave said. "So, where are you off to after school?"

"Just home," Caryn said. "Why?"

"I figured you must have dressed up for a reason."

"Oh, no," she lied, looking down at herself and hoping she wouldn't blush, and once again the "I WEAR A 38-D" was burning brighter than ever. "Just trying something new," she said. Hoping to change the subject, she asked "How about you, Dave? We could go get some ice cream or something, if you're free."

"I've got the dance planning committee," he said. "Can't believe I signed up for that damn thing, and here I probably won't even go to the Valentine's dance."

"Why not?" Caryn asked. "Or I guess, why did you sign up for the committee if you weren't going to go anyway?"

"Thought I might get a date this way," he said. "I couldn't think of any other way that was going to happen. But I have no interest in any of the girls on the committee, and I think most of them have dates anyway. I guess we could all go as friends, though, huh?"

Caryn could feel her heart in her throat, but it was now or never. "You know, Dave, I don't have a date yet," she said.

She was rewarded with that same shy grin yet again. "Are you...asking me to the Valentine's Day dance?" he asked.

Caryn sighed and forced a smile. "It looks that way. Don't say no and make me beat you up!"

Dave laughed so hard Caryn wasn't even sure he'd also said "Yes" at first. But he had.

When they parted ways outside the cafeteria (she was off to physics, he to French), Dave made what Caryn only just recognized as an awkward effort to hug her goodbye. He pulled back at the last minute, but Caryn was having none of that from her newly-minted date. "Don't be so freakin' stupid, Dave, come here!" She threw her arms around him, and was delighted when Dave returned the hug in kind with no reservations now that the ice was broken.

"Thanks," Dave said. "No need to be shy now, huh?"

"Of course not." She kissed him on the cheek, drawing a few hoots and cheers from random boys on their way by. Caryn responded only with a flirtatious toss of her long hair over her shoulder as she pranced off to class. Only when she was halfway there did she realize Dave must have felt her burdensome 38-D's pressed up against him when she'd hugged him, and that the sensation had only been pleasant for her. The neon flickered again above her head, and then was blissfully gone.

The victory was short-lived, for an uninvited pat on her rear end brought her back down from her cloud. She turned and was disgusted but not surprised to see Rick at her side. "What's wrong, babe, you mom dressed you this morning?" he asked in the smarmy drawl that had lured her into his bed last summer -- but Homecoming night had rendered her forever immune to his charms, thank heavens!

"Who asked you, Rick?" she said, picking up her pace enough to give him a hint, which he ignored.

"Question is who asked you, Caryn," Rick said, keeping up with her and shoving a freshman or two out of his way who didn't step around him fast enough. "Not that butthead Doug, I hope. He ain't taking you to the dance, is he?"

"I haven't spoken to Doug in two years and you know why." Rick's football teammate had lied to the whole team that she'd given him her virginity sophomore year -- two years before she really had given it to Rick.

"Oh, well of course. I ain't speakin' to him anymore either after that play at homecoming." Caryn winced at the memory of what Rick had nearly done to her later that night, but as usual Rick took no notice. "So how about it? Let me take you to the dance -- just for old times, and we'll forget all about that mess in the car."

"I've got a date," Caryn said proudly. Then, to rub it in, she added, "You're literally five minutes too late." No need to add she'd have sooner been the only one in school without a date than go with him -- she knew Rick well enough to know he wouldn't have believed that anyway -- or that she would never forget "that mess in the car".

"Who?!" Rick demanded, grabbing at her arm angrily enough to give Caryn a jolt of real fear. With his long list of boys he'd beaten to a pulp, she'd always known he had 'future wife-beater' written all over him.

Swallowing her fear, Caryn wrenched free of him. "Dave McCarter," she declared with genuine pride, knowing just what that would do to Rick.

Sure enough, it did. "That little wimp?! What the fuck, Caryn? Besides, isn't he a faggot? No, wait, he's goin' out with, what's her name, Michelle, isn't it?"

"They broke up over a year ago. And no, he isn't gay." Caryn had almost managed to forget Dave's ex, whom none of the girls had liked to begin with; she recalled it being a sore point with Maureen when Michelle Faqier had asked Dave to the Sadie Hawkins Day dance sophomore year. Now it occurred to her that he'd never told them just why they broke up. But thank God they had!