“So, how does wearing it make you feel?” I questioned the teenager who was sprawled out on my couch.
She looked down at her chest, which had doubled in size since the last time I’d seen her, thanks to a gel-filled push-up bra.
“I dunno.” She obviously didn’t want to talk about it.
“I think you do.”
I’d been working with Meghan Faber for almost three months, trying to improve her self-image and boost her confidence, but no matter what progress we seemed to make, she steadfastly refused to abandon her dream of getting a breast augmentation. I’d finally decided that the only way to convince Meghan a boob job was a bad idea was to show her, and to that end, I’d suggested that her parents buy her a bra with enhancements.
“Alright,” she caved in grudgingly, “it makes me feel weird.”
“And?” I pushed.
“And jiggly. I never realized how much boobs bounced. How are you supposed to run or jump with these things?”
I tried not to smile. “Women who are well-endowed generally wear a lot of support, especially when exercising, sometimes even when they sleep.”
“Wearing a bra to bed wouldn’t be very comfortable,” Meghan muttered. “I guess you can’t sleep on your stomach when you have big boobs either.”
“That’s one of the drawbacks of being more voluptuous.”
“I could get used to sleeping on my back if I had to . . .” She wasn’t willing to admit defeat just yet.
“How have your friends and classmates reacted to your new look?”
“I’m getting a lot more attention from guys now,” she reported. That should have made her happy, but Meghan’s glum expression indicated otherwise.
“But it isn’t the kind of attention you wanted?” I surmised.
“I wanted guys to notice me and ask me out. But since I started wearing this bra, all they do is whistle, make boob-squishing hand gestures, and call me names like ‘Meghan Melon Tits.’ I don’t know why guys have to be so crude.”
“Unfortunately, it’s their nature when they’re your age. Your friend Ryan hasn’t been teasing you, has he?” From what Meghan had told me about him, Ryan was a nice young man who had a good head on his shoulders. I, also, had a sneaking suspicion that he liked Meghan in a not-platonic way. Of course, she’d been too caught up in her insecurities about her appearance to pick up on that.
“No.” She blushed, then ducked her head to hide the involuntary display of emotion.
Okay, maybe she did realize that Ryan was crushing on her, and she shared his feelings?
“He said this bra was ‘dumb,’ and that I looked better before.”
“Maybe he’s right? Has having a larger bust improved your life at all?”
“Well . . .,” she paused to think about it for a minute, “. . . not really.”
“And have you learned anything from this experience?”
“You mean, like a lesson?”
I nodded.
“Oh, man,” Meghan heaved a persecuted sigh, “isn’t being humiliated and bummed out enough? Why do I have to learn a lesson from this?”
“Humor me.”
She rolled her heavily-lined eyes as she was wont to do. “Alright, I learned that . . . men are pigs.”
“Not all of them,” I corrected her.
“Okay, not Ryan. He’s pretty cool.”
“What else?”
“I learned that . . . you shouldn’t try to be something you’re not.”
Eureka! She’d finally found the psychological nugget of gold I’d had her panning for since we’d started these sessions.
“Why not?”
“Because you only end up making yourself and everyone around you miserable.”
“That’s a wonderful insight! Well done, Meghan. Well done!” I clapped my hands together excitedly and beamed with pride.
“Don’t even think about hugging me,” she grumbled.
* * *
“I’m home!” I yelled as I walked through the front door of my house with a Little Tony’s pizza box in my hand.
Izzy danced out from her bedroom, holding an iPod in her hand. One earbud was in while the other dangled down her chest.
“Have you got dinner?” she asked.
I raised the box up. “One Veggie Deluxe, light sauce, no olives.”
“Excellent. The DVDs came in the mail this afternoon.” She did the barefoot boogie over to the coffee table where I could see two red-and-white Netflix envelopes sitting.
I dropped my purse and briefcase on the tile floor. “What’s on our viewing agenda tonight?”
“You have a choice: Cross Her Heart, which is a thriller about a serial killer who stalks and stabs redheads, then removes their hearts and carves the symbol of the cross in—”
“No way.” I shook my head.
“Are you sure? The detective who’s pursuing the serial killer is played by Dean Cain, and I know you like him. The movie’s rated R, so there’ll probably be some steamy sex scenes between him and Angie Everhart, or Kari Wuhrer, or both,” she sought to entice me.
“Pass. What else did you get?”
“Bayou Beast.” She pulled the DVD sleeve out of the envelope so that she could read the synopsis on it. “Legend has it that a creature, once a man, now a deformed, ravenous monster, lurks beneath the murky surface of Blackwater Swamp. Environmentalist Michael Hornsby doesn’t believe the gruesome folklore until one dark night, Nora, his research partner and fiancée, is savagely ripped from his arms and dragged into the swamp. Now, he must find and—”
“Okay, okay, we’ll watch that one.” Although it sounded like made-for-Syfy crap, Bayou Beast was the lesser of two evils. At least, swamp monsters could be dismissed as completely fictional, and therefore, nothing to be frightened off. Serial killers were the stuff of nightmares for single women like me.
“Let’s get some drinks and plates,” I said, and Izzy followed me into the kitchen.
She got out the dishes and napkins, while I poured a couple of diet sodas into glasses. We returned to the living room, where Izzy insisted on turning out all the lights to set the mood, and made ourselves comfortable on the couch. It occurred to me that she and I hadn’t spent any quality time together like this in weeks. We’d been on opposite schedules for so long, me working all day, her slinging cocktails at the club all night, and when we did have a face-to-face it was usually to deal with a crisis of some sort. I missed just hanging out and having fun with my sister.
Izzy put a slice of pizza on each of our plates, while I popped the DVD into the player.
“Damn, we forgot the parmesan.”
“I’ll get it,” I offered since I was already up. “You can go ahead and start the movie.”
Ominous-sounding music emanated from the TV as I headed back to the kitchen. It took me a while to find the canned parmesan because someone had put it in the pantry even though I’d told her a dozen times that once you open parmesan, it has to go in the refrigerator or it won’t stay fresh. While I was digging around in the pantry, I came across some bread that had gone moldy. I threw it away, then started to wonder when I’d last cleaned out and organized the pantry. I heard a bloodcurdling scream just as I picked up a can of Campbell’s New England Clam Chowder. I cringed when I saw that it had expired four months ago.
“Pilar! You just missed the Bayou Beast’s first attack. This guy who’s playing the environmentalist is HOT!”
“Coming!” My messy pantry would have to wait. I hated eating cold pizza.
“So, where’s this hot environmentalist?” I wondered as I handed the cheese to Izzy and sat down. All I saw on screen was a paunchy, middle-aged cop positioned at the water’s edge, while a couple of men in a small boat dragged the swamp with what looked like a big fish net.
“Umph.” Izzy had to swallow the bite of pizza that was in her mouth before she could answer. “He’s in the hospital. He was so traumatized by what happened to his girlfriend that he’s semi-catatonic.”
“Well, that’s no fun.”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll snap out of it. Meanwhile, there’s a chance we’ll get to see him in one of those butt-baring hospital gowns.”
Five minutes passed and there was no sign of the hunky tree-hugger, but the Bayou Beast claimed another victim - this one a frat boy so blockheaded (his drunken, Phi Beta Theta brothers dared him to wade into the swamp at night, and he actually did it) that he deserved to die as far as I was concerned.
“Michael Hornsby’s responsive. We need to get over to Memorial and talk to him,” the portly cop told his partner after getting a call from the hospital.
I perked up in anticipation of finally seeing the man who’d earned a thumbs up from Izzy.
“There he is.” My sister pointed at the TV screen.
There was his back anyway. Michael Hornsby was standing in front of a window, staring outside, when the policemen entered his hospital room. And no, there were no butt cheeks hanging out the back of his hospital gown, just white boxer briefs. The actor did have a great body; he was tall and nicely proportioned with muscles in all the right places. There was something familiar about the set of his shoulders - they were held high and proudly, but with such effortless ease . . .
“Mr. Hornsby, I’m Lieutenant Fields, and this is Detective Lamont. We’re investigating the disappearance of your fiancée.”
The actor he was addressing slowly turned to face the camera.
My mouth dropped open, and the pizza I’d just stuffed into it fell out on to my plate. “Oh, my God!”
“I told you! He’s sexy, isn’t he? I just wanna run my fingers through that shaggy, blond hair. Rowwwwwr,” my sister growled.
“Oh. My. God.” I was in such a state of shock that I repeated myself.
The mushrooms on my pizza were obviously having a hallucinogenic effect. What other explanation could there be for me seeing Mitch Buchannon in a B-movie? He wasn’t an actor. Maybe this guy in Bayou Beast was just a look-alike? We all had a twin somewhere, right? Sinking down on to my knees, I crawled over to the television and brought my face up to its hi-def screen.
“That’s bad for your eyes,” Izzy remarked, but I ignored her in favor of studying the hot environmentalist up-close.
Same light green eyes, same voice with the sarcastic edge, same walk, or I should say, “strut,” same habit of rubbing his jaw when he talked . . . this was no doppelganger, this was Mitch.
Sitting back on my haunches, I said in a hushed tone of disbelief, “I know him.”
“What do you mean you know him?” My sister eyed me quizzically.
“He’s a patient of mine.”
“Holy crap!” Izzy threw down her pizza and crab-walked over to me. “You have got to introduce me.”
“I don’t understand, he never mentioned . . . why wouldn’t he tell me that he’d done some acting?”
“Maybe he only did the one movie, and it was such a bomb that he was too embarrassed to admit he’d been involved in it? Will you introduce me?” she asked again.
I grabbed the DVD sleeve off the coffee table and scanned the Bayou Beast cast list. “I don’t see his name.”
Izzy looked over my shoulder. “Isn’t he Derek Reynolds? That’s the first name listed, and he is the lead actor in the film.”
“No, his name’s Mitch Buchannon.”
“Mitch Buchannon?” My sister chortled.
“What’s so funny?” I was clueless.
“Mitch Buchannon was the name of David Hasselhoff’s character on Baywatch.”
Baywatch, the show about lifeguards?
I felt like I was going to throw up, and it wasn’t because of the pizza.
“What’s the name of the website that has actors’ bios and filmographies?” I’d heard Izzy mention it on several occasions. She and her friends liked to use it as a source of info whenever they “discovered” some new hunk on a TV show or in a film.
“The Internet Movie Database. I’ve got it bookmarked on my laptop.”
“Can you bring your computer out here please?”
“But what about the movie? Look,” she pointed at the television where Bayou Beast was still playing, “the hot environmentalist is back at the swamp, investigating, and he’s got his shirt off. Don’t you want to find out if he survives the movie?”
The more pertinent question was: Would the man portraying the hot environmentalist survive our session tomorrow? And I wouldn’t have that answer until I found out just how deep his lies went.
“No.” I turned the DVD player off in disgust. “Just bring me the computer.”