Chapter 1

I really don’t quite get how it happened. It was like all these small negotiations that led to the final result.

First, my sister Abigail had two friends, Jessica and Kate, over for a sleep over. Being typical girls, they were of course very giggly and obnoxious, but not really in a bad way. But sometime that Friday night Abigail came out and asked dad if they could have a bikini pool party, like they had had last summer. Dad pointed out that it was the middle of winter, and the pool had ice on it.

In response to this, Abigail let out an exasperated sigh.

“Obviously,” Abigail conceded, with a tone of voice that reminded me of me.

“I just mean the bikini part. It would be like a pool party minus the pool part,” she explained, and laughed at her own clever wordplay. Last summer, basically the weekend she was recollecting had been a kind of continuous pool party, and everyone - not just Abigail and her friends - had stayed in their swim suits the whole weekend.

Dad shrugged, as was his typical reaction. I guess it generally means “sure,” and that’s how Abigail took it. She shrieked happily and ran back to her room. I looked over at dad and we shared a smirk, mostly at Abigail’s silliness, I guess.

It was less than 10 minutes later when Abigail reappeared in front of dad’s chair, almost without having seemed to travel the intervening distance. Like a kind of hyper teleportation.

“Dad,” she said, sounding mournful.

He put down his work-related magazine, which I’m not sure he really reads. He seems to just use it to hide from me and mom and Abigail.

“What?” he asked, gruffly.

“Dad,” Abigail repeated, unnecessarily. “We have a problem. A BIG problem.”

“What’s that?” he said, with actual curiosity - maybe even a hint of worry, because she seemed so serious.

“Jessica and Kate didn’t bring bikinis. We can’t have a pool party minus the pool part.”

I thought it was funny how she repeated her wordplay. I snorted, starting to laugh.

Abigail glared at me. “You stay out of it, Zoe,” she demanded. So I quieted myself.

“Sounds like a terrible situation,” dad said, exaggerating, almost making fun of her seriousness, once he realized it wasn’t really that important of an issue.

“I know,” Abigail intoned, nodding, and not even realizing she was being mocked. “But we have a solution,” she offered, after a short pause.

“Excellent,” said dad, happy to realize he wasn’t going to have to solve some problem himself.

There was a silence.

“Do I need any more information?” he finally asked, since Abigail just kept standing there.

Abigail nodded. “We’re going to just wear our underwear. That’s okay, right?”

She immediately scampered away, revealing her teleportation technique.

I think, reasonably, she might have wondered if he would approve. Mom was off shopping somewhere, and mom might have been even more likely not to approve. So Abigail dealt with this by running off as if the approval were predetermined.

Dad, caught by surprise, said nothing, which, by the customs of our house, made the approval official. Otherwise, the rules were, he should have bellowed after her in a blustery voice, saying “Wait, I didn’t say it was okay!”

Since he didn’t do that, it was okay, just like she said.

This is a loophole in our family behavior approval system that Abigail exploits a lot. I do too, actually. I’ve even seen dad use it with mom.

Dad looked over at me, and rolled his eyes, and sighed. I giggled slightly and shook my head, as if sympathetic. Mostly I was just amused.

Underwear Party.

About 10 more minutes passed, and then Abigail reappeared. I was shocked - though I shouldn’t have been - to see her in her underwear. It only took me a second to remember, but it still struck me as rather bold. Daring, even. In considering the situation, I even wondered if this whole process were being driven by some dares being exchanged by the girls.

Dad looked her up and down, as if going through the same mental process as me. She looked cute in her little hello kitty panties and A-cup bra, but I wondered if dad was uncomfortable. He didn’t act like it.

He raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

“Dad,” Abigail began, the same way as last time. “We have another problem.”

“I see,” he said, chuckling involuntarily. “Did someone not bring their underwear, too?”

I laughed at that, out loud, and Abigail glared over at me again, silencing me. You have to admit, that was pretty funny. Dad can be pretty quick, sometimes. For a dad, I mean. There are limits.

“Daaad!” Abigail shrieked, offended, but in a drawn out way that said it was mostly a performance. “Um. Not exactly.”

His eyebrows danced. Maybe that wasn’t quite the outright denial he expected. I admit I was curious, too.

“And?” he finally asked.

“Well, Kate doesn’t have a bra,” Abigail explained, as if this was a major shortcoming.

“I don’t think Kate NEEDS a bra,” dad finally said, after a fairly long delay. He smiled more gently, now. It was true. Abigail’s friend Kate was still flat as a board.

“Well, but it makes it hard to have an underwear party,” she complained.

“I thought it was called a pool party minus the pool part,” I interjected, unable to resist.

“We changed the name,” Abigail said, glancing my way, as if this should have been obvious.

I said nothing, and dad asked, “I don’t see how it makes a problem, though.”

“Well it’s not really fair if Kate doesn’t have a bra.” This didn’t seem like it was logical, to me, but Abigail’s brain is weird sometimes.

“So, uh ... give her a bra?” dad suggested. I could tell he was more amused than anything else, and just playing along.

“I can’t do THAT,” my sister protested. “It wouldn’t fit,” she explained, and reflexively fingering one of her bra-straps. Then, as if to immediately head off any possible additional suggestions in that vein, she said, “I don’t even have any old one from last year that she could use. We threw them all out when I got my new ones last month.” She thrust out her chest with seemingly involuntary pride. Her A-cup was, definitely, a very new development.

Dad sighed. It was funny watching him trying hard not to look at Abigail’s outthrust chest. Despite his being dad, I wasn’t naive. A guy is still a guy, right?

“What are you asking me to do?” he asked.

Abigail didn’t answer right away,

This made him start to get uncomfortable, I thought. So, sitting up in alarm, he added, “I am NOT taking Kate bra shopping. I don’t think her parents would approve.”

Abigail giggled, as if this was an option that hadn’t even occurred to her. “Yeah, okay, dad,” she agreed, almost condescendingly. She swallowed, as if collecting her nerve, and said, “We just decided that to be fair, we should go topless. I mean, all three of us, right? That’ll be okay, right?”

And in an instant, without giving him time to respond, she ran off again.

Dad looked over at me in surprise. Notably, he once again forgot to jump up and yell, “Wait, I didn’t say it was okay!”

Finally, he rolled his eyes at me - a gesture I am pretty sure he basically picked up FROM me, when I think about it. So I returned the eye-roll. Then I grinned.

“Maybe they’ll stick to her room,” I offered, half sympathetic and half amused.

Dad looked over at me and shrugged, picking up his reading material again. Maybe he didn’t think of it as that serious. Or he figured they were just amusing themselves by being a bit outrageous. Or maybe he WAS really worried but he was playing it cool, for my benefit. I actually thought this could be a definite possibility.