Chapter 02 - Changing Room Selfies

Sunday 25th June

Next morning began as every Sunday morning did in our household; we liked our traditions.

This meant that Mum was dressed in her PJs - today’s were baby pink with the butterfly print pattern - as she sat at the kitchen table with The Sunday Times, her coffee in close reach. Occasionally she would read out any of the comments from the arts or review section she agreed with, or found funny, or both. It was like having our own editor.

Meanwhile Dad was busy in the working part of the kitchen, wearing a more practical pale blue stripe on grey short-sleeved pyjamas coupled with an apron as he busied himself with cooking a full English for those who wanted, orders already taken. With Radio 3 playing loud enough to keep him company but not loud enough to disturb Mum, he was surrounded by every macho implement and device known to man as he did what he could to make the unhealthiest of breakfasts as healthy as it was possible for it to be. Somewhere amongst the clouds of steam, threats of smoke detectors going off, and chamber music, he cheerfully tweaked away at the cooking times of bacon, sausage, mushrooms, tomatoes, eggs, and black pudding so that they would all be ready for simultaneous delivery to the Lazy Susan that came out of the cupboard on a Sunday, just for this.

I was less slavish to the traditional ideas of pyjamas than my parents and was sat at the table quietly sipping my tea wearing my sleeping shorts and tee, a non-matched pair of boxers in red and green St. David’s tartan, partnered with a racing green tee that Nain had ironically embroidered with a leek on the breast pocket. I did my best not to look too starved as I patiently waited for the Lazy Susan free-for-all to begin, but you can only suppress the pangs of hunger so far you know.

As if on cue, my stomach growled to confirm this, my attempted nonchalance lost to the chuckles of the ‘rents.

With the final echoes of my intestinal discomfort fading away like day old thunder, the kitchen door opened and into this genteel chaos came Stef, her passage like some ghost ship that moves through everything in its path without noticing any of it. I knew she had only got back from her morning bike ride about a quarter of an hour before as I’d heard her heading into the bathroom for her post ride shower. Consequently I wasn’t very much surprised to see she had tied her hair into a pony tail up on the top of her head, there being no time to get it fully dried and flouffed. Why? So that we would be able to eat together as a family. It was one of Mum’s rules that was not to be broken. Ever.

Unfortunately it didn’t help that with her hair tied up like that and threatening to fray at the ends, it brought back memories of cartoon shows. I’m not saying Stef looked exactly like a Flintstone, but now that I was an adult - and yes, six days does count - I took a stance of great maturity as I refrained from calling out ‘Pebbles’. It was close, though.

Stef, meanwhile, breezed silently past me, leaving the aroma of a freshly washed girl in her wake, a combination of simple soap with hints of apple. I’d smelt it most of my life, but for some reason today I noticed it more than usual, realising how much that exact smell equalled Stef in my mind.

Insofar as her own manner of dressing for breakfast, of the four members of the Rowden family Stef was the furthest removed from the PJ paradigm, and this morning she was wearing her habitual oversized tee, old lace coloured and edged in black, and which she must have pulled on in a hurry as I could see the label sticking up on her neck as she passed me, a terrible fashion faux pas she would be mortified to learn of.

Being the excellent brother that I am, I spared her this embarrassment by not telling her.

Thing is, maybe it was because of what had happened yesterday and what she’d said, but with Dad busy cooking and Mum nose-deep in the book reviews, I didn’t really hesitate all that much at all as I snatched the opportunity to glance, watching as she bent over to pull a clean bowl out of the dishwasher. There was no denying how my sister had a really nice bum, but it would not be a good idea for me to get caught appraising her glutes - ahem - and even though her bum pressed back against the material of her tee in a very distracting manner, that fact would not be allowed in my defence. The Court of Mum was not known for taking anything mitigating into account.

As I sought to redirect my attentions to my ‘staring blankly into the middle distance’ as Mum called it, I suddenly wondered if had Stef been so rushed when she’d dressed that she hadn’t had the time to put on her bra and a pair of panties, accidentally, of course? Until yesterday I’d never have thought of Stef doing such a thing, but after yesterday’s ‘revelations’ I was much less confident than I’d normally be about what was underneath that tee, other than just my sister. Inevitably, however, such thoughts quickly began to translate themselves into a ‘stirring’ of my own and I realised how that was not a line of thought to pursue when there was only one layer of clothing between me and my making clear exactly where my mind had gone. Shortly before my death

Quickly, I turned my attention back to my tea, and to what I could remember of calculus, trusting that one or both would have the necessary calming effect.

Stef, meanwhile, carried on preparing her breakfast, casually kissing Dad en passant as she dove into the cupboard where her muesli lived, pouring out a medium-sized portion to which she added banana slices and ice cold milk before she sat down opposite to me. Pausing a moment to catch my eye and grin, and making sure that Mum was busy reading and Dad was busy finalising breakfast, Stef breathed in deeply and pushed her chest forward until it strained against the material of her tee.

Of course, I had to look, which was the whole point of the stunt, and the way her nipples had pushed against the fabric made me place a mental bet on her having left her bra in her bedroom. Or maybe she’d not even got one out?

Oh. God.

Stef waited for me to regain eye contact with her and cocked an understanding eyebrow slightly before she grinned and turned her attention to her breakfast.

Between looking at her bum and seeing the Nips vs Tee Conflict, that about did it for me as what had been a ‘stirring’ now began to gain an uncomfortable degree of substance. Thankfully, before things could approach the point of no return and I was stuck down with a full-blown erection, Dad announced breakfast was ready and I was suddenly and totally distracted from thoughts of anything other than how to help unload the Lazy Susan to the fullest extent my plate would allow.

Quite a lot, it turned out as the fine art of conversation suffered a temporary extinction under the assault of concerted munching.

Presently, with both the eating subsided and the drinking of teas and coffees dying down, Dad asked, “So did you get anything from town yesterday with your birthday money, Luke?”

“He got a Whatchamacallit!” Stef answered for me, quite unhelpfully I thought, as her answer was certain to provoke interest from Mum.

Right on cue, Mum asked, “A what?” Clearly her inescapable interest had been piqued as she had put down the Culture Section.

“It’s, uhm, well I’m not sure what it is,” I said before I quickly suggested. “So maybe I should go get it... ?”

There was a circle of nodding heads was the response, so I dashed up to my room, collected The Thing, and returned, placing it on the table for those who wanted a closer inspection.

“Well, that’s different,” Mum said as she picked it up, turned it over, and generally examined it, much as Stef and I had done already. “What does it do?”

“It’s ... decorative,” I said, my tone more hopeful than assertive.

“Are you sure?” Dad asked as he took The Thing from Mum and also did the turn-it-over thing. “It looks like it should do something, like a barometer, maybe.”

“I know, but I’ve tried winding the wheels, and they kinda move some of the dials, but I can’t hear anything winding inside, and it doesn’t tick, and I can’t see any place to put a key, so I think it’s just a thing that looks interesting. It’s a puzzle...” I said, not expecting the reaction I got.

“A puzzle?” Dad asked as his eyes lit with interest. “Like the Golden Hare,” he said, as though the rest of us knew what he was talking about. I didn’t, and from her blank look, neither did Stef.

“Masquerade,” Mum said, like that added something meaningful to the conversation. So at least she knew what Dad was talking about.

Taking one for the youth wing of the family, heedless of the dangers of a parental reminiscence, I asked, “Uhm, a what?”

“Oh you’re too young I guess,” Dad said. “The Golden Hare. I don’t remember his name now, it was quite a few years ago I suppose, but an author published a book with clues in it, all very cryptic crossword, but if you solved the clues, you got the jewel.”

“You mean like a treasure hunt?” Stef asked.

“Exactly like that, Honey,” Mum said. “Only the person who found it, well, some people are still not happy about how they found it. But I don’t think this is one of those puzzle prizes. They get found or returned, they don’t get forgotten. I suppose it might be like a Chinese cricket box, and if you can turn the cogs and solve the combination, something might pop open. Interesting,” she said as she turned each of the wheels in both directions, making some of the dials turn, but nothing popped open so she handed it back to me.

“Well, I’ll keep trying. It’d be kinda cool if it was some kind of puzzle box, but I like it anyway,” I said.

“Was it expensive, Honey?” Mum asked, her tone gentle yet with a hint of danger if I had to confess that it had been more than whatever she judged an appropriate amount, not that I had any idea what that figure might be.

“Oh, it couldn’t have been that much,” Stef answered for me. Again. Why she was doing that? I should have known she wouldn’t have said that without a plan in mind, and that was the exact moment she chose to unleash it. “He’s got enough money left to go shopping with me this afternoon. He really needs some shorts for the summer, doesn’t he?”

Dad looked at me and smiled knowingly. When the women of the family got into the idea of shopping, especially clothes shopping, we males would be lucky to escape. Miraculously lucky. Actually, we were never lucky that way.

“That’s good of you, Stef. Well, I’ve a game this lunchtime,” Mum announced, referring to her new hobby of golf which, without any prior indication, she had taken up on her fortieth birthday. She played once or twice a week, sometimes more in the summer if the greens were free, and she’d been such an unanticipated success at it that her handicap was twenty-three and expected to continue to improve. “Now, if everyone will excuse me, plus-fours don’t put themselves on,” she added as she briefly kissed Dad, and was gone.

“Dad, uhm, you could come with us?” I gamely tried, desperate not to be left to Stef’s mercies. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust her or anything like that, it was simply that I knew how much she loved to shop and how quickly I would therefore lose control of my shopping trip.

Dad shook his head. “No thanks, son. Your sister will take good care of you, I’m sure, but I need to ... er ... cut the grass. Yes! That’s it! I need to cut the grass, tidy the garden, that kind of thing,” he said, his relief at ‘remembering’ his activity for the day all too evident. “And I might try to catch a little of the cricket, too,” he added, this being the Headingly test when his English heritage permitted him to watch England play even though he’d lived in Wales all his adult life.

I sighed. I knew when I was beaten, and at that moment I might as well have been a samurai sword blade for how beaten I was.

“Don’t worry, Luke, it won’t be too painful,” Stef promised.

“Right, that’s me then,” Dad said as he headed off to change, leaving me and Stef on our own.

Stef shook her head for some reason, and as soon as Dad was through the door, she leant forward, caught her tee on the edge of the table and pulled the material so tight that her nipples were clearly outlined. Again.

“What’re you doing?” I hissed as I looked from her to the kitchen door and back again like some frantic automaton.

“You don’t like?” Stef pouted as she leant even further forward just to make absolutely sure I could see what I thought I had seen, now with areolae, too. “If you can’t see clearly I could always take it off...” she offered as she grabbed her tee’s hem for added emphasis as she lifted it up enough to flash me a little of her flat tummy, making me really panic if anyone came back in and I was right that all that was under that tee was Stef.

“Uhm, what about Mum and Dad?” I splurted.

“They’ll be... busy ... for a few minutes.”

“Busy?”

Stef smiled indulgently. “Oh Luke. Think about it...”

I did, and I did again, and then the penny dropped. “You, you mean ... they’re... ?”

Stef nodded. “Sunday mornings are for fooling around, most weeks, anyway.”

“Oh. My. God,” I said as I felt my face flush deep red, at least I guessed it was deep red from how hot I suddenly felt.

Stef just laughed. “Oh Luke, you are so sweet. You didn’t know? When they get changed together like this on a Sunday morning? Well now you know what they’re doing. Same when Mum has a ‘headache’ and an early night, and Dad goes to ‘look after’ her. Oh Luke, you’ve so much to learn ... but not now, there’s shopping to be done. So, off you go, Babes. You go get ready, and we can catch the half-ten bus, okay? And remember, tread loudly so they know you’re up there...” she chuckled.

Mortified and horrified and shocked all at the same time, I just nodded dumbly as Stef got up and began to clear away the breakfast things. This Sunday it was her turn, just as it was either her turn or my turn after most meals; it was how we ‘paid’ for our keep.

“Right...” I said distractedly as I picked up The Thing and headed off to get ready. As I got upstairs I could hear jazz on the radio in Mum and Dad’s room.

Gene Krupa, Dad’s trad favourite, I think.

Quite loud.

And Krupa was a drummer.

Oh. God.

I tried not to think about that, but even as I mercilessly blanked out any thoughts that might arise I knew I would need therapy for a long time to get over this. Mentally closing my ears, sealing them with wax, and putting noise-cancelling headphones over that, I was so successful in not hearing anything that I didn’t recognise it when a soft chorus drifted out of The Thing while I was getting dressed. If I did hear it, well, I suppose I must have dismissed it as part of the music coming from Mum and Dad’s room, and since I didn’t want to think about that, I didn’t think about anything else either.

I’d learn.

Having been lucky in getting to the bus stop just at the right time, it wasn’t much after 11:15am when Stef and I arrived in the town centre and began to walk around the shops that were open on a Sunday, all the while headed in the vague direction of what passed in our hometown for a mall. Somehow I imagined that those few brave American tourists who made it this far into the Principality would be underwhelmed when they discovered two dozen shops clustered under a shared roof was a mall. I’d seen pictures and film of American malls. This would be like a couple of Seven-Elevens to them, whatever they were.

Be that as it may, by the time we got there Stef seemed to have hatched some kind of a cunning plan, as she led us directly to a sports shop, and once inside made a bee-line for the swim clothes section. As we approached, all I could see was a sea of Lycra and a selection of manikins in black plastic who were sporting the latest fashions. For men, this meant anything from baggy shorts and branded tees through to Speedos that were definite no-nos, whilst for women this meant bikinis and one-pieces with such high cut legs that they were waist high, or more.

This wasn’t Kansas and I felt a long way out of my comfort zone.

Stef must have seen my growing discomfort. “Hey, Luke. I’m here for you, you know.”

I nodded.

“Really I am,” she said, sound a lot more reassuring and a lot less teasing than I’d expected. “Oh-kay then. So, this is how it’s going down, Babes. I know you, I know how you dress, and I know what kind of thing you will choose.

“That’s not what is going to happen.

“Just wait here for me, please, and I promise I won’t be long,” she commanded as she pointed at one of the various chairs dotted around the shop floor. I sat on the nearest, and with a smile, she was gone.

Not knowing what else I was supposed to do, I pulled out my phone and I had just gotten into one of those time-killing games where three things in a line are somehow important when with swift and admirable haste, she returned.

“That was quick.”

Stef grinned knowingly. “I promised, remember? Would you prefer me to take a long time? I mean I could go back...”

I shook my head. “Go back? Uhm, do you have to?” I asked as I realised with dread that perhaps she’d remembered something even worse than what she’d already found.

“Relax, Babes. I know this isn’t your idea of heaven, so I’m not going to make it worse for you than it has to be. Plus, there wasn’t much to choose from, but I selected these,” she said as she handed over three teeny ‘coat hangers’.

As soon as I saw what she had selected, I knew I was in trouble.

To be fair, they were not the same style, so there was some degree of variation in her choices.

But.

To be strictly truthful about it, the three items in question ran the spectrum from modest to insane to a headlong lurch into you must be kidding.

“Soo, now you’ve seen ... go try,” Stef said, her grin telling me she knew exactly what I’d thought of them.

“Okay, Sis, but you know they’re not me, and if I have to choose any of them I’ll choose the largest.”

“Oh, Luke,” Stef sighed, her tone telling me I had already committed what I imagined to be only the first of a long line of faux pas for the day. “First, yes, you have to choose one pair – you need something to swim in and tan in that doesn’t make you look like a granddad, and you can’t lie in the sun wearing cargo shorts.

“No, don’t say it, just accept that you can’t.

“Good boy.

“Second, you really do need to tan up if you want to shake that not-chic geek-chic you’re sporting.

“Third, if you can’t choose, I will.”

I couldn’t help myself as I tried not laugh and asked, “Choose for me ... how? All you’ve seen them on is their hangers.”

Stef chuckled. “Choose for you? Oh that’s simple enough, Babes. You show me how you look in each of the trunks, and that way I can pick the best pair for you,” she said as casually as though we were discussing scarfs, not swimwear that was nearly intimately clingy.

Now it was my turn to chuckle. “Sis, there’s no way you can do that,” I said proudly. “There’s no way, no way at all, that I’m gonna come out from the changing rooms in a pair of swim trunks, especially not to show my sister. What if someone saw me? Saw you? Saw us? Saw ... whatever!”

“Oh, Little Brother,” began Stef, using her patient explaining tone dialled all the way to twelve. Faux pas 2, Luke 0. “You remember your phone? The one you just put back in your pocket? The one with the camera? The one with my number in it? Please tell me you see where this is going... ?” she asked as she smiled indulgently at me.

I blinked. “You’re serious?” I asked as I realised what she was suggesting. She couldn’t be, though, could she?

She was.

“It’ll be fun!” she said.

“No,” I pouted.

“Okay. Pass me the smallest pair, then, and I’ll see you back at the bus stop,” she said as she turned and made to leave.

“Wait!” I called out, at least as loud as I could given we were inside the shop and it wasn’t that big a shop and we weren’t the only customers, sadly. “I’m not trying to upset you, but... really?“

Stef turned and glared at me. “Really? Yes, Luke, yes, really. You need shorts. You’re fashion sense is tragic. You have three choices to pick from. You either show me each pair in the flesh, or you send me pics, or I’ll make the choice right here and now, and they’re all the right size, so don’t think I can’t. One way or another I am going to check them out to help you make the best choice, and you are not choosing on your own,” she said, before she dialled down her frustration with me all the way back to eleven before she added. “You’re my Little Brother and I love you and that’s why I’m here, to help you and to stop you making another heart-rending fashion choice. Okay?”

To give myself some time to think, I looked at the selections she had made. What she had said about my fashion sense – typical nerdy teen-aged boy – was true enough. What she had said about my needing some help – a definite challenge to my male ego – was also true enough. I couldn’t spend the summer indoors, and if I was going to be out in the sun then I did need some swim trunks, at least I did unless I wanted the most wretched tan lines in the history of teen boys and cargo shorts. And I couldn’t get away with trying to wear last year’s trunks, either, or even the trunks I’d had with me when we’d be in France this spring, both because I’d outgrown them and also, I suspected, because Stef would call the fashion police and have them taken away, and probably burned, too, if I tried.

There was no escaping it. I had to have some new swimwear, and in response to my ‘fashion emergency’ here Stef was, with no reason to be here to help me at all except that she wanted to, and I was being a jerk towards her over it in return? I mean of course, there was going to be a little teasing, too, but she didn’t have to do this. She’d chosen to do this. For me.

Anyway, once the selection was made she would see me wearing them the rest of the summer, so what was I getting upset about, really? It wasn’t as if she hadn’t also seen what would be underneath them, so I couldn’t be embarrassed about that, now could I?

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

“Ha! Figured it all out, did you?”

I nodded sheepishly.

“Good boy. Now, off you go,” she said as she waved her hands at me in the universal gesture used by females to males in clothes shops the world over. Time for me to get on with it, and pronto.

I prontoed.

Since I’d been unable to avoid Stef’s having a hand in my swimwear – and after I’d paused a moment to enjoy that pun – I hunted out the cubicle farthest away from the door and quickly stripped down to my boxers, as per the ‘keep your underwear on when trying items’ notice in the cubicle.

The first pair I pulled on was the roomiest of the three, a pair of briefs styled trunks in some camo-like pattern of grey and even darker grey. There was absolutely no way I was going out from behind the safety of my curtain, so I hastily arranged myself using the cubicle’s mirror in a vain effort to reduce the ridiculousness of the trunks-over-boxers look, jammed my tee underneath my chin to show how high they went, fished out my phone, took the obligatory looking-at-the-phone selfie, and sent it to Stef.

A couple of seconds later I distantly heard her phone play a little musical melody, and a few moments after that she sent me an emoji of a thumbs up, followed by the word ‘next’.

I dutifully removed the first pair, re-hung them on their ‘hanger’, and picked up the second pair, a similar design in dark blue, less camo but a bit more clingy than the first pair. Once again I put them on, arranged myself, sent the photo, and got an emoji, this time of a winky face with a thumbs up. I couldn’t help but laugh, and also wonder what the final emoji would be given the scrap of material that it claimed was swimwear.

‘Next,’ came the textual instruction.

With a sigh of resignation, I reluctantly turned my attention to the most unwanted option, a ‘banana hammock’ in bright white. As I held it up to the light – and it didn’t cast much of a shadow – I privately admitted to myself that if I was going to be fair about it, it wasn’t that bad, but if I wore those and no shorts underneath, everyone who saw me would know exactly how things had changed for me since the arrival of Dr. Adolescence.

Bravely I metaphorically girded my loins, I literally slipped the ‘hammock’ on and did what I could in front of the mirror before I sent the obligatory selfie to Stef.

I was so busy getting back out of tricky little scrap of clothing and rearranging it on its hanger that I didn’t immediately realise that Stef hadn’t responded. Wondering what was the problem, I had just picked up my phone to re-send the message when she responded and I found myself in possession of a ‘well done’ plus an emoji of a smiley face, winking, with two thumbs up.

So the last and least had been the most enthusiastically responded to.

I shook my head.

Had there ever, really, been a doubt?

There was still no way I was going to buy those, though.

With the trunks all carefully hung and their hangers, I quit the changing rooms–

–and was grabbed by Stef as she hugged me. “Well done!” she said.

“Uhm, thanks,” I replied, tentative and unsure as I checked to make sure nobody was watching us. Luckily, they weren’t.

“Relax, there’s only one other couple in here, and they are up front, the guy looking at the Merthyr strips and his girlfriend looking about as happy as you. Haha. I know that wasn’t your idea of fun, but you did it, and I’m proud of you, and we know which ones to get,” she said.

“Yeah, the first pair,” I said as I injected as much sternness as I into my voice as I could, intent on making certain that that was the only option on the table.

“Well, no surprise there, then, huh? Sure, we can get you those,” Stef said, surprising me that she didn’t fight me on it; I’d expected to have to pout much more before I got my own way on the matter. Maybe she was being kind as a result of some momentary lapse in the teasing?

Regardless, I was still slightly dumbfounded by Stef’s easy capitulation as she let go of me and we headed to the checkout where I paid my money, got the shorts I wanted, and felt suitably pleased with the way I had handled the situation.

Just as we were about to leave, Stef tapped me on the shoulder and whispered into my ear, “Erm, Luke, too much coffee this morning, I kinda need a pee...”

“Oh. Okay...”

“Meet you in Man Deeling’s?” she said, that being the name of a non-chain coffee shop cum tea house not far from where we were and in the opposite direction from the mall’s toilets.

“Sure,” I said and headed off in that direction where, ten minutes later and halfway through my Earl Grey, Stef joined me at the table I’d got for us, espresso in hand.

“You know you’re not supposed to drink it like that?” Stef asked as she nodded at my tea.

“You mean I should drink it without milk and without sugar?” I asked incredulously, never able to fathom how someone could drink tea like a herbal drink and not like, well, tea.

Stef nodded. “Well it’s not as if you’re drinking your tea from your saucer, but, I’m just saying...”

“Oh thanks, that feels so much better. So, home now?” I asked, guessing Stef wanted me to put my new swim shorts to use if Dad had finished the cricket, sorry, gardening.

“Nuh-huh, all this shopping? You’ve given me a taste for it,” she grinned. “Oh don’t look like that. I need to go get some new stuff too, some underwear and maybe a new bikini, and since I helped you out, you can help me out.”

“Er... what?” I asked, somehow managing not to choke on my tea.

“It’s easy. Really, no work for you to do at all. I’ll try things on, and then you tell me which looks better, or which is a no-dad,” she said, a ‘no-dad’ meaning ‘no, dad, please don’t make me wear that‘, a sure sign that an item of clothing was toe-curling bad.

“But you’re not shopping for anything I can help with. Tees, maybe, but, uhm, those? No can do, Sis.”

Stef grinned. “We’ll see. So, drink up, and off to Jenna’s,” she said, Jenna’s being a lingerie shop whose window display was eternally popular with teen-aged boys, and also girls, one party aspiring to wear their clothes, and the other aspiring to help remove them, a coincidence of which rarely happened outside of legend and fantasy.

I gulped, drank my drink, and followed.

As soon as we entered, I knew exactly how the lamb felt in the presence of the sacrificial altar – this was not the place for me.

Everywhere I looked, I wished I hadn’t. The racks of items were easy enough to ignore if you didn’t look, and the headless and limbless manikins were more like something from an sf movie than something to sell intimate clothing with. But the various posters on the walls of real women in underwear were something else, something I desperately did not want to get caught looking at.