For our 5th wedding anniversary, my husband surprised me with an overnight stay at a hotel in Nashville and two tickets to see the Zac Brown Band. Their albums have been the soundtrack to our lives for the last year, partially because Ada screams and tries to climb out of her car seat unless we’re playing them, and also because that simple line “No we don’t have a lot of money…all we need is love” has been our battle cry since I quit my full-time job last May. For days after the tickets arrived, I peeked into the envelope just to make sure it was real.
It was one of the best surprises of my life.
Okay, let’s be honest, I planned the whole thing because that’s what I do, I plan my surprises, and the real surprise was that he went along with it instead of doing the mental math to tell me how much the tickets, hotel and gas would cost in diapers. You see, we no longer work in dollars and cents at our house, we work in Pampers. For instance, one latte costs 15 diapers, a Hot n’ Ready from Little Ceaser’s costs 22 diapers (yeah, I know this one by heart) and the massage pre-baby Amanda insisted on every month costs a whopping 340 diapers, which is why I sound like a coffin opening when I get up every morning. But for some reason, my darling husband, who is like a diaper-to-dollar calculator, didn’t bother to tell me how much our anniversary-away would set us back.
As I packed my overnight bag and thought pink, romantic thoughts about the years we’d spent together, I tried to forget that this would be our first night away from our baby girl, who suddenly seemed cuter and sweeter with each moment leading up to our departure. Then it hit me: This would be our first trip away from the baby. Suddenly, I understood why he had been so eager to cash in the Pampers and I panicked. A night. Alone. I’d have to shave beyond my knees! I’d have to find something cuter to wear than the fully-functional, peek-a-boo nursing tank-top I’d been sporting for almost a year. I broke out into a cold sweat, knowing exactly what needed to be done.
I didn’t even say a word. I just kissed my husband and the baby, grabbed my Christmas money and drove in a frenzy to the mall.
I stood in front of Victoria’s Secret for a long time before I found the courage to go inside. I even went and grabbed a pretzel and ate it as I stared at the windows all glammed-up with photos of generously, um, gifted women wearing teensy-tiny bits of lace. I sat there, in awe of the curves, the pink, the sparkle, the hair. Why are you so nervous? I thought to myself as I polished off the pretzel and cheese dip. You used to shop here all of the time! You scheduled things around the semi-annual sale for crying-out-loud. Manda-up! (I’m even cheesy in my head.)
I walked in and blushed. Yeah, it’s embarrassing but true. I couldn’t even make eye contact with anyone. I felt like I was in a night club in my pajamas, and not sexy pajamas but the ones you’ve been wearing for a week because you’ve had the flu and you’ve been too sick to change. I went to the sale rack, praying that I’d find something under $20 so I could use the rest of my money to do something useful…like buy diapers. There was a leopard-print frock, if you can call it that, with black lace trim. My stomach flipped. What am I doing here? I thought. I’m somebody’s mom! The next hanger had a French maid costume leftover from Halloween. Nope, the last thing I want to be on my anniversary-away is the maid. That’s a little too close to reality. I gave up when I got to the hot pink number that had “Sexy Little Thing” written in rhinestones across the backside because the words seemed too ironic spread across my post-baby rear end.
That’s when I saw a sweet, white and pink lace bra hanging on the wall. It was classy, feminine, sexy yet… motherly. I picked it up and ran to the dressing room all hunched over, avoiding human contact like Quazimodo.
There was a twenty-something girl waiting in the dressing room to help and even though, technically, I’m a twenty-something too, I knew we had little more in common than geography. She wore a black bustier under a black blazer and her pencil skirt was so tight, it looked like she was born wearing it. Her dark hair was long with that perfect uumph in the back, the one I can’t create without making my hair look like a nest for squirrels. She wore black stiletto heels that had red bottoms that showed when she walked. She was very sweet and helpful and bubbly and I hated her before she could even hang the bra on a hook in my dressing room.
I rushed, pulling the bra on so I could get out of there as quickly as possible but the sweet, innoncent-looking bra I chose had deceived me. Standing there, I looked like Little Bo Peep-Show. I stuck my head out and called for the girl, and with shame in my voice, asked for a larger size hoping that might help. She put her hand on her hip and said, “Why do you sound so disappointed, hun? Most women would kill to wear that size.”
I waited with my sweatshirt wrapped around me until I heard her knock on the door. “I’m sorry, we don’t have that one in your size but I found it in a different color for you!” She slid the bra into the dressing room and I just stared. It was black. It was red. It was lace. It had a crystal hanging from the center like a fishing lure.
I just stood there, staring.
“Hun, is this for a special occasion?” she said, leaning into the frame of the door like we were sorority sisters. And you know what? It worked. I was like a bag of flour ripping open. I gushed about quitting my job to stay home with my daughter, revealed how most days I was doing well to brush my teeth and confessed that motherhood had taken me so far away from Sexytown I couldn’t remember how and if I had it in me to get back. I could see in her eyes, as I stood there sharing my soul, that she had absolutley no clue what I was talking about so I just shut the door and leaned against it, cursing Victoria because she’s a good time friend. She’s there for the party; for the times when you’re perky and polished and put together but when the morning sickness starts and everything from your plans to your boosoms start to sag, nothing has your back like your trusty white cotton bra that you probably bought at Wal-mart.
I stood and allowed myself to look in the mirror. I didn’t agonize over my wider hips or the way my belly looked like a road map with lines etching out the places my daughter had once been. I just took it all in and for the first time in my life, I felt, well, beautiful. Not because I had dancer’s legs like I did at 16 when we started dating or because I was lean and tan like I was after spending months getting in shape for our trip to the Dominican Republic before our currency changed from dollars to diapers, but because after five years of marriage and a year of motherhood, I had grown into a white-bra woman; strong enough to hold it all together and soft despite the wear and tear of daily use.
When I think about the sexiest women I know, they are all white-bra gals, too. They are classic. They are comforting. They endure. I have nothing against satin and lace but it seems to me, a woman dressed in confidence already knows the secret to being sexy.
