The Nearest Heart

The Dale and Susan visit is in two weeks, which Emmy knows because she has been aware of it for approximately three weeks, in the way that you become aware of something approaching at speed and your brain begins its preparatory calculations without being asked. Second bedroom: the spare comforter needs washing. Towels: the good ones are in the back of the linen cupboard where Juliet put them in October when she was organizing and Emmy could not find them. Meals: Juliet bakes, which Dale will not quite understand but which Susan will appreciate immediately, and Emmy can cook three things reliably and one of them is a roast which might be appropriately impressive or might be trying too hard. She does not know yet. She is still running the calculations.

Juliet is aware of all of these things too, but has filed them away under things Emmy is handling and will direct me as such. They are her in-laws, but having not had the benefit of parents for several years, Juliet lacks recent experience trying to live up to expectations. She is, in this as in certain other things, trusting Emmy's read of the situation. This is not passivity — it is the specific confidence of someone who knows which questions to defer and which ones to answer for themselves.

"Emmy," Juliet says.

"I know," Emmy says. "Present."

This is something Juliet has said exactly twice before, in exactly this tone, and both times Emmy had been somewhere else in her head and had required the recall. Juliet says it without judgment — it is an observation, not a complaint — and Emmy surfaces from the Dale-and-Susan logistics and finds they are standing outside the shop at the far end of Marlowe Street, which is where they were going, and which is in fact open, and she had apparently walked here on autopilot. The name of the shop is Corrections, which is entirely too pretentious for a department store. But their upscale marketing suggests that they can help anyone find the perfect piece to correct anything they dislike about their wardrobe, their home, their life, or their universe. Their marketing is very optimistic. Juliet and Emmy just need new underwear. But they'd heard good things, so they decided to pop in.

"I was planning," Emmy says.

"I know," Juliet says. "You do it with your left hand when you walk." She is already at the door, which means she has been watching Emmy's left hand. "After you, dear."

#

The shop has been open just under a year and they have walked past it probably thirty times since it arrived at the end of the street, and this is the first time they've come in. This is not laziness — it is the particular relationship that people develop with shops they intend to visit, where the intention becomes a comfortable background item that doesn't require action. Today it required action because both of them, in separate conversations over the past week, mentioned needing new things, and then Juliet said "the shop at the end of the street" and Emmy said "yes" and here they are.

Inside: the specific quality of a shop designed by someone who understood the difference between luxurious and ostentatious, with an obvious disconnect between the designer and the marketing staff. Warm lighting that does not overcorrect. Fitting rooms with actual space and actual mirrors. Staff who make eye contact and then let you breathe. A floor plan that moves between categories — lingerie in the back left, clothing across the middle, homegoods toward the front right near the window, and somewhere in the back right, Emmy notices, a swimwear section that is seasonal and currently up. May. The pool weather is not here yet, but it is becoming a reasonable prospect.

"They have swimwear," Emmy says.

Juliet looks toward the back of the shop with the expression of someone filing this for later. "Noted," she says.

They go left.

#

The fitting room assistant is a woman about their age who has the specific efficiency of someone who enjoys her work and does it well. She takes Emmy's measurement — confirms what Emmy already knew, 32B, she has known this since she was eighteen — and gestures toward a section of the display with the particular grace of someone who has matched a customer to a category in under three seconds. Emmy's not entirely sure why she bothers to get remeasured every so often. But the service is free, it's slightly embarrassing in a good for character development sort of way, and besides, her wife is here and she's slightly curious what she might find if she were also fitted.

"I'll leave you to it," the assistant says. "Just call if you need anything."

Emmy finds three options that interest her. Tries one. Finds it exactly right. Is done.

She sits in the chair outside Juliet's fitting room and occupies herself with her phone and the distant background calculations about the second bedroom comforter, and she does not say anything about the fact that she has been done for four minutes and Juliet is still inside. Emmy has her suspicions about why. Emmy knows something Juliet may not have noticed yet. A perk of being someone's spouse and seeing them in a certain light.

From behind the curtain: a sound that is not quite a sigh and not quite a comment but is somewhere between the two.

"How's it going?" Emmy asks.

Juliet opens the door and looks to the fitting room assistant, who is standing nearby with her measuring tape.

"Emmy, tell this woman that I'm a 32C."

Emmy looks to the weary fitting room assistant, who seemed so happy just a few moments ago. The assistant tries to smooth things with a forced chuckle.

"I'm sorry, ma'am — but according to my measurements you're a 34D," she says, with the manner of someone delivering news they've delivered before and have made peace with.

"Nonsense. I've been a 32C for — well — as long as I've had breasts," Juliet exclaims. The assistant might wonder why Juliet did not give a year range. If Juliet were to explain that caveat, it would only fluster the poor woman considerably more.

"Here, let me take a look," Emmy says, coming over. The assistant takes the measurements once more and she and Emmy both look at the tape while Juliet stands there as close to annoyed as Juliet gets.

"Oh — nope, Jules, she's right. You're a 34D for sure. I guess your body has changed a little since you were last measured." In truth, the last measurement had been Emmy's own hasty work in a Walmart about eighteen months ago. It could have been wrong then, but Emmy honestly isn't sure. Emmy had noticed that Juliet was somewhat more ample in recent months. Neither woman had gained weight, but perhaps this was simply a filling out of sorts — a body continuing to become itself. Or perhaps it was just seeing her as her spouse.

"I'm — sorry," Juliet says to the fitting room assistant.

"Oh, no problem at all, ma'am. I'd be a bit shocked if my body changed on me suddenly."

The irony is not lost on Juliet or Emmy, who laugh a bit too long and loud at the innocent statement.

"It is shocking," Juliet agrees.

#

The thing about a 34D cup — and this is, Emmy has come to understand over the past year and a half, a specific and ongoing thing rather than a situation that resolves — is that it requires architecture. Not engineering in the technical sense, but the particular applied physics of a structure that must simultaneously support, sit correctly, not interfere, look good under clothing, look good on its own, and do all of these things within a price range that does not make Juliet's expression go flat in the specific way it goes flat when something is technically correct but unreasonably priced.

With Juliet's size confirmed, the fitting room assistant disappears to the back of the section and returns with several options, each presented with the authority of someone who has spent genuine time with the stock. Emmy feels a bit bad about not warning Juliet this could happen. The truth was that for the past eighteen months Juliet's primary motivation in choosing a bra had been whether it was available, stretchy, and didn't actively rebel when she tried to put it on. Consequently she had very few with much structure or support in them. Good for Juliet's comfort, perhaps not the best for her presentation to the world. But Emmy had picked her battles.

"These are your best candidates," the assistant says. "The center panel on the second one does most of the work. The third is underwired along the full cup rather than just the base — better for your shape. And the first—" she tilts her head, professional assessment — "is beautiful, but you'll want a specialist fit."

Juliet receives this information as she receives all information: completely and without visible reaction.

Three options become five, because Juliet is thorough. Then six, because the assistant brings one more on her own initiative based on something she has apparently determined. Then five again, when Juliet eliminates one immediately for reasons she does not explain but which Emmy can confirm are correct.

From outside the fitting room, the occasional sounds of Juliet in a task requiring precision applied to something personal are easy for Emmy to decode — the same as Juliet in any task, but with the added component of a mirror. Emmy aligns easily with the signals she detects.

"The third one," Emmy says, at some point, because she knows the third one is, straightforwardly, the answer.

"I know," Juliet says. "I'm building a case."

Emmy returns to the chair. The Dale and Susan calculations briefly resume — the good towels, she keeps reminding herself, are in the second shelf of the linen cupboard, pushed to the back — and then Juliet emerges from the fitting room in the third one, having apparently reached the same conclusion through a different route, and the calculations stop.

#

The thing that Emmy does not say — not because she wouldn't, but because the moment doesn't require it — is that both things are true at once. The first: that she has drawn the easy hand at this particular counter, that the 32B experience of the world involves fewer decisions and lower expenditure and substantially less structural consideration, and she is aware of this advantage and would be lying if she claimed not to appreciate it. The second: that she has absolutely no complaints about what comes with Juliet's particular shape, none, not a single one, and this has been true for some time and becomes more specifically true in fitting rooms.

A win-win, by any reasonable measure.

She doesn't say this either. She communicates it in the specific way that Calloway women communicate things when words would take too long — through the quality of attention she brings to bear — and Juliet, who is equally attentive, receives it, and the slight blush that results is, in Emmy's considered opinion, an excellent return on the investment.

"The third one," Juliet confirms.

"Excellent choice," Emmy says, in a voice that subtly betrays all of the reasons she approves.

"I know."

#

They browse the rest of the shop with the pleasant unhurried quality of people who have no further agenda. Emmy finds two shirts she likes in the clothing section — one cobalt, obviously, and one a deep green she had not expected — and holds them both for a while before deciding the green is not quite right and putting it back. Juliet finds a linen scarf in a shade Emmy cannot name but which is clearly correct for Juliet, who holds it briefly and then puts it over her arm with the decisiveness of someone who has stopped deliberating. And while she'd never admit it to Emmy, Juliet purchases it without concrete ideas for its use. Her deliberations had simply concluded it was likely to be useful later.

The homegoods section is near the front window, in the afternoon light: some glassware, a few considered kitchen objects, the kind of things that are too specific to be necessary and too right to leave behind entirely. Juliet picks up a small ceramic pouring jug and holds it in her palm with an expression Emmy recognizes as this is a well-made thing rather than we need this.

"We don't need this," Juliet says.

"We don't," Emmy agrees.

Juliet puts it back with the specific gentleness of someone returning a thing to a place it will remain without them.

On the way out they pass the swimwear section again. Emmy stops long enough to look properly — the racks are organized by style, a few good options, the kind of range that has done its research. Juliet stands beside her.

"When it's warm enough," Emmy says.

"When it's warm enough," Juliet agrees.

They go.

#

The walk home is the short way, because they have bags and the light has shifted into the particular late-afternoon slant of May that makes Marlowe Street look specifically like itself. Juliet has the linen scarf already around her shoulders, testing its usefulness, because May and because she runs cold and because it was there. Emmy has the cobalt shirt and the 32B acquisition and the knowledge of the third one and the quality of a day that required no Dale-and-Susan logistics whatsoever for approximately the last two hours.

"Good call," Emmy says, about the shop in general.

"We've walked past it thirty times," Juliet says.

"At least."

"More."

They agree on more.

#

Home: the green door, the small step up, the house receiving them in the specific way of a late-May afternoon that has been well-used. Juliet takes the bags to the bedroom. Emmy puts the kettle on, or doesn't — the details of the hour are secondary to the fact of being home and the specific residue of a day that included fitting rooms and Juliet in the third one, which Emmy has thought about approximately four times since the shop.

The clothing-as-language operates on a delay, sometimes. Today the delay is not long.

Later: the afternoon light, longer now than it's been since October, doing its May things through the bedroom curtains. The bags from the shop are on the chair. Juliet's linen scarf is on the bedside table. Various clothing items are wherever they landed. And Emmy has stopped thinking about the good towels entirely.

Lying in bed with Emmy's arm wrapped around hers, Juliet looks over at her.

"How long have you known that I've been wearing poorly fitting bras in the wrong size?" Juliet asks.

"Oh. Probably since we ate breakfast at that diner after you fought and lost against my grey sports bra. I didn't want you to feel bad about it — you had just become a woman after all."

"So for eighteen months—"

"Your regular bras haven't been as supportive or flattering as they could be, your sports bras stretch too quickly, and your boobs don't look — well, they look good to me, but the rest of the world probably hasn't noticed them that much."

They lie in silence for a moment, Juliet processing the thought.

"You wanted me to find out in my time?"

"Well, yes. And maybe I just didn't want my bombshell of a wife to be too seen by others. I'm greedy sometimes," Emmy replied.

"You certainly are not, Emmy Hartwell-Calloway. Nothing in our relationship has ever been greedy on your part," Juliet replied — a matter of fact, not flattery.

"Still, I appreciate you subtly guiding me to sufficiency. I'm surprised my analysis didn't catch my — bombshell potential," Juliet said, with precisely the amount of wryness required.

"And for the record — the green one," Juliet says, about Emmy's un-purchased shirt. "Was right."

Emmy opens one eye. "I know."

"You should go back."

"I will," Emmy says. She won't, probably. She'll go back. "Are you giving me fashion advice?"

"I'm giving you accurate information," Juliet says, with the particular quality of someone who has recently been in a fitting room and knows several things about what looks good. "They're related but not identical."

This is, Emmy thinks, an excellent use of a phrase they now have, and she says so, and Juliet laughs — the actual one, the one that doesn't happen often enough — and the afternoon continues its excellent work.

* * *