I feel a tug on my sleeve. It’s the editorial page editor of the Los Angeles Times, a woman I once worked with and have long admired. Suddenly, I’m sweating. She greets me warmly, but all I feel is panic. What is she thinking? Will she ever take me seriously again? After a few minutes I can stand it no longer. This isn’t really me, I tell her.
“I wasn’t going to say anything, but I’m so relieved. I thought you’d gone Hollywood!” she says, laughing in a way that suggests she was holding her breath. She gives all three of us a hug and heads back to her table. I let my paranoia settle. What does it say about my breasts that I am embarrassed to be seen with them?
THE GIRLS ARE BEGINNING TO TIRE. LIKE Many an aging breast, Jayne is losing her Shape slightly, while Sophia has developed a Stubborn wrinkled I had vowed to wear them until I understood their essence. Now I sense that our time together is growing short.
One Saturday night they feel like dancing, so we head to Barfly on the Sunset Strip. Brad Pitt is an investor here, and there’s a crowd around the red velvet rope at the door. My pocket guide to nightclubs describes Barfly as a place that “boils L.A. down to its most superficial elements,” so it seems the perfect spot to measure the girls’ clout. We present ourselves to the bouncer. All it takes is a glance. He unhooks the rope. We’re in.
Under an incongruous photograph of Charles Bukowski, men and women are wriggling around to a techno beat. Mine are by no means the only big breasts in the house. There are plenty of other distractions, from bare midriffs to butt-hugging jeans. The girls blend right in.
Later, as we approach the parking lot, I hear a flirtatious voice behind me: “Don’t turn your back on me.” The voice belongs to Kevin, an insurance salesman from Portland, Oregon. He’s kind of cute, in his red-and-black Hawaiian shirt, but I’m kind of sleepy, so I speak bluntly. What, I ask him, did he notice first about me?
Kevin is game. He likes breasts, he volunteers, but finds mine to be a little much. “Where I come from,” he explains, “women who have big breasts have big butts.” I let him in on my secret as a carload of teenage girls drives by, blasting Britney Spears. “I’m not that innocent!” Britney screams. Kevin then launches into some role-playing of his own. “I am very wealthy,” he says in a tone that makes clear he’s not. “I have a big dick. Do you want to fuck me?”
I laugh, sort of, and instinctively give the girls a comforting squeeze.
“I’m making a point,” Kevin says. I hope he is going to hurry up about it because Sophia and Jayne are itching to get home. I’m in my car now. Kevin stands on the sidewalk, talking to me through the half-open passenger window. Big breasts, like other big things, are often overrated, he says. “Tits,” he concludes solemnly. “Tits are great, but they don’t make a relationship.”
THERE IS A PHENOMENON PLAStic surgeons talk about though rarely encounter. A woman elects to have her breasts augmented, the surgery is successful, and the woman’s physical prognosis is excellent. Her mental state, however, deteriorates. She just can’t accept her new body.
“It’s a dramatic change, and some women never incorporate the implants into their body psychology,” says Christine Petti, a Torrance-based plastic surgeon who has seen this condition just once in 13 years of practice. “They think they want them, but once they have them, no. It’s a phobia.”
I understand completely.
When I look in the mirror, I’m struck by the visual tricks that proportions play. My waist looks nonexistent. Everything about me is dwarfed by what rests eight inches under my chin. My D cups are like an invading army, threatening to take over my life. Not once do they feel like part of me.
I wear them to jury duty. In the past I have always been rejected during voir dire. If the busty me gets chosen to sit on a panel, I think, it will prove Sophia and Jayne’s influence beyond a reasonable doubt. My experiment is foiled, however, because we don’t get out of the waiting room. I am left to ponder, day after day, why breasts hold such sway.
