Gossip Girl: It Had To Be You

J meets the mother she never had

The Village Bra Shop, located on the corner of Christopher Street and Seventh Avenue, looked like the kind of store that had been around since the 1970s, selling wigs, hairnets, and peds to dotty old ladies. The peach-colored painted brick was cracked and peeling; the store's plain black-and-white sign was so badly faded it was barely legible; and the only window displayed a dusty, shapeless mannequin with cracked green eye shadow wearing a pink raincoat and black rubber rain boots. Her raincoat hid her boobs so completely there wasn't even a suggestion of a bra. Jenny was worried. Where were the bras?

She pushed the door open and stuck her head inside the tiny shop, ready to flee if it looked scary. Immediately facing her were racks and racks of beautifully crafted, impossible-to-find-anywhere-else bras from faraway places like Hungary, Poland, Belgium, France, England, Brazil, and Hong Kong. There were push-ups and gel-lifts and racer-backs and nursing bras, strapless bras, convertible bras, underwire bras, and wire-free bras. The Village Bra Shop was bra heaven.

Jenny stepped all the way inside and rang the little bell at the unmanned desk at the front of the store. A tiny old lady sporting a white bun, huge black-framed glasses, a white lab coat, and lumpy ankles appeared from the back. She looked like Nanny from the animated Disney version of 101 Dalmatians, which Jenny used to be addicted to watching.

"Help you?" she demanded in a thick Brooklyn accent. Her head bobbed as she sized Jenny up. A yellow measuring tape dangled from her neck. Jenny could almost see the numbers flashing in the thick lenses of Nanny's specs: 32 x 22 x 27. "I understand. You're growing. I can help," she added before Jenny could explain herself, then swiftly locked the shop's glass door, lowered a black Venetian blind to obscure the view from the street, and yanked her measuring tape down off her shoulders. "Take everything off the top. Arms up like an airplane. Don't worry, no one can see inside. It's very private.

Jenny timidly took off her sweater and her Playtex bra and placed them on top of the metal desk with the bell on it. She closed her eyes and raised her arms up like airplane wings. She was naked in front of a complete stranger inside a store—it seemed crucial to keep her eyes closed to keep from dying of embarrassment.

Nanny wound the measuring tape around her chest. It tickled. Jenny kept her eyes shut tight as Nanny muttered to herself and fished around for a pen on the desk. She measured each of Jenny's boobs individually, from several different angles.

"Thirty-two C," she finally pronounced, tapping Jenny's forearm to indicate that it was okay to put her arms down. She shuffled deep into the store and came back carrying a plain white cotton underwire bra with a plain white satin bow on the front of it. "Doesn't look like much but it's perfect for a growing girl. It will give you nice coverage and keep its shape in the wash." She smiled as she helped Jenny adjust the bra's straps. "From Poland. Very good quality bra."

Jenny waited while Nanny fastened the three hook-and-eye closures. Then she followed her to the back of the store to look at herself in the mirror. Her body looked tiny, and then there was the bra. It didn't push her up or give her extra cleavage—it swallowed her.

There was something very old-fashioned about it, Jenny decided with a disappointed frown. Like it was the first bra ever made. And it made her boobs look like torpedoes. Poland wasn't exactly the epicenter of the fashion industry, either. "It's too big," she complained. After all, it was a C cup. She'd been measuring herself every day for the last week and she was no C cup.

"It's really not," Nanny insisted calmly. "In a month you'll be back asking for a bigger one."

Jenny's brown eyes opened wide. But she'd stopped taking the supplements. Her boobs were perfect now. She liked them just the way they were—the same size as Serena van der Woodsen's—give or take a quarter inch. "What do you mean?"