Rae was so fixated on Ryan as he spoke—not the information he was spouting off but the shape of his lips around each word, the glistening of sweat on his brow, and the brilliance of his black curls under the sun—that she wasn’t watching Kimmy, even from the corner of an eye. So Rae was horrified when she finally looked Kimmy’s way after Ryan had finished his spiel, and discovered that Kimmy was stuffing two jellyfish down the front of her swimsuit, placing them right over her nonexistent breasts.

Kimmy massaged them theatrically through her swimsuit and did a little dance.

“They’re like those things you put on in front of the mirror the other day,” Kimmy gleefully pointed out to Rae.

Rae was stunned into silence.

Kimmy continued, “You know, those chicken cutlet things Mom keeps in her underwear drawer. You put them in your bra the other day. I saw you.”

Kimmy was clearly so delighted at having made the association between the size and shape of the jellyfish and that of Lisa’s silicone bra inserts that she was completely oblivious to Rae’s reaction and to Ryan’s discomfort at bearing witness to this. He was staring intently at the ground before him, shuffling some jellyfish around with his toes. Kimmy wouldn’t stop. She would never stop. Now she struck a pop-star pose: chest out, booty out, lips out, and she said to Rae through her shoved-out lips, “I saw you put those things in your trainer bra and you stood like this in front of the mirror.”

Kimmy exaggerated the pose even further and then broke it, collapsing into giggles.

Rae’s face was so full of angry blood she thought her whole brain might shoot out through her nostrils.

It was true, of course.

The girls had first discovered the cutlets years ago while putting away folded laundry, and Kimmy had carried one down to the kitchen, where Lisa stood over a steaming pot. Kimmy held the cutlet up like a dirty Kleenex and demanded, “What the heck is this? It was in your drawer with your undies.”

Rae had followed closely behind her sister, sharing Kimmy’s curiosity about the cool, fleshy blob, but, as usual, lacking Kimmy’s will for confrontation.

Lisa was stirring something in the pot with a wooden spoon. She looked over her shoulder and laughed when she saw what Kimmy was holding. She balanced the spoon across the top of the pot so she could face her daughters while she explained. “Sometimes ladies buy dresses or shirts that don’t fit right around the chest. Around their breasts,” she clarified. “So then sometimes ladies use these things to make a garment lay better over their breasts.”

Lisa took the cutlet from Kimmy so she could demonstrate. She lifted her shirt and tucked it beneath her bra.

Kimmy said, “But you don’t need that, Mommy, your breasts are pretty big already.”

For some reason, this made Lisa laugh really hard. “I’m glad you think so,” she said. “But they were even bigger, quite a lot bigger, actually, when you were a baby and breastfeeding.”