Big Fat Manifesto (3 page)
Authors: Susan Vaught
But in these mirrors
Like I said, I don't look away from the truth.
I'm here for the story. Don't forget the story.
I actually worry about wounding the beautiful shirt, but I take it off its hanger and pull it over my head. I even manage
to get my arms in, though I stretch the fabric as far as it'll go. I can't even begin to pull it down over my boobs, much
less my belly. The color's perfect for the skirt, but I'll never see that amazing matching blue pattern on
my
body.
For a few seconds, I just breathe and sweat and wait for the red to leave my cheeks. I guess I'm red because I'm hot and breathing
hard and maybe embarrassed. The camera doesn't need to see that. I lift up my bag, pull out the little wireless lens, and
make sure I get my stuffed-sausage arms. I get the strangle-neck, and the fact the shirt won't come down over the rest of
my upper body.
"These are my choices," I whisper for the microphones, in case Freddie wants to use it on her cable show. "Diana's and the
giant human grape look, or clothes that fit like this. In a store where I should be able to buy something right for my age.
This is my life, in a white-and-blue-sausage, strangle-neck nutshell."
Then I put down the camera, take the shirt off, hang it back up, and brush it back into shape as best I can. It takes me a
minute to get my clothes back on, to get my wires and mikes and cam repositioned to walk out, and another minute to realize
I'm crying.
God, but I despise trying on clothes, even in this store, where I knew what would happen.
Get a grip.
It's not your fault the fashion world uses plastic dolls for design
models.
Get ... a ... grip.
I sniff, which sets off Freddie, who must have been lurking close enough to hear me. I never sniff, so she knows what that
means. She reaches over the door, feels around, and snatches the shirt. The hanger clatters against the door.
"Excuse me," she says to somebody I can't see, since I'm still in the dressing room. Then louder, "Hey, chica. Listen up,
if you can quit slobbering over stick-child there for a minute. Yeah, you. Do you have this in a larger size?"
This wasn't in the plan. Not in the script. We're done. We should just be leaving now. But Freddie's getting louder.
"No? Well, why not? Don't you realize thirty percent of the girls in this town—probably more—can't buy your stupid clothes?"
I snatch my things, bang out of the dressing room, and try to grab Freddie's shoulder, but it's too late. She's gone red in
the face, and with Freddie, that's
not
because she's hot or breathing hard or embarrassed.
"What?" Freddie yells at the collection of saleswomen now clogging the fitting room hallway, Blowfish front and center. "Jamie's
supposed to shop at that old lady place, right? Not bother you and your precious little small-people store. Well, here's a
clue. Life's a bitch, and so are you!"
And then, as if to bring the wrath of heaven down on Hotchix, Freddie shouts,
"Cabretta
is most definitely meat. You've got sheepskin touching your bod, NoNo."
NoNo's brain-vibrating scream makes the saleswomen cover their ears.
"No! No! No! No!" She keeps screaming and starts pitching stuff over the dressing room wall like she's got spiders crawling
all over her and the clothes and the dressing room, too.
"No! No!"
Then she runs out in her bra and panties, freckles flaring, knobby knees knocking. She starts mumbling, and I'm not sure what
she's doing, but I think she might be praying. Only the clot of saleswomen in the door keep NoNo from charging into the supermall
half-naked.
"You lied to me!" she screeches at the clerks, who back away, I figure to call security. NoNo throws the "faux" leather jacket.
It snags on Blowfish's hair. "No! No! Filthy, animal-killing liar, liar, liars!"
It takes us a few minutes, but we get NoNo dressed, drag her out of Hotchix before anyone in uniforms (or white coats) shows
up, and exit the Garwood Supermall.
Freddie's still fuming as we strap NoNo into the front seat of Freddie's old Toyota, determine that she has no nerve pills,
and decide to tell her mom to take her right back to that shrink she used to see for her phobias and panic attacks.
"Those women were so obnoxious to you, Jamie." Freddie opens the back door for me, and I crawl in and use the seatbelt extender
she got me a long time ago to fasten myself in place. "I mean, they were bad enough with me, but what they said, how they
looked, how they acted—Goddess, I knew it would happen, but I wanted to kill them
alU"
She yanks off her designer shades and checks the mic wires, then plucks the little cam off her shirt. "Hope this stuff registered.
They are so gonna pay. I'm making this story one, leadoff."
Before I can answer, she pins her eyes on me in therearview mirror. "You okay, right?"
"Yeah," I say, making my voice as loud and boomy as possible, even though for some reason I still want to cry, and I definitely
want to crush the little cam that got all those pics of me in that pretty, pretty shirt with that delicate little pattern
that I will never be able to wear. Not that it would be delicate on me anyhow.
Bul Ihe world needs to see. I have to make them understand. And
I have to win that damned scholarship.
As NoNo finally settles and starts sucking down her leftover decaf soy frappuccino (we never let NoNo have actual caffeine,
never, never, never), Freddie cranks the car and says, "Want to go to Burke's?"
"We can't." I lean back as Freddie touches up her usually perfect hairdo. "He's grounded for coming in late and calling his
sister a witch. Didn't he tell you?"
Freddie's hands freeze on her hair. She takes a few sharp breaths, then turns the Toyota right back off again. She swivels
all the way around in her seat, until we're eye to eye. Her expression gives me a total chill.
"Is that what he told you about why he couldn't do stuff this week—that he's grounded?" She turns back around and bangs her
hand on the steering wheel. "That coward-ass piece of shit, I swear to God I'll kill him."
My mouth falls open, and that chill turns into an uncomfortable numbness. It starts in my feet and spreads up my back and
neck, all the way out to my hands and fingers.
I don't need to be a Sherlock to realize Burke has lied to me big-time. I can read it in every line on Freddie's smooth olive
face. I can hear it in the frantic way NoNo's sucking on her frappuccino.
They know something I don't. Something major, and maybe something bad. It happens sometimes, the three original Musketeers
sticking together and leaving out the fourth. Me. Only it hasn't happened since Burke and I got serious.
Burke hasn't lied to me since we got serious. Not that I know of.
Is he in trouble for something else? Going on some secret trip?
Is there another girl? God knows he takes enough shit from his sisters over seeing a white girl, even if that white girl is
me and they used to like me. They just don't like me dating Burke.
"He's... not grounded?" I ask, feeling thick-tongued and a little unreal.
The world separates itself from me as I have a moment of sensing life-without-Burke. Which would be nothing. No life at all.
No dances, no dates, no kisses, no hugs.
That can't be. It can't be that kind of lie.
Right?
REGULAR FEATURE
for publication Friday, August 17
The Hotchix Revelations
JAMIE D. CARCATERRA
Check out these pics, [insert image of saleswomen here; make Blowfish prominent] These women did not want to sell me a shirt.
Why?
Because I'm fat.
And Hotchix clearly doesn't want fat people wearing their clothes, [insert image of me in the dressing room]
In fact, they didn't want to wait on me at all. And they had plenty to say, trust me, as if Fat Girl doesn't have ears and
can't get her feelings hurt just like the next girl, [insert image of snottiest expressions]
Ask any Fat Girl you know, or any large guy for that matter. They'll tell you what it feels like to walk into a store like
this and be glared at like you're nasty rotten gum on the bottom of somebody's pointy-toed witchy-poo shoe.
But before you go picketing outside Hotchix, know two very important things. First, Freddie Acosta already told those women
off, and once you've been told off by Freddie, trust me, there's not much left to say.
Second, Hotchix is nothing special, nothing new, and definitely not alone. A few years back, a big clothing designer—who used
to be fat himself, by the way—actually had a little snit when some of his creations were manufactured in "larger sizes." (Uh,
like size 14? That's sooo large.) "What I created was fashion for slim, slender people," he said.
Seriously.
If you don't believe me, look it up.
So, many—maybe most—of the major designers don't offer "large sizes" (large being defined seemingly at random). If they do,
it's only online, not in the brick-and-mortar stores. So, my friends and I, who are all different sizes, can't go clothes
shopping together, even for the Senior Shoot.
Never mind the fact that large sizes are lots more expensive, so for those of us not rolling in dough, it's Diana's and the
West End or nothing. And I'm sorry. I'm too cool for Diana's and the West End. Besides, the air just doesn't smell good in
there.
I need more options. I need real clothes I can actually wear and afford. I need a blue shirt with a wonderful pattern to match
my skirt.
Is that impossible?
According to Hotchix and some clothing designers, I guess it is.
"Nothing's bothering me," I snarl into my cell as I fold my column and tuck it into my skirt pocket. "I just got Fat Girl
done. This one's gonna kick some ass."
Heath Montel stays quiet on the other end for a few seconds. I can hear him breathing. Imagine him sitting at the big brown
desk in the journalism suite, talking on that ancient black phone with the handset and cord, and running his hand through
the blond hair that hangs in his eyes. "You sure you're... okay after all that?"
No, I'm not okay. Everything sucks right now because my
boyfriend's a rotten liar whose probably cheating on me, and Freddie
and NoNo are freaked, and I'll never wear that pretty shirt, and now
you
called in the middle of everything.
Out loud, managing to keep my tone even and calm, I say, "I'm fine."
"Okay, good." Heath lets out a breath. "I was worried about you. That the whole Hotchix scene might have been—I don't know—traumatic,
or something."
"It was for NoNo." I give her a glance to be sure she's breathing normally. She is. Big relief. "She got way upset by animal
skin. I owe her the best vegetarian meal ever, at some green restaurant that recycles everything."
Freddie nods.
NoNo sighs and fiddles with her recycled straw.
My grip on the cell eases, and I realize my hand's sweating. "Freddie came through okay, too, except the store clerks pissed
her off."
Another nod from Freddie. A snicker from NoNo. Heath, too.
"I'm sure she'll handle them on her cable show.
That
I'm looking forward to." Another pause. Like Heath really doesn't want to hang up, but knows he should. "Will I see you tonight,
Jamie? For layout, I mean."
Quick glance at the watch. My heartbeat picks up when I see I've only got about forty minutes to get back to the school.
"Wiz
practice is seven to eight thirty. I'll be there as soon as it's over."
"Okay, good. That's good."
Weird.
But then, Heath's weird all over, so that's no real surprise. I don't have time to figure him out right now. We're almost
to Burke's, so I tell Heath good-bye, punch the phone off, and slide it into my pocket.
Freddie parks her car.
We get out and march up the sidewalk like a stiff, angry army.
The minute Burke opens the big double doors of his fine, fine house on the hill, he knows he's toast.
What with the three of us standing there, me with arms folded, Freddie with hands on hips, and NoNo half-choking on her chewed-to-death
recycled frappuccino straw, he can hardly miss that fact.
He doesn't even try to talk. He just lets us in and says, "Can we keep the screaming down? My mom's asleep."
His mom supervises the night shift at Garwood Hospital, and we all love her, so we nod. Then we stalk inside and make a quick
visual check for Burke's sisters.
They're both in college, but they live close by—and visit a lot. They're a little hard to deal with, especially where baby-boy
Burke is concerned. I'm glad neither of them is hanging around, claws extended, fangs at the ready. If I'm going to kill Burke
for lying, I don't need any witnesses who won't help me hide the body.
He ushers us through their big living room and takes us into the fancy, stainless-steel kitchen, where he's chowing on a major
plate of nachos and a two-liter bottle of Coke.
Guys.
I swear.
Haven't any of them heard of glasses? Or silverware?
We sit at his family's big round table, Burke between Freddie and me and NoNo on the far side, where NoNo just seems to belong.
She plants her hands on the smooth maple and her expression says she'd rather die than keep sitting there, but she keeps sitting.
Maybe the cheese on the nachos is bothering her, or the sour cream, or the upcoming conflict. With NoNo, it's hard to tell
which phobia or fanatic belief has taken center stage.
As for me, the rich, spicy smell of the nachos bumps against the tight knots of anger and dread in my belly, and I feel a
little sick. For a few seconds, I look at the ceiling, at the cabinets, at the nachos, out the window—anywhere but directly
at Burke, the boy who is supposed to be the love of my life.
It's dusk now, and the lights of Garwood, spread out below Burke's house, start to flicker and twinkle. The lamp over the
table gives off a soft yellow glow, and his kitchen widescreen is set on the NFL Network. Of course. He taps a button on his
remote and mutes the sound as Freddie gestures toward the nachos.
"Last meal?" she asks, sounding way harsh, even for her. The little knots of anger bouncing in my belly turn colder and start
to quiver.
I stare at Burke's handsome face, at his sad eyes and big frown.
Is something wrong with him?
NoNo says, "Fred, you're being mean." Then, "We shouldn't even be here. This is between Jamie and Burke."
Freddie cuts NoNo an evil glance. "It's all of us, okay?
All
of us. Nobody gets out of this in one piece, I'm betting."
"Freddie," Burke starts, but I stop him by putting my hand on his and looking him straight in the face. When he starts to
hang his head, I pinch his fingers tight in mine.
"What's going on?" I ask, intending to sound forceful, but my words come out like a mouse-whisper.
Burke fidgets, but doesn't take his hand out of mine. "I've been wanting to tell you, honest. I just couldn't figure out.
. . didn't know . . . I can't—"
He hangs his head again, and I give him another pinch to bring him back to me.
This time, when he meets my gaze, he seems so sad I want to kiss him. But behind the sad, there's this weird sort of excitement,
kind of like a fever.
I'm not sure I've ever been so scared in my whole life. And I don't like scared. I hate scared.
"I don't know how to tell you, Jamie," he murmurs.
"Oh, for shit's sake, Burke," Freddie snaps, "try words. Words usually work."
"Stop," NoNo instructs Freddie, a little louder this time, and, surprisingly, Freddie does stop. She fiddles with her dress
and her falling-down updo, flops back in her chair, and spends her energy glaring at NoNo instead of hollering at Burke.
So I'm waiting now, to hear the worst.
He's cheated on me.
He's in love with some other girl.
He got some girl pregnant.
He has some disease.
Oh, God. He gave
me
some disease?
With each passing second, I want to kiss him more, or kill him faster. I can't decide.
He closes his eyes. Opens them. Opens his mouth, and says, "I've decided to have the surgery. I've been doing the counseling
part, and I went in this afternoon for the start of the pre-op workup. Surgery date's in about a month." For a while, probably
a long time, I don't move or say anything at all, because I can't.
Of all the things shooting through my head, this so wasn't on the list.
Inside my stomach and brain, something like a riot breaks out. I feel like I can hear my own heart beating, screaming, shouting,
and his and Freddie's and NoNo's and somewhere upstairs Burke's mother's heart, too.
Thumping.
Just blood in my ears, thumping away. My throat's so dry I want to drink a lake, or maybe a river, or even a beer, except
I hate beer.
"You ..." I finally manage as my hand slides away from his. "You can't."
Burke hangs his head one more time, and I let him.
"Oh he can, too," Freddie says. "And his parents and skinny-ass sisters are all behind it. He won't listen to me or NoNo or
anybody."
The surgery,
my brain echoes.
I know what he means.
And I just can't believe it.
Burke's about to have weight-loss surgery. He's going to get banded or stapled or tied or ballooned or whatever it is. He's
going to let doctors cut him open and risk his life and give away his senior year of football to... to what?
Shop at the male version of Hotchix?
"I'm academically out of football," he says to the tops of his knees, as if hearing part of my thoughts. "Besides, this is
more important."
When he does look up, that fever has taken over his features, making him almost unrecognizable to me. "Jamie, I don't want
to be fat anymore. When I graduate, I don't want to be a big black elephant just lumbering across the stage. I want—I want
to look buff I want to look
good."
"You're a god now," I say, trying to figure out who I'm talking to, who this alien being is, that's taken over Burke's body,
my boyfriend's body, and plans to change it in ways I can't even begin to imagine or understand.
"I'm a god to you. But not to myself."
"To me—isn't that enough?" I turn my chair to face him straight on. "Burke, does my opinion count for anything?"
"Okay, yeah, we shouldn't be here," Freddie says to NoNo as they both stand up. "We'll, um, be in the car, Jamie. As long
as it takes."
I barely notice them leaving, except for NoNo dropping her chomped frappuccino straw on the tile floor of Burke's kitchen.
The slobbery piece of red recycled plastic seems to bounce in slow motion, and I wonder if I lost my sanity five minutes ago,
and how I'll ever get it back.
Burke's talking before the front doors even close, but I'm not hearing all of it. Just pieces. "... nothing to do with you,
with us, I swear, I just didn't know how to tell you. How to convince you it's what's best for me." He cups my cheek, then
runs his fingers from my cheek to my chin while I can't move and wish I could cry and tell him to stop or slap him or something.
Anything.
"You'll be my goddess, no matter what, Jamie. You know that, right?" He leans forward and kisses me, but my lips don't move.
This backs him off.
He shakes his head and sighs. "I knew you'd be like this. All mad."
"Mad?" My own voice sounds like it's coming from Mars. "That's what you think I'm feeling?"
A breath. Two breaths. He doesn't interrupt me. Smart boy.
"I'm mad you lied." Still on Mars, but getting closer. "I'm mad you decided all this without talking to me. Yeah, I'm mad.
But Burke, I'm—I'm scared. That's what I really am."
"No fear, baby. I'm Burke Westin." He opens his arms. "Nothing's going to happen to me."
"You're black," I say.
He lowers his arms, surprised. Then he glances down at himself and back up at me. "You just noticing that, Jamie? Because—"
I finally do smack him, hard, right on his muscled shoulder. The
pop
jars me back to earth, and the pain in my fingers gives my voice new power.
"Black people die from this surgery, Burke."
"White people die from it, too." He rubs his arm where I hit him, but smiles at me in that way that always melts me.
Not tonight. I'm melting in a different way already. I'm dissolving.
"I know white people die from it!" I pop his arm again. "One in two hundred, and that's only counting patients who die on
the table or right after they get the surgery. You
know
those surgery centers manipulate statistics. Lots more people die in the first year after bariatric surgery. One in twenty.
Maybe more!"
Burke starts to say something, but I cut him off. "And you're black, so you're
three times
more likely to die from it—and the doctors don't even know why." This time I don't hit him. I grab his arm and squeeze, then
just hold tight, feeling the warmth of his skin against my cold, shaking fingers. "Don't do this. Don't."
Burke peels my fingers off his arm, then holds both of my hands in his. His big, strong hands that cover mine so completely.
"I've thought about all that, I swear. And read about it."
"You? Read something other than
Sports Illustrated
and ESPN
Magazine?
Be real." I laugh, but only because I'm fighting so hard not to cry.
"Hey, my American lit grade is aced." He fakes being wounded by my words. "I'm young. I'm obese and borderline diabetic, but
otherwise, I'm pretty strong and healthy. I don't smoke. I know how to exercise. My mom's a nurse. My dad's CEO of a self-help
company—and my sisters are friggin' drill sergeants in training. Hell, you'll be a drill sergeant. I've got a lot going for
me, Jamie. A lot that says I won't die." He grins. "Black or not."
He leans forward, and we go belly to belly, chest to chest, with only the chair arms between us as we kiss.
Slow. Not deep. Just soft. I love his lips.
I love the feel of him against me. His size. His strength. The way he makes me feel little and dainty and protected, yet still
big and powerful, all at the same time.
Damn him.
Does he think kissing me will shut me up?
When he pulls back, his dark, dark eyes are misty and wide as he gazes into mine. "I'm gonna need you, Jamie. Say you'll be
there. Say you'll still love me even though I'm doing this."
Damn
him.
"I hate you," I say out loud, then take it back, and finally do cry, and he scoots forward in his chair to hold me.
He lets me get snot all over his shoulder, and tears, then lets me curse him a few times before I promise I'll still love
him even if he does this stupid, stupid thing. I promise I'll be there, too, provided his sisters don't rake out my eyes or
put some sort of unbreakable sister-curse on me.
Then Burke says, "I know you're gonna write about this in Fat Girl. I want you to. It might help people, maybe even help you
get that scholarship. You deserve it."
A little more snot. A few more tears.
"Promise you won't run out on me, Jamie." Burke's voice drops low, thick with need and hope and fear and that weird, scary
fever.
I really wish his nachos would fall into a hole and die before they make me vomit.
"I won't run out on you," I whisper. "I promise."