Big Fat Manifesto (4 page)
Authors: Susan Vaught
REGULAR FEATURE
for publication Friday, August 24
The Hotchix Revelations
JAMIE D. CARCATERRA
I've got lots of reasons to fume. If I listed them, you might fume, too, or freak out. But first, I need to congratulate Freddie
for her school cable-news piece on Hotchix. Another congrats to NoNo Nostenfast, for surviving contact with animal flesh and
doubling the circulation of
Green Revolution
with her outraged account of the life-shattering experience.
Hotchix, well, their corporate offices have yet to respond.
Big
surprise.
Which brings me to the psycho clothing industry in general.
Hey, fashion freaks! Answer me one question. What the hell size am I? Go ahead. Measure me. Enlighten me.
Can't do it, can you? Because there are no standard clothing sizes in this country. Even NoNo the stick-bug wears a 2 in some
clothes, a 4 in others, and still larger yet, a 6 in some brands (provided they have no animal parts or child labor involved).
Part of this is just normal variation in styles and fabrics. But part of it is much more sinister. A plot. Seriously.
A nationwide marketing plot called "vanity sizing."
Even though most everyone in the United States is getting bigger, sizes are getting smaller. Cheesy retailers figured out
that when women feel good about themselves, they buy more. So, the simple solution is to inch down the size on the label,
even though the garment really isn't any smaller, and voila. Women feel better about themselves even though their bodies haven't
changed at all, and they buy more clothes.
Some retailers are even coming out with "double zero" and "subzero" sizes. How can somebody be a minus size, for God's sake?
Are we that desperate to believe we're thin? Thanks to this kind of crap, I have no idea what size I really am, except that
for sure I can't wedge my curves into
anything
at Hotchix—even though I'm a hot chick.
Here's what I do know:
• Most grown women in the United States, and most older teenage girls, wear size 12 or larger, however you want to measure
it.
• The standards for what little standard-size clothing there is for women in this country were developed in the 1940s. Yeah.
Over sixty years ago.
• Designers stopped using standard sizes because we so pathetically need to feel thinner. Clothes come in straight sizes,
extended straight sizes, plus sizes, and now superplus. Never mind the whole women's, misses, junior, etc., categories. The
difference? Who knows? Fat Girl doesn't. Most skinny girls don't know either.
• It goes something like this. "Straight sizes" (not a comment on sexual orientation) are designed using models supposedly
"normal" in weight and height, but the industry had to stop calling them normal when they realized over 40 percent of women
in this country wore sizes larger than those.
• Plus sizes tend to be less form fitting, especially up top and in the hips.
Now, we could argue for years over where "plus" begins. According to those my-clothes-are-for-skinny-people designers, probably
anything over size 6. According to many other designers, it's size 12. According to most sane humans, it's 16 to 18 and above.
All of this adds up to some very important truths.
Guys, give it up. You can't buy clothes for your girlfriends. Sizes won't help you, and you'll invariably buy the wrong thing
and piss her off. Sound familiar?
Girls, get real. Do you really know what size you wear? Even more important, do you really know why it matters
so much
that somebody would create subzero sizes?
Fashion industry people, stop the insanity.
United States of America, wake up!
And Fat Girl. . .
Well, Fat Girl, in all her fatness, may have fewer body-image issues than people who wear "normal" sizes.
In the windowless brown cinderblock cave that is our domain, Heath Montel leans over the drafting table next to me and doesn't
say a word as I snip and arrange my post-Hotchix Fat Girl feature into its assigned spot. We've got three desk lamps blazing
over the layout, but half the ancient fluorescent bulbs in the high ceiling fixtures above us are burned out. Useless. And
we can't get maintenance to change them, and we don't have a ladder high enough to do it ourselves. It's hot, too. Hot enough
that some of the old articles taped to the walls are peeling off or sagging.
When I glance at Heath, his blue eyes seem sharp, awake, and focused as he edges in sports headlines and a breaking piece
about a health department investigation of an
E. coli
outbreak traced back to spinach our cafeteria actually served. I squint to see if the spinach was cooked or raw, not that
it really matters, but my brain's been sticking on stupid things since I found out about Burke's surgery.
I feel weird.
I don't feel like me.
I don't feel like Fat Girl, either.
I'm not sure what—or who—I feel like, and I don't want to figure it out. It just makes me mad. Everything's making me mad.
Even the music Heath's playing makes me want to scream. Retro rock. Usually my favorite. Tonight it sounds like
clatter
and
bang
and makes my hurting head hurt worse. I'd turn it off, but I'd screw up Heath's rhythm and mind-set, and we're too close to
deadline for that. If we don't get the rag finished and driven down to the printers by tomorrow morning, it won't come out
on Friday.
Ms. Dax would just love that. About one less letter grade's worth, I'd bet.
"Screw her," I mutter.
Heath doesn't so much as twitch when I talk to myself. His blond hair hangs forward over his forehead, and his tan seems smooth
in the harsh desk lights. He's not on a Garwood team like Burke, but he looks like he's into sports. Maybe he plays something
outside of school.
I've never asked.
God, I'm such a bitch.
When Heath and I talk, it's always newspaper, newspaper, newspaper. But damn it, he seems so... so... calm. Even when we're
down to deadline. I hate him for being calm. I hate him for being tan. I hate everything. Except maybe Burke and NoNo and
Freddie. And sometimes my family.
"We should get a grant like drama did for the cable station," Heath says as he moves and measures another headline, then makes
a note about something that needs to be reset in a different type size. "Quark and some iMacs—join the modern age like the
rest of the world, so Principal Edmonds quits asking if this should be the paper's last year."
I mumble in response. It's what he expects. We've talked about this a dozen times and always blow it off, because we're both
retro with music
and
the newspaper. We like handling the layout. We like using the old-fashioned typesetter, seeing the layout in real size, and
moving the news around like puzzle pieces.
When we do it with our hands, it feels more like ours. Heath and I aren't technoheads. We usually do our story drafts in pen
or pencil, then type them up. I don't even own a laptop. Neither does he.
Okay, so we're freaks in that respect.
The rest of the newspaper staff thinks so, but they hardly ever bother coming in here.
"Screw them, too," I mumble, finally fitting "Fat Girl Answering, Part I" around the ad for the local florist. "Underclass
fools, totally not dedicated to the process. And Edmonds—he could give us more funding, but sports stuff's all he cares about."
Now Heath grunts.
It's what I expect.
We're in sync.
We're under deadline.
But Heath is way weirder than me, because he starts singing some freak-ass nursery rhyme to himself over the retro radio.
The radio with the busted antenna. It's probably forty years old, that radio. Heath won't replace it, either.
Why? It works.
Idiot.
At least I have a cell phone, when I'm not grounded from it. Heath doesn't even have that. He says it's because he doesn't
want to be that connected. Maybe it's a money thing, even though his family is supposed to be rich. That I could really understand,
given the way my family struggles with the budget. My mom calls it being "overextended." I've heard people say that about
the Montels, too. That they're overextended.
I guess being rich—or looking rich—isn't so easy.
I wipe my forehead. It's hot, and I'm still tired from play practice.
Do I stink?
God, don't go there.
I've been thinking about stinking lots more since the whole Hotchix dressing-room nightmare, and I really don't want to stink
up the room and gag out Heath. Not that he smells like roses himself. If he lifts his arm again, I might have to faint on
general principle. Except Fat Girls never faint. Fainting is for delicate skinny girls.
Am I feeling delicate?
No. More like exhausted. I don't think I've had a good night's sleep in the two weeks since Burke's big announcement about
his surgery. I could so easily go face first on the layout table and start snoring. The smell of glue and developer makes
my eyes—which still have glitter stuck all around the edges from the makeup chick practicing on me during rehearsal—water.
At least I have on my own clothes and not Evillene's big-assed green hoopskirt. Even if it would suit my mood—the character
and
the skirt.
Bet those bitches over at Hotchix would fall right over if I marched through the door swinging my galaxy-class hips in those
hoops, belting out "No Bad News."
Hmmm.
Maybe I should. Maybe I will.
But only after NoNo gets better medications and a little more therapy, and Freddie finishes figuring out what we can sue them
for. Freddie wants to go to law school in addition to being a news anchor, so she likes to hang at Garwood University's law
library when she's not working on the cable show, and they let her do it most of the time. Last time I went with her, I thought
the desk chick was hot for her, which worries me a little bit. I mean, Freddie can take care of herself, but that desk chick
has like fifteen tattoos and a studded dog collar. Not the woman I'd pick for Freddie's next big conquest.
"Done," Heath says, and we swap places like a two-member ballet team to check each other's work. Fresh perspective.
Four years of pulling the major load on any project will do that to people, I guess. Make them anticipate their partner's
moves like they've been dancing for years. At deadline time, it always comes down to Heath and me, or me and Heath, or one
of us, if the other's sick or out of town or something—which we try never to be, not on Wednesday nights.
The thought of dancing with Heath makes me think about Burke, and thinking about Burke makes me want to cry. And I'm not friggin'
crying, especially with friggin' green glitter still stuck to my Evillene eyes. Instead, I sing along to the retro. Three
Dog Night, I think.
Heath sings, "The window. The window. Throw her out the window." Then he starts another nursery rhyme, and it always ends
with throwing whatever's in the rhyme out the window. Mary and her little lamb, Humpty Dumpty, Georgie Porgie—doesn't matter.
They all go out the window. He told me once about the group who did the song. Trout Fishing in America. Only Heath would know
a group named Trout Fishing in America.
A few minutes later, I realize something's wrong and tear my attention from the drafting table, even though Heath's layout
looks good.
The problem is, he's stopped singing, and so have I. There's only the radio, playing some old Meat Loaf song now.
I turn my head to find Heath looking at me. His hand's resting on the Fat Girl feature, and he's just looking at me.
"What?" I open my palm and almost drop my X-Acto.
He glances down at the piece, then back to me. "This is really good stuff, Jamie. You know that, right?"
I clench the X-Acto in my fist like I'm planning to stab something or, worse yet, somebody. "Uh, thanks. Your spinach-diarrhea
piece is a work of art, too."
Heath frowns, and when Heath frowns, his whole face gets into the act. "I'm being serious. You've got real guts, putting this
stuff out there. Putting
yourself
out there for people to take their shots."
"I've gotta have that scholarship." I manage to lower the X-Acto, but my hand's shaking.
Heath gives me a half-angry look, like that wasn't his point, but then his face relaxes and he nods. He goes back to looking
at my part of the layout.
I go back to proofing his section, but I can't concentrate. The radio's pissing me off so badly I want to hurl it against
the concrete block wall. Stupid thing probably wouldn't break.
"So he's really gonna do it?" Heath's voice flows underneath a Beatles song. "Burke, I mean. A couple of weeks ago when we
talked on the phone, you were really upset, and then I heard he's not playing football. And there's this rumor—he might be
having bariatric surgery?"
"Yeah." I squeeze my eyes shut, then make myself open them. I wish the radio would die. I wish I had never heard the word
bariatric.
I wish Heath would shut up.
"I feel like I should say something," he says, ruining all my wishes at once.
My teeth don't come apart when I growl, "Like what?"
Heath smacks his X-Acto and highlighter down on the drafting table. He braces himself with both arms and looks straight ahead,
away from me. "You don't have to be such a bitch all the time, Jamie. I'm trying to be nice."
"All right, all right." I make a point of putting
my
X-Acto down gently. "This is me not being a bitch. What do you think you should say about Burke's surgery?"
Seconds pass.
They feel like long, miserable days, but I'm not being a bitch, so I keep my mouth shut.
"I don't know." Heath turns toward me a little. "I mean, I guess—I'm sorry. I know you've got to be worried about him. Like
you need all that angst and freaking out on top of everything else we've got going this semester."
My bottom lip trembles.
I really hate Heath now, because he just said more than Freddie
(I don't want to talk about it but you need to),
NoNo
(It's his decision),
and my family
(That's the stupidest
thing I've ever heard)
all put together.
Heath made the tears come.
All of a sudden I'm blubbering like when I was a freshman and got stung on the nose by a bee, and I really do want to faint
or fall down or just... quit. Completely quit.
Instead, I sit down on the linoleum tile floor and lean against the wall, with the drafting tables and the newspaper layout
above my head like a big, woody, gluey print umbrella.
Heath sits under the tables beside me, so close his leg touches mine. A few seconds later, he actually offers me a handkerchief.
A real one. White. The damned thing's monogrammed with a curly
HM
in the corner.
This makes me stop crying and roll my eyes.
"It's my dad's," Heath says. Then he laughs. "It looks stupid, but it holds the snot. That's what matters, right?"
"Are you really rich?" I blurt.
Heath leans back and rests his head against the concrete block wall. His shoulder presses against mine as I actually use his
stupid monogrammed hanky to wipe my eyes and nose.
"No," he says. "Not anymore. But my parents haven't accepted that yet. My dad's company is downsizing and he's losing his
job. Mom's gone through her trust fund. Our house is up for sale, but they're trying to keep it quiet."
Oh great. And here I was, trying not to be a bitch. "I'm sorry."
"I'm not." Heath launches into an explanation about dwelling size and SUVs and wasting energy that reminds me so much of NoNo
I actually wonder if I should get the two of them better acquainted.
Before I can even wrap my brain around that little plan, he asks, "Will you deal with the whole Burke's-bariatric-surgery
thing in Fat Girl before some asshole writes in and asks about it?"
Good point.
Very good point.
I use the hanky again. "Probably. Yeah. Definitely. I should."
"You are so getting that scholarship, Jamie. I know it. I feel it."
"Thanks."
"You should have been editor-in-chief this year, just so you know." Heath's tone is matter-of-fact and relieved, like he's
been waiting weeks to say this.
"Yeah, well, that was never going to happen."
"Dax didn't do it because you're fat or anything. She just likes guys better."
"Duh."
He laughs.
And that makes me laugh again. Then cry a little more.
I've definitely entered an alternate universe.
We keep talking about college at first, then scholarships and the clock ticking down on the National Feature Award.
Then we're chatting about other stuff.
He plays soccer in a city league.
I've never touched a soccer ball, but I've always wanted to.
He thinks I sing better than the chick playing Dorothy in
The Wiz.
She played the lead in last spring's
My Fair Lady
and he didn't like her then, either.
I tell him how I wanted that role but couldn't have it because, of course, Dorothy isn't a Fat Girl. Fat Girls are always
villains in plays. At least every play I've been in. Villains or mothers or grandmothers. Once I got to play Mother Nature,
though. At least that costume was way past great.
"Maybe I'll write a play for you," Heath says. "You can be Dorothy and do all the damned singing. How would that be?"
I turn my head toward him a little and find myself looking into his blue eyes and tanned face, and a quirky smile I'm not
sure I've ever seen before.
It's nice.
And I'm still in that alternate universe, but sliding slowly, slowly out of it.
"If you write it, I'll sing it," I say, intending to sound loud and goofy, but my words come out quiet. "Swear."