Life in the Fat Lane (22 page)

“School is important.”

“Thanks for the insight.”

He smiled a wan smile. “I know I haven’t been here for you lately. I’m sorry, princess.”

Princess. It had been such a long time.

“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” I asked.

Dad looked down at his hands dangling between his legs; then he looked back at me. “Life can get pretty problematic when you’re a grown-up, Lara—”

Ping
, as he hit a nerve.

“As opposed to my life,” I said, “which has been so problem free.”

He ignored my remark. A weird thought flitted through my brain: Had he really ever seen me at all?

“I’ve always believed in doing the right thing,” he said, looking at the wall above me. “But sometimes a person’s heart doesn’t listen to what’s right.”

“You’re seeing
her
again, you mean.” And then the truth dawned on me. “You never stopped seeing her! That’s the truth, isn’t it?”

“I meant to. I wasn’t lying when I said I’d stop—you have to believe that. But I love her.”

“And you don’t love Mom.”

“I
do
love Mom,” Dad said earnestly. “I’m just—I’m not
in
love with her anymore.”

Ping
, as he hit another nerve. Just like Jett and me: If a woman gets fat or old, there’s no happily-ever-after.

“How could you do this to us?” I said bitterly.

“What about me?” he asked, finally looking at me. “Don’t I deserve happiness? God, I’ve played by the book my whole life. What about me?”

I looked at him, and something strange happened. My whole life, I had seen him as a knight in shining armor, my perfect daddy. But now the knight was gone. In his place was this spoiled brat who really only cared about himself. Mom, Scott, me—we were just a reflection of how wonderful he was.

I stood up. “So, you’re divorcing Mom. Fine. Have a good life with Tamara. Bye.”

Dad stood up, too. “We’re not getting divorced.”

This was like an instant replay of the conversation I’d had with Mom back in Nashville before we moved.

“Sit down, princess,” Dad said. He sat. I did, too.

“I don’t plan to explain this to Scott—he’s not mature enough to understand—but I think you will. Divorce is … messy. And expensive. And then there’s you kids to think of. Your mother has very generously agreed to let me have my own life and keep our marriage together.”

My head was pounding. “What does that mean?”

“Our marriage will stay together; we’ll have an arrangement.”

I was stunned. “You mean you get to have them
both
?”

“It’s a very loving thing for both women to do—”

I stood up again. “Loving? You call that
loving
?”

“Lara, I didn’t have to tell you about this, but I thought you were old enough to understand—”

“You—You make me sick. You make me want to throw up!”

“Lara—”

I pushed past him, went downstairs, and found Mom in the family room looking through an old photo album, smoking.

“Throw him out!” I demanded.

She just gazed at me.

“Don’t you have any pride? How can you let him do this to you?”

“He told you,” she said dully.

“What is wrong with you?” I demanded shrilly.

Mom closed the photo album slowly and looked up at me. “I’m forty-one years old, Lara, that’s what’s wrong. You think I could ever attract a man like your father again? Well, think again, honey. My mother was right: A woman keeps herself together, keeps looking the other way, and keeps her man.”

From behind me I heard my father clear his throat. I turned around.

“I never meant to hurt either of you,” he said from the doorway. “I love you both very much. And we’ll still be a family.” His eyes beseeched mine. “You’re still my princess, you know.”

I walked over to him and looked him in the eye. “We are not a family. You’re a cheater and a liar, and you disgust me. And don’t you ever,
ever
call me your princess again.”

And then I walked out the door.

No. Way too needy. I crumpled up the letter and started again.

The bell rang for the end of homeroom, and I stuck both letters inside my notebook. Who was I kidding, anyway? I wasn’t going to send Jett any of the dozens of letters I had written to him. What was the point? It was painfully obvious that he’d forgotten all about me.

I got up and headed for the hallway. Fortunately for me, Mainstream Dave wasn’t in homeroom that day, so I had a brief reprieve from his insults.

HOMECOMING IS COMING! TICKETS NOW ON SALE IN THE STUDENT CENTER, SUPPORT OUR COUGARS!!

Overnight, the homecoming committee had filled the halls with signs and banners. Everyone seemed to be talking about it—who was going with who, who would be queen, whether the Cougars would keep their homecoming football winning streak.

Homecoming. Had it really been just a year ago? I had been so happy then. I was thin. My family was still together. I was thin. I lived in Nashville with all my friends. I was thin. I was the queen. I was thin.

I had Jett.

I was thin.

VOTE FOR HOMECOMING QUEEN! CAST YOUR VOTE AT THE STUDENT CENTER BY FRIDAY
. Then, scrawled on the banner were the names of the cutest, most popular girls in my class: Christy-Lynn Lakewood, Allegra Royalton, Samantha Levine, Jane Neissan.

Jane Neissan was in my bio class and played third violin in the orchestra. She had shoulder-length auburn hair, green eyes, and a slender, graceful figure. Kind of like mine used to be, before I got robbed of my real life. And she was actually nice. We had shared a frog for dissection and she hadn’t treated me like a leper.

VOTE ALLEGRA R. FOR HOMECOMING QUEEN! ROYALTON IS OUR ROYALTY!

“Hey! Hey, Lara!”

It was Allegra Royalton, of all people, hurrying over to me with another girl in tow.

A girl I recognized.

She was very pretty, with long brown hair and dimples. Her name was Willow Larken, and she and I had been in many regional pageants together. I knew she lived in Michigan, but what was she doing here at Blooming Woods High?

“This is Willow,” Allegra told me. “She’s been out with mono. She says she knows this really gorgeous girl from Tennessee who was in pageants with her, and this girl’s name is also Lara Ardeche.”

Allegra turned to Willow. “See, I
told
you it was a different girl.”

Willow stared at me. Her eyes got huge.

“Lara?” she asked uncertainly.

There was no place to run, no place to hide.

“Hi, Willow,” I said.

“What
happened
to you?” Willow asked me.

“Wait—wait—wait,” Allegra sputtered. “You can’t be serious, Willow. You’re telling me she’s the
same girl
?”

“I have a metabolic disorder,” I told Willow. “It made me gain weight.”

Willow put her hand on my arm in the sweetest, kindest pageant-winner way possible. “You poor thing!” she cried.

“Time out,” Allegra said. “Are you telling me this fat tub was a
beauty queen
?”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Willow asked, her eyes full of pity.

“Why do you hang out with her?” I blurted out.

“What?” Willow asked, taken aback.

“Her,” I said, cocking my chin at Allegra. “She’s such an ugly person.”

“Now that is funny, coming from an ugly pig like you!” Allegra jeered.

“Oh, she doesn’t really mean anything by it,” Willow said mildly. “Just ignore her. Well, nice to see you, Lara. And if there’s anything I can do …”

Right. Sure. Super.

I could feel them watching me as I headed down the hall: Pity. Disdain. Disgust.

I tried not to care. About Willow, or Allegra, or homecoming, or the zillion little soul-crushing insults that came my way every day. I had other things on my mind.

Like my mother, who now totally obsessed about her looks during every hour that she was awake. Some doctor had given her a prescription for sleeping pills, which conked her out early and kept her asleep until noon. After that, she worked out like a demon, chain-smoked, and consulted with new plastic surgeons about the facelift she was certain she absolutely had to have, which my grandfather would pay for. I asked her why she needed to consult still more surgeons when she’d already seen seven. She said she was looking for one who would promise to make her look twenty-five again.

And then she laughed in a way that wasn’t funny.

Like my father, who called daily from Tamara’s apartment in Nashville, leaving messages for me and Scott.
He’d actually been hired back at his old advertising agency. Of course I had clued Scott in on the truth about what was going on with our parents. He wasn’t surprised. Dad’s messages on the answering machine said how much he wanted to talk to Scott and me, how much he loved us, how he’d be home to see us soon.

It made me laugh in a way that wasn’t funny.

“Hiya,” Perry said, running a little to catch up with me in the hall. “What’s shakin’?” He chewed on the last remnants of a muffin, peeling back the paper to get the crumbs.

“Not much.” I dodged Kyler Trustus and his friends, who were ogling a copy of last season’s swimsuit issue of
Sports Illustrated
, and stopped at my locker to get out some books I needed.

Allegra and Willow walked up to Kyler and his friends, and Allegra snatched the magazine out of Kyler’s hands. Then she leaned over and told them something, and then they all looked over at me.

“No way!” I heard Kyler say. “That must have been a really
big
beauty contest!”

They all cracked up. Willow told them to stop, but she was smiling when she said it.

“Hey, Lard-ass belly-bumped me, I can’t sto-o-o-p!” Dave Ackerly yelled as he ran by, careening into a locker on one side of the hall, then pretending to bounce off and careen into a locker on the other side.

Jane Neissan walked by and gave me a friendly wave. She looked very cute in a short suede jumper over a long-sleeved white T-shirt. She looked thin.

“How’s it going?”

“Oh, fine,” I said, closing my locker.

“Did you study for the bio quiz?”

“Two hours,” I replied, rolling my eyes.

“I’ve got frog diagrams dancing in my head,” she said ruefully, and walked on by.

“She’s kinda nice,” Perry said.

“Yeah.” We headed down the hall.

“I have a theory,” he said. “God doles out one decent human who is also popular to each high school. This is to partially make up for all the other popular people, who are essentially a human wasteland.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being popular,” I said as we turned the corner.

“Confucius say: ‘To be popular with all is to be special to none.’ ”

“Confucius didn’t say that.”

“No, but he would have if he’d thought of it.” Perry handed me a cassette tape. “Here.”

I looked at it blankly.

“Johnny Winter. I told you I’d make you a tape. He’s out of control.”

“Oh, thanks.” I slipped it into my purse.

CHRISTY-LYNN SHOULD SURELY WIN! VOTE CHRISTY-LYNN OUR HOMECOMING QUEEN!

“Whoa,” Perry said, wincing at the banner that hung over our heads. “I think the mental giants who created that banner meant to rhyme
Lynn, win
, and
queen
.”

“You mean
quin
,” I said.

He laughed. “Yeah. Homecoming is major lame, huh?”

“I think it’s fun.” We headed up the stairs.

“Yeah? You think?” He puffed up the stairs and threw the muffin paper into the trash can. “I guess it could be, ya know, if you went with the right person.” He gave me a pointed look. There was a lopsided grin on his hand
some face. Funny, it was the first time I had really realized that his face truly
was
handsome.

But that didn’t mean I was attracted to him, or that I wanted him to ask me out.

“Excuse me, I need to use the girls’ room,” I told him, and ducked in the door of the john. It was the first thing I could think of to get away from him. I was sure he had been about to invite me to homecoming. What a frightening thought. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, but I didn’t want to go out with him, either.

I brushed my hair and studied my reflection in the mirror, concentrating on myself from the neck up. A toilet flushed.

“Hi again.”

I turned around. It was Jane Neissan.

“Hi,” I said.

Jane washed her hands. “I saw you talking with Perry Jameson.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He’s nice,” she said.

“He’s okay.”

“Did he invite you to homecoming?” Jane asked.

“We’re not
dating
!” I said, aghast. “He’s so … I mean, we’re just friends.”