Skinny (4 page)
My best friend is Jen Marinelli and sometimes Giselle, but Giselle doesn't count. I wear my school uniform above the knee,
just like Jen. Giselle gave me her skirt and kilt pin when she graduated and I like the weight of her pin there, above my
left knee.
Jen likes Peter, a tall, shy Polish kid with pimples on his chin, and I like Marco. Marco's Italian, of course, but the problem
is he likes my friend Kat, who, two years ago, in sixth grade, was the first girl to get a bra and her period.
There's something mysterious about Katrina, besides her big boobs and the open watery look of her eyes. Mr. Saleri has her
starting on the volleyball team and she's second string on the basketball team. Kat plays defence, which is a good position
for her because she doesn't move very fast and is tough to get through. Kat will play sports but isn't so crazy about gym.
Jen and I love it. Today Saleri lets me and Jen play pickup with the guys while the rest of the girls do gymnastics on the
blue mats. Kat doesn't feel like playing today, so she makes some excuse about her period and Saleri lets her sit on the bench,
but when we start playing she miraculously recovers and starts yelling. One thing about Kat is that she can scream. As soon
as Jen or I get the ball, Kat starts in. I think even Jen, who thinks Kat is kind of a loser, likes it. It's nice having a
cheering squad when sometimes you feel like no one passes you the ball.
When I get to take off my uniform, change into my gym clothes and sweat, and press my body up against Marco's, when I snatch
the ball from his hands and send it sailing down the court, I feel like I can breathe again. Like I am outside running and
dreaming and I am almost free.
For some stupid reason, after gym, I can't stop thinking about Marco for the rest of the afternoon, about how he always looks
like he's tanned, and is one of the only boys who is taller than me. I write his name in the margins of my notebook during
biology class, making the "a's" all fancy and making the looping " o " at the end of it big and perfectly round. I even think
about telling Jen that I like him.
I can still feel his body mashed up against mine when I take my seat in history class. I wonder about how I could get him
to start paying attention to me because I do see him around a lot. Sometimes the boys' basketball practices overlap with the
girls' and I can arrange it, if there's a boys' game and a girls' game at the same time, so that I can sit on the school bus
with him. I think about track and cross-country practice and how I could try to run with him, even though he is a sprinter
and I run distance. I make a list of my good points, reasons that he should go out with me:
1. nice
2. not obnoxious like Jen
3. athletic (we'd have a lot to talk about)
4. good in English and history (OK, history, sometimes)
5. interested in French-kissing, holding hands and running my hands through his black, Italian hair, interested in meeting
his parents, going over to his house and watching TV, maybe going skating with him sometime.
As I'm drawing black lines over this information, Kat walks in late to class and takes the seat I've saved for her in front
of me. I watch her golden crucifix bounce between her large breasts and understand that Marco won't ever notice me after he's
noticed Kat. I look down at my own almost flat chest and scribble a note to her.
—
Kat: Do you like Marco? Are you coming to the meet tonight?
—/.
Maybe 2. Yes,
comes her prompt reply, in her funny Polish handwriting that looks like Mom's.
PS Please D.TN
Destroy This Note. I crumple it into my pocket and lean over to inspect Kat's intent, angelic expression. I touch her layered
blond hair, so lightly she doesn't notice, and I forgive Kat, a little bit, for taking Marco away from me.
For open heart surgery, the sternum is divided longitudinally in the midline and the pericardial cavity is opened to display
the heart and major vessels.
Heart lesson #2: incisions and loss.
Eve was my first and only major relationship before Sol. Like Sol, who cringes sometimes when I talk about guy friends from
school, Eve had the gift of drawing me in with her brooding. Eve and I were together for three months, inseparable, before
she left for Germany and I went to med school. It may sound weird, but Sol reminds me of Eve, at least on the surface; both
are dark-skinned, serious, moody people. Also, like Sol, I had to keep a close eye on my Eve, who had a tendency to sulk when
I flirted. Thinking about sleeping with Sol for the first time, I can't help but think of Eve for some reason.
The day Eve and I slept together for the first time, we had gone shopping at a chic downtown department store. She chose a
ridiculously expensive pair of jodhpurs and shuttled me into the change room with her.
"Do you ride?" I asked when she ripped off her T-shirt and jeans. I could feel the saleslady's eyes burning a hole through
the change-room door.
"No!" She laughed at my question.
"Then why? Shouldn't you keep the money for rent?"
"Don't you think I'm sexy?"
I did. The lines of the tight brown stirrup pants and the cut of the conservative jacket flattered Eve's waist. Although she
dressed and acted like a punk, Eve was an aesthete and had an excellent sense of style; I should know; she loved dressing
me up. I had never wanted money for myself, but suddenly I felt awful that I couldn't yet pay for the kind of clothes and
things she needed. Before I could tell her how great she looked and how I was going to be a doctor and that, one day, I would
be able to pay for whatever she wanted, she burst out of the change room and demanded a whip. Needless to say, the saleslady,
a white-haired matronly type who looked as if she still took high tea, was less than helpful.
"The mannequin has a whip!" Eve yelled by way of being reasonable.
"The mannequin is for display purposes only, dear." Ms. Priss definitely had her finger on the security button by this time.
"How much?!" Eve yelled again, slapping the stitch of leather next to a display of orange suede shoes.
Then a miraculous thing happened, as it often did when I was in Eve's company: the saleslady conceded to Eve's whim.
"Tell you what, dear, that whip is complimentary. Consider it a gift with your purchase. Now; will that be charge or cash?"
"Charge," she said, blinking her eyes only once to register her surprise and producing her credit card from her wrinkled old
jean jacket. I picked up her discarded clothes from the floor of the change room and, half out of curiosity and half in order
to avoid the saleslady's gaze, watched Eve sign the receipt in her tall, shaky, proud handwriting. But I had nothing to worry
about. The saleslady was classy, she wanted no trouble, only another satisfied customer. Despite Eve's performance, she treated
us respectfully and I liked that, and, although Eve acted like it didn't mean anything, I knew she did, too.
"Will you be wearing your purchase home? A bag for your clothes?"
"Yes, thank you." Eve tossed her head back, an old nervous habit of hers from when she used to have long hair. She pointed
her small arched nose into the air, and when the card cleared, we left smiling and picking through clothes on racks as if
we were rich girls.
Maybe it was the saleslady who gave me the confidence to do what I did later, back at Eve's studio apartment, with the industrial
door bolted, as the crack of her brand-new whip sounded off her paintings. Maybe it was the cheap Argentinian wine we drank
that night, the three bottles of it. Maybe, with the warm South American wine running through my veins, I could finally make
my move. Maybe it was simply that Eve did look fantastic in those clothes: regal, commanding. Maybe it was Eve's long-haired
German shepherds, Vengeance and Irony, who bounded around us eagerly, tripping into splotches of red and yellow paint as we
ran through the studio, drunk and feverish with our own stupidity.
Maybe all first times are laced with that same tenacious anxiety and longing. Whatever it was, I wanted to be sure she wasn't
just part of some strange fantasy I was having about being happy with someone. I wanted to clear it in my head, I wanted proof
that I was alive and with her.
Eve finally collapsed on the couch to sip more wine. The dogs, exhausted, flopped down on the floor across from us and eyed
us warily. I sat next to her and put my hand on the sleek taut material on her knee. She lay back as I pulled my hand up her
thigh and let it rest casually between her legs. She angled her flushed face towards mine for a kiss that would last ten minutes,
or three months, depending on how you looked at it. Before long, my jeans and all Eve's new clothes were lying in a pile on
the floor. Something hot and troubled, like swarming bees, beat itself on the walls of my pelvis when she touched my body.
Whatever my inspiration, it wasn't until the night sky had shifted from black to dark blue that we fell asleep, our fingers
and legs stretched across the canvas of her bed, our torsos wound together.
. . .
It's a cloudy June day and I show up early to pick up Holly from the track. It's going to rain, so I sit in the car for a
while watching her jog around as Saleri times her laps. Saleri is Holly's stocky, moustached, Italian coach, and there's something
about him that makes you want to throw your arms around him and give him a big bear hug. He yells at her to quicken her turnover.
Holly keeps running around the track unflaggingly. I lose count of how many times she circles. I can see her breath in the
early-morning mist. She is the colour of a colt and her legs swing out from under her loosely. The peaks of her shoulder blades
stick out from under her tank top, and are somehow startling under the dim, overcast sky. They resemble brown boomerang-shaped
stones skipping on water: now there, now buried in the smoothness of her back.
She is tall and long, like our father was. She has even inherited his monkey arms and the wide span of his hands, which accounts
for her incredible control over a basketball. Like most show-offs, she prefers to take three-pointers rather than passing
or doing a layup, and, while Saleri always gives her shit for this, ninety percent of the time the ball ends up in the basket.
She stops running finally, walks with her hands on her hips to the centre of the field, kicks off her runners, and collapses
on the grass. I get out of the car, crawl through the hole in the fence and walk over the track to her. I stand above her
making faces until she glances at me and smiles.
"Hi, Gizzy." I hand her an apple and she shines it on her wet shorts and hooks her ankle over her knee, rubbing the arch of
her foot.'With her hair cut so short, and her face flushed, she almost looks like a boy. I think she has decided to survive
adolescence by sweating her way through it. She squints up at the grey clouds swarming above us.
"We're picking up my new friend, Sol," I say as she munches the apple. Holly wrinkles her nose, as if she's eaten a brown
part of the apple.
"Sol?"
"Yes, Sol. That's his name. He's a new-old friend, actually," I say a little too quickly. Holly shrugs with the apple clutched
in her mouth like a pig, as if she doesn't care what his name is.
"Which group you going to? Agnes's or yours?" she asks, spitting the bad part out.
"Mine, but I think Agnes might come."
She sprints over to Saleri and grabs her sweatpants from the ground. He nods and waves at me. I shiver though it is a warm
rain that has begun to fall.
When we get in the car, Holly starts playing with the radio. Halfway down the block to Sol's place, she pulls her fingers
through her hair and squints at herself in the mirror.
"Do I smell?" she asks.
"You always do, brat," I say, tossing her a sweater to cover herself. I honk and Sol runs out of his house. I can tell by
the line in his mouth that he has been waiting for me, that he is slightly annoyed that I am not alone, but this falls away
when he opens the door and looks into Holly's shiny face.
He gives her his all-teeth Diamond Sol smile and something in my heart tightens. "I've heard a lot about you." His dark eyes
take her in, in that unconscious sweeping way men have when they find a girl attractive. Then he looks at me.
"She's gorgeous, just like you said, G."
Holly starts giggling, almost choking on her apple core. Her face is turning redder.
"And fast!" she says, blowing apple chunks onto the window.
"And fast," I repeat, putting the car into drive.
. . .
When I get to the hospital, it turns out that group is going to be a spicy double-dose psychiatric special: I have to bring
Agnes along to my meeting because there's been some kind of mix-up and the nurses want her off the floor for at least a couple
of hours. Mom's a nurse at the downtown mental hospital and I just started working there, as a paid companion, it's called.
I'd wanted to work at a lab instead, but then Mom got me this job, so I work with Agnes, mostly.
Agnes is a seventy-year-old schizophrenic woman from Penetanguishene. She likes the little sandwiches and cookies at the meetings
and, because all the girls have eating disorders, she can have as many as she wants. I have to smuggle Agnes's coffee in under
my coat, though, because coffee's not allowed. No gum, no cigarettes, no caffeine—it's like the total opposite of an AA meeting.
I sit between Agnes and Nancy, a middle-aged bulimic and self-appointed leader of the group. I think Nancy's kind of mad at
me today because I was released from the hospital.
"The doctors are letting me go early," I'd said to her when I signed the release papers at reception.
"Oh, doctors, they think they know everything," she'd snapped.
I have mixed feelings about Nancy's tough-love approach, but I'm not really intimidated by her, or I try not to be. She comes
off like a bitch but, after what I've been through lately, few people scare me. Besides, I've been having good days. Although
eating three meals a day still really freaks me out, I try to reason with myself that eating a tuna sandwich for lunch isn't
the end of the world, that there are more important things to think about than how full or empty I feel. Of course, this line
of reasoning isn't always successful and occasionally I just can't finish a plate of food, but
she
has been keeping her distance and, at the end of my now-busy days of studying and working, if I start thinking too much about
everything I ate that day and get depressed about it, I call Sol and we sit and talk in the park near my house and he rolls
down the hill on the wet almost-summer grass like a dog until I pull him up into my jacket and kiss his soft face.
Nancy crosses her arms and frowns as I lean back in my chair and pick at my nails, to show her I could care less about her
oncoming interrogation.
"You want to start today, Giselle?" Nancy asks.
"Sure."
"Why don't you tell us what kind of steps you've been taking."
"Well, OK, let's see, I've been going to the library to do research, I work with Agnes here—everybody say hi to Agnes." The
girls squeak out hellos and Agnes opens her mouth to reveal a half-chewed cheese sandwich and her loose dentures. Just as
I'm about to convince the crowd that I'm the success story of the month, Agnes pipes, "She's got a beau," before stuffing
another sandwich into her face. Nancy gets all red as she adjusts her chair to better verbally assault me.
"Shut up." I elbow Agnes.
"So, you've just got out of the clinic because you lost so much weight at school that you barely finished your year, and now
you're
dating
someone?" Nancy asks.
"Yeah, well, I don't know if we're dating, exactly, he's more like an old friend." I put my hands on my knees and squeeze
them tightly.
"Is this your idea of taking control? Another relationship?"
"Well, first of all, we've only been seeing each other for, like, a week or something and, second of all, the last time I
checked the anorexic's guide to recovery there was no clause against dating someone." The other girls start to whisper and
smile; Nancy shoots them a look of death.
"All I'm getting at, Giselle, is that, and you'll pardon the pun, you seem to have enough on your plate right now without
a boyfriend. You have to get control of your life, your eating habits, in a positive way, without distractions."
"Point taken. Can someone else talk? I don't really feel like sharing this right now." Nancy glowers while Agnes clamps her
hand to my arm and starts singing "Que Sera Sera" softly into my shoulder. I take her hand and she squeezes it a little too
tightly and then yanks it away as if I grabbed her.
A new woman, whom I've never met before, a tired-looking lady wearing a classic brown business suit, leans in as the other
girls fidget in their chairs. When she talks, her voice is the opposite of Nancy's. It's pleading, low and smooth.
"Giselle, are you committed to being healthy?"
"Yes," I whisper.
"What helped you? What makes you strong?"
"My sister, my mother, work, and friends, I have some friends."
"Can you do it for yourself now, not for anyone else but you?"
Tranquillzers are rarely necessary
I didn't mean to hurt anyone by losing all this weight, except I wanted to see what would happen if I stopped eating. It was
an experiment of sorts, made easy by the late nights at the library, coffee, cigarettes, and OK, I confess, maybe a little
speed too, sometimes.
It comes easy to me, almost too easy. It always has. While other girls sweat and fret, exercise constantly and watch what
they eat, I can drop five pounds simply by skipping dinner a couple of nights. Some people are naturals, like Holly with running;
I'm naturally good at losing weight. All I have to do is forget to eat.