by Diana Clarke
All throughout high school, throughout college, she dated, dated, dated, she moved from man to man. The energy of a new love was her drug of choice and, without one, withdrawal, miserable and trembling until she found someone new.
But not since I was admitted to the facility. She’s been single for a year and I’ve always thought it was because of me. That her celibacy was some sort of solidarity. But here she is, silly with new love.
What I want to feel: happy for her.
What I feel: left behind.
“Who is he?” I say.
“He’s so dreamy. A little older. Fiftysomething. But who can put an age on love, right?”
I nod and nod. It is important to support the ones we love is what the group leader tells us. “True,” I say. “Who can?”
“He’s a businessman. Tall. Handsome. Last night, he took me out to this fancy restaurant and ordered for both of us. There was champagne! It was so romantic, Rosie.”
She’s shining. Her eyes glinting and dancing, sunlight on water. “I don’t want to jinx it or anything, but I really think he could be the one.”
“Maybe!” I say, wanting to encourage, to hearten, but this is how she always is, my sister. She thinks they’re all the one. If a man holds out a hand, she’ll take it without question. For her, the most important character trait is desire. If he desires her, she’s infatuated. She’s all or nothing. Me? Nothing. “He might be, Lil!”
“He’s so funny, Rose. And he’s so smart. And successful. A businessman!” She sighs. “You know when you meet someone, and it just feels right? You sort of click into place, you know?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding, sighing, gossiping. “I do. I know that feeling.”
“Do you?” says Lily. A frown.
The story of my new love, my across-the-courtyard suitor, is itchy on my tongue, but Lily’s incredulous brow, her patronizing smile, the way her arms are crossed over her breasts, closed . . . She thinks her new love is better than mine, more real, more likely. I keep my mouth shut. Shrug.
“I meant I know of the feeling.” I wear my best swooning smile. “I hope this guy’s the one, Lil.”
Lily nods. “God, I know. Me too, baby sister. And do you know what? He really might be. I can really see a future with this one.”
I bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from questioning. From calling her crazy. Her skin is lit, luminous. It is so important to support the ones we love.
A nurse arrives with my CalSip, a calorie-laden drink that tastes of old milk and cardboard and comes in a juice box meant for children. I’m meant to drink two CalSips a day, and my consumption of them is monitored.
Once upon a time, I would have locked my jaw closed. I would have thrown the drink at the wall, stomped on the box, and watched as the calories exploded from their cage, seeped into the carpet. I would have screamed and cried. I would have refused. A year ago, when Lily graduated from college and I was condemned to be an inpatient, I decided to eat. I decided to eat the way most people decide to diet. Over and over and over again. Each time I failed to let anything pass my lips, the world’s most vigilant bouncers. They let nothing in.
But now I’m recovering, and I want to recover. The group leader tells us, It is so important to want to recover, and I do! I want to recover just as long as I don’t grow, and so today, I take the plastic-wrapped straw, open it with only a wince, pierce the box, and drink. I’m used to the flavor by now; it tastes like safety. It tastes like the knowledge that drinking just two of them per day, so long as I’m escaping most of my meals, will not add to my size.
“He’s a student’s father,” Lily is saying. “His daughter is gorgeous. Just such a cutie. You know how I’ve always wanted kids.”
Kids? Has she? Sometimes I don’t know her at all. I look up. I can only control my own joy. A march of termites makes their daily commute across my ceiling.
Termites eat their whole lives. They never stop consuming. They don’t care what they eat, which is lucky, because they are blind. Their hunger does not discriminate. If it exists, it is edible. If it exists, they will eat it.
Tired of the quiet that’s settled in between us, comfortable as a pet, but boring to Lily, she takes a cell phone from the depths of her purse. I wait for her to make a call, but instead she just holds the phone in the palm of her hand like she’s showing me a frog she found.
I finish the CalSip, shake the box to show its emptiness; she smiles.
“I got you this,” she says.
“Lil, I’m not allowed a cell phone in here,” I say. “I need to protect my own peace.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“But I got you one anyway.”
“Thank you,” I say, taking the phone from her outstretched palm. It’s an old flip phone. I flip it open and then closed. I do it again. “I can’t use it. I’ll get in trouble.”
“You’re an adult, Rose. You can have a phone.”
“A phone might disrupt my peace.” I need to protect my own peace.
“Seriously, you can do what you want,” she says. “You’re a big girl now.”
I swallow Lily’s disapproval, which tastes of soap, and say, “Okay.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” Lily says, and I nod, stashing the phone beneath my pillow. “It can be our secret. Call me whenever you want, okay?”
“But, Lil,” I say, “you’re here all the time. Why would I need to call?”
Lily shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m just, you know, I’m seeing this guy now and, if I can’t visit for some reason, I want you to be able to contact me.”
“You’re going to stop visiting?”
“No!” Lily’s cheeks are bright. “Of course not! It’s just in case, okay? It’s a just-in-case phone.”
I nod. I can only control my own joy. Lily stands to hug me goodbye. I hold on to the embrace for too long, as usual, hoping to absorb her via osmosis.
Over her shoulder, I see my handkerchief-waving lover in the window, standing in his room, watching my sister and me. I wave behind Lily’s back. He waves, points at Lily, then flips his palms to the ceiling and shrugs an exaggerated shrug. Who’s that? he’s asking in our own special silent tongue. He wants to meet my family! Love moves so fast! But I don’t want to introduce him to Lily. Not yet. She’ll steal men from anyone, even me, I’m sure of it. It’s not her fault. She’s an addict, she gets high on testosterone, high on feeling wanted. I maneuver her to the door, push her out into the hall, bid her good night.
Alone, I look at the phone, my phone. I know only two numbers by heart. Lily’s and another. The other, I know everything about her by heart. She lives there, in my chest.
I call and hang up before the first ring.
“Protect your own peace,” I whisper to me.
I call again and hang up again and call and hang up and hang up and hang up and I don’t even lift the phone to my ear once. I feel like a desperate rom-com teenager. Us girls—we’re so silly!
The phone blinks an angry red. I’ve already exhausted its battery. I whisper an apology to the screen and flip it closed. Tuck it beneath my pillow to rest, keep it alive, even if just barely.
My room’s ceiling sags in the center, a smile, as if made of fabric, threatening to smother me in the night.
I dip my finger in the pot of ketchup, stolen from the dining hall, and add another stripe to my tally. 368. But when I draw the line, the wall gives, my finger breaks through the wallpaper, and then my hand is inside the house.
The termites have eaten the house’s organs, skeleton, and all that remains is a flimsy skin. It must feel so light, this house. Empty as the sky.
6
I’m changing for dinner when a knock from the other side of my room startles me. My handkerchief-waving lover is standing in the courtyard, palms pressed to my window, breathing fog onto the glass. I rush to him. My love! He’s handsome, even from such a close distance, a proximity at which most people become ugly, even yourself. Hav
e you ever kissed a mirror?
But my new lover is gorgeous. See how his cheekbones run straight as ramps. His smile is adoring; he loves me. I am wanted.
I hold my hands against his, just the width of the glass between us, and think that this is a good analogy for how I live. A window width away from everyone else. Like being with beloved friends who are somehow speaking French. Like the whole family eating around the dining table, but the table is rectangular and the rest of the family is clustered at one end and I am a long stretch away, too far to make out what anyone is really saying. Like sitting inside on a gloomy day with sunglasses on, seeing only the shadow of everything. I experience life from a distance, just the width of an eating disorder away from everyone else.
A nurse taps my lover on the shoulder. His expression is pained as she ushers him from my window, a husband being torn from his wife. This is how war must feel. I miss him immediately. I do!
I have Kat’s stupid song in my head. The nursery rhyme jingle of it. Something about the girls at school, soft lips, softer hearts. Stupid! I shake my head to erase the tune, the world’s worst Etch A Sketch.
“Thought Diversion” is what our group leader would advise. This is how we deal with our problems in the facility. We think about not-problems instead. Like my new love, for example!
I begin a letter to the thin man.
Hello—
My name is Rose. What’s your name? A few things about me: I enjoy
When we were kids, our teacher wanted us to be pen pals with the students of our sister school in Fiji. We were meant to write a list of things about ourselves that we wanted our new friend to know. My pen pal, Talia, wrote about her parents, who worked as cleaners at a fancy tourist resort. Her cat, unnamed, who slept in the crook of her neck each night. She wrote about her walk to school, the way she would steal a banana from a roadside stall for breakfast. She wrote about not having siblings. Not even one. I never finished my response to Talia. I didn’t need another friend. I had Lily, and she already knew everything.
Different people seek different species of love. This is something we learned in a group session. While you might prioritize one type of love, it’s important to acknowledge all of them is what the group leader told us. The types of love are these:
Monogamous love—People who desire monogamous love want to love and be loved by one person.
Small circle love—These people want to be loved deeply by a small number of people, maybe a partner and a couple of friends, parents, siblings.
Large circle love—These people want to be loved by many. They might be considered social butterflies. They would prefer to be loved widely rather than deeply.
Celebrities—People who want to be adored by the world. They do not require depth to their love but would prefer that a large population admires them from a distance.
Self-love—People who prioritize self-love tend to seek relationships that will contribute to their self, help them better love themselves.
I’m pleased to see that Kat isn’t at dinner yet. Sarah is sitting alone.
Us thin girls carry our plates to the cafeteria line, and a nurse with a face like a bulldog heaps two ladles of mashed potatoes, side by side, mocking our breastlessness, onto the plastic.
They gave up on porcelain plates a long time ago. New girls would drop their meals before they learned that the nurses would just replace their plates with other, bigger, fuller plates. So we eat from plastic like infants, and we use plastic cutlery, because we can’t be trusted with metal. After all, we starve ourselves; who knows what else we’re capable of?
“You’re going to eat all of that today, aren’t you, Rose?” says the supervising nurse. She is pointing at the piles on my plate.
“Oh, yes.” I nod, lick my lips, smile. “Yes, I am, yum!” I do so like to please these women. I am their most amenable anorectic.
I take my plastic tray, balanced across both hands like a scale, to a long dining table and sit beside Sarah, eager to tell her about my romance. My handkerchief-waving lover. About how when I get out of here, finally graduate from the facility, I will be released into the arms of a man. Imagine how happy I will be. My cheeks will hurt from smiling! They’ll use my photograph as the stock image in picture frames for sale! People will get suspicious of me: What does she have to be so happy about? Love!
“Guess what,” I say, but Sarah is busy shaking her leg beneath the table’s surface. It’s not a syndrome, she knows she’s doing it, and she’s smiling about the secret exercise no one has yet noticed. On top of the table, she’s flattening her mash with her fork, watching it squash between the tines like Play-Doh. But I get started on the process straightaway. The nurses are still serving, and their attention is divided between slopping meals onto plates and supervising our activity. I plunge my hands into my mashed potatoes and store as much as possible under my fingernails.
“Sarah,” says a nurse. “Sarah, stop that.”
Sarah halts her knee, but she’s smiling. She doesn’t care. She’s already lost at least five calories, two and a half Tic Tacs. She takes to tugging on her eyelashes instead.
While Sarah is being talked to, I take two handfuls of potatoes and slap them under my armpits, then press my elbows to my sides as if using a knife and fork like a Proper Lady. I pretend to lift bites to my lips. I pre-eat my meal.
“Hey.” A nurse frowns, pointing at me. “Don’t forget your pills.”
There’s a cocktail of capsules, white, yellow, pink, green, piled next to my water glass. I don’t trust them. There’s no nutritional information on most vitamin containers. They could be calorie-laden, and no one would ever know.
At the turn of the twentieth century, tapeworms were sold in pill form. The advertisements, I can imagine: pretty women in their stiff collars and broad hats, smiling, cake-laden forks raised to curled lips. Eat more and lose weight!
The tapeworm diet was banned when doctors found the worms to be growing into eight-meter-long snakes, slithering through skinny bodies, feeding on flesh.
The fad diets have changed, the advertisements have not. Everywhere you go: Want to lose weight? How to get your summer beach body fast! Lose those extra pounds in three simple steps!
The media: promotional parasites.
Lily always loved the mole on her back. The one physical difference between us. Her love for it became a tic. When she stood, absentminded, hand on hip, she’d trace the circumference of it with her fingertip. Circled, circled, circled, framed it over and over again, just to make sure it was still there, to make sure she was still not me.
One day, Jemima Gates asked Lily to go shopping after school, and Lily went. She didn’t invite me, didn’t even ask if it was okay for her to go, just told me to walk home without her.
“No,” I said. “I’ll come with you.”
“Not this time, Rosie.”
“I’ll scream.”
“So scream.”
I stared at her, and she stared back.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I said.
“I’m not doing anything to you. This isn’t about you at all.”
That night, Lily came home with a bag from an expensive store.
“How did you afford that?” asked our mother.
“Jemima got it for me,” said Lily. “As a gift.” She turned to me. “How was your afternoon, Rosie?” There was a waver to her voice, and the waver was fear. I said nothing. If she wanted to spend time without me, then I’d show her time without me. I wouldn’t speak to her until she begged.
Before bed, I caught Lily trying on her purchase in our shared bathroom. It was a crop top, spaghetti-strapped and slutty. The hem barely came to her belly button. From behind, I could see her mole, decorating the stripe of flesh between the top of her jeans and the bottom of the new tank.
“That’s hideous,” I said.
“Good night, Rosie,” she said.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the top all night. About how she might we
ar it to school, parade her mole around the halls. Everyone who usually confused us, stuttered between names, they’d know. They’d be able to tell us apart.
It was three a.m. before I decided on a course of action. I unplugged our night-light from the wall to use as a lamp and took the scissors from our shared homework desk. Lily was fast asleep on her stomach, and she barely shifted when I lifted her pajama shirt.
I opened the scissors, only a sliver, and carefully lowered the blades around the mole. Then, in one quick motion, I pinched the scissors closed. Lily screamed awake. The mole was still there, now surrounded by two bloody gashes. I dropped the scissors to the floor.
“I’m so sorry, Lil,” I said, already in tears. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. Oh, Lil.”
“What the hell were you doing?”
“I’m so sorry, Lil.” The sobs shook my whole body. I was sorry. I never meant to hurt her. “I just felt so left out. I don’t know why I did that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
Over time, the cuts faded into red slits, then white traces, then nothing at all. The mole, though, it stayed, so proud of itself.
“So,” says Sarah, when the nurse finishes scolding her. “Who do you think they are?”
“Who do I think who is?”
“The lesbians?”
“What?”
“The supply closet lesbians?”
This facility runs on gossip. It’s what keeps these girls alive. What is the caloric value of a rumor? High in protein and fiber, low in fat—hear one a day to boost your metabolism!
“How do you even know it’s lesbians?”