by Diana Clarke
“I heard the moaning myself. So did Kat.”
I ignore the mention of Kat Mitchells. Who cares. Not me! “Maybe someone was just masturbating in there.”
“Gross,” says Sarah. “And anyway. If it was just, you know, that, wouldn’t she have done it in her own room?”
She has a point. I look around the cafeteria, as if I could Where’s Waldo? the lesbian. As if I expect her to be wearing a white-and-red striped suit or a sandwich board that says, it’s me! i’m gay! No. Only thin girls staring at their plates, hoping they might ogle the food away.
Before I was admitted, I had to answer a questionnaire:
Do you monitor what you eat?
Do you count your caloric intake?
Do you think you need to lose weight?
Do you skip meals on purpose?
Do you feel fat?
Ask any woman these questions. Admit us all to the facility! This is what you have done to us. This is your monster, and it’s starving.
“My darlings!” Kat calls as she carries her tray to our table. She’s wearing a lipstick so scarlet it looks painful. Her mouth is pretty and pouted, the shape of a rose. “My loves!”
Thin girls, those scattered around other tables, watch as their new idol weaves her way through the cafeteria and toward us. The type of love that Kat Mitchells seeks is Celebrity.
“I’d think Kat was the lesbian in the supply closet if she didn’t just get here,” I whisper from the peripherals of my lips.
Sarah laughs, and the laugh sounds like a victory. Mine.
“Hey,” I smile, polite.
“What’d you say, baby?” Kat frowns. “You just said my name.”
I swallow. Sarah is looking at me, waiting. I could lie, but dishonesty is frowned upon. What the group leader tells us: Deceit begets harm. Truth begets health. It is important to be honest. “I said that, if you didn’t just get here, I’d think you were the lesbian who’s been fooling around in the supply closet.”
Kat laughs a bark and pleats her long body into the chair beside me. “Oh, honey,” she says, lifting her cutlery. “I’ve been out of the closet since before you were born.” Then she leans over her meal, inhales the damp scent of powdered mash. “I fucking love potatoes,” she says, scooping a forkful between her lips. “Especially when they’re vodka.”
I look at Sarah, eyes wide, and she looks at me, eyes wider.
“Eat something, Sarah, baby,” Kat says, mouth padded with potatoes. “Mash is an easy one to get rid of. Comes right up. Like barfing clouds, darling. It’s gorgeous.”
Sarah eyes her meal as I eye Sarah. The only thing I can control is my own joy.
Kat eats and talks, all at once. “So, guess what, I’m working on a secret project,” she says. “It’s so exciting, darling, it’s going to liven this dud of a place right up. I can’t say much yet, kitties, I’m keeping mum about it for now. Just for now! But I’ll let you ladies in on it as soon as I have the logistics sorted out.”
“What is it?” says Sarah. “You can tell us. We won’t say anything.” She looks especially young today. “We promise. Right, Rose?”
“I said,” Kat reaches out and tweaks Sarah’s nose, “I’ll let you in on it once it’s all planned out, baby.” Her plate is clean. She stands. “Anyway, gotta go,” she says. “Kisses!”
We watch her dart between tables, show her empty plate to a nurse, who waves her out of the cafeteria. The nurse mustn’t notice Kat’s fingers, preemptively raised to her lips, poor girl. I turn back to say something to Sarah, something about bingers and purgers, but her mouth is full of food.
“Can you believe Kat Mitchells is in our facility?” a thin girl leans over to hiss. “The Kat Mitchells. I always wanted to be her.”
“Well, congratulations,” I say, standing from the table. “You did it.”
2003 (14 years old—Lily: 101 lbs, Rose: 101 lbs)
Lily and I were invited to Jemima Gates’s sleepover. Or, Lily was invited, and I packed my bag, too. She didn’t go places without me. Especially overnight.
“Rosie,” said Lily, as we tucked toothbrushes into side pockets. “Can you do something for me?”
“Anything.”
“Can you just try to be normal, tonight?” Lily sucked her lip. “Just, I just mean, I don’t mean that you shouldn’t be yourself. I just mean, can you be a more normal self?”
“My normal self?”
“Well, no.”
I zipped my bag closed. “Never fear, Lil,” I said. “I’ll be nothing more than your shadow. You say jump, I’ll jump.”
“Just try not to say anything, okay?”
Jemima’s house was big. This sprawling white brick mansion that, compared to our two-bedroom home, seemed palatial. Dad dropped us off and told us to ring the bell. He’d driven away before Jemima opened the door.
“Lil!” Jemima hugged Lily and kissed her on the cheek. She did things like this. She’d probably been to Paris and learned how to cheek-kiss from a French man twice her age. “Oh! You brought your sister,” she said, her smile tightening.
I raised a hand in a nearly-wave. I did not receive a cheek kiss.
“Okay,” said Jemima. “That’s fine. The more the merrier, I guess, right? Come in. The girls are in the basement.”
The foyer, a room that seemed to have no function except to hold removed shoes, was so huge and empty it felt as if the house was abandoned.
“Are your parents home?” I asked as I added my shoes to the pile. Jemima ignored me.
“Are your parents home?” Lily repeated.
“Oh no.” Jemima laughed, shaking her head. “Hardly ever. It’s so cool. I get to do anything I want.”
I looked at Lily.
“The housekeeper’s upstairs, though,” said Jemima, nodding at a long, curved staircase that looked straight out of the movies. “She won’t bother us. I told her to keep to herself.”
I made a sound. It was a laugh of disbelief I’d attempted to stifle, but the resulting noise was a snort. Lily elbowed me.
“Is your sister okay?” Jemima asked Lily, as if asking me directly could put her at risk of contracting loser.
“She’s fine,” said Lily. “She’s cool. You’re cool, right, Rosie? She’s cool. Let’s go downstairs.”
The girls welcomed Lily and politely ignored me. They sat around, all wearing fluffy robes in feminine shades. Lily and I didn’t own robes, and when I suggested we change into our matching Elmo pajamas, she shushed me.
The basement was dark but for the twinkle of white festive lights. There was a table adorned with pink candy and pink-frosted cupcakes and a large chocolate cake that had Jemima’s name written in a loopy pink cursive, a font reserved for pretty girls.
At school, on tests, in birthday cards to relatives, I always wrote my name in capital letters. ROSE, I shouted to everyone. ROSE, ROSE, ROSE.
Music was playing, a song I recognized. Kat Mitchells crooning about kissing girls. It was everywhere right now. Our parents called it that gay girl song whenever her sandpaper voice bellowed out the opening notes. We weren’t allowed to sing along, but Lily and I knew every word, lip-synced the lyrics to each other—she was the only audience I ever needed.
Lily poured a cup of lemonade, my favorite, and dug a pack of cards out of her bag, ones she must have packed especially. She handed both to me.
“You play solitaire over here,” she whispered. “And drink this. I’ll be just over there, okay?” She was pointing at the herd of girls, who sat in a circle, chatting and sipping on sodas spiked with vodka. I nodded and started to shuffle.
Time passed in won games. Twelve. Mostly, I managed to tune out the warble of girl gossip and giggling.
“Rose,” said a voice that wasn’t Lily’s. I stopped dealing cards and turned. It was Jemima, and she was looking at me. Talking to me. On purpose! “Come here,” she beckoned.
I stood, moved forward a single step, untrusting.
“We need you to be the l
ookout.”
“The lookout?”
“That’s right.” Jemima spoke to me slowly. As if talking to a child. “The lookout. Go stand at the top of the stairs,” she said. “And shout if the housekeeper is coming.”
“Why?” I said.
“Just do it, Rosie,” said Lily, with a smile. “You’re part of the game.”
“The most important part of the game,” said Jemima.
“Really?” I said, skeptical.
“Really.” Jemima winked.
“Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll play.” I hurried up the stairs and stood on the landing. “Ready!” I called. “What now?”
“Now wait up there!” yelled Jemima.
I sat, my back against the wall, and waited. Time ached. I braided my hair, unraveled it, and braided it again.
There was a lot of laughing, yelping, squealing, all coming from the basement. I peered down the stairs, but it was dark. They’d turned the lights off, and I couldn’t see anything. There was a gasp. A scream. I stood, slipped down the stairs silently, squinted into the black.
“I dare you to kiss me.” The voice was Jemima’s.
“Kiss you?” said my voice, which meant Lily was talking. “Like on the mouth?”
“Duh,” said Jemima.
“Uh.”
“You’d only be afraid if you were a lesbian,” said Jemima. “Are you?”
“No,” said Lily. “I’ll do it.”
I could make out the shadows. My sister’s silhouette, so like mine, and Jemima’s, curvier, more adult. Then the space between them disappeared. Their shadows combined, and there was a wet smacking sound that made me wince.
“Lil?” I said, and the shapes leapt apart.
Someone hit the lights and I squinted into the new brightness.
“Why are you watching us, lesbo?” said Jemima, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. Her eyes, a terrible cliché, sparkled. They really did!
“We should go,” said Lily. “We’ll go home. Come on, Rosie.” She took my hand, chose me, and led me back up the stairs. We only needed each other. The type of love we needed was Monogamy.
Us thin girls are always full of food when we leave the dining room. We wear it like fashion. Sauces striped down our arms, sticky sleeves. Cheese pressed to our chests until it clings, a gluey bra, to breasts that have long been flattened, concave as diet buttons on soda lids. We smile as we strut, single file, from the room. The strut, of course, an internal one, for one cannot stride well with a slab of hamburger meat clutched between her thighs.
Sometimes we’re caught in the act—steak-handed—but we’re clever. We morph, mutate, like a strain of the flu. Tricks get trickier. We traffic our meals, chipmunk-like, in our cheeks. We tie our hair in buns, tuck stray vegetables into brunette caves. We plug our nostrils with peas. Fold deli meat small enough to insert into our ears. Store lumps of meat in our throats and cough them into our pillowcases once we are safely in our rooms. We’ll do anything to keep from eating. We will rest our heads on sacks of rot each night.
As I walk past a potted plant, I drop dollops of potato into the soil and smile.
As I walk past the supply closet, I press my ear to the door, listen for a moan.
When I was admitted to the facility, the group leader gave me a list of my issues and a list of mantras to deal with them:
Control—You can only control your own joy.
Dependence—You are your own self.
Abandonment—You are your own forever.
Emotional manipulation—You are responsible for only your own life.
Self-destruction—Protect your own peace.
Your own your own your own your own. What does that mean? My own? I’ve never been my own.
As kids, Lily planned our wedding. We would, she assured me, meet twin brothers. They’d be handsome. A whole foot taller than us, with eyes so green they looked enchanted. We’d get married on the same day! Our vows would be said in unison! She made a wedding book. We chose dresses, hers a dessert-looking gown and mine a simple white A-line.
“Now pick a husband,” she told me, opening a magazine to the best suits worn at the Oscars that year. “Any of them. You can pick first.”
The men looked the same, all in their monochrome costumes. It was as if they wanted to be interchangeable. I shrugged. “Him?” I pointed at the first suited man. He was so tall and slender he looked as if he’d been stretched.
“Oh, oops,” said Lily. “That’s actually a woman. Tilda Swinton.”
“A woman?” I said, lifting the page, bringing Tilda Swinton’s face up to mine, so close I could see her pixels. She was beautiful. I didn’t want to change my answer.
“Who do you want to choose instead?” said Lily.
“You pick for me,” I said. “I don’t mind.”
Lily chose Hugh Jackman to be my husband, even though he looked more like my father. She glued a photo of my face onto a bride’s body and cut and pasted Hugh Jackman beside me. For some reason, the image of her and Orlando Bloom looked like a wedding. The one of me with Hugh Jackman, my young face, my virginal frock, looked more like a sacrifice.
It’s Relaxation Hour, and usually Sarah and I would be sitting in the common room with books, her head in my lap, or mine in hers, reading aloud whenever we came across something noteworthy. But today I am alone. My book on animal behavior, called Animal Behaviors, is in my hand. I sit on the floor and look for somewhere to rest my head.
Halfway through the hour, Sarah arrives, hand in hand with Kat. They’re giggling, shoulders trembling with happy. Sarah wipes the corner of her mouth and Kat picks something off her T-shirt, flicks it to the floor. A fleck of dried vomit, I’m sure of it.
I pretend not to see them. The only thing I can control is my own joy. I smile and return to my book.
Adélie penguins use rocks to elevate their nests higher above the ground. This way, when the snow melts, the egg will not be drowned. Lazy Adélie penguins, when building their nests, do not go to the shoreline to collect stray rocks, but instead steal the stones from neighboring nests.
7
Lily visits. Leans against the door frame, takes a cigarette from behind her ear, the world’s worst magic trick, and a lighter from her breast pocket. She lifts the cigarette to her lips.
“What are you doing?” I say. She lights up and inhales, coughs, scrunches her nose, and snuffs the cigarette on my empty CalSip box. “I didn’t know you smoked,” I say.
“I don’t,” she says. “I’m trying to pick it up.”
“You’re trying to pick up smoking?” I look at my sister, at the door, wonder whether Lily has been replaced with some terrible doppelgänger, and wonder whether I would even realize if she had been.
Lily’s changes are always so abrupt, disruptive as that of a caterpillar. When she was at university, she became a vegetarian overnight. Switched her degree from law to primary school teaching because of a handsome professor. One day she’d be a fierce feminist and the next she’d be dating the world’s most malicious misogynist. When we were kids, she was so herself that I could be her, too. I wonder whether the reason she’s always changing is to keep me from copying her. Be more like your sister, people would always tell me. Maybe I’m so herself that she feels like she can’t be.
I never change. I’m the base. The constant. The placebo. I can measure how much Lily changes by how far she strays from me, how many standard deviations she’s wandered. She always comes back.
“You’re trying to pick up smoking?” I say. “In 2013?”
“The guy I’m seeing smokes,” she says. “It’s just something I’m trying out. Don’t overreact. Don’t freak out.”
I say nothing.
“He’s not, like, pushing me to smoke or anything. That’s not what this is. Don’t put this on him.”
“I wasn’t. But why?”
She shrugs.
“You know you don’t have to be exactly like him in order to love him, right?”
Lily thinks she will better love this man if she becomes more like him. Smoking and all.
In the 1920s, doctors prescribed cigarettes as a weight-loss tool. They curb the appetite, those doctors would say. Too much food can kill you.
“They’re an appetite suppressant, you know?” Lily says. “Cigarettes are.”
Of course I know. I know every trick in the book. It’s my bible, that book. I keep it on my nightstand. “Are you trying to lose weight?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugs, attempting casual, failing. “Maybe? I’m trying this new holistic health guide. It’s called YourWeigh. It’s not a diet, it’s more like a lifestyle.”
My stomach aches. My sister, the advertisement. “And cigarettes are part of your new lifestyle diet?”
“Well,” Lily says. “Not cigarettes explicitly. But anything that stunts the appetite is encouraged. You know, black coffee, herbal tea, all that. I figure smoking can only help, too. Right? I figure it’d be good to lose a few pounds. You know, for my health.”
The words coming out of her mouth belong to me. Lily has never dieted. I know she’s trying to please because I can taste the citrus tang of her desperation deep in my throat, its light vibration clings to my tonsils. I want to tell her that she doesn’t need to lose anything. Instead, I say nothing. I can only control my own joy.
“Anyway, so, my new guy? Phil? He wants to meet you,” says Lily, her cheeks flushed with romance.
“What?”
“Phil. That’s his name. Phil Bright,” she says. Proud.
“Phil Bright? Isn’t that, like, some kind of scholarship?”
“Can you not?”
“Why does he want to meet me?”