by Diana Clarke
“I don’t know.” Lily shrugs. “Things are getting serious, I guess. I know it’s moving quickly, but we just had this immediate connection. You should hear how we met. He came to parents’ night with a bottle of wine and a card that said, For all the stress my kid has caused you. I thought it was so funny. His kid isn’t even one of the bad ones.”
“He has a kid.”
“So then I asked if he wanted to share the bottle and one thing led to another.”
I hadn’t asked for the story. It tastes of old meat. A steak left in the sun. Something is off. “That’s nice, Lil,” I say. “What are you keeping from me?”
“Keeping from you?”
I pull a hangnail too far down. String cheese. The blood is immediate, and my instinct is to suck on my finger, lick myself clean, but the calories. What is the nutritional content of your own blood?
“You’re not telling me the whole story.”
She sighs. “You’ll judge me.”
“He’s married,” I tell her.
“He’s married.”
“He’s married,” I say.
“He is,” she says. “Married.”
“But?”
“He’s not happy. They’re not happy. They’re basically only still together for the kid.”
“He’s married.”
“Rose.”
The cuckoo is a bad mother. She tricks other mother birds into raising her babies by laying her eggs in a nest that isn’t her own and flying away, freeing herself of any and all responsibility.
“Is this why you’re dieting, too? This Phil Bright person?”
“No. I’m doing it for me.” The lie is sour as a lemon. She tucks her hair behind her ears. “But Phil did say I’m looking good lately. He thinks I’ve already lost at least five pounds. I think he’s the motivation I need, you know? I’ve wanted to lose a few for a while now, and my doctor’s been telling me I should try to eat healthier.” She runs a hand over her stomach, pinches the flesh that resides there. “I just, you know, I want to look good for him.”
“For Phil,” I say. It is important to support the ones we love.
“Exactly. For Phil. He’s so dreamy, Rose. And he’s crazy about me. The way he looks at me. He’s just—”
“He’s married.”
“Over fifty percent of marriages end in divorce, baby sister.” She stands, taps my nose, kisses my forehead. I am a child to her! “Now, I have to go. Phil and I are going out for Italian. Ciao bella.”
Someone said the difference between hunger and greed is the line at which the human body feels full. I don’t eat when I’m hungry. Lily eats even when she isn’t. She desires everything in excess. Men, food, love. She dates the way she eats. With a ravenous passion.
Our mother monitored our caloric intake from a young age. If we were dining at a restaurant with a choice of sides, our mother chose for us, the green salad, every time. At the ice cream store, we were given frozen yogurt. Soda was forgone in favor of its diet counterpart. Low-fat, zero-sugar, no-carb—most of the food we ate boasted the absence of something.
She was creating us in her image, attempting to make dieting something hereditary. The way she ate was like this: if we had lasagna for dinner, she ate only the sauce. If we had a roast, she’d eat a scoop of peas or cut a wedge of squash into tiny scraps and eat them one by one. If we were having burgers, she ate the vegetables from inside and left the burger and patty, still an entire hamburger in itself, assembled and everything. She ate quickly, our mother did, darting fork to plate and back again, mechanical, robot, the calculated up and down of her jaw, precise on its hinge. By the time her throat swelled in swallow, her fork had already punctured the next bite.
Whenever Mum went away for work, our father changed into a different version of him. A lighter version, one who smiled, who laughed. The three of us would wave goodbye to her as we all stood on the porch, watched as she drove off to whichever conference the pharmaceutical reps were going to this time, then he’d turn to us and raise his eyebrows. “Junk night?”
Junk night went like this: Dad got on the phone and ordered the most calorie-laden takeout from our favorite restaurants. Nachos from the Mexican place down the road. Fried rice from the Chinese shop on the corner. Pizza. Burgers. Fries. Milkshakes. While he reeled off orders enough for fifty, Lily and I skipped across the street to the convenience store, where we stocked up on pints of ice cream, bags of candy, chips, cookies, chocolate bars. We carried the plastic sacks home slung over our shoulders like twin Santas and when Dad opened the door we rubbed our bellies and ho-ho-hoed.
We were allowed to choose the movie, which meant I was allowed to choose the movie, which meant that we watched The Shining. I liked the twins, how they leaned into their sameness. We ate until our stomachs hurt. We groaned around on the floor, feeling ten times our size, laughing and happy.
“Do you girls want another slice?” Dad would ask.
“No!” we’d shout together, holding our bellies.
“Are you sure?” he’d say, lifting a slice and swimming it toward us.
“No!”
He’d chase us around and around the coffee table, slice of pizza held like a weapon. We played until we fell asleep stretched out on the couch, legs tessellated together.
In the morning, when we woke, all the food would be magically gone, hidden or tossed, out of shame, out of fear. Dad would be at work. We got ourselves ready for school, skipping breakfast, the memory of the previous night’s binge still curdling in our stomachs.
If Lily’s new romance really is love, and it sure tastes like it, then she will have a family, a new family, one complete without me. Mother, father, daughter, what a perfect fairy tale of a life. They’ll get married in a church, they’ll smile in family portraits, send quirky Christmas cards each year, Look how happy our life is in these matching Santa hats!
I’m jumping to conclusions, again, I know. I mourn any object prostrate on the street as roadkill long before I get close enough to learn that I’ve been grieving a trash bag or a stray shoe. I jump from conclusion to conclusion like a flea. A great athlete. I’d win medals! One jump extinguishes about a tenth of a calorie. It adds up, after a while—
8
The next morning, there’s an envelope on the floor of my room. Lying on the carpet, slipped beneath my door. It’s unopened, and beneath the address, my address, a red kiss. I lift it, slip my finger beneath its seal. The adhesive strip is still wet and the way it whispers open, labial.
R—
Did you call me? I got all these calls from an unknown number and I just thought that maybe . . . I don’t know. It seemed like such a Rose thing to do. I answered every time. I hope you’re doing okay. Your sister wouldn’t tell me which facility you’re at, so I sent this letter to every facility in the area. There are eleven!
I’m not sure if you’re allowed to write me back, maybe you could just call again? Call and hang up? It’ll be our secret code. I’ll know what it means.
—M
The one person I’m not allowed to speak to, to think about. The reason I divert every thought. I swallow and press the paper to my cheek. It’s soft. I touch the letter to my tongue, but it tastes only of dust. Maybe it’s the taste of love. If something is dusty, it’s been sitting around for a while. I want a love that sits around for a while.
Lily would tell me to shred the letter and then forget it ever came.
Our group leader would tell me to keep the letter only if it brought me no triggering feelings.
Kat, I imagine, would wiggle her plucked-thin eyebrows, knowing.
I pick up the cell phone and stare at its screen. I run my thumb over the buttons, the formula that would call. Our secret code. I’ll know what it means. But would I know what it meant?
I tuck the note into its envelope and then both the envelope and the phone under my pillow. I lie down. The letter feels big and obvious, the princess and the pea, I can feel its outline, rectangular, hard against my skull.
> There’s a line from one of Kat’s songs orbiting inside me. I’ll hold my tongue if you let me hold yours. I remember hearing it for the first time, the way my breath caught in my throat, as if hitched on something, mid-inhale.
Thought Diversion is what the group leader would say.
A fling is what the girls in the movies would say. Gossiping girls huddled around their heartbroken friend. They’d eat whole pints of ice cream and cry over romantic comedies and stroke tears from each other’s cheeks. This is how you be a girl, we are taught.
You have to get back out there, they’d say, and oh, how they’d nod.
The only way to get over someone is to get under someone, they’d say, and oh, how they’d laugh.
2003 (14 years old—Lily: 101 lbs, Rose: 101 lbs)
Jemima Gates lived in our neighborhood. Sometimes, in the summer, when Lily and I walked the block to the community pool to swim, Jemima would already be there, stretched out over her towel like a sacrifice. She wore a teal bikini, because even then she was edgy, while Lily and I wore our matching pink one-pieces.
Lily had begged for bikinis. We can even get matching ones, she’d pleaded with me, appealing to my preference that we matched our clothes each day. But please can we get bikinis? Everyone has bikinis now, Rosie. Look how cute! She held a bikini set in each hand, yellow with little red strawberries all over. I shook my head. A bikini would reveal her mole, our difference.
One-pieces or nothing, I said. I’ll scream.
Rosie.
I’ll scream, and Mum will make us leave the store with nothing.
We tried on the pink one-pieces. We look so cute, I said, untwisting the strap of Lily’s. So cute. Just the same.
I loved to wear our matching suits, like tiny synchronized swimmers, but Lily always slumped her way into hers.
We were at the dawn of puberty, and Jemima would sunbathe, body bare and bared, sipping on lemonade, shades on, watching the boys play soccer beside the pool. I tried not to stare, but it was impossible. Watching Jemima was like watching a celebrity. She sometimes caught me looking, winked, and said something like, “You like what you see, Rose?”
My skin tightened. I closed my eyes.
Cognitive behavior therapy is used to help people deal with unwanted cravings, desires, and urges, in three ways: redirect, distract, visualize.
Redirect: Think about something else until the urge passes.
Distract: Do something else until the urge passes.
Visualize: Imagine yourself in a different scenario until the urge passes.
Each of these methods assume an urge to be in motion. Each of these methods assume that, at some point, the urge will pass. Whether quick as a car zipping past on the highway or slow as a cloud lumbering by overhead. Cognitive behavior therapy does not account for those urges that stay stuck still, mountains, immense, unmoving.
Lily and I, when we were alone in the pool, liked to play Sister Missed-Her, a Marco Polo spin-off that included Lily hiding somewhere around the pool’s circumference, and me closing my eyes, spinning in circles, then asking, “Sister?”
Lily would reply, “Sister!”
I listened, stopped spinning, and pointed to where Lily’s voice had come from, called, “Sister!”
If I guessed the right spot, opened my eyes to see Lily at the end of my outstretched finger, then I won. If I missed, then Lily would shout, “Missed her!” and I lost.
When Jemima was there, boy-watching and snide, she would yawn at the game and tell us to grow up. Then she’d lie on the pool’s edge and tilt her sunglasses to get a better view of the boys playing soccer on the other side of the fence.
The summer after Jemima’s sleepover, the grass yellowing in the heat, teeth going bad, Lily and I were playing Sister Missed-Her when Jemima came sauntering through the pool’s gate. I stared. Her body was already swiveling and stretching in adult places.
“Hey,” she said, flipping her sunglasses up onto her head and pushing her hair back like a celebrity. I wondered how she knew to do these things. Things that made her audience immediately aware of her superior femininity. “Can I play?” she said, dipping a toe into the pool.
“We’re playing Sister Missed-Her,” I said, wary.
“Yeah,” said Jemima, her eyes blinking to the soccer boys, who were roaring at a goal. “I know. Can I play?”
“If you want,” I said.
“Rosie,” said Lily. “I don’t know if that’s such a good idea. Why don’t we just play Hot or Not again? Jemima loves Hot or Not.” She was using the voice she used when I was meant to listen to her. More nasal than usual. Like some ghost hand was pinching the bridge of her nose. I hated that voice.
“No,” I said. “That’s a boring game. Sister Missed-Her is fun. And anyway, we were halfway through a game.” I turned to Jemima. “I’ll teach you the rules.”
“Rosie,” said Lily, using the voice she used when I was meant to seriously listen to her right now, low and controlled as a train on its tracks. “Don’t,” she said.
But I was already giddy at the thought of Jemima learning the game, learning to love it, learning to love me. Lily rarely ditched me for the popular girls, even though I knew she could if she wanted to, but now, if I could just show Jemima that I wasn’t weird, that I was normal, fun, even, just like Lily, then I had a chance to be friends with the popular girls, too. Lily and I could both be cool, together. Twins.
A stray soccer ball rolled through the pool’s gate. Jemima picked it up. A boy stood, hands wide and waiting.
“You want this?” Jemima said, a smile.
The boy only nodded.
“Come and get it, then.”
The boy, our age, neared slowly, untrusting. Jemima flipped the ball from hand to hand. Her eyes on the boy the whole time. He paused.
“I said come and get it,” said Jemima.
He stood, hands dangling. The air, it throbbed.
Eventually, Jemima tired of the game and tossed him the ball. The whole world sighed.
“So are we playing, or what?” said Jemima, when the boy turned and ran back to his game.
“Come on, Lil,” I said, trying to communicate beneath my words, some kind of spontaneous Morse code. I am doing this to help you, I wanted her to hear. “Don’t be a bummer,” I said.
Jemima nodded. “Yeah, Lil,” she said, a sneer. “Don’t be a bummer.”
Lily’s eyes were a warning, but then she shrugged, a surrender. I happily reeled off the rules to Jemima, who nodded and nodded, an eager learner. But once I was done with the basics of the game, she held a hand, fingers spread, a stop.
“Did I miss something?” I said.
“No,” said Jemima. “I have an addition to the game.”
Lily sighed, and I swallowed.
Jemima went on. “This new game is called Sister, Missed-Her, Mister Kisser.”
“Mister Kisser?”
“Yeah,” said Jemima, her smirk evolved into a smile. “If you’re accidentally pointing at the soccer boys, you have to go kiss one of them.”
“Kiss one of them?” I said. “A boy?”
Jemima smirked. “As opposed to what?”
Lily’s cheeks flushed.
“Wait,” I swallowed. “If we’re accidentally pointing at the boys on the road, we have to go kiss one of them?”
Jemima looked at Lily. “Is she stupid?”
Jemima, unlike the rest of the world, had always treated Lily and me as separates. She refused to let me be part of Lily’s extroversion, her likeability, her personhood. She saw me for who I was on my own, which was an undesirable. Jemima started a rumor that I had a crush on Lily, and for a good six months, the popular kids at school called me Incest.
What Jemima Gates didn’t understand: I didn’t want Lily; I wanted to be her.
Lily crossed her arms. “Rosie,” she said. “Maybe we should just go home. It’ll be dinnertime soon.” She was chewing her lip, the way she did, waiting to see what I would do, whet
her she would be required for damage control, or whether she could continue on with her day. I didn’t want Lily to be concerned for me. I didn’t want to embarrass her. Not ever. Not now. I wanted to do this for her, to be popular for her.
“No,” I said. “We’re playing.” I looked at Jemima. “Stupid rule. But I’ll do it. The kissing part.”
“You will?” said Lily.
“You will?” said Jemima.
“Yeah,” I said, shrugging in a way that I hoped seemed nonchalant despite my rioting stomach, the way my lips tingled and stung with anticipation. I had never kissed anybody besides Lily before. Not even my parents, who were self-described nontouchers.
“Okay,” said Jemima. “I’ll go first.”
She spun. “Sister?”
Both Lily and I, hiding in the same spot, in the opposite direction from the boys on the road, replied, “Sister.”
Jemima smiled as she pointed directly at the makeshift soccer goal, 180 degrees from our hiding spot. “Sister?”
“Missed her,” murmured Lily.
“Mister kisser.” I laughed.
Lily, of course, must have realized that Jemima had chosen the boys on purpose, but I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to kiss one of them, my body didn’t work that way. I chuckled at how bad Jemima was—perfect little Jemima, so bad at our game!
She levered herself out of the pool with grace, stood, jutted her chest. Magicked a tube of Cherry Chap from somewhere, slathered it thick, then walked, headfirst, toward the soccer game.
“Hey!” she called as she neared the boys. “Stop!” And they did. All standing, mouths agape at Jemima’s near-naked body. She walked right up to the kid nearest the curb, took his face in her hands, and kissed him on the lips. She let her mouth linger there, like a movie woman, and then stepped away, pinched his cheek in a way that was so adult and condescending. She strutted back to us, dove into the pool, and surfaced, raking fingers through her hair.
“Who’s next?” she said, as the boys whooped and cheered.