by Diana Clarke
The day before graduation, Jemima invited me to stay at her place. A sleepover. Her parents were in Europe and she’d been hearing noises in the night.
We lay, side by side on her bed, and smoked.
“I feel like I’m waiting for something to happen,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Don’t you feel like you’re waiting for something?”
“To happen?”
“Don’t worry about it.” She took a long drag from her cigarette. “The best part of my olds being gone”—she exhaled— “is I ran out of food a week ago.”
“Do you have money?”
“Of course I do. I just want to see how long I can go without it.”
“It?”
“Eating. Like you do.”
Like me. I took the cigarette and inhaled a long drag, breathed deep, until my lungs swelled with smoke.
“How long can you go?” she said, rolling onto her stomach, chin in hand, to look at me. She was wearing only her underwear. Nudity was something she did around me often and you’d think I would be desensitized to it and you’d think wrong.
I shrugged. A long time. “I don’t know.”
“Do you get tired?”
“I’m always tired.”
“How do you get the energy to do anything? Homework? Sex?”
I spluttered on the smoke, a rare occurrence. I could make it through a pack a day by then.
“Oh,” she said. “You’re still a virgin.”
I extinguished the cigarette. “You know I am.”
“Why?” she said. “Someone would fuck you, you know.”
I looked around, looked around at not her.
“Is it because you’re gay?”
I said nothing.
“Is it?”
I stretched and stood. “I should go home.”
“No!” She reached for my hand, pulled. “You promised you’d stay.”
“I don’t really feel like it anymore, sorry.”
“Wait,” she said, pulling me closer, closer. She flipped my arm, kissed my wrist, let her glossed lips stick to my skin. I waited for her to be done with the ritual, but she wasn’t. She kissed her way, slowly, up my arm, to my shoulder. I swallowed. She kissed the curve of my neck, my chin, jaw, ear. She sucked on the swoop of my earlobe, and a moan came from me.
“What’re you doing?”
“Stay,” she whispered against my cheek, before continuing with the kissing.
Then her mouth was wet against mine. Her tongue, quick to part my lips, find my tongue, tickle it with hers.
“What’s happening?” I said, pulling back.
“No one should leave high school a virgin.”
“That’s what this is?” I said, pushing, standing. “Is that all this is, Jemima?”
She leaned back, head against the wall. “Isn’t that enough?”
Her underwear was wet at the crotch. A diamond-shaped patch of desire on the gray cotton. I wanted to touch it. Taste. Instead, I took my coat from her nightstand and shrugged it on, itchy with need.
“No,” I said. And I left Jemima Gates to deal with the noises in the night, alone.
It is so strange to walk out the facility doors, past the administration desk, and into the parking lot. I squint into the sunlight and the breeze feels like a lover’s fingers against my skin. I breathe deep and the air is bigger out here. I look up and the sky stretches so far, my stomach tips askew at the size of it.
“Wow,” I say.
Lily frowns at me. “Don’t be dramatic,” she says. “It wasn’t like it was a prison in there.”
I say nothing, just inhale the air, which is so fresh it almost hurts.
Part Two
24
There’s a line in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland that reads: “How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards!”
It’s so cold out here, outside. There are so many people. None of them thin. None of them me. I walk with my head downward.
“Eat something!” a stranger shouts upon seeing my body. It’s hard to know if he’s looking out for me or being cruel, and it doesn’t matter because the two intentions are not mutually exclusive.
Lily’s apartment is on the third floor of a skinny building, small, with only a single bedroom, water-stained wallpaper, peeling linoleum. She’s turned her couch into a bed, smaller than a twin, the perfect size for me. The house is dirty. The kitchen floor sparkles in a way that isn’t the clean way, and clothes are strewn about the furniture like trash after a storm. Half-smoked cigarettes litter her carpet. There are all of these hanging plants and all of them are dead. I pace the room politely, giving myself the grand tour, but there isn’t much to see. I poke at a plant, and it rustles at me, its leaves so dry they’re yellow and crisp. They’ve hardened in their hunger.
“They’re dead,” says Lily. I wasn’t going to point it out, but I’m glad she knows what she’s done. I leave them to their passing and join Lily in the kitchen.
YourWeigh by Lara Bax is the centerpiece of the counter. I sit on a stool and take the familiar book, flip it over. A woman, long, black hair, too-wide eyes, smiles at me from above the bar code.
“Lara Bax,” I say. “Sounds like a laxative.”
“Ignore that,” says Lily. “I should’ve put it away. Sorry.”
I frown. Open the cover.
“It’s nothing,” Lily says.
“This is the diet you’re following?”
“Kind of. Not really. It’s, well, Phil gave it to me.”
“Phil gave you a diet book?”
“Drop it.”
I do. The book clatters to the table.
What I want to say: What kind of man gifts you a diet book?
What I do say: nothing.
It is important to support the ones we love.
We sit in quiet for a moment, waiting for the tension to ease, slacken like a stretched muscle. Usually, this would be the time to change the subject. To talk about the last time either of us called our father or about how some high school acquaintance is pregnant or married or divorced. But the woman, Lara Bax, stares at me, daring me, and it is very difficult to be mature all of the time.
“Why would Phil give you a diet book, Lil?”
“It’s not a diet book.” Lily’s cheeks scorch. “It’s his book. And anyway, it’s a holistic health guide.”
“It’s his?”
“He owns YourWeigh with his wife.”
“His wife?”
“Lara Bax.” Lily points at the woman. Phil’s wife.
I stare at Lara Bax, and then at Lily, and then at Lara Bax. “You . . .” I pause. “Lily, you’re doing Phil’s wife’s diet?”
“It’s not a diet!” She’s flushed and, as a result, my face warms. “It’s a holistic health guide!”
“What even is holistic health?”
“Like, self-love.” She throws her hands up, frustrated. “I don’t know. Just leave it.”
“Phil doesn’t think you love yourself?”
“Rose.”
“What?”
She closes her eyes and does deep breaths. “I really am so proud of you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Sure.”
Lily goes to the pantry, takes a granola bar from a shelf, and unwraps it. I feel relieved. Relieved that she’s eating. But, when she takes a bite, I hear the squeak of rubber against teeth.
“What is that?” I say.
“Oh, it’s just a diet bar.”
“A diet bar.”
“It has zero calories, but it fills you up.”
“Zero calories?” I watch her chew. Once upon a time, Lily would have been aware of what she was doing. Discussing caloric value with a recovering anorectic. She would have been more sensitive than to bring up something as triggering as dieting around me, the best dieter in the world. But I recognize this new Lily, too, the way she holds a palm against her stomach to reassure herself of her siz
e. The way she has started wearing clothing that drowns her body in fabric. She’s stuck in that spiral, the one I know so well, that selfish starving spiral that keeps you inside yourself.
“Want to try?” She holds the bar out to me, its end wet with her saliva. I take it and squint at the nutritional content. SkinnyBar by Lara Bax. Zero calories. It looks like chocolate but smells like trees; damp soil, rotting leaves.
“Try it,” she says. “You might like it.”
I nibble a corner, and the bar has the texture of an eraser. Rubber crumbles on my tongue. It tastes of muted dirt. Of kissing the earth.
The cotton ball diet was one that stormed the modeling industry in 2013. Girls dunked cotton balls in juice and swallowed them whole. They expanded in the gut, made the models feel full. Imagine those catwalks, thin bodies prancing, fluffy on the inside.
“This is disgusting.” I spit the mouthful into my hand, where it fizzes and bubbles, a science experiment in my palm. I lick my gums, slippery. There are grains of something stuck between my teeth. “Are you sure they’re actually edible?”
“It’s not that bad.” She takes the bar back, defensive. “They grow on you. And they’re really working. I’ve lost, like, thirty pounds by now.”
She’s right. Her sweater looks like an old skin, ready to be shed. It’s so baggy it nearly reaches her knees. I recognize myself. The way, back when I was shrinking, my clothes seemed to grow, as if replaced each night with the same garment, just a single size up. She chews and chews the bad bar, and I make a promise to myself. To her. I am going to help her! I will save her. This is why I am here. This is why I am back in the real world.
“Are those bars a part of your new diet? From the book? This book?” I pick the diet guide back up, leaf through it, open to a random page, and read. “‘Your weight is not your worth, but weighing less might be worth it.’” I close the book. “Jesus fucking Christ, Lily.”
“I know. But I’m going to quit as soon as I hit my goal weight. God, I just . . . I just hate that he’s with that skinny bitch over me, you know?”
I say nothing. Feel my eating disorder’s cold, thin fingers wind their way around my throat, tighten their grip. She always means to choke.
She’s an abusive lover, anorexia is.
She stands next to you before the mirror, combs your hair into silk, and points at your reflection with a manicured finger. Fat, she whispers into your ear.
She takes the apple you’ve picked from the bowl, presses her lips to your mouth in its place, tangles her tongue with yours. You don’t need that. She winks and drops the fruit to the floor.
Don’t go out to dinner with your friends, she whines from the bed, naked and splayed. Stay home, with me.
She runs acrylic nails down your cheeks, then forces the tips between your lips, reaches deep into your throat, tugs your tonsils until you are empty of everything but her.
“Look at her,” Lily says, taking her phone, opening Instagram, which is already on Lara Bax’s page. I wonder how much time Lily spends searching that woman’s name, scrutinizing her waist, squinting at this stranger’s smile.
She’s pretty. Thin in a way that looks healthy. Has many thousands of followers, and each post has many thousands of views, likes, hundreds of comments. In one photo, Lara Bax is sitting in a kayak, bikini-wearing and beautiful, looking over her shoulder. Stay fit to stay thin! says the caption. In another, she’s sitting at a desk, grinning up at the camera, Sharpie in hand, autographing her own diet guide, scribbling her signature across her own face. #LaraBaxDiet #YourWeigh. In another, her arms around her husband, his chin resting on her head. The caption: Love.
“See how thin?” Lily is looking over my shoulder, frowning at the feed.
What I want to say: Losing weight won’t make him want you more.
What I want to say: Losing weight doesn’t make anyone want you more.
But it is important to support the ones we love. All I can say: “Be careful, Lil.”
“I will be. I promise, baby sister. Now. Are you hungry?” she asks when she swallows the last of the eraser bar. “I think I have some cereal.”
“No.”
“Sure?”
“Sure.”
A photograph of Lara Bax holding five of the bars in various flavors, splaying them like a poker hand. The caption: Tag ten friends in the comments to be in the draw to win a month’s supply of SkinnyBars! There are over two hundred thousand comments, each tagging ten people. That’s two million people newly aware of this diet. I click on one of the commenters and am taken to her page. The girl is maybe twelve. The first photo, her and her dog. The second, she is holding a trophy, beaming after winning a soccer match. The third, a photo of her reflection in a mirror. She’s wearing scarlet lipstick, so much mascara that her eyelashes have turned spider. She’s facing the camera, pouting, but her body is turned profile, her stomach so sucked in that her ribs look like protrusions.
I set the phone on the counter and take a pillow into my lap. It smells of Lily, floral and honey. I inhale the scent until it seeps into my brain.
Lily has a shelf full of children’s books in the living room. One is called Der süße Brei. I find a German dictionary and sit on the floor, back against the wall, and translate: Sweet Porridge. A German fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm.
I sit with the story, plucking each word from its passage like flowers from a garden and finding the direct translation. It takes a long time. I love things that take a long time. Things that steal my mind away from the hunger and lower the day to its navy end, easy as a shoehorn.
The story is about a young girl who lives with her mother. They’re poor, and they don’t have enough food. They’re hungry.
One day, the girl goes into the forest to seek out some berries to eat, and instead finds an old woman. The woman gives her a magical pot, and when the girl says, “Cook, little pot, cook!” it starts making a sweet porridge and continues cooking until the girl commands, “Stop, little pot!” Then the porridge would stop accumulating and the pot would be still. The girl brings the pot home and she and her mother eat.
Only, one day, when the girl goes out without her mother to look for any food that isn’t porridge, the mother becomes hungry. She commands, “Cook, little pot, cook!” as she’s seen her daughter do, and the pot cooks, and the mother eats the porridge with a great hunger.
When she’s full, she wants the pot to stop making porridge, but it won’t. It keeps cooking and cooking and cooking, the porridge overflows, filling the kitchen, filling the house. The porridge flows out onto the street, filling the town, the city, the world.
When the little girl returns home, she has to wade through a wall of porridge to eventually announce, “Stop, little pot!” The pot finally stops.
And from then on, anyone who wants to visit the girl and her mother have to eat their way through a wall of porridge to find the right house.
25
On Monday morning, we have to go to school. I’m not allowed to exist on my own yet, not to be trusted with my own life, and so I rebecome Lily’s shadow, I follow her to school.
Lily’s students are much smaller than I expected them to be. Of course, I’ve met Diamond before, and she is small, but I didn’t realize that she was the rule rather than the exception. Their flock of heads barely reaches my hip. To walk between a crowd of them is like wading through long grass. I feel like a monster come to invade a city and I consider knocking down a miniature desk with one mighty blow. How can Lily live with feeling so big?
I didn’t want to come to school, but I’m also grateful for the structure. The world’s freedom frightens me. I’ve grown accustomed to having breakfast, a doctor visit, group sessions, lunch, free time, then dinner and bed. I like being told what to do. I am so good at following instructions. Talented at the art of obedience.
“Listen up, team,” says Lily, who is different when standing before her class. Taller, brighter, her expression open wide as a new day. She cla
ps her hands to settle the room, a magic trick.
“Listen, kids,” she says. “This, here, is my sister, Rose. She’ll be helping me out for a while. Can everyone say hello to Rose?”
The chorus, they sing!
“Great. Now, Rose is going to sit at the back of the classroom, and she’s going to watch. But she’s very smart, Miss Rose is, so if you need any help with your spelling words, you can ask her instead of me if you’d like.”
Wide eyes are in awe of me. So smart I can help them spell. Diamond waves from her seat beside the window, and I wave back, the uneasy start to our relationship apparently forgotten. Diamond mouths, Hi, Rose.
Hi, Diamond, I mouth back.
I sip on a CalSip as Lily teaches spelling and I also read a story, not a Grimm fairy tale, but a different book. A collection of stories simply called WE, with no blurb nor explanation, no acknowledgments page, contents page, or dedication. It launches into its tale immediately:
We Lose Our Virginities: We make pacts to lose our virginities together by taking a nail file and slicing, a whisper of a line, through our palms, bisecting the juncture where heart meets head. The wounds open wide, baring all, the salacious whores, and love and intellect will never again interact without that slim scar to remind us of pain.
The next boys to walk in, says our favorite brave idiot, the very next boys to walk into the bar will be the ones to whom we will gift our flowers.
Luckily, the next boys who walk into the bar, who step out of the day’s sunshine and into the pub’s cool gloom, are identical. Not so much boys as mere silhouettes of them, and this is just fine, for shadows mean nothing at all, really. Shadows are only the interruption of light.
We take the boys by their hands and we lead them out into the summer. We are delighted by the conditions; it is perfect weather for growth. We lead the boys, walking in twos, a little march of pairs like we are parading, a fitting celebration for such an occasion.
The garden to which we take the boys is unimpressive. Mostly grass, but what grass, so green, so lush, it is the richest grass in the world. This grass drinks champagne, this grass feeds on caviar and sunshine, and this grass can speak fluent French, can order coq au vin in flawless French.