Big Fat Disaster

by Beth Fehlbaum

  She whips around. “Becca, give me another ‘Yes.’ What’s something else someone could do to increase their self-worth?”

  She thinks a moment. “Um, singing in the choir?”

  Mrs. Lowe writes “Singing or playing music.” “What do you guys think? How could committing oneself to a role like singing in the choir lead to a feeling of self-worth?” She waits a beat or two, but no one responds. “Colby? What do you think?”

  I shrug and run my finger over and over the metal coil on my spiral notebook. “I…used to sing in the choir, but it was pretty much because my parents made me. I mean, I like to sing, but not when I’m forced to wear a sparkly choir robe and hang out with weird kids who talk too much or smell like cat food.”

  Mrs. Lowe takes a few steps toward me. “So…you quit? How did your parents take it when you told them that you didn’t want to be in the choir anymore? Standing up for oneself is a ‘Yes’ for building self-worth.”

  My face is burning, and I wish I’d never opened my mouth. What to say? How did I get out of The Young Conservatives choir? Even if I wanted to sing with them now, they wouldn’t let me.

  When I finally do speak, I sound like Kermit the Frog. “We moved here, so that pretty much solved the problem.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  I slide my lunch tray onto the Nobodies table at the same time that Ryan dumps out his backpack. His history book catches the edge of my tray, and my burger and fries go airborne. He doesn’t even notice.

  Anna jerks her food out of the way. “What are you doing?”

  Ryan’s freaking out. “I can’t find my cell phone! I had it when I came to school, and now it’s gone!”

  I retrieve one of my fries from Sean’s chili pie and wipe off the chili with a napkin. I don’t even try to hide my irritation. “You’re not the only one having a rotten day, Ryan. Maybe you can try not to make it worse by throwing a shit fit.”

  He slams his binder onto the table and our drinks erupt simultaneously, like lava from a volcano. He leans into me and sneers, “Want me to give another speech that’ll send you running away again, like your dad did from those reporters?”

  So much for his apology.

  “Oh, yeah…” Sean says slowly. “I saw that video of your dad on Facebook, Colby. That’s some cold shit, right there.”

  Anna hisses, “Sean!” I glance at her; her eyes are huge. “Ix-nay on the ideo-vay!”

  I dip the fry in ketchup. “I know about it already. Kayley reenacted it for me when I walked into school this morning. Forty-six shares, I think they said.”

  Sean taps the screen on his phone. “Now it’s a hundred thirty-two.”

  Anna accuses, “You’re friends with those bitches on Facebook, Sean?”

  Sean glares at her. “If you’re not, how do you know about it, too?”

  “Everybody does! I mean—” Anna grimaces and cuts her eyes to me. “Yeah, everybody does. Sorry, Colby.” She turns on Sean again. “But you didn’t have to bring it up right now! Jeez!”

  “How else am I supposed to keep up with what’s going on? Anyway, if I keep my head down and don’t make waves, they leave me alone.” Sean frowns at the look Anna gives him. “I know, I know: I’m a sheep. Baaaa-baaaa-baaaa.”

  Anna’s voice drips acid. “No, you’re a fucking sheep, Sean. A fucking sheep. If you’re going to go with the crowd, then you probably don’t belong at our table.”

  Sean stands up so fast that his chair topples over. “Oh, yeah? Since when did you become as much of an asshole as Kayley? At least she and Kara don’t even try to pretend they’re anything but who they are.”

  The shrill blast of a whistle silences the entire cafetorium, and Coach Allison bellows at us from his post across the room. “Is there a problem you need help solving? Sit down!”

  Sean immediately sits; he slides down in his chair so far that I expect him to end up under the table. Ryan’s still standing, and Sean reaches up and yanks Ryan into a chair.

  Ryan reloads his belongings into his backpack. He mutters, “I had my phone on the bus…then in art, because I took a picture of the painting we’re supposed to use as an example…then I got to math, and…Shit! I fell asleep!” He glares at me. “Did you take my phone? You sit next to me, so—”

  I shake my head. “I was late, remember? I missed my first class because I was in the office.”

  “Well, did you see my phone on my desk?”

  I shake my head. “Why would you have it out in class at all? That’s just asking for Coach Allison to take it up.”

  Ryan’s shoulders sag. “Aw, man. I’ll bet he did. God, I don’t want to ask him for it back. He hates me.”

  Anna is sympathetic. “What’s your mom going to say when you tell her it’s gone? My mom would throw a wall-eyed fit.”

  “Yeah, that’s what mine’s going to do, too. She just bought that phone about a month ago, and money’s tight, just like it always is. I’m pretty much screwed.” Ryan zips up his backpack, drops it to the floor, and puts his head in his hands. “So, so screwed.”

  It takes me a while to find my English class, and I slide into an empty seat just as the tardy bell rings. The teacher, Mr. Van Horn, has his back to us as he writes board notes:

  Do you think it is a sin to have a child out of wedlock?

  Is it a crime? Is adultery a sin, a crime, or neither?

  Mr. Van Horn turns from the board and folds his arms, watching us stare back at him. “Well? Let’s see some smoke coming out of those ears, people. Get your brains in gear, because I want to know what you think.”

  Mr. McDaniel appears in the doorway. Our eyes meet and he gives me a tiny nod. His eyes scan the classroom and land on the back row. He addresses the teacher. “Hey, Max, could I see you a second?”

  Mr. Van Horn says, “Sure,” then reminds us, “You guys be ready to discuss those questions when I come back.”

  Kara hisses from the back of the room, “Hey, Hallister, ask him to add stealing to the list of sins!”

  Quiet laughter ripples across the room and one kid says, “Great video, by the way.”

  I know I’m supposed to be thinking about Mr. Van Horn’s questions, but all I can think is, “FML.”

  Mr. Van Horn returns from the hallway. His eyes zip from me to Kara and back again, making me think that Mr. McDaniel filled him in. “Most of you probably know someone who is not married but has had a baby: That’s having a baby out of wedlock. How is that different from adultery?”

  Formerly-fat-Tina raises her hand. “Adultery is where you’re married and you’re fooling around on your wife or husband.”

  “Right, right, but what about if you’re married and you haven’t seen your husband in two years; then, you have a baby…What’s that called?”

  “That’s called being a dirty skank,” Fredrick says. “My brother’s wife got with another guy when he was deployed in Afghanistan. He come home and she done had some other dude’s kid. She’s a skank.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” Mr. Van Horn nods. “But unless you’re directly involved in the situation, you can’t know all the facts. Is it possible that you can agree to that?”

  Fredrick lowers his eyelids and shakes his head slowly. “That girl’s a low-down dirty skank, and there ain’t no two ways about it. Right is right and wrong is wrong.”

  Knowing that Fredrick helped Michael and José beat the snot out of Ryan on the last day of school, it seems ironic to me that he’s such an expert on right and wrong. I glance at Ryan. He’s got his forehead resting on his palm, and he’s staring at his desktop.

  Mr. Van Horn taps the word “Sin” on the whiteboard. “So, is having a baby out of wedlock a sin?”

  “Doing it—you know—it—with somebody you’re not married to is a sin,” Becca says softly.

  One kid blurts, “My parents aren’t married!”

  Kara’s friend Sarah says sarcastically, “Braggart.”

  Mr. Van Horn makes the time-out sign. “Le
t’s put this discussion in the context of mid-1600s Boston, where a young woman, Hester Prynne, whose husband is presumed dead, has given birth to a baby girl named Pearl. Hester has been found guilty of adultery, and ordered to wear a symbol that identifies her as what you guys would call ‘a dirty skank’ upon her chest forever. When the story begins, she’s standing in the center of town on a scaffold—kind of like a stage—for three hours—so that her fellow citizens can make fun of her. Do you think that she deserves such a punishment?”

  A tidal wave of raucous laughter comes from the back row. I turn just in time to see Kara grab a black cell phone away from another girl.

  Ryan nearly jumps out of his seat. “Hey, is that my phone?”

  Kara sits up straight and sneers, “No. Why would anybody want your phone? Backstabber.”

  “That is enough, Kara!” Mr. Van Horn snaps. “Now, put your phone away or I’ll take it up and turn it over to the office.” He waits while she complies, then: “Anna, what do you think? Does she deserve that punishment?”

  Anna grins. “Yeah, I totally think you should take her phone.”

  Mr. Van Horn looks like he might pop a blood vessel, but he manages to sound sort of calm. “No, I’m talking about our hypothetical young mother: the one who’s been found guilty of adultery.”

  “Oh, right…well, what about the guy who knocked her up? Why isn’t he in trouble, too?”

  “That’s a very good question, and one that I hope you’ll all be able to answer by the time you finish reading The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.”

  The class groans, and Mr. Van Horn’s eyebrows shoot up. “What, you guys thought I just wanted to talk about dirty skanks and sex?”

  Fredrick mumbles, “I was hoping…”

  Mr. Van Horn snatches a worn paperback book off the corner of his desk and holds it up high. “You’ll find sex, intrigue, and much, much more within these pages.” He distributes a novel to each of us. “Page one, Chapter One! We’re on the hunt for sinners, sanctimonious hypocrites, and sympathetic fools.”

  “—And skanks,” Fredrick grumbles.

  “Right…” Mr. Van Horn nods. “Although you just might be surprised at what you find when you know the whole story.”

  In the hallway after class, Anna hands me a slip of paper. “This is my phone number. Call me if you want to hang out sometime.”

  “Oh, cool, thanks. I don’t have a phone of my own anymore, but—”

  From behind us, Kara blares, “Hey, Hallister!” I turn, and all of her back row buds give a thumbs-up and yell, “Like!”

  “No, Kara, it’s Loser, remember? Lose—er.” Anna forms an L with her fingers and sticks it in Kara’s face.

  Kara’s friend Sarah steps right up into Anna’s face. “Better watch out, bitch, or you’ll have a fan club, too.”

  Kara shoots the girl a look. “Shut. Up.”

  Anna takes me by the hand. “Come on, Colby.”

  Tina steps in front of us; her eyes are huge. “I just want you to know that I didn’t have anythin—”

  Anna moves protectively in front of me. “Step off, bitch!”

  Tina’s jaw drops. “Anna, stop it! I’ve got to talk to Colby!” She leans around my self-appointed bodyguard. “Have you seen it? Have you?”

  Anna cuts her off. “Look, Tina, I already told you once: When you chose Abercrombie and Bitch over the Nobodies, we were done.”

  Anna’s dragging me away; I jerk my hand free and take a few steps back to Tina. “What are you talking about?”

  Mr. McDaniel strides down the center hallway, clapping his hands. “Come on, people! Get to class!”

  Tina reaches for me. “Just—just—I swear I didn’t know, Colby. I don’t really ‘Like’ it; I just clicked ‘Like’ so that I could see what everybody else is talking about.”

  Mr. McDaniel pulls us apart. “Now, girls. You can visit later.”

  My last class of the day is P.E. I show the grumpy-looking teacher, Coach Sharp, my doctor’s orders to rest up for a few days. She jerks her head toward the bleachers, and I get the idea that I’m supposed to sit there while everybody else trudges out to the grassy area and goes through warm-ups. It’s co-ed, and by the looks of most of the people, the school dumped all the nerdiest people into one class. The only people I sort of know are Becca and Sean, the scraggly-chin guy from the Nobodies lunch table.

  I pull The Scarlet Letter from my backpack and start reading. I read through “The Custom-House,” which is like an introduction to the story and is kind of confusing, but I do get the idea that the narrator feels super ashamed about his family participating in the Salem Witch Trials, and he’s digging through old family stuff when he finds the scarlet A that Hester wore. He places it on his chest, and the fabric burns him and falls to the floor. Then he finds a paper that explains what the A was for, and he decides to rewrite the story of Hester Prynne. I close the book and wonder if the narrator ever wished he didn’t know the truth about his family, too. Maybe I need a scarlet D, for Destroy, since finding that photo blew my family apart. Or, even better: Disaster.

  I shake my head at the thought. I’m wearing my D: It’s there every second of every day, even when I pull my sheet up under my chin so I can’t feel it against my neck. It’s what I pray to God to take away, even though it’s obvious that God ignores me. I mean, really: if God really answered prayers, would my dad pretend we’re all dead? Would I live in Piney Creek, Texas, in a shitty little trailer behind people who only let us live there because one of them felt sorry for us?

  God’s not going to make me normal-size, and any time I start feeling good about myself in spite of being a big fat disaster, my mom just has to look at me the way she does to remind me that my weight is everything to her.

  I’m craving icing so badly right now that if Leah hadn’t let us know last night that she needs us to work at Sugar’s today, I’d be whipping up Dad’s cake icing recipe at home. I’d just have to get rid of the evidence before Mom gets home. Drew’s no problem; she always disappears into her room and plays her CDs. That’s just about the only thing that hasn’t changed since the day Dad walked out the door.

  Being at Sugar’s will make it easier: I’ll fill a measuring cup with cake icing—not like it’ll be missed, so Leah won’t bitch about me eating her profits—and disappear into the bathroom to get numb. The thoughts are like electrical currents driving me toward the inevitable pig-out about to take place.

  We board the bus. Ryan looks like he’s been sentenced to stand before a firing squad. There’s no sign of his phone, and if anyone knows who has it, they’re not talking. I fall into the nearest seat and Drew shoots by me, tripping over my feet. “I get to sit by the window today!” I fight the urge to kick her. I slouch in my seat, close my eyes, and pretend to be sleepy, but Drew won’t shut up. Her questions feel like a pesky mosquito interrupting my pig-out planning, and her voice is nothing but incoherent buzzing.

  She taps me on the upper arm and babbles, “So, do you think so?…Do you?”

  I jolt upright, knock away her hand, and snarl, “Leave me alone! I have a headache!”

  She sits back abruptly, then turns her face toward the window. Within seconds, I hear her sniffling.

  I know I should apologize for being such a bitch, but I don’t. I close my eyes, sigh loudly, and wish we were already at Sugar’s.

  Chapter Fourteen

  As we step off the bus, Leah meets us and sticks her hand in Ryan’s face. “Give me your phone. Now.”

  Ryan blinks a couple times. “I was going to tell you, Mom! Wait a minute; how do you…?”

  “Now, Ryan.” Leah’s chin is quivering, and her eyes are full of tears. “Now.”

  “I don’t have it; it must have gotten stol—”

  Leah turns abruptly and stomps into Sugar’s, slamming the front door in our faces. Ryan and I exchange wide-eyed looks. “Wh-what the hell?” he stammers.

  Drew puts a hand on her hip. “What did you two do now?”
Ryan and I shrug in unison.

  He twists the knob and pushes the door open slowly, like he expects somebody inside to yell, “Boo!”

  I follow him in, still intending to make a beeline for the big bowl of cake icing that’s always in the fridge. I’m actually kind of relieved that Ryan’s in trouble; maybe nobody will notice when I’m in the bathroom a while.

  The dining area is empty, and we can hear our mothers yelling at each other from Leah’s office behind the kitchen.

  “I’m telling you, there’s no way that Ryan did this! He’s the one who reported Jared for what he did. Do you honestly believe he’d do anything even slightly resembling it?”

  “Who else could have done it? Do you think anyone else could have made that video?”

  I step into Leah’s tiny office; Mom immediately moves to block my view of the computer monitor. I reach for her arm. Mom and Leah exchange looks.

  From the computer speakers, I hear, Thud, Thud, Thud and someone’s soft laughter. A whisper: “What a fat ass.”

  Then, a woman’s voice, maybe Leah’s, from far away: “Ryan? Where are you?”

  The whispering voice again: “Oh, shit!”

  Rustling. Running.

  Clearly Ryan’s voice this time, a little breathless: “I’m here.”

  Then, Leah’s: “What were you doing?”

  From behind me in Leah’s office doorway, Ryan gasps and stumbles back against the wall.

  I pull my mother away from the desk, lean down, and stare at the banner photo across the top of a Facebook page: It’s a blurry image of someone on her back—oh my God, it’s me using a hanger to zip up my pants! The smaller profile picture is my face—but my eyes are half closed and my mouth’s hanging open. When was that taken? The page is titled, Colby Denton Fan Club. Smaller print reads, “A page dedicated to my cousin, the Fat Ass, whose father is a two-faced cheating thief.”