Pretty Girls Don't Eat

by Winnie Salamon

I felt better having eaten and was in a much nicer mood when, after lunch, a gorgeous woman wearing a mustard frock with a gathered skirt and navy bomber jacket entered the shop. She wore tan leather brogues and a star print scarf casually draped around her neck. Effortless. The kind of look I would have liked to obtain, but knew I could never pull off.

  ‘Hi there,’ I said, trying to be friendly, but not overbearing.

  Mabel stressed the importance of making customers feel under no pressure to buy so that they would feel so comfortable they’d actually want to spend money.

  ‘I love what you’re wearing,’ the woman commented, pointing to my black flamingo print jumpsuit. ‘Is it from here?’

  ‘Oh no,’ I told her. ‘It’s just a homemade number.’

  ‘Really?’ she asked. ‘Are you a designer?’

  ‘Oh yeah, kind of.’

  ‘Do you do custom orders?’

  ‘Um.’ Did I? Yes. Why not? ‘Sure,’ I blurted out.

  Next thing I knew I was taking Lisa’s measurements and promising to call her in a week with a muslin to try on. When she asked how much it would cost I pulled $150 out of nowhere and she seemed completely fine with that.

  I couldn’t believe it. I’d just sold one of my own designs like it was no big deal. Like I did it every day. A feat I knew old fat Winter wouldn’t have been able to pull off.

  I was so excited to tell Mabel about what had happened I ran to the back office grinning like a crazy person.

  ‘She said she was happy to pay $150! Can you believe it?’

  Naturally I had an image in my head that involved Mabel jumping up and down with excitement, hugging me and telling me how fantastic I was.

  ‘You’re so talented,’ she’d cry. ‘Congratulations.’

  But that’s not exactly what happened.

  ‘That’s great news for you, Winter,’ Mabel said. ‘But did she buy anything else?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘What I’m saying is I am paying you to sell my stock so that I can make money and keep this business going. You can’t use it as a platform to market your own business at my expense.’

  My eyes welled with tears. I’d always hated getting into trouble. How could I have been so stupid?

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean …’

  ‘Look, don’t worry about it,’ Mabel said, still a little pissed off. ‘You know now. I should have asked you to wear current stock when you’re here. Before you go home tonight try on a couple of things and take them home. Just let me know what you select.’

  ‘Yes! That would be amazing.’

  In the end I got the emerald green sheath dress (Mabel’s size 10, which is probably more like a small 14 in other stores, but still …) and a black and white polka silk shirt dress. I never would have been able to afford clothes like that if I had to pay for them.

  At the end of my shift Oliver came to pick me up.

  ‘Are you okay to go out?’ He looked concerned. ‘You’re a bit pale. Are you sick?’

  ‘Just a bit tired. But I’ll be fine. It’s just the movies.’

  ‘Actually, Mum’s gone out. Want to hang at my place and get UberEats and watch a movie on the couch?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, acting as nonchalant as possible. I’d never been to Oliver’s house, never seen his bedroom, his bathroom. I hadn’t a clue how he lived, not really. And now I was about to find out.

  Chapter 25: Oliver’s House

  Mum always says that when you see where someone lives, it’s like seeing them naked. Just by looking around the room you can tell how much money they have, who they spend their time with, what they read, watch, eat. You can gauge their favourite colours, or whether they even have any. You know straight away if they’re a complete slob or serial killer OCD. Are they someone you want to be friends with or does their taste in interiors make you want to run a mile?

  Oliver and I walked for fifteen minutes to the 1970s block of flats he lived in with his mum, Anita.

  ‘I think Mum might have a boyfriend,’ Oliver said, turning the key in the upstairs flat. ‘She’s always going out with this guy from work. Richard.’

  He opened the door. ‘I hope she does,’ he continued. ‘Have a boyfriend, that is. I feel bad about her being alone sometimes.’

  A musky smell of incense and chai tea jumped straight at my chakras before I had time to notice the mirrored wall hangings and orange op-shop couch decorated with more mirrored cushions and throws.

  ‘Want a drink?’ Oliver asked. ‘We’ve got mead.’

  ‘You’re kidding. Mead?’

  ‘Yes, I am actually. I know this place resembles a chai tent. Mum’s a bit of an old hippy.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Ha ha,’ Oliver said. ‘Want a cider?’

  ‘Okay.’

  Oliver and I sat at the small Laminex kitchen table drinking our cider. Bruce sat at our feet and I felt nervous in a way I never did when we were at the park. I patted his head.

  ‘He really likes you,’ Oliver said. ‘He’s discerning.’

  ‘No he isn’t!’ I grinned. ‘He likes everyone.’

  ‘Well, he loves you.’

  I changed the subject, feeling embarrassed again.

  ‘You should see these pictures Mabel is using to inspire her new collection.’ I took a sip of my drink. ‘They’re all of these super-fat naked women doing the cancan and things like that.’

  ‘Yikes,’ Oliver said. ‘That sounds scary.’

  ‘They’re actually really beautiful,’ I said. ‘Unexpectedly so …’

  ‘Sounds like something my mother would be into.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, she’s always going on about body image and crap. Before she worked with the homeless she worked in an eating disorder clinic.’

  ‘What about your dad?’

  Oliver never talked about his father and I didn’t ask because I was worried that Oliver would say he was dead or something and I wouldn’t know what to say.

  ‘I never told you, did I? I’m the child of a sperm donor.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘It’s not like you can tell by looking at me,’ Oliver said. ‘It’s no big deal.’

  ‘Do you know who your dad is?’

  ‘Nah. He was some tall med student, that’s all I know.’

  ‘Don’t you want to find out?’

  ‘People ask me that all the time, but honestly, I don’t really care. I mean, it’s not that I don’t care, it’s just … who is that guy to me? A bit of spoof in a cup.’

  ‘Well, when you put it that way,’ I said.

  Then all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, Oliver leant forward and kissed me. I spilt cider down my leg as I moved my drink out of the way. Oliver’s chair made a crash as he accidentally knocked it over, making Bruce jump and run from the room.

  It was totally awkward.

  ‘Shit,’ Oliver said. ‘I’m such a dickhead.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ I said, forcing myself to look him right in the eye even though I was so embarrassed I could barely speak.

  ‘So you like me?’ he asked.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  Oliver shrugged. ‘Not really. I think you’re amazing and I thought, well, I know I’m kind of geeky …’

  ‘I’ve had the biggest crush on you, like forever. But I thought you might think I was, you know …’ My voice trailed off to a whisper. ‘Not very attractive.’

  Oliver looked stunned. ‘You can’t be serious! You’re so gorgeous; I was shocked that you wanted to go out with me at all. Then I thought you might have liked me, you know, as a brother type.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought.’

  Oliver’s face fell.

  ‘I mean, I thought you might like me as a sister.’

  ‘No way.’

  But instead of awkward silence, the next thing I knew we were kissing again and it wasn’t like with George. It was intense and spine-tingling and well, incredible, and I just kept thin
king to myself, of all the girls in the world Oliver could have picked, he chose me. Me!

  And then I thought: Being hungry. It was all worth it.

  Chapter 26: Best Night of my Life: The Aftermath

  Call me regressive, but there’s nothing quite like the feeling of having an attractive person thinking you’re hot to make you feel, well, hot. So when I woke up after my date with Oliver, I was actually feeling a bit confident. Cocky even. Which is why, in a moment of absolute craziness, I decided to go shopping for the holy grail of negative body image-creating, anxiety-inducing legwear.

  Jeans.

  You see, I haven’t worn jeans since primary school. Jeans are unforgiving. There is no getting around the fact that you are fatter than you thought you were when a pair of jeans that looked about the right size when you pulled them off the shelf won’t even pull up beyond your calf. I still remember standing trapped within the confines of a well-worn change room as an eight year old, my pastel knickers wedging up my bum as I hopelessly sucked my stomach in so hard I could barely breathe. Trying on jeans made me feel like there wasn’t a single pair of denim pants in the entire universe that would do up over my bulging stomach. And if they did happen to fit, I looked short and stumpy. Nothing like the beautiful, long-limbed models who advertised the $300 ‘investment’ jeans that are supposed to be so flattering they change your life.

  But when I woke up that Sunday morning the house was empty and peaceful. Dad was out for the day on ‘business’ and Mum did early morning gym sessions followed by roller derby training or a walk with her friend, Kate, even on Sundays! Mum had been exercising like crazy lately and she was even thinner than usual, with the sinewy look of a Hollywood actress struggling to hide her eating disorder. We hadn’t spoken much since Grandma Joan died. It was easier to say nothing than try and have a conversation. Besides, with my clandestine laxative-driven diet and school and Mabel’s and Oliver, I just didn’t have the energy. I felt like I’d barely seen George and Melody in the last few weeks. Basically, I was exhausted.

  But that morning I put on one of Dad’s Johnny Cash records and made myself eat a decent, no-carb breakfast of low-fat yoghurt and fruit and headed out to buy supplies for Lisa’s jumpsuit and shop for a pair of jeans.

  Divine Jeans is an institution of Melbourne’s inner-north. On Saturdays queues of skinny-legged hipsters stand on the footpath waiting to get in to the tiny shopfront. The jeans are made on the premises and they only cost $50. All the kids at school wear them, but can you believe I’d never been inside? Or maybe you can believe it. Divine Jeans is nothing like an anonymous department store. It’s the kind of place where people notice you, a terrifying combination of a window display parading jeans so skinny I wasn’t sure I could get my arm into those legs and a small, intimate environment where it would be impossible to avoid the gaze of shop assistants and customers who probably all weighed less than 50 kilograms.

  But that day I decided to try.

  First thing I saw upon entry was a bearded man so slender he was perusing the size 8 women’s skinnies shelf. As I stood there, surrounded by shelves and shelves of jeans, I could feel my heartbeat quickening, my palms getting all damp and sweaty, beads of liquid dripping between my gapless thighs. I was about to walk out when the shop assistant, white blonde, red-lipped and, yes, skinny, noticed me and said, ‘Hi.’

  I still wanted to run but I didn’t have the guts. ‘Hi,’ I answered as confidently as I could.

  I braced myself for the ‘Can I help you with anything?’ question, but it never came. The size 8 man wanted to know if they had any green jeans in his size and I became invisible.

  This is your chance, I thought to myself. You can walk out that door and never, ever come back.

  It had taken me at least 45 minutes to walk to Divine Jeans. I live in North Carlton, in a leafy street filled with renovated terraces and middle class families with enough money to afford them. But Divine Jeans is further north, on gritty, busy Sydney Road, where trams and cars and Halal butchers sit alongside bridal boutiques and Two Dollar shops filled with hideous plastic landfill, as Mum always likes to say. I like it up there. It’s comforting and imperfect. Noisy and hectic, but the kind of place where no one really bothers you.

  So I didn’t walk out. Instead I went to the size 14 shelf, feeling like I was being watched with disgust when, really, I was so inconspicuous I didn’t even bother to ask if I could use the change room. I just walked right in, pulled the curtain across and kicked off my shoes.

  I could barely pull the red, high-waisted jeans up over my feet.

  I stared at my reflection in the mirror, my purple Big W undies looking tatty and unflattering. The fluorescents highlighted the stretch marks around my hips, the dimply skin on my thighs practically screamed hello. I was sweating, from both heat and effort, and that familiar feeling of shame began to rise up. I could feel my cheeks burning, disgusted. I thought I would cry.

  But I didn’t.

  Instead, I took three deep breaths and thought, You’re here now. Just do it.

  So I left the change room without even bothering to put my shoes on and headed towards the bigger sizes.

  ‘These were too small,’ I told the girl. ‘I might try a bigger size.’

  ‘Sure,’ she said, like she honestly couldn’t give a shit.

  There’s no way those jeans were only one size too small. So I skipped the sixteen and went straight to the biggest size in the shop. Size 18.

  Size EIGHTEEN.

  But this time, it was easy to fit my leg through the ankle opening. Not only could I pull up my jeans, I could even zip them up and fasten the top button. These size 18 jeans not only fit, they looked good. High-waisted and slim fit, I looked like a regular girl rocking a pair of cute jeans. Because, in spite of my body image issues, there’s one thing I know. You cannot rely on clothing sizes to tell you where you’re at, weight-wise. Mabel deliberately makes her sizing measurements smaller than chain stores because she knows it will make her customers feel better about themselves. She doesn’t advertise the fact, but she was happy to tell me all about it. And when I sew commercial sewing patterns, I have to grade between about three different sizes so that the garment will fit.

  ‘It’s crazy,’ Mabel lamented late one Saturday afternoon as we were packing up the store. ‘That women get so worked up on a number. Anything above a size 12, and we think we’re enormous. So my size 10 is really more like the 14 of most brands. And it moves more stock!’

  So it’s not like I didn’t know that fashion sizing is completely unreliable and inconsistent but it’s not easy, accepting the fact that the only jeans in the shop that fit were a size 18 when Mabel’s 10 fitted only yesterday. But I still tried on a second pair of black jeans and it was the same thing. The 18s fitted great and looked like a wardrobe staple that would go with everything. I’d just been paid so I decided to buy both.

  The jeans shop girl looked at the tag and wrote ‘size 18’ in her receipt book. I carefully watched her face, searching for signs of contempt or repulsion. Did I gross her out? Did she feel relief that she was nothing like me? If she did, I couldn’t tell. She barely bothered to look at my face. She was so cool and ‘I don’t give a shit about you and your jeans’ seeming. Mabel would probably fire me if I provided such unenthusiastic customer service. But I guess Divine Jeans, with their $50 a pop pants, already had enough customers. And I was grateful for it.

  On the way home, as though in a trance, I stopped at the French patisserie and bought two vanilla slices. One for me and one for Dad. Considering I had another 45 minute walk ahead of me I figured I would be burning off maybe half a slice. Well, a quarter at least. I mean, all up I’d have done at least one and a half hours of low intensity exercise. That had to count for something.

  When I got home I cut a piece of vanilla slice and put it on a saucer, carrying it to the kitchen table with a cup of peppermint tea. I ate slowly, savouring each mouthful, telling myself this was enough, that I on
ly needed a little bit, a treat. But it was over so quickly and I wanted just a little bit more. So I went back to the fridge and cut myself another piece, just a small amount, a sliver. I couldn’t stop thinking about that vanilla slice. So smooth and creamy and sweet, I barely had to chew. It slipped right down, even with the crunch of crust at the bottom. I could feel the sugar rush to the surface of my skin and I felt energised and elated.

  Like an out-of-body experience I would sit down and eat my small, portion-controlled piece of vanilla slice. Then I’d wait a second or two before getting up to cut another sliver, a piece so modestly proportioned you wouldn’t even count it as food. Not really. I repeated the process over and over again until I’d been up and back so many times there was nothing left but a few crumbs and some icing sugar sprinkled in the paper bag. I’d eaten two vanilla slices and if I’d bought more, I could easily have kept going.

  As I emerged from my custard-induced trance, the feeling of expansion was like black magic. I could feel my stomach balloon, my bum gain inches, my legs puff up like marshmallows. I ran to my bedroom and pulled the laxatives from inside my sewing cupboard. I swallowed several tablets with a glass of water and did fifty star jumps. Soon enough I was on the toilet, relief flooding through me as I cramped and shat until I felt there was nothing left inside of me.

  The sensation of my fat cells deflating filled me with relief.

  Chapter 27: Mix Tape

  ‘So, ladies.’ George struck a pose. ‘Can you believe that out of us three nerds, I’m the first to lose my virginity?’

  Melody, who’d been quiet all day, opened her eyes wide and I would have fallen off my chair had I not been sitting on the grass.

  ‘You’re kidding!’ I screamed. ‘With James?’

  ‘Of course. Who else would want to do it with me? Besides you, of course, Winter.’

  ‘Too soon,’ I replied. ‘Too soon.’

  ‘So what was it like?’

  I couldn’t imagine letting anybody see me naked. Especially not Oliver. I had stretch marks and cellulite and my left boob was a little bit smaller than the right.