“Aunt Cassie is sponsoring you to go to AFI with me, Emily! She’s paying your entire way. That way we can room together and take care of each other and — ”
“Hold on a minute,” I say quickly. “I am not model material, Leah. Or have you forgotten that?”
“I told Aunt Cassie that you weren’t feeling too good about yourself these days, and I even told her about our little swan project. But she said not to worry. She said the industry has become more open to using larger models, that there are magazines that specialize in big girls.”
“Big girls?” I want to scream now.
“Those were her words, Em, not mine. All she meant is that size doesn’t have to matter—especially just to go to modeling school. It’s not like you’re trying to get work or anything.”
“As a big girl, you mean?”
Leah laughs. “Forget about that. All she meant is that you should go. She thinks it will help you with your self-image. They teach about fashion and makeup and a bunch of other things too. In fact, this whole thing will go perfectly with our swan project. Please, tell me you’ll do this with me, Emily. It’s the only way my dad will let me go.”
“Why don’t you ask someone like Becca to go with you?” I suggest, feeling this strange sensation of going under, almost as if I were drowning.
“No way. Besides, my dad said you or no one. He totally trusts you, Emily. He knows your faith is strong and he keeps saying how mature you are.”
“Mature?” I repeat meekly, not knowing whether to be flattered or insulted.
“Yes. Dad said the only way I can go is if you agree to go with me. And you have to agree, Emily. You will go, won’t you?” Her voice has the most pathetic, pleading sound to it. I almost expect her to remind me of how her mother died, of how close we’ve been all these years, of how she’s sacrificed for me in the past, of how she used to be the “fat” friend but never complained . . . but she is too good a friend to mention any of those things.
“Can I think about it?” I say.
“Of course. And I realize there’s your parents to deal with.”
“That’s right,” I say, hopeful again. I mean, I can pretty much predict that they would never agree to let me do something this crazy. Modeling school in Chicago? Yeah, you bet. “I do need to ask them.”
“And both Dad and Aunt Cassie can talk to them,” Leah assures me. “If they have questions or anything.”
“Okay.” I feel certain I have my way out now. “I’ll get back to you on this as soon as I talk to my parents.”
Just as I hang up, my mom comes into the living room. “Talk to your parents about what?” she asks as she sits down in the big leather recliner across from me. It used to be Dad’s chair, but more and more I find my mom sitting in it.
So I launch into Leah’s plan, making it sound as much like a harebrained scheme as I possibly can. But when I finish, Mom is looking thoughtful, like she’s actually considering it.
“What a great opportunity for you, Emily!” she finally exclaims.
“You mean you’d really let me go?” I ask, incredulous. “For two weeks? By ourselves? To go to modeling school?”
“Well, of course, we’d have to look into it carefully. And I’d want to talk to Leah’s aunt, although I’ve always thought that Cassie was a sensible woman, even if she does live in New York. But if everything is on the up and up, well, I think it would be wonderful for you two girls to have this time together. Leah has so blossomed this year. And perhaps this will help you too, Emily. You do seem to lack confidence, but you’re such a pretty girl. Maybe the good Lord knows that this is just what you need to round out who you are becoming.”
Round out? I stare at her. Does she not see how “rounded out” I actually am? Does she not realize that I will be a total misfit at AFI? The only fat girl with a bunch of stick people?
“Oh, I’m so excited for you,” she says happily. “This might be just the thing, Emily.” And off she goes to call Leah and get Aunt Cassie’s phone number. Great.
Okay, I’ll admit that I never even had a chance to pray for Leah’s dad to change his mind about AFI—although I had intended to do so—but I do begin to pray now. I pray that God will throw a big old wrench into the works and that my dad will totally put his proverbial foot down, and that my parents will play the tough-love card, deciding that modeling school and two unsupervised weeks in Chicago is definitely not the right thing for their little girl.
But within twenty-four hours, it all seems to be out of my hands. Both my parents have decided that this is a divine opportunity for me. And no one seems to care about what I think.
“It’s just what you need,” my dad says at dinner. I can tell he’s thinking about my weight as he watches me take a large helping of mashed potatoes. “It will help you on your way to becoming a lovely young lady, Emily.”
My little brother laughs and I narrow my eyes at him, wishing I could punch him, but my parents have a serious no-fighting-at-the-table rule.
“Leah’s aunt says that it will be sort of like finishing school,” Mom says as she passes me the butter.
“Finishing school?” I echo hopelessly.
“Yeah,” says Matt with a devilish look. “They’ll probably finish you right off.”
And for the first time, I think Matt might actually know what he’s talking about.
five
IF I THOUGHT NOT GOING TO PROM WAS BAD, KNOWING THAT I’M GOING TO modeling school is worse. Way worse. I have exactly seventeen days to get my act together. That means Project Swan has just switched to fast-forward. No more cheating on my diet or skipping my exercise routines, and I’ve been drinking so much water that I’m sure I’ll be growing fish scales before long. In fact, I’m thinking of taking up swimming, which means I’ll have to put on a swimsuit, and if that’s not desperate, nothing is. But at least the weather is nice, which means I might be able to soak up some sun (since my parents still refuse to let me go to a tanning salon), because I’ve heard that a good tan makes you look at least ten pounds lighter.
Leah keeps reminding me that I can’t expect miracles in this short amount of time. But I’m doing everything I can to get myself into some kind of shape before we get on the plane to Chicago. Because I’m tired of being humiliated. And I’m tired of being fat and ugly. I’m also tired of looking like Leah’s pathetic friend. In fact, I’m just plain tired.
By the time school is out, just two days before Chicago, I am totally dismayed when I hit the scales. After all my hard work and careful dieting, I have only lost three pounds.
“Three pounds!” exclaims Leah happily. “That’s great, Emily!”
“Great?” I frown at her. “I’ve been starving myself for a month and I’ve only lost three pounds!”
“A month?” She looks skeptical. “You already admitted that you cheated on the diet during the first week or so.”
“Okay, fine. But I have been faithfully doing it for almost three weeks.”
“Yeah, and you’ve lost three pounds.” She carefully studies me. “And I’ll bet you’ve lost a lot more in inches. Did you measure yourself like I told you to?”
I make a face at her. “I can only handle so much, okay? It’s bad enough weighing in every day. Wrapping a tape measure around my big fat thighs might push me over the edge.”
“Too bad.” She shakes her finger at me. “Because you’d probably be pleasantly surprised. I can see a difference.”
I frown as I stare into my reflection in the full-length mirror. I mean, sure, maybe I can see a little improvement, but for the most part, I look pretty much the same as I did a month ago. “Isn’t there anything we can do to help me before we go to Chicago?”
She reaches up and touches my hair. “I wish your mom would let you do something with your hair, Em. I think it would look really great with highlights.”
I consider this. I mean, it’s like my parents are forcing me to go to modeling school to improve myself. Why wouldn’t they want me to improve my hai
r? And, in all fairness, I haven’t actually asked my mom about coloring my hair since last year. Anyway, I’m thinking that maybe it’s time to take some things into my own hands.
“Why not?” I say to Leah.
“Huh?” Her perfectly arched brows lift in surprise.
“You know, I think I’m old enough to decide how to wear my own hair.”
“Yeah, but . . .”
I shrug. “Where do we go?”
So Leah calls around until we find a place at the mall that can fit me in this afternoon. Fortunately, everyone at my house has gone to Matt’s baseball game, so all I do is leave a note.
But once we’re at the mall, and I’m going into the beauty salon, I get cold feet. I mean, I don’t even get my hair cut by professionals. For the past few years I’ve just worn it long, and my mom trims it occasionally. “I don’t know . . .” I whisper to Leah as we wait for my appointment.
“Don’t worry,” she assures me. “This won’t hurt a bit.”
“But what if it looks terrible?”
“It won’t, Emily. Don’t go there.”
So I try not to, as a woman named Lynette first trims then “weaves” my hair. I just pretend that this is no big deal, like I do stuff like this all the time. And I try to avoid looking in the mirror, since this just makes me feel like freaking, and I don’t want to jump out of this chair and make a run for it with Lynette only halfway finished.
Finally she’s done, and although I’m surprised when I look in the mirror—like, who is that blonde chick?—I am also pleased. I reach up and touch my hair, almost expecting it to feel dry or stiff. But it’s soft and natural. “Thanks,” I tell Lynette. “It looks awesome.”
“Oh, wow!” says Leah as I go to the front of the salon to pay the receptionist. “You look really great, Emily.”
After that, Leah talks me into going to Nordstrom’s makeup counter and trying some new things. “Aunt Cassie says they’ll teach us a lot about makeup at AFI, but maybe you should have a few things down, just so you don’t, you know, stick out or anything.”
I give Leah a sideways glance, wondering if she might be as worried as I am about my appearance. But I keep these thoughts to myself as I surrender myself to Leah and the salesperson for cosmetic experimentation. By the time we leave the mall, I have spent a pretty big chunk of change on my hair and face, and I seriously doubt that it will be worth it.
The plan is for Leah to spend the night. She’s going to help me pack—to make sure that I don’t make any serious fashion blunders—but as she goes through my closet, I can see that my wardrobe is nothing but one great big mistake. The “discard” pile is growing rapidly. Meanwhile, she hasn’t found much to put in my suitcase. Finally, she throws up her hands in surrender.
“How can you stand this?” she demands.
I just shrug.
“I mean, your stuff is either too small, although that could change, or it’s out of style, or it looks like a bag lady, or is nearly worn out.”
“I guess I haven’t been that into clothes lately.”
“Duh.” She holds up a fairly respectable pair of jeans that I haven’t seen in a while. “Do these fit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try them.”
So I tug them on and I can almost button them. “Close,” I say, feeling a tiny bit hopeful. “That’s better than the last time I tried.”
“Well, that’s something.” Just the same, she tosses them back into the closet. “Maybe by July. Clothes that are too tight just make you look fat.”
“Oh.”
It’s about midnight by the time she gives up. I gave up hours ago. But I’m surprised to find that she’s actually done a fairly good job of selecting clothes. Even if I will be traveling light.
“Thanks,” I tell her as I check out my hair in the mirror again. “And thanks for helping me with my parents tonight.”
She laughs. “Hey, that was fun. I’ve never seen your dad at such a loss for words.”
“Yeah, at first I thought he was really going to freak.”
“I think he actually liked it, after he got used to it.”
“Yeah. Even my mom seemed pretty much okay. Well, other than the fact that I did it behind their backs.”
“But at least you apologized to them.”
I consider this as we’re going to sleep. (Leah insists that we get our “beauty sleep.”) It’s not that I want to rebel against my parents exactly, and I know the Bible says to obey your parents, but I guess I feel I need to take some control of my own life too. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize how much I let my parents control me. My dad makes me feel lousy about my weight gain, and my mom consoles me with food. And I have a strong suspicion that’s not a good combination.
But as I ruminate over these things (and now I can hear Leah’s even breathing, which tells me she’s already fallen asleep) I begin to feel ravenously hungry. And then I feel like I’m going to die if I don’t eat something sweet. And it occurs to me how I’ll be at AFI on Monday and that I probably won’t have the freedom to eat what I like, when I like.
Then I remind myself how good I’ve been doing by not snacking. I can’t believe how many fruits and vegetables I’ve eaten these past few weeks. And I’ve exercised, sometimes twice a day. And what has that gotten me? All that work and discipline and I’ve lost a mere three pounds. At this rate, it’ll take me a year to reach my goal. If I don’t give up. I’m afraid I’ll give up.
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I quietly get up, sneak out into the hallway, make sure that the house is silent, and then slip down the stairs. I go directly to the kitchen, and that’s when I totally pig out.
I go for Mom’s secret stash, hidden in a basket that’s stored in the bottom shelf of the pantry. It’s the only “safe” junk food because my mom will never mention that it’s missing, and consequently my dad will never find out. I quickly put away most of a box of Mystic Mint cookies, washing them down with two glasses of milk (and not the skim milk that Leah told me to start drinking). Then I’m craving salt, so I go for chips. I polish off a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, along with a lot of Pepsi. And then I’m about to go for a king-sized Snickers bar, thinking I’m still hungry, but then I realize that my stomach is actually aching. It’s like I haven’t eaten this much crud in weeks, and it’s making me feel sick.
Suddenly I feel worried. What if eating like this after you’ve been dieting is dangerous? I imagine my stomach, stretched beyond capacity, exploding, or maybe I’ll have a heart attack. Now I’m getting seriously scared. I even consider waking up my mom. But then my dad would find out, and probably even Leah. And I just don’t think I can take that kind of humiliation. On the other hand, I don’t want them to find me dead in the kitchen— “she died from eating junk food” listed as cause of death. I am desperate.
I go to the downstairs bathroom and stare into the toilet, wishing I could barf it all up. The weird thing is, I hate throwing up. I hate the feeling of nausea. And yet here I stand wishing for it. And as I stand here, I hate that I’ve given into eating all that junk. What was I thinking? I mean, maybe losing three pounds doesn’t sound like much, but it was a start, wasn’t it? And then I go and eat enough food to put on three pounds. What is wrong with me?
And that’s when I do it. I shove my finger in my mouth and actually gag myself. I’m amazed at how easy it is, how quickly it’s over with, and how much better I feel for doing it. And then I remember Becca, that day before the fashion show, how she probably did this same thing, and how I judged her for it. As I wash my face with cold water then look at my image in the mirror, I remember how superior I felt to her that day, how certain I could never become like her.
But then I’m not like her, I tell myself as I turn off the light and tiptoe back upstairs. This was a one-time thing. An emergency effort, really. I mean, I could’ve actually hurt myself with that stupid eating binge tonight.
When I get back into bed, this unexplai
nable sense of victory ripples through me—like maybe I just missed a bullet. And that’s when I remember this old saying my grandma used to like. She’d give it to me when I was being impatient about something or wanted to do two things at once, sort of have it both ways.
“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” she used to say. I didn’t really get it then, but I think I do now. And I think maybe she was wrong.
six
I’M FEELING REALLY GOOD ON MONDAY MORNING. TOTALLY JAZZED. AND when I look at my reflection in the mirror, I think I look way better than I did a month ago. First of all, there’s my hair, which I think looks fantastic. And I’ve got this little bit of a tan going on. And I’m thinking Leah is right. I have lost inches, because I do look thinner than before. Even my dad noticed. Well, sort of.
“I think you’re losing some of that baby fat, Emily,” he told me after church yesterday.
Okay, I would’ve appreciated a different sort of compliment. I mean, like one that actually felt complimentary. But, hey, it’s my dad. I take what I can get, right?
“I have an idea,” my mom said then, perhaps as a buffer to my dad’s less-than-sensitive comment. “Why don’t you and I go shopping this afternoon, Emily? We’ll get you something special to wear to Chicago.”
So it is that I’m wearing a completely new outfit—some very cool capri pants and a T-shirt that I’ve topped with this little denim jacket. Okay, the jacket’s not exactly “little,” but it’s cute. And, okay, it’s probably not anything as cool as what Leah will be wearing today, but it’s definitely an upgrade for me. And I think I look pretty good. And I think I’m ready for AFI. I just hope they’re ready for me.
My mom drives us to the airport. Leah suggests that she just drop us at the entrance, since Leah has flown a lot, both with her dad and on her own. She goes to see her aunt at least once a year. But my mom insists on parking and going through check-in with us, and then, even after I assure her that we’ll be perfectly fine, she wants to walk us to the security gate.
Faded Denim: Color Me Trapped Page 4