After we hung up, I burrowed under a blanket and took a nap. It was only 3:15, but it felt like midnight.
* * *
My parents were already in their places when I came down for dinner at 7:30. “Your mother and I have come up with a contract,” Dad announced. “You agree to eat your meals. We agree to do everything we can to help you. If you break this contract, we will send you back to Wallingfield. Got it?”
Totally numb, I nodded and signed my name. Mom let out an audible sigh of relief as she went to the kitchen to get our plates. Mine was so full it looked like an entrée from the Cheesecake Factory. There was enough food on that plate for five people—the biggest chicken breast I’d ever seen, about five big portions of broccoli, and one massive baked potato, split with sour cream already getting all liquidy in the middle. I was supposed to eat all this?
My face must have given me away. Mom said, “This is what it said on your menu, honey. What’s wrong?”
She was right, but so, so wrong. Mom, the queen of diet portions, had royally screwed up my dinner. Sure, the menu said one chicken breast, but it didn’t say one chicken breast on steroids! And that potato—at Wallingfield they were never that big, and the sour cream was always served on the side. Always. And five pieces of broccoli with butter didn’t mean five separate heads. It meant five little pieces of the same head!
I cut a tiny piece of chicken and put it on my tongue. I chewed, tasting rosemary, garlic, and olive oil. The chicken was supposed to be plain. Somehow, I swallowed. I cut another piece. Across from me, Dad’s plate was as full as mine. Mom’s plate, however, looked like it always did: little islands of food surrounded by a sea of porcelain.
At 8:45, my cold, congealed food looked like it had come from an all-you-can-eat buffet past its prime. The Wallingfield kitchen would have gotten the portions right. I’d be done by now. At least the meals were timed there. At home we were on our own.
I took one more small bite of potato. “Do you think this is enough?”
“Honey, I’m sorry, but the agreement was that you’d eat everything on your plate.” I could tell Dad wanted to end this as much as I did.
“But the portion sizes are huge! They’re twice what we got at Wallingfield! I ate everything I would have there! I swear it!”
“You can’t leave this table until you have eaten your whole meal. You signed a contract.” Mom looked pained.
I stared at my plate. You have a choice. Mary’s voice pinged through my head. No one gains weight from a single meal.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay what?” Mom and Dad looked at me at the same time.
“Okay. I’ll try.”
“Good!” Dad said. “Karen, would you like me to pour you a glass of wine?”
Mom nodded. “Yes, please.”
Dad cleared their empty plates and returned with two glasses of red and a Pellegrino. “I opened the good stuff,” he said. “For all of us.” My fizzy water had a lemon tucked into the bottle top. “I think we all deserve it.”
At 9:30, I was still struggling. “Just a little more, Elizabeth,” Dad said, and I could hear the frustration in his voice. To his credit, though, he tried to hide it. “Just finish up and we can both go to bed.” Dad rubbed his eyes. He never stayed up past nine. Mom had gone to bed.
A fat, salty tear ran down my cheek, and I wiped it away. I pictured myself under my covers. My warm, soft comforter, fresh out of the dryer. My fluffy pillow. I picked up my fork. I took another bite of chicken. I gagged but got it down. The broccoli was limp, the milk warm.
Dad stood up and stretched. “I gotta hand it to you, kiddo. Your self-control and resolve are impressive. I know I would have given in about thirty minutes after this all started. You’re like your mom in that way. She’s always been stubborn, too.”
“The difference, Dad, is that I am trying hard to change myself. I’m working on my flaws.”
“She tries harder than you think, honey.”
I sighed. “I know.”
Dad nodded. “She’s always wanted an easy life for you, that’s all.”
It still stung a little that Mom thought I’d had to lose weight in the first place. Some things, it turns out, you can regret saying with all your heart, but all the regret in the world doesn’t make them hurt less.
“Elizabeth, your mom has spent her whole life feeling like she wasn’t good enough. Did you know that she went on her first diet at age seven? Seven! A girl called her fat, and when she went home, she saw what that other girl saw. And she felt like a failure. Did she ever tell you that?”
She hadn’t.
“Maybe Wallingfield would have helped her,” Dad said. “I don’t know. But if you beat this, she’ll see that. She’s already seeing it.”
I could barely help myself; how was I supposed to help Mom, too? “I’m the kid, Dad. The kid. I shouldn’t have to take care of Mom.”
“I’m not asking you to,” he said. “Just go easy on her. I’m going to go heat up your plate in the microwave. I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go anywhere.”
When he returned, steaming plate in hand, he said, “Come on, kiddo. How about one bite while it’s still warm?” and set it down in front of me. “As Robert Frost said, ‘The best way out is always through.’”
I picked up my fork. Mom would never have given in like this, I thought miserably, shoving a bit of lukewarm, rubbery chicken in my mouth.
Nine fifty. I choked down the last chunk of potato, skin and all. Dad gave me a high five. I was so tired I could barely return it. I couldn’t even obsess about the ball of food in my stomach. But I wasn’t too exhausted to make Dad promise, before I took my last bite, that he’d call Sally and talk to her about portion sizes. I didn’t care how long I had to sit at that table, I told him. I would not go through another meal like that again.
“Nope. Not like your mom at all,” Dad said.
I didn’t have the energy to argue.
44
The next afternoon, Katrina showed up. When the doorbell rang and I saw her outside, I actually jumped up and down in excitement. Wonderful, beautiful Katrina. My friend. “Kat!” I squealed, flinging open the door and hugging her as she stood there in her black puffy coat and red hat. “Thank you for coming! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
I was so ready for her arrival. So far, my day had consisted of: breakfast with Mom, a snack and coffee run with Dad, lunch with Dad, and four episodes of Friends with Mom; she’d apparently watched the show in college, when it was actually on TV. All this together time was killing me. But now Katrina was here.
“Jeez,” she said with a smile as she extricated herself from my death grip. “Hi there.”
Then I saw Priya and Shay behind her. They’d made me a sign: WELCOME HOME, ELIZABETH in bubble writing.
“Elizabeth!” Priya yelled, like she hadn’t just blown me off for the entire month. She was wearing a brown fake-fur vest I hadn’t seen before. “I have missed you so much!” She flung herself at me. “I have so many things to tell you!” She paused. “Oh my God, you look great. So great!”
Shay stepped up next. At least she had the decency to be a little sheepish. “Hey, Elizabeth,” she said. “Can I give you a hug? It is so good to see you.”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
She gave me a quick squeeze.
“Why are you guys here? Katrina, don’t you have”—I checked my phone to make sure I had the right day of the week—“your chem tutor this afternoon?”
“Yeah. I can’t stay long. She changed our time because she had something to do. And I wanted to come and say hi.”
“I’m so glad.”
“Me too. These guys were dying to see you, too, so I picked them up on the way.” Both Shay and Priya smiled and bobbed their heads.
“Wait!” Priya yelled. She wore a miniskirt and boots. She looked fabulous, all tan and tall. Her skin never looked pale, even in the winter. She was so lucky. “We forgot something!”
&nbs
p; Shay patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll be right back. Don’t move.” They walked back down the path to Katrina’s car.
Katrina turned to me. Speaking in a soft voice she said, “Your mom called mine and told her to send me over.” She stopped smiling. “It was sort of weird to have to hear from my mom that you were home. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just, well, I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I’d meant to text her, really, but I didn’t know what I’d say when she asked how I was doing. I wasn’t sure myself.
“Katrina, why are Priya and Shay here?”
Katrina glanced at the car, nervous. “I told you at Wallingfield. They missed you.”
Maybe. Maybe not.
Katrina kept making excuses. “They’ve been super busy lately, you know—”
I stopped her. “You don’t have to keep covering for them.”
“I’m not! They’re just deep into junior year, you know?”
“I guess.”
She put a hand on my arm. “Well, they’re here now. Give them a chance, okay? I’ve missed it being the four of us.”
I had, too.
After Shay and Priya bounded up the front walk again, Shay holding a bag, we all went into the living room and sat down. Mom peeked in and smiled so wide I thought her head might explode. “Well, hello, everybody! It’s really great to see you!”
“Hi, Mrs. Barnes,” they all said.
“Can I get you anything?”
We shook our heads.
“No? Okay, well, I won’t bother you. Stay as long as you’d like!”
I pretended not to see Mom mouth “Thanks” to Katrina before she left.
“So, we have something for you,” Priya said. She pulled a box out of the bag and handed it to me.
“Oh?” I wanted to be mad. But they looked so goofy. “Okay?”
They’d wrapped the box in pink paper and tied a big white bow. I opened it, knowing there would be some sort of silly joke gift inside. Priya loved giving joke presents. For my birthday she’d given me “the perfect man,” a man-doll keychain who, when you pressed his belly, said things like, Okay, honey, whatever you say, and Honey, what I really want to do is go to Bed Bath and Beyond. So totally sexist, I know, but it cracked me up anyway. I still had it somewhere.
But this wasn’t a joke. Inside was a pair of the prettiest, softest turquoise pajamas I’d ever seen.
“They’re silk,” Shay said.
“They’re beautiful.” I got a little teary. I fingered the white lace at the neckline. The same lace lined the cuffs of the pants. “Thank you.”
“We bought them for you a couple of weeks ago, but we weren’t organized enough to actually mail them. We’re sorry,” Priya said.
“Really sorry,” Shay added.
“It’s true,” Katrina mouthed.
I was still mad. Don’t get me wrong. They’d totally blown me off. But Katrina was right. The whole thing—me being in Wallingfield—was weird. I didn’t even know how to address it with other people, and I was the one who’d been there. “It’s okay,” I said, and I meant it.
“So,” Katrina asked, clearly relieved. I could practically see her checking us off her mental to-do list. “When are you coming back to school?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s awesome!”
I wasn’t so sure.
“What else is going on?” Katrina asked. “Who have you talked to?”
I wasn’t sure whether to mention Tristan or not.
But these were my friends. “So, I’m sort of friends with Tristan McCann now.”
Katrina looked at me, face blank. “Tristan?” She furrowed her brows. “Tristan McCann? Charlie’s Tristan?”
I nodded.
“Wow. How did that happen?”
Priya squealed a little.
I told them everything. When I finished, I pulled out the brass ring from under my clothes.
“Holy crap. Are you going to go out with him?” That was from Shay.
“Tristan is pretty hot, in his own dark and brooding way,” Priya added.
Katrina just waited for me to actually answer the question.
“No! No. I mean, I don’t think so. We’re friends. He just sort of gets me.”
“Wow. So, just friends, huh? You sure about that?” Katrina raised one eyebrow.
“Yes! Totally. Just friends.” At least, I thought we were friends.
“Okay, if you say so.”
An alarm went off on Katrina’s phone. “Damn it. I have to go. Mom will kill me if I’m late for my session. Come on, you guys.”
They couldn’t leave. I wanted us all to curl up on the sofa and talk until it got dark. “Do you have to go?”
“I’ll text you later.” Katrina hugged me and stepped out into the sunlight. Priya squeezed me, too, and so did Shay. “I’m really sorry about not calling,” she whispered in my ear. “But I’m so glad you’re home.”
“Me too,” I said back. And for the first time since leaving Wallingfield, I meant it.
45
My menu called for chicken stir-fry with fresh veggies for dinner. I was almost looking forward to it. Mom made a mean stir-fry. She used almost no oil. As she cut the chicken, she weighed the pieces on the scale Dad had picked up that afternoon after his conversation with Sally. I loved that thing, even if I was forbidden to touch it.
I got a text right after I’d sat down. My phone was on the counter, just past the table.
I stood up to get it, but Dad frowned. “No texting until you finish dinner.”
It was pointless to argue, so I ate as fast as I could, only struggling with the last bit of white rice. If I’d had more time, I might have enjoyed it even more. I’d missed vegetables so much at Wallingfield.
The last bite was still in my mouth when I asked, “May I be excused?”
“Maybe we should have people text you more often,” Dad said, clearly astounded at my eating speed. To tell the truth, so was I. “You’re excused.”
“Thanks!” I jumped out of my seat and pretended not to hear him ask me to clear my plate. In my room, I flung myself on my bed, opened up my phone, and found a text from Tristan:
You surviving?
It had been thirty minutes since he’d sent it. I hoped I hadn’t missed him.
Me: You there?
Tristan: Yes, I’m still here.
Tristan: What are you doing?
Me: just finished dinner
Tristan: I’m going somewhere. Want to come?
Me: Where?
Tristan: Does it matter?
Me: I guess not.
Tristan: Good. I’ll be there in ten minutes.
Me: Where are we going?
Me: Hello?
Me: Tristan?
I threw the phone down and jumped off my bed. I had nothing to wear. Everything was so small. I had larger clothes that I’d boxed up a few months ago and put in the attic, but there was no freaking way I was going to drag them down now. What if they actually fit? Just the possibility made me want to go downstairs and throw away all the food in the fridge. Besides, there wasn’t time to try anything on now, and even if there was, they’d probably smell weird from being up there—like attic, all dusty and old. And who wants to smell like that? Not me.
I’d just dumped my clean laundry bin out on the floor and was about two seconds away from total meltdown mode (tears, general hysteria) when Mom appeared at my door. “Elizabeth, honey, what are you doing?”
I dug through the pile of T-shirts and sweatpants in frustration. “I don’t have anything to wear. What am I going to do?” I could hear the shriek in my voice. “I’m going to look awful. I should never have agreed to go.”
Mom didn’t ask any questions, like where I might be going, or who with. She just said, “Take a deep breath. I have something for you. I was going to give it to you tomorrow, but maybe now is a better time.”
She disappeared and returned a minute later with a large
Urban Outfitters bag. Inside were four pairs of the same jeans, in different sizes. Bigger sizes. Same with four pairs of green corduroys, two cute black dresses, two blue sweaters, and two white long-sleeved shirts.
“I didn’t know what size to get, so I got a variety. I thought maybe you’d prefer to try them on in private and not have to deal with the whole store dressing room thing.” Mom looked a little nervous, like she was afraid I’d hate everything she’d picked out. “I can just return whatever doesn’t fit.” She cleared her throat and rubbed her hands on her pant leg. “What do you think?”
I touched her arm. “Thanks, Mom.” I wanted to hug her and cry at the same time. Hug because she’d done this for me, and cry because all these clothes were sizes that, just a few weeks before, I’d have gladly dismissed as too huge for me.
She took a deep breath and nodded, relieved. “I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, and slipped out my door.
I dumped the bag out on my bed and pulled on a pair of dark skinny jeans with zippers at the ankle. They were way too tight. They were my pre-Wallingfield size. I kicked them off.
I shook off the depression lurking in my corners. I’d deal later. Tristan was going to be here in, like, five minutes. I pulled out another pair, bigger this time. They buttoned easily. I avoided the label. Then I put on the bigger white shirt and the smallest blue sweater, which was thick and warm. I brushed my hair and then, as an afterthought, put on lipstick. Real lipstick. Pale, skin-colored lipstick, but still. It was a step up from ChapStick.
I opened my door and took a deep breath. You can do this, I told myself. I stepped in the hall, hyper-aware of how the jeans hugged my legs. They’re supposed to fit that way. That’s what skinny jeans do. I breathed in again. Tristan was going to be there any second. Get yourself together, Elizabeth!
I hustled down the stairs and into the living room, where I could watch for Tristan through the picture window. “Mom, Dad, I’m going out!”
Mom came in and her face lit up. “Oh, wow! You look great! I am so glad some of those things worked.” She seemed genuinely pleased, and I felt better.
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