by Karen Rivers
Gigi is actually downright waifish, somewhere beyond tiny in another category. In a bad light, she looks almost like a grasshopper with her jutting elbow bones and pointy shoulders. Compared to Sin, she looks like one of the petrified bodies of the victims of Pompeii. All bony arms and big eye sockets. Not unlike Zara, come to think of it, though Zara is much taller. Gigi is like a pocket version of his own sister. Well, except blonde. And freckle-free.
Creepy.
All the girls who ride are skinny. It’s because of the clothes, mostly, he figures. No one wants to be fat in a pair of skin-tight white jodhpurs. Even he works out just to stay in a certain weight range. Skips dessert. Fat guys don’t look good wearing jodhpurs, either.
He takes another drink of wine. Gigi touches his hand.
Her nails are completely bitten to the quick. There is dried blood on her cuticles.
Hi, she whispers, as though she’s just arrived.
Um, hi, he says in a normal voice. She winces, like he shouted or something. Her blonde hair is escaping from its confines and waving around her head, somehow infested with static, like antennae. Her hair is so fine, it’s like a spider’s web. Her eyes bug out at him a little. She’s a nice girl. Not too anything.
He burps subtly again and Zara catches his eye and giggles. She’s having fun, her cheeks are all red from laughing and she’s getting hoarse from talking so much. Well, that’s important. When Zara’s not irritating him, he worries about her. About her intensity. And also her scrutiny. Her hallucinations that she insists are real. But for once, she isn’t staring at him like he’s a fascinating book she can’t stop reading. She’s just eating. Laughing. Talking. Eyeing the karaoke machine set up at the front of the room, probably already planning what she’s going to sing.
Zara is always singing. And her voice ... well, it’s incredible. It makes all the hair on his arms stand up. It makes his spine feel strange, like a current is running through it.
Hey, Gigi, she calls across the table. Are you going to sing tonight? I am. I love to sing.
I don’t do karaoke, says Gigi. She pronounces karaoke in the same tone that many would use to describe something rotting.
Oh, says Zara. I love it.
You would, says Gigi.
Axel looks back and forth between the two girls. Well, he says. Okay. He pleads with Zara with his eyes. Stop it, he channels. Just don’t even try.
She shrugs but she looks like she’s been slapped.
Whatever, she says out loud. Turns back to Des.
Axel smiles at Gigi in a way that he hopes looks forgiving. He hates that she’s bitchy to Zara, but like Des said when he talked to him about it, it’s like she’s kind of marking her territory. Telling Zara to back away from her boy. He hopes it doesn’t hurt Zara too much. He hopes she gets it. It makes him feel kind of flattered, which surprises him.
He’s still smiling, hoping there isn’t crap stuck in his teeth. Hoping she appreciates how white they are. He struggles to think of something to actually say. What do people say to their girlfriends? How should he act?
Want some bread? he asks. Why aren’t you going to order food?
She shakes her head. No, she whispers. I told you. Not for me. She sips her water delicately like it’s an expensive vintage of champagne. He sighs.
The water here is good, he says.
She laughs. Was that funny? He was just trying to make conversation. With Tasia, he’d just talk about the horses, riding, something like that. But Gigi doesn’t ride. She’s just one of the groupies, one of the girls who is just always there. She doesn’t even have her own horse.
So, cool, he says. Thanks for coming.
Totally, she says. Wouldn’t miss it. It’s your birthday!
Yeah, he says. Cool. Well, thanks.
I got you something, she says. But she says it in one of those moments where there is suddenly a hush. He’s filled with dread. Everyone is looking. What is she going to give him? How will he react? She fishes around in her backpack for a few minutes, her head practically disappearing into the zippered pocket. She carries it everywhere, it drives Zara crazy. He suddenly recalls that at the beginning of the year when she was the new girl in school and no one knew her name yet, Zara nicknamed Gigi “Backpack Girl,” which stuck for months. Finally, she emerges with a brightly wrapped present.
You shouldn’t have done that, he says. That’s sweet. I mean, thanks.
He opens it awkwardly, like his hands are suddenly too big for his wrists. It’s a book. Just a book. But still, that says something. He doesn’t really read. Not for fun. He frowns at it. It’s some sort of novel. There’s a horse on the cover. Maybe she just saw the horse and assumed ...
Thank you, he says. He feels kind of like he used to feel when Granny used to give him really strange gifts: black shiny shoes or that one time when she gave him a kitchen mixer that still had crusty old dough stuck to the sides. That was when she was sick, though, after she got old and got Alzheimer’s.
The chatter around the table resumes. He puts the book under his chair, then picks it up and puts it under his salad plate. His mum shakes her head. I’ll take it, honey, she says, and drops it into her enormous purse, which is always hanging on the handle of her chair.
Thanks, he says. Thanks, he repeats to Gigi.
He takes another bite, but it doesn’t feel right. He’s getting a headache. Maybe it’s the wine.
He hopes it’s over soon. He wants to go home, crawl into bed. It’s his turn in the barn in the morning, which means he has to get up, oh, in nine hours. So even if he left right now, he’d still not get enough sleep, he needs at least ten to function. To feel normal.
The door bursts open again, along with a tinkle of bells that he hadn’t heard when Gigi came in. Wind chimes maybe. A warm wind blows in from outside that he hadn’t noticed before. It’s some kind of summer storm. The gust is strong, it lifts the tablecloths in the small space, red checkered fabric fighting against the weight of the plates. It crackles the air, like the wind itself is holding onto the lightning that looks like it’s going to start any second.
Oh, he hears his mum say. Oh!
And there’s his dad, standing there grinning, like he’s just strolled onto a stage to accept his Oscar, only he’s carrying two cakes in his outstretched arms. Two cakes with a few leaves hanging onto them, but still big cakes. Stuck all over with candles. Did he do that in the car? he wonders. Why aren’t the cakes in boxes? When did he get into town? He’s wearing his barn clothes, looks as though he just walked right onto the first flight from his last chore and didn’t bother to shower. Axel can actually smell the scent of horse rising off him. Something happens in his chest. A dropping. Almost like he’s scared, like when he was a kid. When his dad used to freak out, get mad, slam doors and punch the walls when he lost his temper. He doesn’t do that anymore. It’s been a long time since Axel’s been scared of him. He forces himself to smile.
The candles aren’t lit, but maybe they were and they burnt out. The wicks are black.
Everyone starts singing and Zara grabs Axel’s hand across the table. Out of habit, he cracks her knuckles and she jerks away.
I hate that! she says.
Oops, he says, crossing his eyes.
He grabs her hand back and this time she lets him. Just like every birthday they’ve ever had, only this time it seems to him that she’s holding on more tightly than she ever did before.
I didn’t know Dad was coming home, she says softly.
He shakes his head. Neither did he. But it doesn’t really surprise him, that’s what his dad is like now, as if popping into their lives like a jack-in-the-box at unexpected intervals makes it always exciting. Always a happy reunion. Not coloured by the past, like they’re supposed to just forget it and move on and be happy that he’s bothering to be there at all. The song ends and together they make a blowing face at the twin cakes, even though there are no flames to blow. Just two kids, being silly, blowing so hard at their ca
kes that he feels light-headed.
SIN
Chapter 3
YOU ARE FLIRTING with the waiter. But because you’re fat, it’s not like real flirting. It’s joke flirting. He treats it like a joke. He’s very cute in that smiley-eyed, dark-haired, olive-skinned smooth-as-silk way. Totally your type, or what you think of as your type, or what you want your type to be. You think you remember this guy from school a couple of years ago. He was a couple of years ahead, so he’s already graduated. He’s probably at college, this job likely paying his tuition. You make another dumb joke and he laughs with you and pats your shoulder, mock kisses his hand and presses it to your cheek.
He calls you bella but he can’t mean it, and also it makes him sound affected, like he’s pretending to be Italian. You know he is Italian, but not Italian enough to get away with bella. What a joke.
Well, you should talk. You are a joke. A likeable, popular joke, but still a joke.
Why?
Because you are fat.
Because you are fat, you do not get what you want. Because you are fat, your boyfriend is a weirdo and you know it and still go out with him because you figure “weirdo” is what you get when you look like you look. Because you are fat, you will always have crushes on unattainable boys, like Axel, for example. Boys who date girls with flat stomachs and jutting hip bones. Boys who don’t even see you because you are hidden from their view by virtue of the fact your jeans are a bigger size than theirs.
Because you are capital-F-A-T FAT, your mother will always glare at you when you ingest a calorie as though that one single calorie is going to bloat you at once up to unforgivable proportions. Like she can’t believe she’d have a daughter as gross as you.
What she doesn’t seem to notice is that you already have unforgivable proportions, at least your breasts are of (to you) unforgivable proportions. They have the proportions of a pin-up doll. A porn star. Pamela Anderson. So by actually trying to be fat, you reason, you are just balancing out your cartoonish boobs. That’s all.
Still, there’s irony in there somewhere. Like you don’t take yourself as seriously as you would if you were thin and flat-chested. You don’t even believe you’re worth as much time or effort as anyone else. You kind of actually do think that you’re a joke.
Not to Hamster; though. Hamster takes you sooo seriously it makes you wish that he thought you were a joke. He’s too intense. He freaks you out, to be honest. There’s no getting around it. He’s a weirdo. Why you are with him, you really can’t say, except to state the obvious: he’s the best you can do.
He is the opposite of you in every respect. He collects medieval weaponry, which is creepy in and of itself. In his room, he has a wall decorated with swords and shields. Hanging above his bed is a spiky ball thing that he got on eBay for two hundred dollars that totally gives you the creeps. He even has a dagger that he sometimes wears in his sock, like he might suddenly be called into battle. If he ever was in a fight, you reason, whoever he was about to fight with would pummel him before he had a chance to work the thing free, but he thinks it’s cool. The fact that he thinks weapons are cool should be enough to make you run, and yet you don’t. You, who work for anti-gun legislation, kind of turn the other cheek and pretend it doesn’t wig you out as much as it does.
He’s obsessed with horror movies. You like romantic comedies, where everyone has good hair and the films always end happily.
He loves video games. You like to read.
He likes to stay home, hunkered down in the basement watching DVDs and you like to go out dancing with your friends.
Why do you think this is what you are stuck with? Because you have big breasts?
It’s inexplicable, the whole situation.
There is really nothing much likeable about him, except for the fact that he likes you and he has gentle eyes, in spite of his probable craziness. His eyes are big, dark and round. His nose so small it looks positively rodent-like. Which is why he’s called Hamster; a nickname he doesn’t even mind. He introduces himself that way.
On the plus side, Hamster at least rides. So he knows your friends from riding, even though he isn’t in their league. His horse isn’t good enough to show, not really. It’s an old horse, a grey, with a problem knee. The horse is named Pudding Pop. Even his horse has an undignified name. He keeps Pudding Pop at the Hextons’ barn, just like most of them do, but he doesn’t go every day to ride. His parents pay extra for Zara and Axel to exercise the poor old horse. Hamster goes maybe once a week.
He doesn’t take it very seriously. He actually once told you that his favourite part of riding was pretending that he was a character in history. A knight or someone, galloping into battle on his loyal steed. You’d rolled your eyes at that, made him promise he wasn’t going to become one of those people who re-enacted medieval scenes or anything, and he’d promised. Solemnly. Like the whole thing was a serious possibility that he’d put on hold for you. Like it was a sacrifice.
In response to seeing you tease the waiter, Hamster looks hurt, which irks you on one level but... well. He also notices, which you take as flattery. No one else does. You guess that’s why you’re with him, his noticing means something to you. The fact that he cares. The idea that maybe he’s jealous.
Maybe he’ll go after the waiter with one of his strange weapons like an old-fashioned hero. That’s sort of romantic, if a little psycho.
But you don’t actually think you will be Hamster’s girl for much longer. He’s so little, that’s the thing. Like a Polly Pocket doll or something. Well, a zombie Polly Pocket doll. When he kisses you, you feel like you might accidentally swallow him whole, like a seal swallowing a herring. His smallness makes you feel even larger than you actually are. Gigantic. Like a caricature. Like one of those fat people who fry chicken by their beds and have to be buried in piano boxes.
Which you aren’t.
Really. You’re just slightly overweight and an F-cup. An F-cup. You will never ever ever forget the day you were fitted for your first bra — your first — and you were expecting to get an A-cup like everyone else. A training bra. And the woman who measured you — an old woman whose breath reeked of salted fish — said, Gadzooks! You’re a big girl. Thirty-four D! It was only then that you yourself noticed your breasts. It sounds weird, but it was like by measuring them, the old fishy lady made them exist. Like a witch. You would swear afterward that they weren’t there before.
After that, you started to gain weight. To balance it out, you figure. To hide the boobs in with the rest of your body.
You aren’t morbidly obese. You just look it, sitting next to Hamster. Sitting next to any of these people, really, the whole table full of people who are preternaturally skinny and breastless, except for your mother, who is average. And Des, who is maybe a tiny bit chubby. Certainly not fat. No, that role has been assigned to you and everyone else is relieved that you are shouldering that burden so they don’t have to. That doesn’t make sense, but it does. To you.
Hamster whispers in your ear, Want some of my spaghetti?
No, you say out loud. I’m just having salad.
Are you sure? he asks, more loudly. I can’t eat all this.
Try, you say. I don’t want it. Don’t eat it all. Whatever.
Okay, he says.There’s a pause. Want to come to my house after and watch a movie? he asks.
Sure, you say. I guess so. What movie?
I don’t know, he says. Maybe Friday the Thirteenth. Or Saw. One of the classics.
Okay, you say. That sounds fun.
Horror movies give you nightmares. You hope the party goes on and on so you can skip the blood and gore and the awkward sloppy kissing and groping that goes with it. Why do you pretend to love those stupid films? Why do you play along? He isn’t worth it. He could dress up like a medieval squire or whatever and gallop off into the sunset and you wouldn’t be the least bit sad about it. You’d be relieved.
You angrily stab your fork into a crouton and it shatters,
partly onto your lap. You brush it off but it leaves an oily stain on your pants. He wipes at it with his napkin. His face so close to your belly, you almost start giggling. Your boobs are bigger than his whole head.
The real twist is that in a lot of ways, you don’t really dislike him. You dislike his weirdness. You want to strip away the dumb movies and the knight stuff and his awkward jitteriness and start from scratch. You want to change his hair and his clothes and his body and his mannerisms. Then he’d be okay. Fundamentally, he is okay. He’s just maybe going through a weird phase, an awkward period. You sometimes get glimmers of his humour and his intelligence and you think, there, that’s okay. He’s okay, after all.
It’s complicated. And of course, when you’re alone with him, you’re less aware of his weirdness. He flatters you. A lot. He makes you feel like you’re funny. And pretty. And hot. In a way that you know you aren’t. In the way that you wish you were.
You wish you were classically pretty, Jennifer Aniston pretty, Jessica Alba pretty, Zara pretty. Pretty in a way that can’t be disputed. You have pretty qualities. Good hair, for example. It should be good, you spend a fortune on having it highlighted and straightened and conditioned and trimmed to an exact standard. But altogether, your features don’t add up to pretty. They are all really just too big. You aren’t even particularly sure that you would be pretty if you were thin, skinny, athletic, whatever. You like to think that you would be, but what if you’re not? That’s the real question.
In the meantime, you’re smart. And you’re funny. You like to make people laugh. At your expense, often, but so what? People need to take themselves less seriously, that’s what you think. They need to just relax, have fun. That’s why you love Zara so much. She’s just the embodiment of fun. She is always so at ease inside herself and outside that she’s just easy to be around. You can’t believe that she isn’t the more popular of the two of you but funnily enough it worked out the other way. Somehow she ended up being “Sin’s friend” and you aren’t simply cast in the role of “Zara’s friend.” You have the bigger personality.