Conversations with the Fat Girl

by Liza Palmer

  “The Reverend Horton Heat song?” he says quickly.

  I wasn’t talking about that song. Who would ever talk about that song? I was talking about the other song, the song, the one that stopped me dead in my tracks as I packed that night. The song that plays in the background of my every fantasy: Domenic slowly walks toward me, he’s a little shy, maybe thinking I don’t have the same feelings for him, but he cradles my face in his hands and kisses me gently to that song. And this time maybe there is time for edible glitter and feather ticklers. In reality, I realize I am standing in front of Domenic, who is now staring at me. I chicken out. I agree with him that the song I want to pull out of the chorus for its solo is the Reverend Horton Heat song, rather than the sweet ballad.

  “Maggie?” I hear Cole from the front of the coffeehouse. Domenic picks up his plastic bin and opens the door for me. Another time, my sweet Romeo. Another time . . . another balcony.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cottage. Hardwood Floors. Fireplace.

  Mom provided what she could when we were growing up. She quit her nowhere job and decided to become a lawyer when I was around ten years old. She worked in the law library when she could, but we made ends meet by being on welfare and cutting any corner we could find. Olivia, on the other hand, was from one of the wealthiest families in Pasadena, so I was able to experience things our family could never afford. Mrs. Morten signed me up for camp and paid for it; she took me and Kate to dinner when she knew Mom was studying late. We were members of the Morten family. We never felt like we were too poor to be in their beautiful home.

  Mom was my only parent until Russell came into the picture ten years ago. I was young when my father left. Mom got us through while my father went to “find himself.” Apparently he never quite tracked himself down because we have yet to hear from him. My mom is, and always was, my own manifestation of God. But even from her, I still feel uncomfortable with too much scrutiny. Attention, like most things, feels tight on me.

  “Phone’s for you.” Cole points to the perched receiver. Domenic moves past me and heads to the outside tables. I watch him as he stops short and bends to pick up a loose Equal packet.

  “Hello?” I ask, but wait, drumroll . . . the suspense is killing me. Ah, the boxers—are those martini glasses? Martini glasses?

  “It’s Mom.”

  “Is everything okay?” I try to focus. What would those boxers look like in my house? In my washer and dryer. There I am folding those boxers as he approaches with a small, velvet box.

  “You got it. The house on Wilson,” Mom blurts out. I am snapped back into reality.

  The house: a tiny cottage with picture windows and hardwood floors and creeping vines that make it look right out of the English countryside.

  “Holy shit! When did you hear? When did you hear?” I scream.

  Cole walks toward the phone and gives me a nonverbal warning for my sailor mouth even though there are no customers in the coffeehouse. Nonverbal meaning he zips his mouth and then gives me the finger.

  “Marian from the management company called me last night to tell me. She said your credit reports looked great and you can move in Fourth of July weekend.”

  “Oh my God! Oh my God! Can you believe this?” Another look from Cole shoots my way. I recoil. “Thank you so much . . . oh my God!” I whisper.

  It is one of those Vaseline-lens moments. I am a 1950s ten-year-old tomboy with a red baseball cap, striped shirt, and dungarees. I hold my dog after being saved from the rapids and say, through the tears, “We did it, girl . . . we did it.” Cole throws me a washrag and grunts at me to clean the counters. Nothing could bring me down off this high. I am free from Faye’s indentured servitude.

  After work, Mom picks me up and we head over to the new house. Mom and I pull down the street and count down the numbers. We park in front of an aged green archway leading into a courtyard of twelve identical Green and Green Craftsman cottages. The scents of night-blooming jasmine and honeysuckle float through the air as we look for the individual numbers on the homes. The doors are open, and I can hear voices and music playing. We walk past cat after cat after cat. Black and white. Orange and white. Calico. There must be thousands. There it is. Mom and I scamper around the house, looking in windows, measuring the side yard, and trying to figure out wall space to ascertain possible art placement. We are giddy.

  “Gh-ello? Can I help you vis somesing?” A small German lady wearing a frilled white skirt and a tight black belt is cautiously approaching us.

  “Hi. I . . . uh . . .” I don’t know if it is common knowledge that number 12 is being vacated, and I don’t want to give out confidential information. More importantly, I don’t want to say something that might stand in the way of me getting that cottage. Maybe this German lady has a niece or something. A homeless niece. A homeless, German, cottage-thieving niece.

  “We . . . we heard that maybe one of the cottages might be for rent, so we thought we’d take a look at it. I just got off work.” I cross my arms and look at Mom, who is writing down measurements.

  “Oh, yes. Number twelve, right? How did you find out about zis? Haf zey advertised?”

  “Oh, my mom’s law firm is in the same office building as the management company. She gave me a heads-up about this place.” The minute I say it I know I have made a mistake. Mom smiles absently as her name is mentioned.

  “Oh, so dis is how it verks.” She tangles her fingers together in this odd mafiosa kind of way. We’ll be sleeping with the fishes for sure.

  “What? No . . . I just need a place to live, and my mom . . . I mean we heard about this place, so . . .” I grow nervous and once again look to Mom. The German lady is not even a blip on her radar. At least she’ll look better in a bathing suit than Faye.

  “Can we help you with anything else?” Mom says in her stern attorney voice.

  “Vell, good luck vis da house. I vill see you later.” Off the little German lady goes. We are left in the courtyard alone again.

  “I don’t know what Der Führer’s problem is, but you’d better watch out for her,” Mom says as she walks back over to the porch of the house.

  The cottage is stunning. The porch is covered with red bougainvillea and purple clematis. French doors lead inside the living room; windows line every wall of the small house. And I do mean small. The house is a mere 462 square feet, which means it quite possibly could have less space than my current home. The size is the only “flaw” that makes the rent affordable. The tenants are still in the house, but they aren’t home this evening. I peer in the living room window, taking it all in. There is a full working fireplace. On the other side of the front room is a built-in buffet. All the woodwork is done in old Craftsman style. There are hardwood floors throughout. A galley kitchen completes my visual tour.

  Later, Mom drops me off at home, and I knock on Faye’s door. She answers with a sort of grumble. I’m sure this is her version of a greeting to those lesser beings who live in little rented houses that can be packed into thirty-six boxes.

  “I want to confirm with you that I will be moving out Fourth of July weekend.” I don’t breathe the entire time I speak.

  “You have to sign a letter that Stan is writing saying you offered to move out in such a short time.” She speaks through her metal screen. I feel the constant urges to snatch her through the metal pinholes.

  “I’m not signing anything, Faye.” My mom’s a lawyer; I barely sign greeting cards anymore. I begin to turn away. I’m not going to fight with her. As a matter of fact, I have already taken pictures of the damn bulldozer and documented every crazy-ass thing Faye has done over the years.

  “Well, Stan’ll bring it back when he’s done and you can take a look at it.” She is now emerging from behind her black security door. I feel honored until I see her tiny pink terry-cloth robe. It doesn’t quite fit and seems to separate at the only portion of her anatomy that hasn’t been exposed to years of California sun. I shudder.

  “Faye, I h
ave not, nor will I ever, sign anything you put in front of me. I didn’t sign a rental agreement and I’m not signing a forty-eight-hour eviction agreement. I’m moving out and that’s that.” I approach her straight on, my breath quickening. My fists tighten and my shoulders rise. Faye perches herself on one leg as she itches the back of the other with the disfigured yellowing toenails I always refer to as “The Kraken.” I continue.

  “Furthermore, since you’re tearing the house down, I won’t be cleaning it before I leave.” Faye nonchalantly closes her robe, cutting off my view of the gates of hell. I continue, “And I’ll sign a letter confirming that.”

  I stand there just long enough. Faye leans against the doorjamb in all her glory, highball in one hand and TV Guide in the other. What could she possibly be thinking? Why am I standing here waiting? I am paralyzed.

  “Well, Stan’ll bring it back anyway.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Who’s That Big Fat Girl, Mummy?

  Following Olivia’s directions to some elite bridal salon in the thick of Los Angeles, I feel like a traitor. This is the biggest event of my best friend’s life and I can’t seem to get invested in it.

  In the beginning, Olivia used to carry her “before” picture around in her wallet, proudly showing off her incredible weight loss. But, she confided to me one night, she had gotten rid of the picture after noticing that the people who’d seen it looked at her differently—as if she were somehow flawed. She felt she was no longer perfect in their eyes. So she set about building a history of the Olivia Morten who stood before them now. The Olivia Morten her co-workers came to know played competitive tennis, was homecoming queen twice running, and did some catalog modeling on the side during college. It served no purpose, she argued, to tell them the true stories of our adolescence, because they all had to do with our isolation and humiliation or take place in a drive-through. But those stories show our determination to survive and how we leaned on each other during those times. Our history is that woman getting stuck in the booth at the restaurant. Still, it’s all being taken down frame by frame. Apparently, Olivia told her mom to get rid of all the pictures of when she was fat before Adam came for his first visit. Mrs. Morten has rid her shelves of all our pictures, whether Olivia’s fat is in them or not. Sometimes I don’t feel up to being in this new life of hers.

  I remember the first time I met Dr. Adam Farrell. Olivia had dropped his name a few times, and I had a good feeling about him. I had a crush on a boy named Adam in college. My Adam wore a red suit to graduation. Whether this was Olivia’s Adam or the memories I had of my red-suited Adam, I liked him the moment I heard Olivia mention him in passing.

  Olivia was invited to his parents’ house for their annual Halloween get-together where the invited guests ooh and ahh at the sons and daughters of some of Washington, DC’s, best-heeled citizens. Adam is the child of two university professors. His mother teaches Byzantine architecture; his father teaches philosophy. Adam reads the Washington Post in the morning while he holds court at some of the most erudite DC tables.

  I flew in to DC on that Halloween weekend despite my fear of flying. I arrived just after the big holiday get-together was over. I called her, a little drunk and slightly hysterical from my flight. We planned to meet in Georgetown. I stood on the corner by one of her favorite bars and watched as Olivia frantically pointed to Dr. Adam Farrell in the car behind her.

  “He wanted to come,” Olivia gushed.

  “Is this the Adam?” I asked.

  “What do you think of him? Isn’t he gorgeous! How is this even a guy I’m dating, you know? He’s even more beautiful than Ben Dunn and Shane Presky combined!” Shane Presky was the guy Olivia lusted after in college. He was a world-champion swimmer who went on to medal in the Olympics. Needless to say, Shane Presky didn’t know Olivia existed. She continued.

  “How do I look? Oh my God, the party, I have to tell you . . . isn’t he amazing? I am so glad you’re here. What if this is the beginning? I just want to fly him back to Pasadena right now and show him off, you know. I can’t believe a guy who looks like that is . . . you know . . . willing to be seen with me. Go out with me?” Olivia was talking so fast. Where was this coming from?

  She would have gone on and on, but Adam had left his car unattended and was inching his way up to us to see what the holdup was.

  “What’s going on?” Adam was unreal. Looking at him was like seeing a celebrity in real life—you just can’t believe how beautiful they are. Oddly, he looked nothing like my red-suited Adam from college.

  “Oh, we were plotting out our night . . .” Olivia was speaking so fast it sounded more like, O, we’replodnight. But we all got the gist.

  “You must be Maggie. I can’t tell you how much I’ve heard about you,” he said, extending his hand. I felt faint at the prospect of touching him.

  Adam’s handshake was weak. Still, I thought, You’re the one. He was the man in our fantasies. Gorgeous. Successful. Intelligent. You’re the one who’s going to take my best friend away.

  I finally pull into the parking lot of Martine’s Bridal Salon. Olivia and her mom are waiting by their car in front of a corner coffee shop because Martine’s is not open yet. Paulette Morten is the absolute embodiment of the Pasadena ideal. Her Barbara Walters blond hair is perfectly coiffed. Her face is pulled a little tight, yet the crow’s-feet around her eyes remain pronounced. She hates it, but it’s my favorite thing about her. She wears only St. John suits with matching Ferragamo handbags and shoes. Paulette Morten never leaves the house without her organizer, a lunch date at the Valley Hunt Club, and her ex-husband’s credit cards.

  Mr. Hobbs Morten, not present today, is a businessman based in Los Angeles. I’ve met him twice: once at Olivia’s high school graduation and once at her college graduation. I don’t think anyone really knows what Mr. Hobbs Morten does for a living except that he makes lots and lots of money. I’ve never really thought much of him at all. I’d like to say that he was this imposing character with a reddened face and cigar dangling—but he’s not. Mr. Hobbs Morten looks like our accountant. He’s now shorter than I am and is slightly balding. His face is pale, and he always looks worried. I remember when Olivia told me he was going to be at the high school graduation. I imagined a cartoonish Boss Hogg character rolling across our football field in a white Cadillac with bullhorns mounted on the front grille. Instead, he drove a Japanese import, wore a red bow tie, and was all around quite pleasant. Mr. and Mrs. Morten were divorced when Olivia was eleven years old. Ever since then, Olivia doesn’t talk about him or his new family. I do know he is invited to Olivia’s wedding, but nothing untoward will take place because Paulette Morten surely would have none of that.

  We decide to have a small breakfast before the big day. Upon entering the coffee shop, I catch a glance of myself in one of the mirrors. They have many. I now hate this coffee shop. I lean into Olivia as we wait in line.

  “I’m not eating today.” I say. “I had this vision of the wedding pictures.” Years from now, Olivia sits with her towheaded children-of-the-corn kids reminiscing about her wedding day. She pulls out the wedding album and the room falls silent. “Who’s that big fat girl, Mummy?” one of her children says in a Dickensian British accent, pointing at me in the photograph. “She frightens me, I shall have bad dreams if we have to keep looking at her.” Olivia closes the wedding album forever, tousling her child’s hair. At that, they all scamper out to their rose garden to have high tea.

  “I know, huh? Just be glad you’re not the one who has to try on your wedding dress in less than an hour. I haven’t eaten in days,” Olivia says, waving off the muffin her mom is offering.

  The bridal shop is an emporium of white dresses. Dresses saddled with so many hopes and fears, perfect bodies, perfect weddings, and even more perfect marriages. Olivia has made an appointment, or rather Mrs. Morten has made this final fitting appointment. We are led over to our space.

  This space is my own personal hell. There are
mirrors everywhere: to the side of you, to the back of you, to the front of you. Every possible angle. The bride stands on a small platform in front of everyone and presents herself for inspection. I catch glimpses of my body from the side, from the back, and from the front. Every possible angle. I dry-heave. All I can see is my Area. I have completely forgotten Olivia is trying on her wedding dress. I have completely forgotten there is anyone else in the room.

  “Maggie?” Mrs. Morten asks. “Love, can you run and get a disposable camera? Adam has got to see this.” She stands in front of me. Where did she come from? Why isn’t there yet another mirror directly in front of me?

  “Sure.” I gather my purse and take a twenty-dollar bill from her.

  Olivia is in the fitting room being pinned and sewn into a size 2. She will be a size 2 for her wedding. Where will I be? Olivia has not spoken to me since we entered the bridal salon. Part of me knows she still fears this mirrored, platformed performance space as much as I do.

  I return with the disposable camera to find my best friend standing on a platform looking like a fairy princess. She is stunning. There is a crowd forming around her. Olivia is magnetic. She is the envy of everyone around her: the maids of honor who are here for support, the brides who will try on their dresses for their big day, and the teary-eyed moms who stand back gazing at their grown-up girls. Olivia is the perfect bride. I snap a picture.

  I watch Olivia stand and twirl. She’s staring at herself in the mirror. Is she blown away, too? She’s probably used to looking at her perfect body by now, but all dressed up in a wedding gown has got to be something of a mind fuck even for her. Still, somewhere in this process the magnetic Olivia becomes the barking-orders, condescending Olivia, shooing people away with a royal flick of her hand. There is a collective sigh of relief from the entire bridal salon. At least that pretty girl in the size 2 is a bitch. They wouldn’t know how to deal with Olivia if she were friendly and self-effacing. Instead, she gives everyone in the store exactly what they want: a common enemy.