Conversations with the Fat Girl

by Liza Palmer

  I take the paper.

  “Sam? Do I have to get naked in front of her?” I stutter.

  “Just go. Tell me when you’ve made the appointment.” Peregrine puts the pencil back behind her ear and gets up from the table.

  I follow Peregrine as she opens the door to go back into the coffeehouse. Christina is there introducing Domenic to all her model-actress friends. He looks uncomfortable but steady. He is shaking hands and smiling. The girls are happy to meet him. One especially aggressive Jezebel has her hand on his elbow as she talks to him. He looks down at her fingers. He is charming in that unavailable quiet way that makes you think he doesn’t give a shit about anything. What could be more attractive? I walk behind the counter and help the next customer. Cole is sipping espresso, staring at the girls. Peregrine walks behind me and pours herself a cup of coffee.

  At closing time, Cole opens the front door long enough to let the three of us out while he sets the alarm for the night. Peregrine, Domenic, and I sit on the benches in front of Joe’s. There is so much subtext that no one says anything. We are all having conversations with ourselves when Peregrine interrupts.

  “So are you guys going to be able to make it to my birthday party on Thursday? I booked the roof of the Pasadena Museum of California Art—pretty amazing, huh? You did get your invitations, right?” The theme of the party is the 1980s. All of Peregrine’s parties must be themed. The invitation was amazing. It was a hand-painted wooden box that had been decoupaged with magazine articles from the decade. Once you opened the wooden box, you were met with a puff of white powder and a rolled-up dollar bill. Peregrine, being the current-events maven that she is, never once thought that in today’s political climate sending a wooden box filled with white powder might not be the best idea. Nonetheless, after several false alarms to the FBI, guests could find all the party information printed on the dollar bills. Even with that buildup, I had forgotten about the party until right now. I never put it together that our birthdays are within weeks of each other.

  Aaargh—I had completely forgotten about my impending birthday. Twenty-eight. The march of time isn’t quite so daunting as the day itself. I can handle New Year’s Eve. I’ve convinced myself I don’t mind spending that holiday alone. I tell people it’s “spiritual” for me to ring in the New Year alone. And in a way, it’s actually true. But birthdays? Everyone asks what you’re doing. You can’t use the old spiritual, alone thing for some reason. Luckily, my family throws a huge birthday celebration for me, my sister, and my stepdad, Russell, because all our birthdays are within days of each other. I’ll go to the party alone. But then I’ll go home by myself—again. Another year.

  “Yeah, that sounds fun,” I say.

  “Yep.” Domenic is sitting straight-legged with his backpack on, arms behind his head.

  “So you guys will be there?” Peregrine asks.

  “I move that weekend, but it may be a nice last fling on that side of town,” I say.

  “Do you need help moving?” Domenic asks.

  Did he just say what I think he said? Did he just fucking say what I think he said?

  “W-w-what?” I stutter.

  “Moving? Do you need any extra help? I have that weekend off,” Domenic says.

  Peregrine blows out a shaft of smoke.

  “That sounds great. I don’t have that much stuff. I asked my family, but I could absolutely use more help. So, gosh, thank you . . . that’s super . . . supercool of you.” I have never used the word super in any conversation, let alone supercool. How the word gosh made its way into my vocabulary is a whole other conversation.

  “Well, we’ll talk about it on Thursday night at Peregrine’s party, okay?” He looks me dead in the eye and smiles. Then he wraps his hands around his backpack straps and walks to his car parked in back of the coffeehouse.

  “Wow,” I say.

  “So gosh . . . thank you . . . that’s supercool of you,” Peregrine mocks.

  “I’ve been here before. This is just about being a friend.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve known Domenic for almost a year now and he’s never made any kind of move,” I reason.

  “You mean like asking if you need help moving? Like something as overt as that? Unthinkable!”

  “It’s not as easy for some of us. I’m not saying this in some kind of sad-sack way, either. Sometimes people just don’t like you that way. Mason was a complete aberration.” Peregrine looks confused. “The ten-second mathematician has a name, you know.” I continue, “It’s not all flowers and boyfriends for some people. I’m not being shitty about myself, it’s just . . . it’s just how things are for me.”

  “You make it that way. You and I are not so different.”

  “I know I’m a good person, but I think if you put me and Christina in front of Domenic, his instinct would be to choose Christina.”

  “Have you ever asked yourself the same question?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If you had the chance, would you choose to be Christina?”

  To be Fatty or Bobo.

  “If you can’t even choose yourself, how can anyone else?”

  With that, Peregrine takes the knife out of my back, gives me a kiss on the cheek, and walks out into the dark of the night.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Golden

  I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready for Domenic. I don’t know what I’ll do if he leans across the bed like Mason Phelps, the ten-second mathematician, did. There was an innocence to Mason that I understood. A newness that I knew he was feeling as strongly as I was. His pale chest and textbooks helped me see him as somehow harmless. Domenic is not harmless. While he appears vulnerable, there is a definite feeling that lets you know he knows what he’s doing. And unlike poor Mason, ten seconds would hardly describe anything Domenic would be capable of.

  It’s eight thirty at night and I’m alone. Peregrine is right. I would choose Christina over me. What I wouldn’t give to throw on a pair of jeans, look at myself in the mirror, and not roll my eyes.

  The phone rings. I wipe away my tears and gently push a worried Solo away.

  “Hello?” I ask.

  “Hey there, girl.” It’s Olivia.

  “Hey, how’s the wedding?”

  “Great, great. Patrona took Mommy through a big tasting dinner and she could not stop talking about it. I got a proof of the centerpieces from Patrona, they’re gorgeous, by the by, and I got the last of the measurements from Martine. Say hello to a size two, girl. The photographer we met with is sending over proofs of her work and I just couldn’t be happier.” She finally takes a breath and asks, “What’s going on down there?”

  I need my best friend. The only thing I feel is frustration. Frustration at dooming this crush before it even gets off the ground. Here it is the most important time of her life. I feel embarrassed at how I am behaving. For one second, could this conversation just be about Olivia’s wedding?

  “Boy trouble,” I say. Obviously not.

  “Who is it? I’m not breathing, by the way.” Olivia doesn’t miss a beat.

  “His name is Domenic.” She now knows.

  “Domenic. Damn, that just sounds fine. Either tell me more about him or get me a brown paper bag to breathe into.”

  “Yeah, well. He’s twenty-eight, lives with like four hundred people in a tiny loft in downtown LA, and is a sculptor of some kind. Makes tiny hands and heads, or something,” I reveal.

  “What? Tiny heads?” she asks.

  “A dollmaker. His grandmother and mother are dollmakers . . . it’s a family business. He’s really a sculptor, but he does the doll thing, too. Dolls?” I say.

  “Are you . . . I mean, do you feel weird about this? Did you not want to tell me about him? He sounds perfect for you. If one of his little sculpty heads breaks, you can get right in there and fix it. What’s going on here?”

  “I just . . . I don’t know . . . he’s beautiful. Tall. But I just look at him and ge
t terrified . . . I mean he still buses tables. Just watching him walk around with that plastic bin . . . I don’t know . . . it freaks me out. He’s basically running the doll business with his grandmother. I guess he does the hands and feet. He says no one can do faces like his grandmother. I don’t know. For all of Mason Phelps or even Texas Steven’s shit, they were able to . . . I don’t know . . . do man things. I don’t know if Domenic can do that stuff.”

  “Was Texas Steven a fucking lumberjack or something?” Olivia asks.

  “He was golden.”

  “Maggie?”

  “His hair, remember that? It wasn’t brown or blond—it was naturally golden. And the body . . .”

  “Maggie?”

  I am silent. Golden.

  “Mags . . . come back to me.” Olivia laughs.

  “Not the same with Mason Phelps . . . more Steven—you know, more . . . I don’t know how to explain it.” I am caught once more in the goldenness of Texas Steven.

  “You know why Mason doesn’t affect you like Texas Steven?”

  “He wasn’t golden?”

  “No—remember the concert?” Olivia is silent. Waiting.

  “Yes.” I don’t want to talk about it. It was traumatizing.

  “And?”

  “I saw . . . I saw . . .” I can’t say it.

  “You saw Mason Phelps air-humping the stage.”

  “Yes. Yes. I think he thought it was dancing. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t, Olivia. It was so far from dancing. And then I pictured Saint Patrick’s Day and . . . well, you know.” We both fail to control the giggles that ensue.

  “You do this all the time. When someone stops being this perfect man, you pick something completely random and decide it’s a deal breaker. Remember John Sheridan?”

  “John Sheridan was plain stupid and only parroted back whatever Caroline Pond said earlier that day.”

  “But it’s the same deal. He was always that stupid, you just turned him into this huge fantasy. When you found out who he really was, you weren’t interested anymore. See what I’m saying? And he wasn’t half as good looking as you made him out to be, by the way.”

  “Well, he’s no Ben Dunn, I guess.”

  “Who is? Oh right—my Adam!” Olivia shrieks with delight. I am silent.

  “Do you see what I’m saying?” Olivia continues.

  “A little.”

  “What about Owen Lynch?”

  “What about him?”

  “Why did you stop liking him?”

  “He had that booger hanging out that one time.” Come on. A booger. Who wouldn’t be repulsed by that?

  “That alien you slept with?”

  “His name was fucking Bobby Bol, for the love of God.”

  “And Adam—your red-suited Adam from college?”

  “You remember when he wore those black basketball shorts—and he had those white-white legs, and his leg hair was really black. You must remember that.”

  “See where I’m going with this?”

  “What does this have to do with Domenic?”

  “I think you’re doing it again. You’re holding him up to a standard no one can live up to, except men who never, I guess, become ungolden—or something.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Is he nice?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he cute?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then?”

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  And I don’t. Apparently, I don’t know anything.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  We Wouldn’t Want Any Skyrocketing Going On

  I’ve always imagined Olivia’s wedding as the high point of our friendship—two fat girls finally making good. I have visions of toasting with champagne and dancing until all hours to old Salt-n-Pepa jams. I’ve been a bridesmaid twice. When Mom married Russell, I cried like a baby. At Kate and Vincent’s wedding I wore white Converse All Stars and made funny faces in all the wedding pictures. I have played the roles of daughter and little sister well. Olivia’s wedding will be the first wedding where I finally get to play the role of a grown-up.

  During a pause in our phone conversation, I have flashbacks comparing Mason with new visions of Domenic. Not bad. Then Olivia wastes no time in getting down to the business of the wedding. Once again she breaks out the checklists, color-coordinated card files, and three-ring binders. Maybe I missed the boat on what our fat-girl zenith would be like. In my fantasy, Mary Benicci is catering the affair while she shouts at poor Shannon Shimasaki for eating all the puff pastries. Now I see that the reality is all this organization and planning. It’s just plain drudgery. My fantasy world has succumbed to the harsh realities of best friend bridezillas who want to put a spotlight on my Area.

  Olivia’s begging me to fly out to DC for another engagement party where we’ll plan her bridal shower. “Can’t you just fly out on Friday and get back early Sunday? You can move Sunday afternoon. I planned a cocktail party on Saturday night for all the girls. Friday you can have to yourself. Adam has a dinner with the head of his department, so you would only have to come out for the cocktail party. Please? I just really need you right now.” Am I supposed to spend hundreds of dollars on plane tickets, anti-anxiety pills, bottles and bottles of vodka and Valium, just to come out for one cocktail party?

  “I can’t do it. I’m moving. It’s not like I can do that another weekend. Why don’t you give me these girls’ e-mail addresses or phone numbers and I’ll call them and set up your shower that way?” I am wondering how our cute little chat about my Domenic suddenly turned into me flying to Washington, DC?

  “No, that’s fine. I’ll just tell them you’re busy. Maybe I’ll ask another one of the girls to help plan the shower. Gwen is flying out. She asked after you.” Olivia throws what she knows to be the final blow.

  Olivia met Gwen Charles when Olivia interviewed for an internship at one of the top talent agencies in Los Angeles after she graduated from Cal. Gwen is the personification of perfect. She is about five foot one and weighs about—and I’m guessing here—five, okay maybe six pounds. Her hair is almost black and cut in the height of style by someone with one name. Olivia didn’t get the job (the CEO’s daughter did, what can you do?), but she did find a lifelong fan in Gwen—her first “real” friend after the bypass surgery and after Olivia rid herself of her wallet-size “before” picture. Gwen got Olivia interested in public relations and still lives in Los Angeles as a talent agent. Throughout our early twenties, I was not included more times than I’d like to remember in Olivia’s impromptu meetings with Gwen. Something about Gwen makes me competitive.

  “Gwen?” I ask. I can hear the opening chords of “Do Not Forsake Me” in the background. It’s High Noon. Gwen and I are standing on opposite sides of the ghost town, fingers tickling the ivory handles of our six-shooters, dueling for Olivia and her friendship.

  “Yeah. She’s flying out for the cocktail party. Maybe she can help me plan the shower. No one is going to do it as well as you, but maybe she can get us a little farther along,” Olivia says.

  “Sure, she can help, but we’ve been talking about your bridal shower for fifteen years. I’m sorry I can’t make it, but I would still like to be a part of this whole thing.” I’m becoming upset.

  “Well, we’ll see. Have fun moving. I’ll say hi to Gwen for you. And we’ll keep you updated on the shower. I’m going to miss you. Are you sure about this?”

  “There’s nothing I can do.” I have images of Gwen, Olivia, and all their perfect Washington, DC, friends all sitting around drinking Cosmopolitans and talking about the Big O—which is how all women’s films and fiction invariably end up.

  “Well, I guess that’s okay then. Give me a call when you get to the new house. I’d better call Gwen. Talk to you later.” Olivia hangs up. I hang up and feel like someone was holding a hand over my mouth forbidding me from speaking.

  My hand pulsates. Domenic. I have to set up the move, and now is as good a time as a
ny. What’s one more rejection? I pick up the phone and dial quickly, reminding myself that he offered. Why would he offer if he didn’t want to help? Wouldn’t he expect me to call? Any friend would call. I’m just following the normal friend protocol. I dial Domenic’s number and hang up quickly before it rings. I repeat this three times.

  I decide instead to make my appointment with Sam the Massage Therapist first. I call the spa and make my appointment for later that week. She apparently had a cancellation. The receptionist confides that Sam is the most popular massage therapist and that I’m “lucky” I got in so quickly. I thank her profusely. I dial Domenic before I have a chance to stop myself. I can’t feel my extremities.

  “Hello?” I’m not completely sure it’s not Domenic.

  “Hello, uh . . . is Domenic there?” I have somehow spoken without breathing.

  “Sure, may I ask who’s calling?” the man says.

  “It’s Maggie . . . from work,” I say.

  “Just a minute.” I hear the phone placed on a surface and muffled voices. Then I hear the lower tenor of Domenic’s voice. He’s being told there is a girl on the phone named Maggie. He’s either smiling or looking confused. He’s walking toward the phone right now with thoughts of us. Thoughts of what he thinks of me.

  “Hello?” he says.

  “Hey, there.” I can say no more. I am hyperventilating, and my voice catches. Why am I so incredibly socially retarded?

  “So what’s going on?” He’s doing his best to move this dying conversation along.

  “Not much, I just wanted to see if you were still interested in helping me move this weekend?”

  “Just let me know what time.”

  “I think we should start early, that way we can finish before the temperature skyrockets.” Skyrockets? Yeah, that’s verbiage I use every day. Supercool of you, gosh. Magical.

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want any skyrocketing going on.”