“Suzi Farly,” Jett said. “She’s a terrific artist—you should see the oil she did for the art show. She’s going to Visual Arts in New York this summer.”
“Too bad you made plans to stay here with me, huh?” I said, an edge to my voice.
“She’s just a friend, Lara.”
Just a friend. How many times had I told a jealous boyfriend that one?
I forced myself to let it drop. “You sure you don’t mind missing the Opryland trip tonight?” I asked him. “I mean, just because I don’t want to go …”
“Neither do I,” Jett said. “I’ll come over, we’ll just hang out, maybe barbecue, okay?”
“Sure,” I said. My mom had left that morning for Los Angeles to visit her sister, my aunt Deana, and she’d taken Scott with her. Dad was, as always, away on business.
“I’ll bring my suit, we can swim,” Jett said.
Right. Like I was going to let him see me in a bathing suit. And to think I used to believe he was so sensitive to my feelings.
Danny Fairway, my ex, walked by, his arm around his latest girlfriend, Carrie Ambrose, who had only been at Forest Hills High for a few months.
As they passed, she turned around to look back at me. “You really used to go out with her?” I heard her ask. “I mean, she’s as fat as Patty Asher.”
Jett pretended he hadn’t heard. I knew he had.
“Oh, hey, I forgot to tell Suzi what time I’m picking her up for the art show,” Jett said, snapping his fingers.
“Picking her up?” I repeated dumbly.
“I thought we could give her a ride—she doesn’t have a car. I’m gonna go catch her—save me a seat in there.” He took off down the hall.
In the olden days, before I turned into Blimp Woman, Jett would have asked me if it was okay if we took some other girl with us, especially a cute girl I didn’t know, who wasn’t one of my friends.
But all that had changed.
The olden days were over.
A few hours later I pulled my car into the Rivergate Mall parking lot. As I walked toward the mall doors my eyes darted around, looking for people I knew. I had chosen Rivergate because it was clear across Nashville—no one I knew ever shopped there.
So far, so good.
I had to go shopping. I couldn’t last anymore in black stretch pants, oversized sweaters, and T-shirts. For one thing, it was too hot out. For another, I couldn’t go anywhere that required other clothes. Because the new me didn’t have any real ones that fit.
The old me shopped with my friends. The new me shopped alone. The old me could shop at a zillion stores, choosing from all the cute clothes out there that all looked so great on me. The new me headed directly for the fat ladies’ store: Lane Bryant.
I knew about Lane Bryant, of course. Molly’s mom shopped there. And I supposed that was where Patty Asher got her lovely ensembles. But never, ever in a million years did I think I would be caught dead in that store, shopping for myself.
I slunk past The Limited, The Gap, all my old favorites. The outfits in the window display mocked me. I saw my own fat reflection in the window of the 5-7-9 Shop, superimposed against a slender mannequin in a tiny dress.
“Oh my God, look at that girl!”
I turned around. A group of cute, thin girls my age ran by, laughing together. One of them pointed at me, then said something else that I couldn’t hear, and her friends looked back at me and laughed again.
A cute, thin couple walked past me, their hands in the back pockets of each other’s jeans.
Lane Bryant. There it was. I walked inside.
“Can I help you?” the young saleswoman asked as I walked into the store. She was very fat, with perfect blond hair and perfect makeup, a pathetic attempt to compensate for her hugeness. She wore a denim jumper over a white T-shirt in a size I could not even imagine existed, it was so big.
“I’m just looking,” I said nervously, politely.
“We’re having a great sale on denim,” she said. “In fact, I just got this outfit.” She pointed to herself. “It’s cute, huh?”
“Wow,” I agreed, like a well-bred pageant-head.
“It would look really cute on you. I’d guess we wear about the same size. You should try it on!”
No, no, no. We couldn’t possibly wear the same size. She was massive. She was probably some foodaholic who stuffed her face day and night. I was a normal person with a disease. We were nothing alike. Nothing.
“What size are you?” she asked pleasantly. I didn’t have a clue.
“About a twenty-two is my guess,” she said. “Would you like me to pull this for you in a twenty-two?”
A twenty-two? That wasn’t possible. Molly’s mother wore a twenty-two! No. This girl felt so awful about being fat that she wanted me to feel awful, too.
“I’m sure I don’t wear a twenty-two,” I said coolly. “What’s the smallest size you have?”
“A fourteen/sixteen. You aren’t a fourteen/sixteen.”
“If I need your help I’ll call you, okay?” I said sharply.
“Fine,” she said smoothly. “My name is Janet, if you need me.” She walked away.
I looked through a rack of satin shirts in bright colors, so huge each could house a small nation. Then I looked at dresses. Many of the styles were the same as those in the stores where I usually shopped. The difference was they looked ridiculous in such gigantic proportions.
I grabbed some clothes: a pair of jeans, a white cotton shirt, a long floral dress, all size eighteen. Maybe Janet was right and I wasn’t a fourteen. But I couldn’t possibly be that much bigger.
I went into the dressing room and pulled on the jeans. I couldn’t even get them all the way up my legs.
“Oh, God, Chrissy, I am such a pig,” I heard a young voice say from the next dressing room. “I can’t zip this.”
“Try the dress, then. It’s cute,” another voice said.
“Maybe it would be cute on you, ” the first voice said. “I am so disgusting.”
I tried on the white shirt. It didn’t come close to buttoning.
“Nothing fits,” the girl moaned from the next dressing room.
“I thought you were going to Weight Watchers.”
“I did, but the third week I gained weight, and I was too ashamed to go back to weigh in. I wish I were dead.”
She must be enormous, I thought. I tried on the dress. I couldn’t even pull it up over my hips.
“How you doing in there?” Janet called in to me.
Go away. Leave me alone. Drop dead.
“Just fine!” I called out to her.
She had seen me go into the dressing room with my size eighteens. “Just let me know if you need me to get you a larger size!” she sang out.
Shut up. I hate you. Go to hell.
“Okay!”
I used to love helpful salesgirls. “Could you find this for me in a smaller size?” I would ask sweetly. “I can’t decide between the pink bikini and the yellow,” I would muse. They would tell me how great both of them looked on me. How lucky I was to have such a great figure.
I put my own clothes back on and slunk out of the dressing room at the same time as the two girls in the next dressing room came out.
They were my age, and both were way thinner than I was.
I grabbed a handful of clothes in sizes twenty, twenty two, and twenty-four. Then I ran back into the dressing room.
I pulled a navy dress with white piping over my head. It was ugly and looked horrible, emphasizing every lump, but it fit. I looked at the tag.
Size twenty-two.
The same size as Molly’s mother.
“Lara?” Jett called.
“I’m out here,” I called back to him.
It was that evening. I had spent hours preparing for my date with Jett. On the way home from the mall I had vowed that I would work extra hard, be extra nice, extra everything, so he wouldn’t break up with me. Thank God I still had Jett and Molly. And thank God Je
tt still loved me enough to stay in Nashville during my senior year so that we could go to New York together.
Thank God I wouldn’t be alone.
I had made us a picnic dinner with all Jett’s favorites, and it was already laid out on the redwood patio table. I had on one of my new Lane Bryant outfits—pink-and-white cotton drawstring pants with a matching pink-and-white shirt. It was the first time he would see me in something new in months. I had taken extra pains with new makeup I’d purchased, made sure my hair was perfect, and put on a new, sexy perfume. It was the first time I had made a real effort in, oh, about fifty pounds.
“Hi,” he said as he came over and kissed my cheek.
Not my lips. But still. He loved me. He did.
He looked over at the picnic table. “What’s all this?”
“Surprise!” I said gaily. “We’re celebrating your graduation.” I wrapped my arms around his neck.
“It’s not until next week,” he reminded me. He didn’t put his arms around my waist—or where my waist would have been if I’d still had one.
“I know that,” I said. “Consider it an early bonus dinner. I made all your favorite everythings.” I leaned into him again.
“That was really sweet of you,” he said. But there was something funny about his smile.
He sat on the redwood bench and picked up a celery stalk stuffed with cream cheese. He put it down again.
“So, this summer is going to be great, huh?”
I nodded.
“We’ll be able to spend a lot of time together,” he promised.
I nodded again. Something wasn’t right.
“Hey, I meant to tell you,” Jett said, his voice forced. “You know that job I’m starting at the art supply store? The guy called and said it’s only for the summer.”
“So, you’ll find another job in the fall,” I said reassuringly. “That shouldn’t be too hard.”
“Yeah.” He brushed some hair off his face and stared at the celery. “I was thinking … maybe I should just go to New York this fall. My parents said they’d pay my tuition at Visual Arts. I could get a part-time job, and everything will be all set for us by the time you graduate.”
Something turned over in my stomach. “But how could you do that? It’s too late to apply to art school for this fall.”
He wouldn’t look at me. “I already applied.”
“You already—”
“A few months ago,” he admitted, his voice low.
“You applied to art school a few months ago and you didn’t even tell me?”
“It was just a fallback kind of a thing,” Jett said nervously. “I mean, I don’t have to go …”
“You want to go,” I accused him.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his face anxiously. “I want to be there, but I want to be here with you, too.”
Even though I was dying inside, I forced myself to smile. “Well, I think you should go.”
I would do anything, say anything, to keep him.
He looked stunned. “You do?”
“Sure,” I lied, a bright smile on my face. “Your art is really important. Why should you wait a year? I’ll get there when I get there.”
Now he came to me and wrapped his arms around me. “Lara, I was so sure you’d be upset.”
“There’s nothing to be upset about.” I smiled my best pageant smile.
He hugged me. It felt like a hug my grandfather might give me. “You’re terrific, Lar.”
“Thanks,” I said, moving out of his embrace. “So, want to eat?”
“How about if we take a swim? It’s still so hot out.”
“Oh, no, you go ahead.”
“Oh, come on,” he coaxed, “it’s no fun to swim alone.”
“I’m not really in the mood,” I said with feigned casualness.
“Hey, sparkling pool, privacy fence, no family …” He smiled at me and pulled off his jeans. He had a bathing suit on underneath.
“Come on, Lara, come swimming with me.” He pulled me by my hand.
“No, really—”
“Oh, yes, really.” He backed me toward the pool, a teasing look in his eyes. He went to lift me. It used to be so easy—I was a feather in his arms. Now he couldn’t get me off the ground.
But neither one of us wanted to admit that. So I hopped up a little, hoping to compensate for my weight. To my horror I lost my balance and toppled over into the water. Jett jumped in after me.
I came up sputtering. Jett was laughing.
“It isn’t funny!” I yelled, splashing water at him. My new outfit was now transparent, plastered to my rolls of fat like pink-tinted plastic wrap. Mascara ran down my face. My hair was glued to my head, which I knew only emphasized how fat my face was.
“Oh, come on, lighten up!” he told me. “It’s funny!”
It would have been funny ninety pounds ago, when I looked cute dripping wet, when I wasn’t afraid to be seen without makeup or without my hair fixed perfectly because I felt confident that I looked cute anyway.
It wasn’t funny now.
I swam to the shallow end heaved myself out of the pool, quickly wrapping a huge towel around myself to hide the sight of my disgusting fat. “I’m going in to change.”
Jett got out of the pool. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, water dripping off him. “I didn’t realize it would upset you so much.”
“Forget it,” I snapped.
“It’s not important—”
“Yes, it is,” I said. “It’s really important!” I couldn’t help it, tears were coursing down my cheeks, mixing with the tracks of mascara. “I worked so hard so everything would be perfect. I got a new outfit, new perfume, new makeup. And you didn’t even notice.”
“I’m really sorry, Lara, I—”
“You applied to art school so you could get away from me! You don’t want to be with me because I’m disgusting!” I reached out and slapped at him viciously. I knew I was ruining everything, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
“I don’t think you’re disgusting,” he said. He reached out for me.
“Don’t.” I moved away from him. “Don’t do it when you don’t mean it!”
He pushed his wet hair off his face. “Lara, please, I love you.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he insisted. “Please.” He held his arms out to me, waiting for me to walk into them.
And I wanted to. So much. I gulped down my tears.
“Jett, do you want to make love to me?”
“What?”
“You heard me. Do you want to make love to me?”
He was silent.
“Do you want to draw me naked, then? How about that?”
He just stood there. He couldn’t lie to me.
“What about how there are all different kinds of beauty?” I asked him, remembering something he’d said to me. I was barely able to speak because of the tears coursing down my cheeks. “I know you love me. But you aren’t in love with me anymore. You never kiss me, you don’t touch me, not the way you used to. And I miss it so much.”
“I never meant to hurt you, Lara,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. “And going to New York isn’t … I’ll never leave you.”
I took a deep, ragged breath. “You don’t have to, Jett. Because I’m leaving you.”
And then I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.
I turned around and walked away from Jett Anston.
“You what?” Molly yelped.
“I broke up with Jett.”
It was two days later, and Molly had just come over to my house. She’d called many times before, but I’d never answered—I just let the machine pick up. Since Mom and Scott were still in Los Angeles, there were no witnesses to my spiral down into the depths of despair. Until Molly had arrived, all I had done since I’d turned my back on Jett was lie in bed and weep.
And I came to a conclusion: You probably really can die from a broken heart.
I’d wanted t
o call Jett, so many times. But I stopped myself. As much as it hurt, I knew that what I had said to him had been the truth. One part of me said: So what? Wouldn’t you rather just be grateful that Jett still loves you, and keep him, than break up with him and be alone?
The other part of me, the part where I still had any self-respect at all, said no. It would all be a big lie. He wanted to leave, he just didn’t want to be the one to say it. You did the right thing.
The right thing. Big deal.
Knowing that didn’t make me feel any better. The heart is not such a strong muscle. The truth is, I would have gone back to him in a millisecond, would have flown back into his arms. All he needed to do was pick up the phone and call me, tell me that I was wrong, that he loved me as he always had. Even if we both knew that was a lie, I was weak. I wouldn’t have cared and I would have been so happy, at least for a little while.
Only he didn’t call. Not once. Oh, God, he didn’t call.
Mom called from Los Angeles. Molly called four times. I heard their messages on the answering machine. Jett never called.
Molly finally came over to see what was wrong. She found me huddled in bed in my bathrobe, unwashed, unbrushed, un-anythinged.
She asked me if I was sick. That was when I told her what had happened. Saying it out loud made the pain even worse.
“You’re telling me that of the few great guys on this planet, you actually broke up with the greatest of the great?” Molly asked. “Has Axell-Crowne destroyed your brain stem?”
“He isn’t in love with me anymore, Mol,” I said, wiping my red-rimmed eyes with a tissue.
“Of course he loves—”
“Don’t you get it?” I cried. “He isn’t attracted to me anymore. He was staying with me out of pity!”
“I don’t believe that,” Molly said firmly.
“Well, it’s true.” Then I told her that he was going to Visual Arts this fall. “He applied months ago. I wasn’t even that fat then. It hurts so much, Molly.”
She sat down next to me and opened her arms, and I dived into them. Then I sobbed even harder. We sat there together on my bed, and she rocked me like a baby. When my tears slowed, she plucked a handful of tissues from the nightstand box and handed them to me.
Life in the Fat Lane Page 11