Life in the Fat Lane

by Cherie Bennett

I blew my nose and wiped my eyes. “I hate my life.”

  Molly didn’t say anything.

  “Isn’t this where you’re supposed to tell me how life is worth living, and all that?” I asked.

  She drew her knees up to her chin. “Can’t,” she said. “What happened to you just sucks so hard.”

  “You’re not exactly cheering me up,” I said, half laughing through my tears.

  “Yeah, I know,” Molly agreed. “What can I say? I have a pathologically honest streak. And God, I used to be so jealous of you.”

  “You were?”

  “I desperately wanted to look like you instead of looking like me.”

  “Past tense,” I noted.

  “Well, yeah,” Molly agreed. “It wasn’t that I wanted your life. I just wanted to be me and look like you, you know? I wanted a guy like Jett to fall in love with me …”

  “Not a guy like Jett,” I corrected. “Jett.”

  Molly stared at me. “Okay, you’re right. Jett.”

  “He’s free now,” I said bitterly.

  “Oh yeah, right.”

  “He is!”

  “First of all, Jett would never see me as more than a friend …”

  “You’re wrong,” I said bluntly. “He told me so himself.”

  “He did?” Molly was incredulous. “You actually discussed it?”

  I nodded. “So go for it, if you want to.”

  Molly gave me a funny look. “Now I’m positive that Axell-Crowne has short-circuited your brain. Lara, you’re my best friend. Whether or not you and Jett are together, you still love him. I would never, ever in a bazillion years go out with Jett. I would never hurt you like that.”

  Tears leaked from my eyes again. “I don’t even deserve you, Mol.”

  “That’s true,” she teased. “I am beyond wonderful.”

  “I mean it.” I twisted the tissue between my fingers. “I used to feel so superior because you had fat thighs and big hips …”

  “Well, I do,” Molly said.

  “Not compared to me.”

  “But you have a disease. It isn’t your fault!”

  I wiped my eyes again. “Mol, when I got fat, were you ever … ever glad?”

  “Never,” she said staunchly.

  “Never? Not even for one day?”

  Her gaze wavered. “Okay, I’m not such a saint. The day you wore jeans larger than mine, I got a brief thrill of satisfaction.”

  “I don’t blame you,” I said.

  “But after that I felt bad that I was so low,” Molly continued, “and then I just felt bad that you felt so bad. I mean, I’d wish fat on Jennie Smith. Or Amber Bevin. Or Lisa James …”

  “I used to think they were my friends,” I said sadly.

  “Yeah, right,” Molly snorted. “Notice how much they hang with you now.” She got very involved in picking at the chipped nail polish on her pinky. “I never understood how you could be with those girls.”

  “You hung out with them, too.”

  “Please. They tolerated me because of you, and I tolerated them because of you. They treated me like shit.” Her eyes met mine. “And you let them.”

  “What was I supposed to do?” I protested.

  “You were supposed to say ‘Molly is my best friend, and you can’t talk to her like that,’ ” Molly replied, her voice quavery.

  “I did!”

  “But you didn’t mean it,” Molly said. “Not enough to stop them. Sometimes you even laughed with them. ‘Molly the Mouth.’ What a riot.”

  I gulped hard. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “You think I don’t have any feelings?”

  “Oh, Mol, I’m so sorry.”

  She shrugged.

  “Know what, Mol? I don’t miss them. Not at all. It’s like … like I never saw who they really were. I just hung with them because they were popular and I was supposed to hang with them. And I liked being the most popular one of all,” I confessed. “Do you hate me?”

  “No, you idiot,” Molly said. “I love you.”

  Hearing Molly say that made me cry all over again, which made Molly cry, which finally made both of us laugh. Then she forced me to take a shower, wash my hair, and brush my teeth. And return, for whatever it was worth, to the land of the living.

  “Lara?”

  It was Mom, home from Los Angeles. I was in the living room, playing the piano. That was mostly what I had been doing for the past two days, ever since Molly had come over. Molly had wanted me to stay at her house, but I wanted to be alone. Alone with my piano. I thought I had given it up, but now the only solace I found was losing myself in the music. I had even set up a lesson.

  “I’m in the living room,” I called back to her.

  She came in, looking tired and pale. “Hi, sweetie.” She kissed the top of my head. “I called you and called you, but you were never home.”

  I didn’t bother to correct her assessment of the situation.

  She looked over the sheet music that I had been practicing. “You’re playing again,” she said approvingly.

  “Yeah, I guess. Where’s Scott?”

  “He went up to his room.” She pinched the skin at the bridge of her nose and then reached into her pocket-book. “I don’t think he had a very good time. He was worried about me. Damn, I’m out of cigarettes.”

  “What’s Scott worried about?”

  “You’ve been through so much, Lara, I hate to—”

  “Mom, what is it?”

  She sighed and pressed her lips together nervously.

  “Your father and I … we’ve had some problems lately.”

  “I’m glad to hear you admit it,” I said.

  She gave me a sharp look.

  “What?” I asked. “You think Scott and I are so stupid that we don’t know?”

  She was silent for a moment. “We used to have so much fun together. Remember when you and I were in that mother-daughter pageant at the club? For cystic fibrosis? And we wore matching bathing suits, and Dad was one of the judges—”

  “That was a long time ago, Mom,” I said wearily.

  “It seems like yesterday.”

  “Look, can we cut to the chase here? Are you and Dad getting divorced?”

  She looked at me sharply. “Lara! When did you get so cold? You didn’t used to be so cold.”

  “Some things change.”

  “Well, it isn’t sweet,” my mother pointed out. “It’s especially important now for you to use your pageant training and be sweet …”

  “Why? Because I’m fat?”

  “Frankly, yes,” my mother said, fluffing her hair. “Everyone doesn’t know you have Axell-Crowne, you know.”

  “Meaning since they’re going to think I’m just a big fat slob, at least they should think I’m a sweet big fat slob,” I translated.

  “You want to twist my words, fine,” Mom said, hurt. Even with exhaustion and stress etched on her face she was beautiful. And thin. Two things I would probably never be again.

  “Look, I have a piano lesson in a half hour,” I told her. “So if you want to tell me whatever it was you were going to tell me—”

  “Your father has taken a lot of business trips lately.”

  To escape from his eyesore of a daughter.

  “Yeah, to New York,” I said. “So?”

  “He hasn’t been in New York.”

  “Where’s he been?”

  She hesitated. “The Vanderbilt Plaza hotel.”

  “The Vanderbilt Plaza hotel?” I echoed incredulously. “The one in Nashville?”

  She nodded.

  “He’s been right here in Nashville? And he never sees us?”

  She nodded again. “He doesn’t spend all his time there. He … this is very difficult for me—”

  “What?” I snapped. “Just say it!”

  “He has been spending a great deal of his time at an apartment on the other side of town. At … a colleague’s.”

  “Who?”

  “Tamara Pin
es,” my mother said painfully.

  Tamara Pines? She was the art director at Dad’s agency. I had seen her at office Christmas parties for the past four years. She was young—thirty tops—with short, sexy auburn hair, long legs, and the body of someone who lived in the gym.

  He doesn’t believe in affairs, either. But that didn’t stop him from having one.

  It was true.

  And it was all my fault. For turning into a pig. For letting him down.

  “He left us for her?” I asked, my voice low.

  “He hasn’t left us,” my mother said quickly. “Dad’s been in a lot of pain—”

  “Over me,” I said, standing up. “He hates me.”

  Mom looked shocked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ever since I got fat, he can’t stand looking at me.”

  “Lara, it’s not about—”

  “He doesn’t want to be here anymore because I’m such a disappointment to him. That’s why he’s with—”

  “Lara, I’m his wife, not you!” my mother screamed.

  “So act like it!” I yelled.

  “What are you talking about?”

  My mind was a sea of red-hot rage; the monster burst free and filled the room. “You’re always all over him, cooing at him, trying so hard to look so sexy. Do you actually think he likes that? You’re disgusting, pathetic—”

  That was when my mother slapped me across the face.

  Hard.

  We both just stood there, shaking.

  “It’s bad enough competing with her,” she said bitterly. “Do I really have to compete with you, too?”

  “That’s sick,” I said.

  “He paid more attention to you than he did to me.”

  “Is that supposed to be my fault?”

  “You loved it, Lara. You ate it up with a spoon.”

  “Because he’s my father,” I said. “My father.”

  “The two of you formed this complete little circle. No one else could even get in.”

  “Not anymore,” I said. I set my jaw hard. “Now I’m fat, and you’re old, and she’s young and thin. So I guess we both lose.”

  My mother’s face crumpled.

  “I’m getting out of here,” I said, and walked toward the door.

  “Wait,” Mom called to me. “Lara, wait.”

  I stopped, but I didn’t turn around.

  “Your father has been involved with her for a long time, Lara.”

  “How long?” I asked. “Three months? Four months? Five months?”

  “Try three years.”

  Three years ago. Before I was fat. Way before I was fat. Back when I was still his princess. How could he do that? How? I had tried so hard to be perfect, and he still, he still—”

  “I found out from a so-called well-meaning friend,” Mom said bitterly. “It was months before I confronted him—I was so sure it would just end on its own. But it didn’t. Finally, we had it out. He promised me it was over. Only it’s never been over.”

  I sat on the edge of the couch. “You mean all this time …”

  “All this time,” she agreed. She sat down next to me. “My mother always told me, ‘Carol, it’s a man’s nature to cheat. You keep yourself up, hold your head high, and look the other way.’ And I did, didn’t I?”

  I didn’t answer her.

  “Your father is a very proud man,” she went on. “There aren’t enough opportunities for him at the agency—he’s too creative for them; he’s frustrated there. He needed to prove himself, and there was Tamara Pines, ready and willing. If a pretty young woman with enough guts and a great body wants a man badly enough, she can—”

  “What about vows? What about love?” I asked dully.

  “Men forget,” Mom said with exhaustion. “When they feel a certain way, they just … damn, I need a cigarette.”

  “He cheated on you and deserted us and lied to us and you’re defending him?”

  “I love him, Lara.”

  She loved him.

  Love. Now that was a funny word. What did it mean, anyway? I loved Jett, but I couldn’t have him, not the way I wanted him. Jett loved me, but he couldn’t love me the way he wanted to love me. Dad loved me, but only when I was perfect. Mom loved Dad, but she was so afraid of losing him that she made excuses for the inexcusable.

  Love. What a stupid, stupid word. What a joke.

  “What’s love got to do with anything?” I asked Mom. “Frankly, I’m glad you’re divorcing him.”

  “I’m not divorcing him,” Mom said quietly.

  “You’re not?”

  “Before I left for Los Angeles, I gave your father an ultimatum. I told him he had to choose—Tamara or us. Grandpa arranged for your father to get a job offer at a big agency in Detroit. So I told your father that either he accepts the job in Michigan and never sees Tamara again, or …”

  No, no. It couldn’t be true.

  “Michigan?” I whispered.

  “I told him he had to choose,” Mom said again. “We can’t stay in Nashville, not with that woman here, not when everyone knows.” A tremulous smile came to Mom’s lips. “Your father chose us, honey. He chose us.”

  My heart thudded painfully in my chest. “You’re telling me that we’re moving to Michigan? Because Dad had an affair? And you’re embarrassed about it?”

  “It’s more than that,” Mom said. “That woman is trying to break up my marriage. We all have to get far away from her. And this new agency is supposed to be great. Grandpa will buy us a house, and—”

  I stood up. “You understand that I’m not going with you, don’t you?”

  “Of course you are,” Mom said, standing up, too. “I have some wonderful news. Remember the Axell-Crowne specialist in Ann Arbor? I spoke with him about you, and—”

  “Don’t you get it? My life is here. People knew me before I was stuck in this freak show of a body. Everyone here knows this isn’t my fault. If I move to Michigan, I’ll just be the new fat girl. Can’t you see that?”

  My mother’s lower lip quivered slightly. “Lara, I’m sorry. I know it won’t be easy. But if I have to choose between something that is going to be difficult for you—”

  “Difficult?” I said, getting my face very close to hers. “It’s more than difficult.”

  “Okay, very difficult,” Mom amended. “But if I have to choose, I’m keeping our family and my marriage together. I’m sorry.”

  “Sacrificing your daughter to save your so-called marriage. Well, isn’t that ducky,” I spat at her.

  “It isn’t like that, Lara—”

  “Oh yes, it is,” I said. “It’s exactly like that. Exactly.”

  “Can I come in?”

  Scott was at my door.

  “What time is it?” I asked. After my fight with Mom, I had gone to my piano lesson and banged the piano so hard that my teacher called it quits after fifteen minutes. Then I’d driven around aimlessly for a while, and finally I had come home and crawled into bed. I’d been there ever since.

  “About nine,” he said. “I brought you a sandwich.” He put the sandwich down on my nightstand. I pulled the blankets farther up over me.

  “Mom told you, huh?” He sat on the end of my bed.

  “I hate her,” I said viciously.

  “Why? It’s his fault. He’s a dirtbag.”

  “He’s not a dirtbag,” I said automatically.

  “Why are you still defending him? You aren’t his perfect little princess anymore.”

  I couldn’t think of an answer.

  Scott raised his knees and stretched his ratty Kurt Cobain T-shirt over them. “Remember Dad’s office party, two Christmases ago? At the Opryland Hotel? When Dad’s secretary got wasted on eggnog and hurled on the president of the company?”

  “What about it?”

  “I had to go to the john, and I got lost—you know how that place is—all those jungle plants and crap everywhere. So I went the wrong way, and I came over this little bridge, and there was Dad
, behind some giant fern. With Tamara Pines. Kissing.”

  I stared at him.

  “I mean, like, really kissing,” he went on. “His hand was down the front of her shirt. They didn’t see me.”

  “Did you ever tell him you saw him?”

  “Nah,” Scott said. “I never told anyone. That was the day I totally lost all respect for him.”

  So that was why Scott hated Dad so much. “Maybe if you’d said something, he would have stopped it a long time ago and none of this would be—”

  “Yeah, great, blame it on me,” Scott said with disgust. He got off my bed and headed for my door. “Just forget I told you, okay? Just forget I ever—”

  “Wait, Scott.”

  He did.

  “I’m sorry, you’re right,” I said. “It isn’t your fault.”

  Scott turned around and came back over to me.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked him.

  He shrugged and sat back down on my bed. “Move to Michigan, I guess. It sucks.”

  I sat up. “They can’t make me. I’ll move in with Molly for senior year.”

  “Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Scott said. “Those guys in Michigan, I mean, they wouldn’t know you, so they’d just rag on you and stuff for being … you know. God, your life would be, like, this total hell.”

  “I’m talking to Molly,” I said decisively.

  “Cool,” Scott said. “Although … I would kind of, like, miss you.”

  I leaned over and hugged him. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” Scott mumbled. “Hey, maybe you and Jett could get your own apartment. That’d be rad.”

  Jett. Just hearing his name was like a surgical cut, swift, sharp, potentially lethal.

  “He … we … broke up.”

  Scott looked shocked. “But I thought … I mean you guys are so … You broke up?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, man,” Scott said, shaking his head from side to side. “He was the first decent guy you ever went out with. Hey, did he dis you for being … you know?”

  Fat, he meant. I noticed how it was a word with unnatural weight—no pun intended. Kind of like cancer. No one likes to say it to you aloud. Sometimes they just don’t want to insult you. Or maybe they’re afraid that if they say it, they might catch it.

  “He didn’t dis me,” I said.

  “I didn’t think he would,” Scott said. “He’s way too cool for that.”