I’d rather lose an arm than be fat, the five-year-olds had said.
I only hoped they wouldn’t rather lose their mothers.
Knock, knock on my door.
“Just a sec.” I pulled on my robe and opened the door.
It was Mom, cigarette in hand. She had already had two sessions with a psychiatrist. She looked a little better. Though she was still chain-smoking, she was eating again. Not much, but something.
“Your dad just called from Nashville,” she said. “He wants you to call him.”
My father had left that morning. I had refused to hug him good-bye. Scott wouldn’t even see him—he’d spent the night at Gordon’s house.
“Too bad,” I replied.
“He’s still your—”
“Do me a favor, Mom. Save it.”
She changed the subject. “What are you wearing to the party?”
Tonight was Captain Bizarro’s birthday bash. I had told her I would stay home with her, but she had insisted that I go.
“Are you sure I should go?” I asked her again. “I don’t mind not—”
“I want you to go,” Mom said. “Really. You’ve finally made some friends here. I want you to have fun.”
I went to my closet and took out a dress I had purchased months ago but never worn. It was pale pink with a scoop neckline and a lacy skirt that fell just above my knees. I had fallen in love with the dress and had bought it without even trying it on. It had reminded me so much of what I used to wear, who I used to be.
But then, once I got the dress home, I knew it was ridiculous. I mean, someone as fat as me did not need to wear pale pink or draw attention to herself with delicate, feminine lace.
“That’s beautiful,” my mother said.
“I don’t know …” I held the dress up to myself and studied my reflection in the mirror.
“Black would be more slenderizing,” my mother said.
I would definitely wear the pink dress.
Mom took a deep drag on her cigarette. “I wanted you to know … before your father left I told him I was going to see a lawyer.”
“I guess that means you’re not jumping through hoops for him anymore.”
She exhaled some smoke. “There’s nothing wrong with trying to make your guy happy, Lara.”
“Please.” I snorted derisively.
Her hand shook a little as she raised her cigarette to her lips again and inhaled. “Maybe you’ve just never really been in love, so you don’t know how I feel. I still love him, and I still hope that he’ll come back to me.”
“Why would you want him?”
She thought a moment. “I’ve been with him since I was fifteen years old. I guess … I don’t know who I am without him.”
I looked her in the eye. “Find out.”
“Maybe I’ll try to, someday.” She came over to me, kissed my forehead, and left.
Right. She wouldn’t leave him if he moved Tamara Pines into the guest room. I hated him for what he was doing to her. But I hated her even more for letting him do it.
But I loved them, too. That was the crazy thing—how I could hate them and love them at the same time.
I dried my hair, put on some makeup and some perfume, then lifted the pink dress over my head and let it fall around my body.
I looked in the mirror.
And I looked … oh, could it really be possible?
I looked pretty.
But how could I look pretty? I still weighed more than 200 pounds! I was mammoth, huge, enormous, and yet … as I looked at my reflection in the mirror I saw a pretty girl staring back at me. Round, to be sure. Too round. But still.
“Lara? Someone named Devon is downstairs at the front door waiting for you,” my mother said, sticking her head in the door. “He’s so cute!”
“I know,” I said, looking around for my purse.
“You didn’t tell me your date was so cute! How did you do it?” she asked eagerly.
Irritation crept up the back of my neck, my positive experience with the mirror instantly forgotten. She was so sure a cute guy couldn’t possibly like me. After all, I was fat.
“Easy, Mom,” I said bluntly. “He’s blind.”
“He … he can’t be,” she sputtered. “He’s standing in the front hall all by himself. How did he get there?”
We went downstairs. There was Devon, wearing his dark glasses, standing alone just inside the front door.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said. “You look great.”
“How would you know? You’re blind.”
“True, but my mother raised me to be a gentleman.”
I laughed.
“But how did you get here?” Mom asked.
“My bud drove.”
I peered out the window at our driveway, which was lit by bright spotlights. Sure enough, there was a car, and someone was sitting in the driver’s seat.
“To answer your next question, Mrs. Ardeche, my friend walked me to your door,” Devon added.
I walked over to Mom. “Are you sure this is okay with you? Because I could stay—”
“Stop worrying,” Mom told me. “I’ll be fine.”
I got my jacket, and Devon and I walked out to the car, his hand resting on my elbow. I got in the front seat, Devon in the back. Devon’s friend, Mike Terry, was cute. He had eyes the color of spring grass.
“So you’re Lara,” he said as he drove the car into the street. “I’ve heard a lot about you. Keyboards, right?”
“Right,” I replied.
“I play bass,” Mike said. He gave me a quick smile. “That’s a pretty dress.”
I was stunned. Mike Terry was cute. He was neither fat nor blind. And he was treating me like I was a cute girl. How could that be?
He popped a cassette into the cassette player and some great music—kind of rock and blues at the same time—blared through the excellent sound system.
“Wow, that’s great, who is it?” I asked.
“The Allman Brothers Band,” Mike said. “They rock, huh?”
That reminded me, I had never played the tape Perry had given me. Maybe I should have. And speaking of Perry, we were driving down his block. Then Mike turned his car into Perry’s—
“Wait a minute,” I said, confused. “What are we doing at Perry Jameson’s house?”
“You know him?” Mike asked. He honked his horn.
“We go to school together.”
Perry came out quickly, carrying his saxophone in its case. When he saw me his jaw fell open, but then he recovered and got in the backseat.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” he said.
So much for small talk. We didn’t say another word to each other the rest of the way. Mike and I talked in the front seat, and every time I looked back at Perry, he was talking to Devon or scowling at me. We stopped in Southfield to pick up Crystal and headed for Captain Bizarro’s.
The party was already in full swing by the time we arrived. There must have been a hundred people of every race, age, size, and shape crammed into that downstairs room. There were some really cute guys like Mike and Devon, some very cute girls, a bunch of alternative types, and some adults who looked like they could have been my parents’ friends. There was also a woman in a wheel-chair, blowing bubbles from a small plastic bottle while a chubby little boy toddled after the bubbles.
On the small dance floor in the center of the room some people were dancing—some hot-looking college-age couples, two girls who had Mohawks, and a middle-aged guy with a grass hula skirt over his jeans who danced around throwing confetti on everyone.
For some reason this thought flew into my mind: Jennie Smith would be so incensed that someone had let the geeks come in with the cool people.
That made me laugh.
Suzanne was onstage, playing something jazzy on the piano. Tristan was on electric guitar. The same older brown-skinned woman I had heard last time I’d been there was at the microphone, snapping her fing
ers and egging Suzanne on as she played her solo.
“That’s Cleo,” Perry told me over the music, indicating the woman at the mike. “She’s the best.”
Cleo’s red high heels matched the flowers on her dress, which flowed around her oversized curves. Her long hair had been braided into tiny plaits, each fastened with multicolored beads.
“You go, girl!” Cleo called to Suzanne.
“Compadres, compadres, you honor me!” Captain Bizarro called out when he saw us. He was wearing a KISS ME, IT’S MY BIRTHDAY T-shirt under his old army jacket. He held out his arms and embraced each of us, kissing us on both cheeks.
“Happy birthday!” I yelled to him over the music.
He bowed at the waist and kissed my hand. “You are a vision of loveliness,” he said solemnly. He straightened up. “Hey! I shucked lots of raw clams for you!” He hurried off to see to his other guests.
Devon and Crystal went off to dance. Mike went up onstage and joined in on stand-up bass.
Which left me standing there with Perry. He pulled a candy bar from the pocket of his jeans.
Only Perry Jameson would bring his own candy bar to a birthday party.
“So … this is pretty funny, huh?” Perry said, unwrapping his chocolate. “That you told me you were busy tonight?”
“Well, I was,” I said. “I didn’t lie.”
“How do you know these people?” Perry asked, munching away.
“Suzanne is my piano teacher.”
He took another bite. “For real? I thought I was the only one crazy enough to come downtown for lessons.”
“She’s great,” I said. “She’s worth it.”
“See that guy in the hula skirt? He’s my sax teacher.”
“Why is he wearing a hula skirt?”
“Why not?” Perry finished off his candy bar and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “So … you look really nice. Great, I mean. Beautiful, actually.”
“Thanks.”
The musicians onstage brought their song to a close, and everyone applauded, whooped, and hollered their approval.
“Hey, Perry!” Tristan called down from the stage. “Come on up here!”
Perry shrugged at me and went to pick up his saxophone; then he went up onstage. Asa replaced Suzanne at the piano. He counted the musicians off, and they began to play a beautiful, bittersweet ballad. Perry played with his eyes closed, the music pouring from his sax. I knew that feeling, when you became the music.
“Is he hot or what?” Crystal said, gazing up at Perry.
“Perry?” I asked incredulously.
She nodded and sighed. “He keeps telling me he only sees me as a friend.”
“Perry’s so—”
“Talented,” she finished. “I know.”
“Dance?”
It was Devon.
“Do I have to lead?” I asked archly.
“Hey, I get points for every couple we mow down,” he explained.
He reached for me, and I panicked. As soon as he put his arms around me, he would know how fat I was.
I moved stiffly toward him, barely letting him touch me. We swayed to the music—or rather he did, while I held every fiber of my body at red alert.
“You seem kind of tense,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I lied. “I’m not tense.”
His hand moved to the small of my back, or in my case, the large of my back. Now he could feel every lump, every roll of fat that was me.
“Hey, I just learned something about you,” he said.
Great. I was about to be rejected by the blind.
“What?” I managed.
“How fine you feel.” He held me even closer. “Tense, maybe, but fine.” He nuzzled his face into my hair.
I looked up at the stage. Perry was staring at me. He kept playing the sax, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
He looked angry.
No, not angry. Jealous.
Devon and Perry.
Terrific. I was the pinup girl for fat guys and blind guys.
The song finished, and a new group of musicians went up to the stage. Devon went off somewhere with Mike, and I decided to go call my mother, just to make sure she was okay. I found a pay phone near the bathrooms.
“Mom?”
“Hi, honey. Is everything okay?”
The loud party made it difficult to hear. I put my finger in my left ear. “Yeah, everything is fine. I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
“I’m fine,” Mom said. “Scott and I are playing Monopoly.”
“Scott hates Monopoly. He thinks it’s a capitalist tool.”
“I think he’s humoring me,” Mom said. “You don’t have to worry about me.”
“Okay,” I said. “Remember to eat something.”
“Lara?”
“What?”
“I’m glad you’re having fun again,” she said.
“Thanks, Mom.”
I hung up and went back to the party. Suzanne and Cleo were sitting together at a small round table, talking and laughing. I walked over to them.
“Join us,” Suzanne said.
I sat down.
“I don’t know if the two of you ever officially met. Cleo, Lara Ardeche. Lara, Cleo. Cleo is probably the smartest woman I know. The only thing she lacks is a last name.”
“Correction.” Cleo grinned. “I’ve had many last names, my dear, I just don’t choose to use any of them.” She fanned herself with an advertising flyer that had been lying on the table. “I hear you play some tasty keyboards.”
“Only classical,” I said.
“Well, you need to broaden your horizons,” Cleo said, daintily pressing a napkin against her sweaty cleavage. “Get Suzanne here to teach you some jazz!”
“I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop her.”
“I need to find myself a drink,” Cleo said, getting up. “Can I get you anything?”
We said no, and Cleo worked her way through the crowd toward the bar in the back of the room.
“How’s your mom?” Suzanne asked.
“Better. I would have stayed home with her but she really wanted me to come tonight—”
“Hey, you don’t need to feel guilty,” Suzanne said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
We listened to the music for a few moments. Perry took a hot solo.
“Perry’s cooking,” Suzanne commented.
“I know him from school,” I told her. “He keeps asking me out.”
“You’re not interested?”
“Everyone would think we were going out because we’re both fat,” I said.
“Forget what other people think,” Suzanne said. “It’s such a colossal waste of time. The question is, do you want to go out with him?”
I hesitated. “I’m not exactly attracted to him.”
“Would you be attracted to him if he was thinner?”
I thought about that a moment. “I think so,” I admitted. “God, that’s so terrible! I get mad because people are superficial and then I’m …”
She shrugged at me and smiled.
From across the room we could see Cleo talking with Captain Bizarro. He said something and she threw her head back and laughed, her tiny beaded braids dancing around her head.
“She is something else,” Suzanne marveled. “She’s fifty-eight years old, and she’s been singing jazz since she was fourteen. She’s half black and half Asian. Growing up, black kids dissed her for looking Asian, Asian kids dissed her for looking black, and everyone dissed her for being fat.”
We looked across the room at Cleo as she worked her way through the crowd.
“But they were blind,” Suzanne said. “She’s beautiful.”
I watched Cleo as she gracefully walked toward us. And it was so weird, because I really did think she was, kind of, in her own way, beautiful.
“It’s hot as a pistol in here, isn’t it?” Cleo said when she reached the table. She held a perspiring can of soda against he
r forehead.
“Come dance?” Tristan asked Suzanne, holding out his hand. She accepted and they went to the dance floor. He took her into his arms.
Cleo watched Tristan and Suzanne dancing. “Now, that man is fine as wine,” she said. “Husband number three was that fine. He was walking bad news, my dear, but he was fine.”
She looked over at Perry, onstage. “Perry can’t take his eyes off you,” she told me.
“We’re just friends.”
“A boy that pretty and talented? My dear, you ought to be on that child like white on rice.”
“But he’s kind of overweight.”
Cleo just looked at me.
“I know I am, too,” I said in a rush. “I mean, in my case it’s—well, I used to be thin. And I’d lose weight if I could. But Perry doesn’t even try.”
Cleo took another sip of her Coke. “I want to tell you about husband number three, the fine one. He was always after me to lose weight. He’d told me I was fat and ugly so many times that when I looked in the mirror, I saw fat and ugly looking back.”
“So what happened?”
“I woke up one day and I said to myself, ‘Cleo, that man is not good enough to shine your red high-heeled pumps.’ And I got rid of him.”
“Just like that?” I asked dubiously.
“Just like that,” Cleo said, snapping her fingers. “I threw him out, threw a party, and invited all the other tasty men I knew. And now when I look in the mirror, instead of fat and ugly, my dear, I see fat and fine.”
“But you’d be thin if you could be.”
“Wrong, my dear,” she told me with a smile. “You’re young, Lara, and silly things like size seem so important to you. But I’m old. And I’ve learned to look at the size of someone’s heart, and not the size of someone’s waistline.”
I shrugged. “You can be thin and still be a good person, you know. My heart didn’t get any bigger when I got fat.”
She raised her eyebrows at me. “Didn’t it? Well, that’s a shame, then.”
“Would you like to dance?”
It was Perry, standing at our table. I hadn’t even noticed that he had come off the stage.
“Okay,” I said, and I started to get up.
“I didn’t mean you,” Perry said. “I meant Cleo.”
Cleo laughed. “You are a lying dog, Perry Jameson. You know you want to dance with this girl.”
Life in the Fat Lane Page 20