Life in the Fat Lane

by Cherie Bennett

  “I don’t think she wants to dance with me,” Perry said.

  Before I could answer, someone turned off the lights. Suzanne came into the room carrying a huge birthday cake, ablaze with candles.

  We all sang “Happy Birthday.” Suzanne set the birthday cake down, and Captain Bizarro blew out all the candles. Everyone applauded.

  “Hey, Captain, did you make a wish?” Mike called out to him from the stage.

  “Didn’t need to,” Captain Bizarro said. He threw his arms wide. “I love you all, my compadres! Now, let’s kick up the jams and scarf this cake!”

  Everyone began to laugh and talk, Suzanne cut the cake, and the musicians onstage began to play something upbeat and snappy.

  “That’s my cue!” Cleo said, and hurried to join them.

  “ ‘It’s very clear, our love is here to stay,’ ” she sang, snapping her fingers and swaying her outsized hips to the music. Her large arms reached out and beckoned to the crowd—old and young, fine and plain, high-style, nostyle, and every color of the rainbow—and her voice dipped and swooped into the mike in front of her.

  “Hey, Perry, wanna dance?”

  It was Crystal. She gave him a very nervous smile.

  “Go,” I told him.

  “I guess this means you aren’t having wild fantasies about me,” he said sadly.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Perry smiled at me. “Hey, who knows? Maybe you’ll change your mind one day.” He reached out and took Crystal’s hand, and they went to the dance floor. And as I sat there alone, listening to the music, watching Perry and Crystal dance, watching the party swirl around me, I realized something. No, two somethings.

  I wasn’t really by myself at all.

  And for the first time in a long, long, long time, I was happy.

  “People, listen up!” Mr. Webster, our school orchestra conductor, called out, tapping his baton on his music stand. “I have an announcement to make.”

  It was the following Friday, and we were onstage in the high-school auditorium, finishing up orchestra rehearsal. I was sitting with the other three pianists in our piano quartet. The pianos were arranged to form a box so that we could hear each other when we played.

  Kyler Trustus was tickling Jane Neissan’s hair with the end of his trombone, but Mr. Webster shot him a look and he stopped.

  “Thank you, Mr. Trustus,” Mr. Webster said dryly. “Concerning the winter concert, I want to announce one change in the program. We will have a soloist. Lara Ardeche will be playing Schubert’s Impromptus.”

  I could feel people looking at me. From the saxophone section Perry gave me a thumbs-up.

  “All right,” Mr. Webster said, “let’s take the Smetana one more time. And violas, please try to stay with us …”

  We played the Smetana, and then the rehearsal was over. I was putting my sheet music into my backpack when Perry came over to me.

  “What made you change your mind?” he asked me.

  I shrugged. “Temporary insanity, probably.”

  He grinned at me. “I like that in a woman.”

  “Hey, Lara, congrats on the solo,” Jane Neissan said as she walked by with Kyler Trustus. “I think you just elevated our concert by about a hundred percent.”

  “You’re gonna be great,” Kyler added.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  “Have a fun weekend,” Jane said, and she and Kyler walked out the door.

  “You ready to go?” I asked Perry. I assumed I was giving him a ride home, per usual.

  He blushed. “Uh, actually, Crystal’s picking me up. She’s probably waiting for me, so …”

  I smiled at him. “So, go.”

  “Ready to turn out the lights, Lara?” Mr. Webster asked me. We were the only two left in the auditorium.

  “Would you mind if I stay and practice my solo?”

  “Not at all,” Mr. Webster said. “I have some papers to grade in my office. Just let me know when you’re done.”

  I walked to the edge of the stage and looked out at the empty seats. In just two weeks those seats would be filled with hundreds of people, and I would be right up here again, playing a piano solo.

  And I would still be really, really fat.

  I’d lost another pound. One measly pound. Dr. Goldner still wasn’t certain whether or not my Axell-Crowne was going into remission. My tests revealed nothing. But even if—please God—I was going to lose a lot of weight, there was only so much I could lose before the concert.

  I had been so sure I would never play solo again in public, as long as I was fat. But that afternoon I had found myself walking up to Mr. Webster, and I’d heard myself tell him that, if he still wanted me to, I would play a solo in the winter concert.

  It was like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  So, now I was committed. I half closed my eyes, blurring my vision, imagining the seats full of people. You can do this, I told myself. You are a musician.

  Allegra Royalton’s face came into my mind. She was in the audience, jeering at me, yelling out some ugly insult that made everyone laugh, and—

  No. Forget Allegra Royalton. Pretend Suzanne is out there, I told myself.

  I stood a little taller and bowed to my imaginary audience. Then I walked over to the piano, sat down, and began to play.

  I closed my eyes. The music washed over me, through me, and I could hear Suzanne saying, “passion, with control,” and the music swelled under my dancing fingers, filling me up, until the final chords, fortissimo, thrilling, and then the silence that is also music.

  Now everyone would be applauding, perhaps cheering. Or maybe they would yell, “Bravo!” I stood up to bow again to my imaginary audience, and that was when I heard the sound coming from the back of the auditorium: one person clapping.

  I looked up.

  Standing there, in the back of the auditorium, a huge grin on her face, was Molly.

  “Molly!” I screamed. I ran down the steps from the stage and she ran toward me, and we threw our arms around each other.

  “I guess you’re surprised,” she said, laughing and crying at the same time.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here!” I cried. I pulled away to make sure it was really her. It was. I hugged her again. “I’ve missed you so much!”

  “Me too,” she said fervently. “You look wonderful!”

  “I do?”

  “Yeah!” she said.

  “How did you find me?”

  “Your mom gave me directions,” Molly said.

  “But why didn’t you tell me you were—”

  “I didn’t even know until the night before last,” she explained. “Right after you called me and told me what your doctor said, in fact. My parents were ready to give birth—they were like, no, you are not driving from Tennessee to Michigan, no, you can’t miss school, it’s stupid and irresponsible, and like that. Finally I told them you were deeply depressed and needed me desperately. They love that girl-power thing—it’s so p.c.—so they finally gave in. I waved adiós, jumped in the car, and we’ve been on the road ever since.”

  “We’ve?” I echoed. “As in you and—”

  “Me,” said a deep voice from behind Molly.

  I looked up.

  And standing there, like some dream, like a wish I had wished a thousand times to come true only I knew it never could, was Jett Anston.

  “He came by my house Wednesday night and asked me if I was up for a road trip to come visit you,” Molly explained.

  I couldn’t move.

  “Hey, I’ve got a brilliant idea,” Molly said. “Why don’t I go check out Jett’s car? Yep. That’s what I’ll do. Cool. So, that’s where you’ll find me.”

  She slipped out of the auditorium. Jett walked over to me. His eyes searched mine.

  The next thing I knew, his long, skinny arms were around me, and I was crying so hard.

  “I’m sorry,” I sobbed, “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m—”

  “It’s okay,�
�� he said, but his voice sounded funny, muffled, and that was when I realized that he was crying, too.

  “Excuse me, Lara?”

  It was Mr. Webster, up on the stage.

  I wiped my eyes and walked down the aisle. “Some friends from Nashville just surprised me.”

  “Go have fun,” he said, smiling down at me. He handed me my backpack and my coat. “I’ll close up.”

  We walked out the back doors of the auditorium, and I turned to Jett, to make sure he was really there. “I’m not dreaming this, am I?”

  “Not unless we’re having the same dream,” he told me.

  Then he put his arm around my shoulders, and we walked to the car, where Molly was waiting.

  Jett pulled his car up in front of my house. It was already dark out, but the bright floodlights lit up our driveway. I twisted around to the backseat so that I could see Molly. “Mol, you should come with—”

  “Wrong,” she said. “You guys need some time to be alone. And if I don’t study for the chem test I missed, I’m flunking out of high school. Just don’t leave me here for more than two hours, or your mom will probably force me to exercise with her.”

  “We won’t be gone long,” I promised her.

  Jett pulled out of the driveway. “Where to?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Me neither.” He gave me a quick, uncertain look.

  “If you turn right at the light and then keep driving, you’ll end up at a small pond,” I suggested.

  He made the turn. “We gonna swim or ice-skate?” he asked me, turning the heat on in the car. “It’s freezing here.”

  “We’re going to talk,” I said quietly.

  The paved road turned into a dirt road, and finally we came to the pond, where Perry, Devon, Mike, Crystal, and I had held a crazy winter picnic last Sunday. I’d been home, wearing sloppy sweats and doing my homework, when they had come over and kidnapped me. We went to the pond, ate Chinese take-out, and huddled against the cold while Perry serenaded us, and the woodland creatures, on his sax.

  Jett turned off the ignition. Moonlight illuminated the car.

  “I can’t believe you’re really here,” I whispered.

  “Me neither.”

  “So … you live in New York now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess it’s great, huh?”

  “Some of it,” he said. “It can get lonely. And my apartment is this little dive in the East Village. My mom did a cool thing for me, though. You know that sculpture, Things I Cannot Change? She gave it to me, for my apartment.”

  “Don’t you worry it’ll get stolen?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “So does she. But she did it anyway. I mean, it’s insured through the roof. But it’s priceless, you know? She said she wanted me to have it more than she was scared that it would get ripped off.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Silence.

  “How’s Visual Arts?” I asked.

  “It’s great,” he said. “To be with so many artists is just so … Nashville seems like this dream that never really happened.”

  “Oh.”

  “Except for you.” He turned to me. “I missed you.”

  “You did?”

  He nodded.

  “In New York, with all those really cool, artistic, thin girls?” I asked pointedly.

  He didn’t answer.

  “You never even called me.”

  He looked out at the lake. “God, Lar, I’m so much less cool than I thought I was,” he said. “I’m a joke. You gained weight and I couldn’t deal with it, only I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself …”

  “Well, maybe that’s just one of those ‘Things I Cannot Change,’ huh?” I asked bitterly.

  I could see tears glistening in his eyes. “Maybe it’s one of the things I can change,” he said quietly. “When I got to New York I told myself, ‘She dumped you, you didn’t dump her.’ So I started seeing all these other girls. Only I just kept thinking about you, missing you, and feeling like a fool because I let you go.”

  How many times had I dreamed this moment? How many times had I wished that Jett would come back to me? I had fantasized diving into his arms, his apologies, his passionate kisses. And now the moment was actually, really here, so wonderful, so perfect—

  Only it wasn’t perfect. And I couldn’t pretend that it was. One part of me wanted to kiss him, and another part of me wanted to pound him. Why couldn’t he be the perfect guy I wanted him to be? What was I supposed to do if he didn’t change? And if he didn’t, how could I possibly live through his breaking my heart again?

  I took his hand. “My parents broke up,” I told him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not. She still wants him back. My mother’s been jumping through hoops for my father for years. She’s so afraid she’s not good enough just the way she is.” I hesitated a moment. “I won’t jump through hoops for you.”

  “I’d never ask you to—”

  “And I am good enough just the way I am—even if you don’t think so,” I said, and I tried with all my might to believe it.

  Jett was silent.

  Then I looked down at my small fat hand in his large skinny one.

  “I love you,” I said. “But … I can live without you.”

  He nodded, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. “I love you, too.”

  “It might not be enough,” I told him.

  He put his hand on my cheek. “Can we try?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, and a tear fell from my cheek onto his hand. “Either way, it’s really risky. And either way, it really hurts.”

  I laid my head against his chest, and, wrapped in his arms, I once again listened to the steady beating of his tender heart.

  I was half asleep in Jett’s arms. We were back home now, in the family room. I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was late.

  “I should go see Molly,” I finally whispered.

  “Your mom said if you didn’t kick me out, it was cool for me to stay in the guest room,” Jett said.

  “Down that hallway.” I cocked my head toward the kitchen.

  We got up, and he put his arms around me again and kissed me. “Will you visit me in New York?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m really glad I came.”

  “Me too.”

  I crept up the stairs. Molly was fast asleep, sprawled across one of my twin beds, her chemistry book open, her clothes still on.

  “Mol?” I said, shaking her lightly.

  “Huh? What?” She opened her eyes and squinted at me. “Did you and Jett kiss and make up?”

  “We kissed,” I said. I quickly got undressed, pulled on a big T-shirt, and crawled into the other bed.

  “He still loves you, Lar,” Molly said sleepily. “He told me so.”

  “I still love him, too,” I admitted.

  “God, it’s all, like, so perfect!” Molly said with a sigh.

  “No, it’s not,” I said.

  “You mean you’re not getting back together?” she asked, incredulous.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Even though you love him so much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow. That’s way too complex for me.” She got up and pulled off her jeans, then stumbled back into bed and under the covers. And for a moment she looked just like she had at thirteen, when she’d lain in my twin bed and confessed how much it had hurt when Tommy Baigley had said she looked pregnant in her new babydoll dress.

  And I realized something: Molly had always been way more honest with me than I had ever been with her. I had pretended to be honest, but really I had always been putting on a front—Lara Ardeche, Pageant Queen, with her happy, perfect family and her happy, perfect life.

  I hadn’t really let her in at all.

  But then, I hadn’t let myself in, either.

  “My parents broke up,” I told her. “My dad’s been having an affair for years.”<
br />
  “No!” Molly exclaimed, rising up on one elbow.

  “Your perfect father?”

  “He’s not perfect,” I said. “He’s not even close. Neither is my mother. And neither am I.”

  Molly sighed. “I told you, you’re going to lose all your weight—”

  “I didn’t just mean my weight,” I said. I put my hands under my cheek and looked at her.

  “So, what did you mean, then?”

  I struggled to explain. “I always let you think my life was so wonderful. Before, I mean. But it wasn’t. I was a big fake.” I thought a moment. “Being thin and popular and winning all those pageants—who was that girl? It’s not like it made me happy. Not really.”

  “Okay, the pageant thing was always lame,” Molly allowed. “But wouldn’t you give, like, anything to be thin again?”

  “I’d give a lot,” I admitted. “But not anything.”

  She looked at me in the dark. “You really are changing, Lar.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.”

  “Well, don’t change too much,” Molly said with a yawn, “ ’cuz I love you just the way you are.” She snuggled her head against the pillow. “Remember that summer I went away to camp and we signed our letters to each other, ‘Love You Till Mount Ever Rests’?” She yawned. “God, I am so beat. When I close my eyes, I see huge trucks passing us on the highway. If I snore loud, just throw a pillow at me or something.”

  I stared up at the ceiling. “There’s so much I want to tell you, Molly. About my family, and all the lies we told everyone. And I finally made some friends here. I want you and Jett to meet them, and—”

  She was already snoring.

  I smiled at her in the dark. “Love You Till Mount Ever Rests, Mol,” I whispered.

  I turned over and closed my eyes. And I, too, saw a highway that stretched into a future I couldn’t know. Some of that future I could control, and some of it I couldn’t. And some days it would be all right, and some days it wouldn’t.

  That was just the way it was.

  I’m not telling you everything was fine, or that I knew what would happen with Jett, or that I didn’t still long to be thin, because I did. So much.

  But it wasn’t everything anymore.

  And so, though the bedsprings creaked form my weight as I rolled over, I had a happy–sad-cool–hot–classical–jazz–angry–peaceful–thin-girl–fat-girl smile on my lips.