by Donna Cooner
“Claimed it was still in the tree last time he checked.”
I look back and forth at them. They are talking like old friends. When did this happen? I frown and sit back down on my side of the couch. No one pays any attention to me. I stare at the television and watch Renée Zellweger sing “My Own Best Friend,” but I don’t really hear it.
“He likes her better than you. You think he’s your best friend, but it only lasts until someone skinnier and prettier walks into the room.” Skinny’s voice in my ear is so loud I can’t hear the music.
“You’re lucky you don’t have to go to school, Ever.” Briella puts her long tanned legs up on the coffee table and her short blue-jean skirt rides up on her thighs. Rat notices. How could he not? Funny. I don’t feel so lucky right now.
“Did you get your essay back?” Rat asks her.
“Yeah. I made a C.”
“Congratulations.” Rat gives her a sideways high five.
“If I can pull a B on the final I might get out of summer school.”
“I can help you study if you want.” He says it so casually; I almost wouldn’t know how much he was counting on her response. Almost.
“Sure,” she says. Standing up, she swings her hair over her shoulder and heads toward the stairs. “That’d be great.”
“I can help you study if you want,” I repeat in a snarky voice under my breath.
“What?” Rat looks over at me innocently.
“How can someone so big be so invisible?” Skinny asks.
Chapter Ten
Rat and I stare up at the chart he’s just finished tacking up on my bedroom wall. It was actually his idea to put the playlist column on the chart. I’ve always said it’d be great if we could hear the soundtrack of our lives playing in the background. He remembered.
“Isn’t that the song the lady from England sang on that reality talent show?” Rat asks. I can see his back muscles working through the thin material of his faded red T-shirt as he writes the words on the chart. When did Rat get muscles?
“What?”
“The song from Les Misérables.” He points at the chart, and I notice his hands. My hands have always been the only tiny thing about me. If my hand was in his, my fingers would barely reach his knuckles. But it isn’t. I blink to clear my head. The lack of calories must be affecting more than just my weight.
“Didn’t I hear it on the radio?”
“Unfortunately,” I say. “Many people don’t even know the song comes from Les Misérables, one of the most famous and most performed musicals worldwide. It’s the only song that actually made the charts from the musical just because of that woman singing it on Britain’s Got Talent.”
“But it’s getting better, right?”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Your mood. Last week we were at the point of no return, going into the depths of the opera house, following the phantom, a vicious murderer. If that was any indication of your mind-set, it couldn’t have been good. This week we’re dreaming a dream. I figure, it’s got to be better.”
I’m surprised he remembers so much about The Phantom. I thought he was reading some physics textbook when I was watching it on DVD. Three times.
“Les Misérables is set in nineteenth-century revolutionary France,” I say. “ ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ is sung by Fantine who had bright hopes for love and life until reality took over, and her life became worse than she had ever imagined. When you actually listen to the words it’s all about lost hope.”
“Your music choices are depressing,” Rat says.
“It’s my soundtrack,” I say. Yesterday an ad for Burger King came on the TV, and I started to cry. Who cries over a hamburger commercial? I just want to believe someday I can actually eat a hamburger again. I grieve the loss of hamburgers and ice cream and M&M’s. Lost hope. What have I done to myself?
“Losing twenty-seven pounds since the surgery is pretty amazing,” Rat says, clearly still disappointed in my song choices. He only records the weight once a week, even though he and I both know I’m secretly weighing myself every single day. Sometimes more than once a day. Everyday the number on the scale is a little lower than the day before. I try not to hope too much but I feel a little spark growing somewhere deep inside me every time I see that little marker go down another couple of pounds. I know the weight loss will slow down now, but what if it stops entirely? What if I fail at this, too? This is my last chance.
“Why American Idiot? It’s not your usual choice for musicals,” Rat asks, after he finishes writing down my song for the week on the chart. He flops down on the bedroom floor beside me and pulls out his laptop to update the results.
“Billie Joe Armstrong is the lead singer for Green Day and he also wrote American Idiot. I read on his website that he wrote that song for his father, a jazz musician and truck driver, who died of cancer when he was only ten years old.” I lean back against my headboard and stretch my legs out on the bedspread in front of me.
“But why is it your song for this week?” Rat sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the chart.
“I’m hoping by September every thing will be different. School will start. I’ll be thinner. Maybe I’ll be used to this by then,” I say. “Maybe it won’t be so hard.”
Rat nods, but I know he doesn’t understand. Because it is hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I knew food is . . . was . . . the center of my world. Now, there is no public or private eating. I can’t eat anywhere anymore, and I don’t know what to do in its place.
Rat shuts his laptop. “If you’re going to be in that musical next year, you’re going to have to get out there and exercise. You saw how they performed Oklahoma, right? Even high school actors have to move.”
“Next week . . .” My voice trails off as his eyes meet mine.
“Right. Like that’s going to happen,” Skinny says sarcastically in my right ear.
I finish writing the song for the week on the chart and try to ignore the words written in the next column under “Exercise.”
“The song is about time passing,” I say to Rat, “and about all the things that can change in a year.”
“You can’t spend all your time waiting,” Rat says. “This is the week we get serious about exercise.”
I feel a little sweaty and lightheaded when I look at that entry “Walk/Run” on the chart. I’m supposed to run? Really? I don’t know what’s bothering me more — that I’m going to be expected to go outside and exercise in front of the whole neighborhood or the fact that I only lost four pounds this week. And that feels crazy, since before the surgery I would have been thrilled to lose four pounds in a week. But now it’s different. I’m getting used to the big numbers and if it takes exercise to get them again, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ve come this far. I’m not going to stop now.
“Let’s go eat some lunch and then we’ll go for a run,” Rat says, like that is the most normal thing in the world. He puts a little smiley face beside the number of pounds I’ve lost — thirty-nine since the surgery — with a bright green Sharpie marker.
“But, first an experiment.” He rubs his hands together and leers like a mad scientist.
“On me?” I ask.
“Not on you, for you. Totally different.”
“Okay,” I say, cautiously.
“Really I guess you would call it a demonstration. About the rules.” He bends down to tie his tennis shoe and misses the big grimace on my face.
“I hate all these rules,” I say.
“There’s a reason for the rules.” He stands back up and heads out the door. “You’ll see,” he says over his shoulder.
I look at the perky little smiley face on the chart, and the number beside it, but I don’t feel like smiling about the lunch, the demonstration, or the run. I slowly follow Rat downstairs to the kitchen.
“Come here,” he says, from the sink. “What’s the worst rule to follow while you’re eating? The one you’re determined to ignore.”
I don’t hesi
tate. “Not drinking anything while I eat,” I say.
“Right.” He has a paper cup in his hand and, while I watch, he pokes a hole in the bottom with an ink pen. “I’m leaving about an inch hole, which is about the size of the outlet out of your stomach,” he says. He pours some water in the cup slowly and it goes right through the hole almost as fast as it went in.
“As I pour faster, it will begin to back up, but as soon as I stop putting in more water, it will empty rapidly.” He demonstrates. “That’s why gastric bypass patients can usually drink without difficulty.”
“That little hole in the bottom of my new little stomach is also why a fizzy Diet Coke doesn’t go down so easily anymore,” I say.
“Exactly.” He beams at me, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Next, let’s take a soft food.” He puts a couple of scoops of leftover mashed potatoes from the fridge in the bottom of the cup. “Notice that the first spoonful stays in the cup, but as you put more in, it forces some out of the outlet. If I put in chopped-up hamburger, steak, or chicken, it will empty very slowly. Shall we try it?”
I can tell he really wants to because Rat really loves a good experiment, but I just say, “No, I believe you.”
He frowns at me, but continues, “If you put in a big piece of bread or a large chunk of meat, it won’t empty at all.”
“Got it,” I say.
“Now, here’s the interesting part.” His eyes start sparkling behind his glasses like it’s Christmas. “If I pour water over the top of these mashed potatoes, what happens?”
I watch as the diluted food drips through the hole at the bottom of the cup.
“The cup empties,” I say.
“And?” he asks, waiting for it.
“So does my stomach,” I say.
“Right!” He shouts it so loud, I jump. “And then you’ll be hungry again and you will want to eat more.”
“What’s going on in here?” Dad stomps his tennis shoes on the back step before he comes in the kitchen door. He’s in his mowing-the-lawn Saturday shorts and T-shirt.
“We were just finishing up an experiment,” I say, grabbing up the paper cup and dumping it into the garbage beside the sink.
Dad pulls open the freezer door, dislodging a picture of Lindsey doing the splits, holding big green pom-poms over her head. Putting it back on display, he tucks it a bit more securely under one of the watermelon-shaped magnets, then surveys the inside of the freezer with a frown.
“You want to stay for lunch?” he asks Rat. “I’m going to heat up Ever’s favorite, spaghetti and meatballs.”
“Sure,” Rat says. “Need any help?”
“Nope. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
We leave him clattering around, pulling out pans from the cabinet. I know my dad’s trying, fixing favorite foods for Saturday lunch and all, but most of the time he looks at me like he’s scared to talk about food or dieting or how I look. Like I’ll instantly run upstairs to cram chocolate cake in my mouth and gain back all the pounds I’ve lost. Like it’s all so fragile and could disappear with just the wrong look or the wrong words.
So I think I’m slowly shrinking, but it’s evidently a big secret. Either that, or I’m not really looking any different at all. I’m not sure.
Charlotte comes in from the backyard carrying a freshly cut bouquet of yellow roses from the yard. Carefully slicing each stem off at the perfect angle, she arranges them symmetrically into a vase, equal spaces apart. Charlotte likes things orderly. Even flowers. The three different bottles of perfume she keeps on the top of her dresser are exactly lined up, even spaces apart, right next to the wooden plaque that reads, God isn’t finished ith me yet. There’s also a pyramid of large pink Velcro rollers on the dresser top, perfectly stacked, that has something to do with her daily hair routine, but I haven’t quite figured that out yet.
After the roses are arranged, Charlotte pulls out the plates and forks to set the table, chattering all the while about, “ isn’t it nice to have company for lunch.” Lindsey gets off the couch and slowly meanders to the table, talking on her phone the whole time. It’s rare that we’re graced with her presence. Charlotte calls upstairs for Briella, but we don’t wait.
“Hang up the phone, please,” Dad says, and Lindsey does but I can see she’s still texting from her lap.
Sitting at a table filled with food is an exercise in torture. Everything looks good. Everything smells delicious. The spaghetti in front of me is in fact my favorite. Big meatballs drenched in marinara sauce. French bread toasted in the oven with butter. I start to feel nervous. It happens every time now when I’m going to need to make a food choice. Choose the right thing and I might actually feel good, satisfied. Make the wrong choice, which usually happens these days, and I’ll be in the bathroom throwing it back up in minutes. I’m supposed to eat the protein first, that’s what the doctor told me, but I want the pasta and the bread. My mouth waters to sink my teeth into the doughy goodness of bread. Big, raw, torn-off pieces of hot comfort.
I put a meatball on my plate, a small piece of bread, and a spoonful of pasta. Before the surgery, this would have been a couple of bites, but now it will be my whole meal. I force myself to take a bite of the meatball first. Tiny. The end of a forkful. I chew like crazy and swallow. It goes down, but I want a drink of water. I reach for the glass and then make myself stop. I remember Rat’s experiment and that is why, when I’m sitting here chewing away at this tiny bite of meatball and wanting water to drink with it so badly you’d think I was staggering across a desert, I don’t pick up the glass in front of me.
One of the rules. Like eat the protein first and don’t eat anything sweet. Strange though, it’s one of the hardest rules to follow. Now I crave water while I’m eating. I guess you don’t miss it until you know you can’t have it. I started out deciding it was a stupid rule and I wasn’t going to follow it. I mean, after all, I had enough to suffer through at every meal, why would drinking make such a difference?
Briella slides into the chair across from Rat, breaking my focus on the water glass in front of me.
“You’re back early,” Charlotte says. “I thought you were going to spend the night at your dad’s.”
“He had things to do,” Briella mumbles, stuffing a huge forkful of pasta into her mouth.
“How’s the baby?” my dad asks. Charlotte glances over at my father with a quick frown. The new baby is not a popular topic with Briella. Even I know that.
“Just like any other baby,” Briella says. “It poops and cries.”
The subject is closed. Everyone eats in silence for a while, until finally Charlotte can’t stand the awkwardness anymore.
“Lindsey got her roommate assignment today from the University of Kansas,” Charlotte announces in her fake perky voice. Lindsey doesn’t look up from her lap; her food sits untouched on her plate. I watch Briella drink half a glass of her water and then effortlessly go back to stuffing another forkful of spaghetti into her mouth. “She met her roommate at cheerleader camp and guess what?”
No one guesses. I’m really thirsty. My hand crawls a little closer to the water glass.
“They are both going to major in communications this fall!”
“Yay,” Briella says in a monotone.
Just one sip. Not enough to water down the food in my tiny little stomach and drain it out the hole in the bottom. Just a little tiny bit.
Lindsey finally looks up and across the table at her mom. “I need a new bedspread and curtains for the dorm room.”
“I don’t know, Lindsey.” Charlotte looks uncomfortable and glances at my father. “We already spent a lot on your new computer.”
“Whatever,” Lindsey says, and goes back to texting.
Charlotte’s eyes fill up with hurt, but she blinks it away quickly. I can’t help but feel sorry for her.
“Dad says he feels bad he missed the graduation ceremony. Says he’s going to call you and take you out for lunch,” Briella tells Lindsey, who final
ly picks up a whole meatball with her fork and takes a big bite off the side.
“Yeah, like we both know that’s going to happen,” Lindsey mumbles through the meatball.
Charlotte turns her attention to Rat. “What are you doing this afternoon?”
“Ever and I are going for a run,” Rat says, like this is completely possible.
I put down the water glass before it makes it to my lips. Gigi is probably dancing her way through the summer. Chance is definitely playing baseball. And Ever is running. Right.
“I could go with you,” Briella says, breaking my focus on the water glass. “I like to run.”
Really? Are you kidding me? Who likes to run?
“Sure,” Rat says. I kick him under the table, and he looks over at me with raised eyebrows.
I frown at him, but I can tell by his puzzled expression he has no clue why I’m annoyed. Briella pushes away from the table and heads up the stairs, calling back, “I’ll just get my tennis shoes.”
Rat and I go outside and wait for her on the front steps. I want to go upstairs and get my iPod. Music blaring in my ears is the only thing I can think of that would make this any better, but the idea of climbing up the stairs is too much trouble. If that’s too hard, how am I supposed to run around the block?
“The whole neighborhood’s going to love this. They’ll probably feel the vibrations in the ground and think it’s some kind of earthquake. Hope you don’t break the concrete,” Skinny says.
“I don’t want to do this,” I say.
“The first day of school is only a few months away,” Rat says. “And then you can try out for the musical. And go to the Fall Ball.”
And Jackson will finally see me again, I think, but I don’t say anything to Rat about Jackson. I’m not sure why.
“That seems like a long way away,” I say. “Besides, what do you know about balls and musicals?”
“Nothing,” he says, “but I know a lot about you.” He gives me one of his rare Rat smiles, his straight white teeth flashing suddenly in his usually serious face.