by Kelly deVos
“I’ll meet you at the church in ten minutes, Cookie, I’ll drive you back to your car, Cookie. Any of that ring a bell?”
“Oh.”
Tommy is staring at the Monopoly board as if it’s a magic mirror and some kind of message or response will materialize there. “I...I was...I was...”
“I know what you were doing.”
“It’s not like that,” he says, kind of pleading with me to agree with him. “She...Kennes...is having such a hard time... We were talking... I lost track of time...and I feel so stupid because you’re right... I should have...”
I point at the door.
He stalls, nodding at the curling iron. “You getting ready to do your hair or something?”
“Get out.”
“Cookie. Come on. I have the game all set up.”
I drop the curling iron on the table, pick up the game board and carry it to the side door. Golden, fake one-hundred-dollar bills fly through the air as I walk. I open the door and throw the game hard into the carport. It lands on the windshield of the Corolla. Pieces scatter everywhere.
“Take it with you,” I say, holding the door open and motioning for him to walk through it.
He comes to stand next to me at the door. We both watch as orange Chance and yellow Community Chest cards blow around the carport, catching underneath the dirty wheels of my car.
“Cookie, come on. I’m sorry.”
I keep holding the door and don’t look at him.
“I screwed up.”
“You left me for dead in a deserted parking lot.”
He frowns. “How did you get home?”
“Father Tim.”
His soft, boyish expression returns. “So it worked out okay, then?”
“Yes. Because Father Tim treats me better than you, I didn’t have to wander home like a lost puppy.”
He frowns again and straightens his old T-shirt. “Father Tim does not treat you better than I do. I know I screwed up. But how many times have I come through?”
The truth is, if I counted all the times, I’d be standing by the door until sundown, still counting. Tommy has always been there every time my car broke down, every time I was short on money, every time Grandma and I needed something done around the house.
“That’s right,” he says, interpreting my silence as agreement. “If all those times don’t mean anything, then I guess we’re not good friends like I thought.”
I stare at him, not sure what to do next.
“I’m sorry, Cookie.”
“That was really lame, Tommy.”
“I know. It won’t happen again.”
I hope it won’t, but some part of me suspects that it will.
I close the door. “Okay. Well. What do you want to do? Monopoly is out.”
He laughs. “Ticket to Ride maybe?”
I nod and head to the closet to get it out.
We set up the game and succeed in deluding ourselves into thinking that things are back to normal.
I want things to go back to normal.
SKINNY: Day 752 of NutriNation
“People don’t know what they want. Not really.”
Gareth holds a pincushion shaped like a tomato and stares at the muslin panels hanging from the plus-size dress form. Somehow, he manages to make this posture appealingly masculine.
We’ve been at his ranch in Camino a Seclantas for two days. I’m kind of surprised that it’s an actual ranch and not just a rich person’s house in the middle of nowhere. Gareth owns several hundred head of spotted criollo cattle, several Peruvian Paso horses and even two white llamas. On one side of the property, there are a few low, stucco buildings where the ranch’s gauchos and their families live. Gareth built himself a more modern, hacienda-style house that forms a U-shape around a large courtyard. He explains that he kept some of the elements of the older buildings, including the algarrobo blanco wood floors and the brick fireplaces. But he’s got all the amenities, like a home gym and Wi-Fi.
I make a mental note to hit the treadmill in the morning.
Since that night on the Salta Tram, we’re living like we’re a honeymooning couple. A world where we’ve never gone through that let’s get to know each other part of the relationship. I like it more than I want to like it.
One thing’s for sure. I hate to snuggle. I guess I’m big on personal space. I can’t help but think about every time someone gave me a dirty look when I accidently brushed them with my chubby arms. Every night I’m almost falling off the edge of the bed. Sleeping ought to be a no-contact sport. I’ve been going room to room searching for extra pillows, thinking Gareth might not notice if I build a fluffy wall between us in the middle of the night.
Today, for the first time, we’re working. Gareth’s studio is on the first floor in the very back of his house. The rear wall consists of floor-to-ceiling windows that face a cactus-laden wash and a small, rocky butte. The scene reminds me of home.
“The difference between a dressmaker and a fashion designer is that a dressmaker gives the client what she wanted last week, while the designer tells her what she wants next season.”
As he circles the dress form, I’m sitting at a table near his elbow, reviewing swatch samples of materials Gareth says G Studios has “hanging around.” Wherever the stuff is hanging must be enormous, because there are dozens of fabrics to choose from.
I brush my fingers over a piece of mustard-colored peau de soie, a textured silk. It’s warm and rough to the touch.
“Too expensive,” Gareth says, glancing up for a second. “A size-twenty skirt of that stuff would retail for a grand. Nobody would pay that.”
We’ve decided to make the samples in size twenty, although the capsule collection itself will extend up to size thirty-two.
“How are these—”
Before I can add organized to my question, Gareth answers. “By cost. Front is for bespoke. Middle is the signature line. Go to the back. To the cottons. Poly blends.”
In broad strokes, we’ve agreed on what we plan to do. We’ll make ten pieces. A set of coordinated separates, including a skirt, a pair of pants, a blouse and a printed tee. Two dresses. A light trench coat and a patterned sweater. A scarf and a hat.
But Gareth seems to want to design it all like he’s making oversize pajamas for his usual clientele. He’s suggested converting the trench coat into a poncho several times.
“Nobody wants to wear a poncho,” I tell him.
“Someone must want to,” he argues. “They make them. Someone buys them.”
“Yeah. People on boats cruising around Niagara Falls. Or those killjoys at Disneyland who can’t stand to get soaked on Splash Mountain. People wear ponchos to avoid getting water or bird poop on themselves. No one fashionable wears a poncho.”
“Well...”
“Okay. Okay,” I say. “Go up to your closet right now and come back wearing one of the fabulous ponchos from your collection.”
He stops mentioning the poncho.
Gareth drops the muslin and stands behind me. I’ve sort of gotten acclimated to the way he smells, but there’s something irresistible about him. He wraps his arms around my waist.
He whispers in my ear. “If you’re interested in playing dress-up, we could always...”
A surge of adrenaline shoots through me. Is this how the fabulous people spend their afternoons? Rolling around in their big beige beds? I shiver nervously.
I remember the email from my sponsor asking for a status update. “NutriMin Water is expecting me to do something besides parade around in a Princess Leia bikini. We have to get some work accomplished today.”
He frowns at me.
“I want to use this.” I pass him two swatches. One is a polished cotton with large, wide Southwestern-style stripes in various shades of blue and teal. The other is an ultra
soft blue jersey with a repeating print of small, cartoon cowboys on bucking broncos. “Maybe do a midi skirt and an embellished tee.”
“You’re thinking these giant stripes for the skirt? I know we agreed no jokes. But all humor aside, my grandmamma always said, Men don’t make passes at girls with big—”
This time I interrupt him. “It’s all in how you drape and seam it. You do remember how to drape things, right?”
“Yes, Cookie Vonn,” he drawls. “I believe I do.”
Gareth gets to work, draping the design on the dress form. He knows things about fabric I’ve never seen. More than Grandma. About where to pin. About where to place darts and seams so that the silhouette feels easy, unrehearsed and artless.
“The trick,” he says, “is to let people show off their best features. People think draping is about concealing tummies. Cutting sleeves the right way so their arm fat doesn’t look like bat wings. But they’re wrong. The right fit shows what you want people to see and makes sure they don’t notice anything else.”
He comes up with the idea of creating the skirt from triangular sections to break up the oversize stripes. The whole thing takes him maybe fifteen minutes and the design is better than anything he presented at Fashion Week.
“So I have this muslin cut. I can give it to you to pattern, right, Cookie? You do remember how to make patterns, right?” He’s teasing me, with an almost boyish grin.
He disappears into a connecting room and returns with two bolts of each of the fabrics, then passes me the cut pieces of muslin and a bolt of the cotton. “You get started on the skirt and I’ll pattern the shirt.”
“You look like you’re having fun,” I say.
“I am,” he says with a small smile.
“That’s the thing about you. About your clothes. They always have something fun about them.”
He stops and watches me, but doesn’t say anything.
“That day at the Refinery,” I add, making a big show of searching his tool kit for the fabric shears, “you didn’t look like you were having fun.”
“Things haven’t been fun. For a while now. I don’t know why.”
He’s pinning the front panel of the shirt as his expression turns dark and he says, “But I know one thing. When we’re finished, we’re definitely playing dress-up.”
“I am not wearing a Princess Leia costume.” I’m able to sound more confident than I feel.
Gareth answers with a casual shrug. “No problem. I left that in my other suitcase anyway. But I’m sure, together, we can come up with something equally fun.”
FAT: Day 28 of NutriNation...the middle of the night
To pick up some extra money, I pull a double shift at Donutville on Saturday night. Steve puts too much apple filling in the mixer with the fritter dough. The gooey gunk sloshes all over the floor, and I have to mop it up.
Steve has the nerve to try to claim that the filling package was mislabeled. But he does make me a cup of coffee exactly the way I like it as a peace offering. And he’s a little less surly than usual, so it’s hard to stay mad.
After work, I go home and collapse on my bed, still in my uniform that reeks of chocolate frosting.
I’m having a dream about a seriously annoying woodpecker. I gradually wake up and realize that the tapping sound is coming from my window. Peeking out, I focus on the silhouette of Tommy’s poofy hair. Stumbling through the hallway, I head to the side door, trying to be quiet and not wake up Grandma.
“Come on. Let’s go,” he whispers as he steps inside.
“What? Go? Go where?” I take a couple of steps back and slouch into one of the chairs at the kitchen table, resting my head on a vinyl place mat.
“Just get dressed,” Tommy says. “I’ll explain on the way.”
I hesitate for a minute, but he’s nodding and giving me an appealing smile. “’Kay. Write a note for Grandma in case she wakes up.”
A couple minutes later, I’m back in a pair of leggings and a light sweater I made from an ultrafine gray wool. The best thing about my leggings is that I always sew in pockets.
“You smell good,” Tommy says.
“I smell like Raised Chocolate Frosted. Two for a dollar,” I grouse.
“Well, the way to the heart is through the stomach, I guess.”
My hands instinctively travel to my stomach and tug on my sweater to make sure it’s covered. We step into the night and I lock the door behind us. “Uh-huh. And where are we headed? Is our destination through the stomach, as well?”
“Very funny.”
We get into his truck but he doesn’t answer. “Well,” I prompt.
“Seriously?” he asks as he starts the engine. “Haven’t you been watching the news?”
I snort. “All I do is go to school, make doughnuts and write blog posts that some she-devil pretends to edit. Not a lot of downtime for CNN.”
“Then lucky for you that I’ve got my status updates turned on. Tonight the biggest meteor in more than twenty years passes close to earth and since it’s a new moon, we should get a good look.” He drives quickly through the neighborhood and heads for the freeway.
We drive south for what seems like an eternity. I yawn and blink over and over to stay awake. “Okay. Seriously. Is this really a ploy to get me to go on a cruise of the Mexican Riviera with you? Because if we drive much farther we’ll be in Cabo San Lucas.”
Finally, he pulls onto a lonely, deserted exit and drives east. “To get away from the highway lights,” he says.
Tommy hands me a red flashlight and pulls out a couple of lawn chairs and blankets from the bed of the truck. It’s quiet and dark and still. We take our seats and wait to watch the sky fall.
Our arms dangle over the sides of the chairs. I consider reaching for his hand. I think about it and my heart beats a little faster. About what it would mean for our friendship. Or for my life if he had to reject me. My palm sweats. I let my fingers fall slack until they are almost touching his, until I can feel the energy radiating off his skin.
I can’t do it. I pull my arm back into my own chair. My stomach sticks out of the chair farther than Tommy’s does. Hugging my arms close to my sides, I wish to be something other than a roundish lump in a lawn chair.
I think of Fairy Falls and the night I met Tommy. He ended up losing around thirty pounds after camp. I wonder if this changed things for him. I wonder if losing weight would change things for me.
“Do you think you’re different now? Since you lost your weight?”
Tommy shakes his head. “No. I think I’m the same. I feel the same.” There’s a pause. “And anyway, there’s more to life than this idea that everybody ought to be losing weight all the time. My cousin got celiac disease and lost fifty pounds. She’s basically skin and bones and constantly eating protein shakes to try to gain some weight. And people keep complimenting her, telling her how great she looks. I think she might punch the next person who asks what kind of diet she’s on.”
We’re quiet for a minute.
He hands me a can of Diet Coke. “Cookie, do you ever feel like you’re hoping for something to happen and you’re not sure if it ever will?”
I shrug and stop myself from looking at his face. Between the fact that I’ll probably never get to Parsons and my growing realization that the world of fashion simply doesn’t want a person who looks like me, Tommy’s basically described my entire existence. “Yeah. I guess.”
The first meteor drops toward the earth, creating a streak of white light before disappearing behind a saguaro cactus off in the distance. “Like falling stars. They seem like they can touch the earth. But, of course, they never do,” Tommy says.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” It’s a cool night. I put down the cold soda can and tuck my hands into the sleeves of my sweater. “I mean, isn’t it bad if a meteor hits the earth? Like, isn’t that what ki
lled the dinosaurs?”
He laughs. “That was a good thing. For us, anyway. If dinosaurs still roamed the earth, mammals would be no bigger than chickens and about as intelligent.”
“You can always make a wish,” I say.
He turns to face me. In his black T-shirt, he’s almost a floating head. “What do you mean?” he asks with an odd sense of urgency.
I don’t know why he’s being so weird. “On a falling star,” I say. “Even if the meteor won’t come to earth.”
“Yeah, yeah. Maybe I’ll try that.”
We sit in silence for a few minutes as the shooting stars become more frequent. Making tracks across the dark sky. The night silent except for our breathing and the sound of a passing car echoing from the highway. I consider making a wish too.
“Do you think my wish could come true?” he asks.
I smile. “If it could happen to anyone, it would be you.”
He’s perfect. Completely perfect.
“Thanks for bringing me out here. It’s beautiful,” I say.
“Yeah. Yeah.” He’s still facing me.
“You’re not even looking at it,” I tell him.
He squares himself in his chair. “Yeah. It’s beautiful.”
For some reason I think of Kennes. How she’s everything I’m not. How she wants to take everything I’ve got. The cool night air reminds me of standing on the curb that night Tommy ditched me to hang out with our town’s It Girl. I hug myself to fight off the chills. “I don’t want things to change,” I tell him.
It’s the wrong thing to say. I do want things to change. I put my arm back over the side of the chair, but the moment is gone. He’s busy fiddling with some kind of long-exposure setting.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I guess they won’t.”
The stars continue falling, hoping, in vain, to collide with the earth.
SKINNY: Days 757–772 of NutriNation
“I think it’s beautiful,” I tell Gareth.
It’s our last day at the ranch. We’re reviewing the microcollection we’ve created.