Fat Girl on a Plane

by Kelly deVos

  On another note, I had no idea that it’s winter in July in Sydney. This is what happens when you pay almost no attention in Geography and aren’t really familiar with the whole southern hemisphere thing. The day I arrive, it’s rainy, and a gray fog rolls in from the beach, making the big city buildings look blurry and mysterious. Note to self: always check the destination weather before packing.

  I imagined my two weeks in Australia would be one big Outback Steakhouse commercial where we would spend the whole time swimming in the ocean and holding skewers of shrimp over an open fire.

  Instead, I have to borrow a series of light sweaters from Piper.

  Her family has a cute creamish-white house in Maroubra, a suburb of Sydney. Piper’s room is upstairs and overlooks a smallish tiled patio. She stands in front of her closet and tosses out a couple of cardigans on hangers.

  “I’m not sure if these will fit you,” she says, passing me a lime-green sweater.

  I’m sitting on her bed. “It’s fine.” Anything is better than freezing my butt off.

  “You’ve lost a lot more weight than me,” she says with a frown.

  I shrug and repeat something Amanda Harvey told me. “It happens differently for everyone. You have to go at your own pace.”

  Piper sits down next to me. “The plan doesn’t seem to be working for me anymore. The doctor thinks it might be my thyroid. I’m having tests next week.”

  “Yeah,” I agree. I’ve heard this in my NutriNation meetings too. Health issues can have a massive effect on weight loss and weight gain.

  “Truthfully,” she whispers, “I think the plan sort of sucks.”

  I think of the mountain of diet spring rolls I’ve eaten. “Yeah,” I say. I want to agree with her but my dream is still to rule the world of fashion. And fashion hates fat.

  I stand up and move around Piper’s room, over to her bulletin board that’s on a wall opposite the bed. I find a couple of pics of me. There’s also a letter of acceptance to Columbia University in New York. Piper’s always gotten top grades, so there’s also a scholarship notice.

  I turn around and frown at her. “You didn’t even tell me you got your letter.”

  “Yeah. Yeah,” she mumbles. “I’m not sure I’m going.”

  “What?” I ask. Like me, Piper’s always wanted to study in New York.

  “I...I thought...I would have lost more weight...and...”

  “Piper! Seriously? You can’t be—”

  She stands up too. “Let’s talk about it later, okay? My dad said he’ll give us a ride to the beach.” She leaves the room, giving me no choice but to follow her downstairs.

  The trip is fabulous and we do everything. Sort of like that montage at the beginning of Grease.

  We hike and camp and run around Coogee Beach. Piper surfs like every day. She loans me one of her extra wetsuits, and I make a few attempts at standing up on the board. Epic, epic wipeouts ensue.

  We tour the Royal Botanic Garden. Unlike the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, the Sydney garden has plants that don’t look like they’re from the Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons. There are bromeliads with pineapples and fire-colored flowers shooting from low, leafy plants. Evergold sedges spill over rocks and into the pathways.

  So the legal drinking age in Australia is eighteen.

  Yep. Piper can sip her Foster’s anytime she wants, but back stateside, I’ll be waiting three more years to legally have a waiter hand me a Corona Light.

  My last night in Sydney she takes me to a pub called The Anchor on the south side of Bondi Beach and rolls her eyes at me as I say, “We’re going to a bar,” over and over. Her friend from school, Mia, shows up to drive us. To me, the girl’s a dead ringer for Dance Academy mean girl, Abigail Armstrong.

  “You’ll like her, I promise,” Piper says. “I swear. She’s really been there for me, you know?”

  I don’t know. Mia looks like the kind of girl who’d steal your kidney for a pair of Louboutins, but I go along with it anyway.

  Mia’s short, bronze sequined skirt sways as we walk past a sign that reads, Tacocat Spelled Backward Is Still Tacocat.

  It’s taco Tuesday.

  It’s tacos versus beer in a battle for my calorie budget.

  This is actually a lucky break. I hail from the land of the taco, where anytime, day or night, there’s somebody in a food truck rolling a Monterrey street taco, or griddling up Sonoran-style tortillas. And Australians make sucky tacos.

  Beer it is.

  Piper hooks it up because I have no idea how to order a beer. There are about a hundred million different kinds served in a billion kind of glasses. The waiter brings me a bottle and then I’m looking all around waiting for the cops to bust in and rip it from my underage palm.

  Mean Mia pats her glossy, black hair and says, “Hey, Piper, what’s up with your mate? She’s got a few roos loose in the top paddock.”

  I laugh right then. Piper later explains that Mia’s calling me an idiot.

  After two beers, I’m buzzed and have a full bladder. Because girls can’t go to the bathroom by themselves, Piper takes me to the ladies, leaving Mean Mia alone at the table. She’s making doe eyes at every guy who passes by.

  We walk back to the table to find Mia in huddled conversation with a really hot guy. The convo is a game changer.

  “Your friend. Will you just give her my number?” This is what Hot Guy is saying as we approach the table.

  “She’s American, dumbass. By this time tomorrow, she’ll be on her way back to the land of Cokes in cups the size of buckets and no gun control.”

  Oh, screw you, Mean Mia. But if Hot Guy’s interested, I’m willing to overlook Mia’s snark. An Aussie summer romance would be the perfect way to bounce back from that shit storm with Tommy.

  “No. I’m taking about the redhead.”

  Piper. He means Piper.

  I laugh and cry and cheer all in that one moment. The guy’s line, well, I picture the animatronic figures from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland who used to shout, “We want the redhead.” He’s not talking about me, so there’s one more guy I won’t be getting. But Piper’s face. All of a sudden soft and rounded with a rose flush glowing under her rows of freckles.

  It’s the best thing ever.

  Until.

  “Her? You realize she’s my designated ugly fat friend, right? At least if we were talking about the Yank, I might be able to understand. Her mom’s a supermodel. If the girl drops another fifty pounds, she’ll be Leslie Vonn Tate’s doppelganger. But Piper? Sweetie, that’s ordering a hamburger when you can grill up a steak for the same price.” Mia points to her body like a model on a game show showing off the suitcase of money.

  Piper and Hot Guy are wearing identical expressions, mixtures of confusion and horror. They’ve both been forced into a place where the rules of civilization no longer exist and they don’t know what to do about it.

  “Hey!” I shout out. I’m developing a very ranty rant and my hands are balling up into fists. Hot Guy vanishes, retreating to his own table, as I start my incoherent rambling. “You...who are you...what the hell...”

  I can’t decide what would work better. Using Mia’s face as a punch pillow or organizing my words into real thoughts designed to show her what a horrible bitch she is.

  “Cookie. Cookie. Don’t.” Piper turns and retreats into the bathroom.

  I follow her. By the time I get in there, she’s already in one of the stalls.

  I assume we’re doing that thing.

  That thing where there’s one girl crying in a smelly bathroom stall and another one pacing the pee-stained floor, trying to coax her friend out.

  “Piper, come on. She’s just an insecure bitch.” A bitch that, luckily, has the sense not to follow us into the bathroom.

  “I thought she was my friend,” Pi
per says in a tight voice.

  “Well, she’s not,” I snap.

  There’s a pause. “She always stuck up for me. Anytime people would call me fatass. I just don’t... I don’t get...”

  I lean against the bathroom wall.

  And I think about Tommy.

  About what people expect from each other. About the roles we cast each other in. I’d cast Tommy as teen heartthrob in my makeover Cinderella story, and he’d rejected the part. What if Mia was doing the same thing? Piper was supposed to be her DUFF. But Mia’s obviously figured out that cool, confident Piper will give her a run for her money.

  “Okay. Well. Maybe she is your friend, Piper. Maybe she really cares about you. She just cares about herself more.” I approach the stall door and peer in through the slit. I see a sliver of Piper, fully dressed, sitting on the toilet. “Come on. Please. Stop crying and come out of there.”

  “I’m not crying,” she says.

  The stench in the bathroom is really getting to me. I remember reading once that women’s restrooms have way more germs than men’s. The Anchor’s ladies’ room is definitely validating that idea.

  The grimy blue stall door creaks open. Piper pokes her head out.

  She’s right. She hasn’t been crying. Rage fills her every feature. “I’m only staying in here until I’m absolutely sure I won’t go out there and murder Mia,” she says, through clenched teeth.

  This is going different than I thought. “Oh. Oh-kay,” I say.

  She paces in front of the bathroom mirror, a blur of red hair. Finally, she stops and turns to face me. “That’s it. That. Is. Absolutely. Fucking. It. From now on, I’m doing what I want to do. I’m going to find that guy and get his number. I’m going to Columbia and then law school. And I don’t give a single, solitary fuck what anyone has to say about it.”

  Piper whirls around and leaves the bathroom. I have to almost run to catch up with her. Back in the restaurant, Mia is gone. She’s left us at the taco joint without a way to get home. But Piper does find Hot Guy and does get his number.

  We’re forced to call an Uber, and it costs us every cent we’ve got to get back to Piper’s house but it’s so worth it.

  As we walk up her driveway, Piper grins at me. “I have become a Giver of Zero Fucks,” she announces.

  I grin back.

  I envy Piper.

  I can’t figure out why I can’t seem to be more like her.

  Later that night, I work on my blog.

  Roundish

  Title: Round Oz

  Creator: Cookie Vonn [administrator]

  I’ve spent the last two weeks in Oz. I’ve put together a list of fabulous fashion from the land down under. But before I get to that, I’ve got a question. Is life one big role-playing game? Lately, I’ve been thinking about social roles, about what people expect of me, what I expect of them and what I expect of myself. It’s like we’re all in a giant RPG, making a series of moves designed to make ourselves look and feel like a friend, a boyfriend, a son, a daughter, etc. But do we always get to decide what roles we tackle? Or if we want to play the game at all?

  When I get back to Phoenix, there’s a package in my room. It’s a case of NutriMin Water. There’s a note from John Potanin attached to a bottle of Perfect Peach. “Love your blog and think it could be the sponsorship opportunity we’re looking for. Contact Lucy for details.”

  SKINNY: Day 855...a wake

  They’ve put Chad Tate in what’s called a sports-themed urn. A glass case tops the pine box. There’s a signed football on display.

  The earthly remains of Chad Tate will forever rest under a patch of leather autographed by...Chad Tate.

  Fitting, I guess, for a guy who loved himself best.

  Even though the douchelord had no children he ever cared to acknowledge, Mom’s had a brass engraved plaque attached to the urn that reads, “Beloved husband and father and football star.”

  Okay, okay. I know. Grandma just chewed me out for being a douchelady. I’m going to make an effort to have compassion for Chad Tate. I’ll try. I promise.

  Mom’s clutching the small wooden box as she enters the church hall where Grandma’s holding the wake. She plunks it down on one of the cheap cafeteria-type tables and starts to work the room.

  Dad sent Tommy home, but Gareth is milling around behind me. Mom’s talking to him, or more accurately at him. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see him backing his way behind the cake table, toward where Grandma is talking to Father Tim.

  Mom’s sobbing and batting her eyelashes at Gareth while striking a modelish pose. It’s this cringe-worthy combination of mourning and flirting. I think I’ll call it mirting. Or flourning. Either one would work.

  “Oh, Gareth. Chad would have been so honored you came...” she says.

  I shake my head and roll my eyes. I’m working on having sympathy for Chad Tate. Mom on the other hand...

  “Cookie. I need to speak to you.”

  It’s Dad. It’s been so long since he’s been around that I jump at the sound of his voice. It’s only vaguely familiar. I doubt I could pick him out of a voice lineup.

  I nod in his general direction but keep staring at the bizarre case on the table. Chad Tate. The box is death. The end.

  Grandma’s right. It is sad. It is a loss.

  “Outside,” Dad says, pulling me from my thoughts.

  He motions for me to follow him into the courtyard, where he sits on a marble bench underneath a statue of the Virgin Mary. He pats the spot next to him.

  I stand.

  “I’m very disappointed in you.”

  I glare at him. “Right back atcha.”

  I’m going back into the hall to get Gareth and get the hell out of there. Dad steps in front of me and puts his hand on the door to stop me from going in.

  “What exactly is that supposed to mean?”

  I try to duck around him and open the door anyway, a maneuver that doesn’t work and only serves to increase the rage on his face.

  “I’m asking you a question. I expect an answer.”

  There he is. Dr. Martin fucking Vonn. With his medical degree. His ramrod posture. His skin tanned deeply from the African sun. His look of smug superiority. Like everything he’s ever thought to do is right, and anyone who’s ever doubted him is wrong.

  “I’ve told myself...” I start to say. I have to stop because I’m on the verge of tears. And I won’t cry for Dr. Vonn.

  Taking a deep breath, I try again. “I’ve told myself so many times that you couldn’t be there for me because you were busy savings lives. I’ve told myself that you couldn’t come home because other people needed you more than I do. But that’s a lie. You could have come back anytime. And now you have. For Chad Tate.”

  “I didn’t know you needed me. You certainly never said anything, nor have you made the slightest effort to communicate with me in years. And I came back for your mother.” His face flushes red and he clarifies himself. “To assist your mother.”

  The tears come. “You needed me to tell you a girl likes to see her father once in a while? You needed me to tell you that it was important for you to be there for my birthdays and graduation?”

  Dad loosens his hold on the door and shuffles back toward the wall. “I haven’t been a very good father. I know that. But now, your mother—”

  I take a deep breath and force myself to stop crying. “Grandma thinks that Mom and Chad Tate are the reason we don’t have any kind of life as a family. That their relationship is why you’ve been hiding in the bushes in the fucking Serengeti for the past decade. I think you’re a selfish coward who’s too much of a chickenshit to come home and try to be a father. Either way, though, you’re a fool if you’re willing to chase after Mom now and mop up her crocodile tears.”

  Dad purses his lips in a thin, white line. “I
won’t be spoken to in this manner by my own daughter.”

  I yank the hall door open and Dad’s arm recoils to his body. “Then go back to Ghana and you won’t have to talk to me at all.”

  Back in Father McKay Hall, Mom’s nowhere to be found. But Chad Tate’s still sitting there.

  Yeah. I’m beginning to think that Father Tim is right. Missing Mass is taking its toll on me.

  I help Grandma stash what’s left of the cheese and crackers and Tang in the church refrigerator. We can’t find Mom.

  So Chad Tate comes home with us.

  It’s Gareth who gets the job of toting the urn into the yellow house. Grandma’s hands are full of houseplants from her church friends that she’s taken from the funeral, and I can tell she doesn’t trust me not to dump the ashes all over the grass.

  Grandma finds a “temporary” home for “good ole Chad” on the entertainment center between the TV and the unused goldfish bowl where Mr. Fins swam until his sad disappearance down the bathroom sink.

  Gareth asks if I want to spend the night in town. “I could get us a room at the Fairmont,” he says.

  “I want to get out of here.”

  When Gareth’s already in the limo, I say goodbye to Grandma. “And I expect I’ll be seeing you soon,” she says.

  I nod and think about Dr. Moreno. Lydia. I’ve got my academic advising appointment with her. I wonder if I should cancel it. Or go. Or say something to Grandma.

  Or do something besides board a private jet in the middle of the night.

  Like a coward.

  Like my father.

  Gareth tugs on his weirdo eye mask and is snoring a few seconds after takeoff.

  I watch the lights of Phoenix become smaller and smaller until they’re specks. Until they’re gone.

  Blue-black vapor surrounds us, and for the first time I understand Dr. Martin Vonn. For the first time, I can admit that I am my father’s daughter.

  I dig my laptop out of the bag I tossed on the seat next to me, open it and log in to the plane’s Wi-Fi. As I suspected, there’s already a message from Dad.

  For the first time in years, I open it and read it.