Fat Cat

by Robin Brande

  The bell rang, and Mr. Fizer told us all to carry on with our work. Then he and Kiona went back to talking.

  After a few more minutes, Mr. Fizer addressed the class. "Let me remind you of something Einstein once said: 'If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?'"

  That got a chuckle out of some people, but I was too nervous.

  "I don't expect you to have all the answers at this point," Mr. Fizer said. "The purpose of this class is to explore an idea and let it take you as far as it will. If you pursue a project believing you already know the outcome, what is there left to discover?"

  Kiona looked a little calmer after that. She went off to her lab table, but before I could get to the front, Margo hurried to take Kiona's place. She showed Mr. Fizer her research notebook, they talked for a while, and then before anyone else could snag him, I rushed over.

  "You've made a discovery, Miss Locke?"

  "Yes, sir." And I explained about the pasta and the peanut butter and some other potential transgressions from the weekend.

  "Let me see your proposal again," Mr. Fizer said. He read it over, then instead of talking to just me, he once again addressed the whole class.

  "Miss Locke raises an interesting issue."

  Great. Clearly my pasta violation was a bigger deal than I thought.

  "Einstein also said that 'everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.' Think about that. You might find it applies to several of your projects." He handed me back my notebook. "Including yours, Miss Locke."

  What was that supposed to mean? I wandered back to my table wishing I had never gone up there. Not only did he make an example of me, but I didn't even understand the example.

  I sat there for almost the whole period, just staring at my proposal. I couldn't see what to do. Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler? Okay ... and?

  I was so absorbed I didn't even see him come up. "Making things hard for yourself again, Cat?"

  I quickly slapped my notebook closed. "No. Go away."

  "So how's it going?" Matt asked.

  "Fine. Great." I gazed somewhere off to his left. I'm still not ready for people to see me full-faced, looking the way I do. Especially not Matt.

  "I'm serious," Matt whispered. "How's it going?"

  "What do you care?" I snapped.

  "I just thought--"

  "Please go away, all right? I'm busy here."

  And I couldn't believe it--he actually looked ... hurt. Come on! As if he hasn't noticed we're not exactly friends anymore.

  Matt stood there a moment longer, then turned and walked away without another word. Good. Go. Thank you.

  But then why did I have to spend the next five minutes sitting there feeling guilty?

  But I didn't have time to worry about Matt McKinney's supposedly hurt feelings. Mr. Fizer was expecting some brilliant answer by the end of class, and I didn't have it.

  And then suddenly I did.

  Matt was right. As were Mr. Fizer and Albert Einstein. I'm always making things too complicated. I have the same problem in math, as Matt well knows--I want to take the long way around a problem, when sometimes there's a much shorter, more elegant answer. Sometimes all I have to do is cut out a few extra steps and I'm there.

  So I made a few simple adjustments:

  A. Rules:

  1. Subject may eat only the kinds of foods that would have been available to early hominins. This means nothing as few processed, manufactured, chemically altered, or preserved foods as Possible.

  Once I did that, everything else still fit. I don't have to eat exactly what the hominins ate, I just need to stick to foods in the categories that they had back then: fruits, vegetables, grains, beans, nuts, meat. And I can make sure I'm eating modern foods in the simplest, least processed form possible--brown rice instead of white rice, whole wheat flour instead of all-purpose white--that sort of thing.

  Plus this way I can make things like pizza for my little brother instead of forcing my family to live off of roots and grubs.

  I'm sure I would have seen that eventually. I didn't technically need Matt's stupid comment. It was just a matter of timing. And what was he doing butting in anyway? He doesn't even know what my project is about. He should be worrying about his own project instead of coming over and bothering me.

  I took my revised proposal to Mr. Fizer. He reread the whole thing, then nodded. "Proceed."

  I caught Matt's eye. And this time he looked away first. Fine with me. If he was expecting me to come over and apologize or thank him for spurring me to a solution, forget it.

  I don't care if he thinks he did me the biggest favor in the world today. It's going to take a lot more than that.

  20

  As soon as I walked into work, my mom sent me right back upstairs. Her registered-dietician friend, Jackie, had a cancellation and could see me if I came right away.

  I wasn't really sure how it was going to go. I sort of stumbled and stammered my way through an explanation of the project, half expecting her at any point to jump in and be just as skeptical as Nancy and my mother had been.

  Instead Jackie smiled. "Great. I love it." "You do?"

  "I do."

  "Wow."

  "I wish more people would decide to ditch the garbage," Jackie said. "All that junk we put into our bodies--we weren't designed to process that kind of food."

  And she wasn't even talking about chips and ice cream.

  "It's the artificial sweeteners," she said. "They're the worst--so addictive. I've had clients who had actual drug withdrawal symptoms--sweating, shaking, nausea, vomiting, memory problems. They just didn't realize how powerful those chemicals are.

  "And then there's all the high-fructose corn syrup in everything," Jackie said. "It's like pouring sugar into your gas tank--the engine stops running after a while."

  She also liked that I've given up dairy, even though I confessed how much I miss cheese. And butter. But mainly cheese.

  "The payoff is you're going to notice your stomach is a lot happier," Jackie said. "You won't have nearly as many digestive problems. And I wouldn't be surprised if your acne starts clearing up--both the dairy and the sodas have probably made that much worse. We'll monitor it."

  "That would be a nice bonus," I said. "So how long do you think it's going to take? I mean before I start feeling any different?"

  "You'll notice some of it right away," Jackie said. "Your energy level should really start improving. And the cravings will get less and less every day. Internally, though, it takes longer--about six weeks for your liver to finish processing all the chemicals and sugar that are already in there. But don't worry, everything's going to clean itself up. The body responds well once you give it nutritious food."

  I've noticed something weird about people who work at the hospital. Even though you'd think they know better--or at least that they know they should set a good example--there are still plenty of really overweight doctors and nurses. And I always see people in scrubs smoking outside the building.

  So even though Jackie looked really healthy and energetic and seemed all pumped up about fruits and vegetables, I still had to wonder if she kept a secret stash of Red Vines in her purse. Nobody's perfect.

  So I just asked her. I'm supposed to be doing research, right?

  Jackie laughed. "Don't worry, I have my own vices. I'm not sure I could do what you're doing--giving up sugar entirely. That's a little too strict for me."

  "It's just for seven months," I told her. But I think I was really trying to reassure myself.

  "Well, I think it's a bold experiment," Jackie said. "I can't wait to see how it turns out."

  We spent the rest of the time going over some basic meal plans to make sure I'm getting enough protein and carbohydrates and vitamins and minerals. She wants me to take a multivitamin just to be sure. That's fine--safety exception.

  She also--and this is the part I hated--had me step on the scale. Everyon
e knows those scales in doctors' offices weigh you about ten pounds too much. Plus I was wearing very heavy clothes. I didn't want to see the number, but I didn't really have a choice.

  It was worse than I thought.

  She also used this weird little machine to test my body mass index--the amount of me that's bone and muscle versus the amount that's fat. Also pretty depressing.

  But Jackie was cheerful about it. "It's good to face facts," she said. "We shouldn't be afraid of the truth."

  Right. Easy for a skinny woman like her to say.

  But at least she gave me some hope. "I imagine over the next few months, you're going to see some fairly significant weight loss. Going from a junk food diet to nothing but whole foods and from no exercise to suddenly walking every day--your body is going to love that. I think you'll be pleased with how quickly things change."

  So that was good news, and it almost balanced out the horror of the weigh-in. But not really.

  We agreed that I'll come back every six weeks or so to check in and see how it's going. That should make my mom happy, too. Plus it's more data for my research notebook, so Mr. Fizer can see how seriously I'm taking this.

  Normally after a day like this--the stress of Mr. Fizer's class, my weird conversation with Matt, and then having to face how fat I actually am right now--well, normally that would have called for ice cream. And lots of chocolate. And probably something salty, too, like Doritos. Oh, and maybe a few extra cans of Diet Coke to wash it down.

  Yeah. Well.

  What did Hominin Woman do when she wanted to sulk--go steal some baby birds out of a nest? Yuck, let's hope not. What did people do before they had junk food to console themselves with? Maybe she knew where there was some special plant that if you sucked on its leaves, you could get a good sugar rush. Or maybe she knew where there was a little patch of salt water somewhere, and she could close her eyes and pretend she lived in the future where we have chips and onion dip.

  Here I was thinking she was so cool and strong and capable, when maybe really she was utterly miserable. How can it be a good life if you can't make cookies every now and then?

  Grrrr. That's the sound of my saber-toothed cravings. Let's hope Jackie is right and they go away soon, because right now I swear I could lick even a picture of a cake.

  Maybe I shouldn't be this way, but I'm glad I made Matt suffer a little bit today, if that's really what happened. It doesn't really make me feel better, but at least for once I'm not alone.

  I need cookies so badly right now I could scream.

  21

  Day 17, Saturday, September 6

  Dinner: Baked sweet potato fries. Burnt, and I couldn't even use ketchup to cover them up. Very bad.

  The first Saturday of every month is Poetry Night at the Karmic Cafe. It's this vegetarian restaurant down by the university, and it serves perhaps the worst food I've ever tasted. It's not because it's vegetarian--Cave Girl has no problem with that--but it's just totally bland and either over-or undercooked, depending on what you order and whether there's a full moon that night. Kidding. Sort of.

  Jordan always gets two veggie burgers with extra onions and pickles so he can hide the taste and pretend they're real hamburgers, and I always order the sweet potato fries. So far that's the only semi-decent thing I've found on the menu.

  But it doesn't matter. We're not there for the food. We're there because Jordan and I both love Amanda to death.

  And so does the crowd. Ever since she started showing up there last year, Amanda has actually developed a following. People come up to her afterward and want to talk about her poems. I overheard an English professor asking her if she'd decided on a college yet--and trying to persuade her to stay here and join his program.

  As usual Amanda takes the whole thing in stride--I don't think she even notices that none of the other poets get even a fraction of the attention she does.

  "It's not a competition," she told Jordan when he tried to point that out one night.

  "The hell it isn't," Jordan said. "Then why do you keep winning?"

  "There aren't any prizes," Amanda said. "We're all just fellow artists. We all have something to say."

  "You just say it better," Jordan answered, kissing her on the cheek.

  Love him. For her.

  Although I have to admit it's times like that when I almost wish I weren't there. I love the two of them together, but sometimes it hurts just a little too much to always be the third wheel.

  Tonight Amanda was the last one to go after eight other poets. When the emcee finally called her name, Jordan leaned over and whispered, "Kick some a." Amanda rolled her eyes and then glided up to the mike. And proceeded to once again charm everyone in the place.

  As applause rang through the cafe, Jordan looked toward the door and gave someone a nod. I turned to see who it was.

  Matt.

  "What's he doing here?" I asked Jordan.

  Jordan kept clapping. "I don't know, I told him to stop by."

  Amanda returned to the table, still glowing from the crowd's reaction. Jordan gave her a hug.

  By then Matt had crossed the room. Amanda looked up and her smile quickly faded.

  "Hey," Jordan said.

  "Hey." Matt stood there, his hands in his pockets. "That was great," he told Amanda.

  "Thanks," she said, picking up her glass and taking a sip.

  Jordan borrowed a chair from the nearest table and swung it into the space beside me. "Have a seat."

  Matt hesitated.

  "I have to go to the restroom," I blurted out, standing. Amanda got up, too. I felt stupid, retreating like that, but I didn't know what else to do.

  "What's he doing here?" I asked Amanda as we wove through the tables. Strangers nodded and smiled at her. I don't think she noticed.

  "I have no idea."

  "Jordan didn't tell you?"

  "No," Amanda said as we pushed through the bathroom door. "I know they had a swim meet today--they must have talked about it then."

  "I wish he'd told you," I said.

  "Me too." Amanda ducked into a stall while I stayed at the sinks, surveying myself in the mirror. My skin looked a little better than it did when I first started the project two and a half weeks ago, but that might have been just because of the weak lighting. My hair was its usual wild mess. And even though my jeans were just the slightest bit looser, it's not like I was a beauty queen. I hadn't planned on seeing anyone I cared about tonight.

  I mean, other than Amanda and Jordan. And not that I really care about Matt. Anymore.

  Amanda came out and washed her hands. "So what are you going to do?"

  "I don't know. Ignore him."

  "You can't," Amanda said. "Not with Jordan sitting there. You have to act like nothing's wrong--otherwise he's going to ask a lot of questions."

  "I hate him. I mean, not Jordan--"

  "I know that," Amanda said. "Just pretend."

  We returned to the table, and Amanda sat by Jordan. I took my seat beside Matt. But I wasn't going to look at him.

  "I was just telling Jordan how much I liked that second poem of yours," Matt said. "What was it called?"

  "'Soup Spoon and the Ice Cream Sundae,'" Amanda answered politely.

  "Yeah," Matt said. "That was great. I never thought of it that way--'I am concave to your sweetness sliding down a throat--'"

  "What time is it?" I asked Amanda.

  "Uh ... almost ten," she answered.

  "Wow, I've really gotta go."

  "Since when?" Jordan asked. "We're usually here till eleven."

  "Yeah, but I've got ... this thing I have to do with my parents in the morning." I stood up to encourage some movement toward the door.

  Jordan leaned back in his chair and laid his arm across Amanda's shoulders. "I can't take her away from her fans. Not yet."

  "It's okay," Amanda told him. "I'm actually kind of tired." Jordan laughed. "What is with you two?"

  Matt had watched the whole thing unfold. He's no
idiot. He pushed back his chair and stood up.

  "Yeah, well, I gotta go," Matt said.

  "Hey, you want to take Cat?" Jordan asked. "Looks like she's ready."

  I immediately sat back down. "That's okay. I guess I can wait a little longer."

  Matt didn't look at me. Or at anyone else. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the empty plates on the table.

  "See you later," he said, then turned and headed for the door.

  And I actually felt bad. Really bad.

  Again.

  What's more amazing is that I considered following him out. And saying something. And maybe even apologizing.

  Because what is it with me? Even when I'm completely justified, I can't stand to be even a little bit mean to someone. It's so messed up. Matt's the one who should be falling to his knees to beg me for forgiveness, and here I was suffering over the sadness on his face.

  It's pathetic.

  Jordan gave me a funny look, but then Amanda distracted him by talking about some of the other poets who'd performed, and pretty soon we were back to our regular threesome, me sitting there watching a nice guy treat his girlfriend with respect. Gee, what's that like?

  About an hour later we paid our bill and left. We walked the block and a half to Jordan's car, then I slid into the backseat where I belong.

  I could see through the divide in the seats that Jordan held Amanda's hand all the way to my house. By the time he pulled up to the curb and let me out, I had a glob in my throat the size of a pumpkin.

  "Are you cooking tomorrow?" Amanda asked as I got out.

  "Yeah. Stop by if you want." I walked up the driveway to my house. Jordan waited until I'd unlocked and opened my door before he pulled away. I turned to wave, and Amanda waved back.

  Then I shut my door just in time for no one to see that first traitorous tear sneaking down my cheek.