Beauty

by Patria L. Dunn (Patria Dunn-Rowe)

  “The Sunnyview annual ball is in a couple days… George has been asking about you. He’ll be disappointed if you don’t show up,” Michael murmured, his palm sliding from the door to his side.

  Our gazes met for the second it took me to swing the door back and push it forward –hard. The bang of it slamming shut rattled the single window in my bedroom, and I exhaled on a sigh. I’d never gone more than a day without going to see George…I missed him.

  I listened as their footsteps retreated out of the dorm suite and back down the hall. When I could no longer hear them talking I backed towards my bed and collapsed, my arms wrapped tightly around my waist. Fuck them… I knew I wasn’t thinking straight, but…Fuck ‘em. I was going through something they’d never understand. I didn’t need them now; I had Becca…a real friend.

  **********

  After a long hot shower, I felt better about my morning. My high had peaked and I’d spent a full hour watching the droplets of water bounce off my skin before finally washing. I’d been smarter about shopping for new clothes the last time, so there were a range of sizes for me to choose from when it came to picking an outfit to wear to the nursing home. I wanted George to like the new me… For some reason…his opinion suddenly mattered more than anything.

  My hair had never curled well, but I took my time anyway, separating my plain dark tresses into tiny pieces and then spiraling them so that they hung in gentle waves about my face. Watching Becca put on makeup, I’d learned a few tricks and admired my handy work once I was finished. It wasn’t the slutty dark look I’d worn the last couple nights, but my face still looked pretty, my cheeks rosy thanks to the light blush I’d used.

  I didn’t have the heart to step on the scale and see how much weight I’d gained this time. I’d need at least a line to process whatever new weight I was at, but going to the nursing home high was not an option. I’d never be able to hide that from George.

  My mother was a firm believer in wearing Spanx under everything she owned. It compressed most of her rolls and made her look less overweight than she really was. She’d even bought me my own pair –two sizes too small-and I’d refused to open the package until now. With the bright yellow sun dress I’d picked out and my less bulgy frame, I didn’t feel as hindered wearing it now as I would have at three hundred and fifty-three pounds.

  Just as I gave myself a once over in the mirror, a knock on my door made me jump, anger surging through me once more. Michael just didn’t know how to take a hint, and with my high wearing off, the words I had on the tip of my tongue were even less friendly than what I’d said before.

  “What?!” I snapped as I threw open the door, my purse shoved under my arm.

  “Damn…! Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed…” Becca laughed, holding her hands up in defense at the dangerous scowl I wore.

  “Geez…sorry,” I sighed, relaxing my tense shoulders. “I thought you were…ugh….nobody…doesn’t matter. I was just heading out…”

  “Yeah. I can see that. You look…nice,” she smiled genuinely, taking a step back to admire my dress and made up face.

  “I do clean up pretty good; don’t I?” I laughed, suddenly glad I’d decided not to get high before leaving.

  Becca had shadowed me most of last night, catching me twice in the bathroom snorting lines. She was my friend…yes, but she was taking it overboard trying to protect me when she did the exact same thing. I’d ditched her before she finished her last dance on stage, texting her once I was safely back in my room to say I wasn’t feeling well.

  “You disappeared last night… Your text said you were sick, so I was just stopping by. Checking on a friend,” she followed me as I locked my bedroom door and headed out of the suite.

  “Yeah…stomach cramps…probably my period…I crashed as soon as I came home…”

  “Your period…? So you went and got checked out…got the pill?”

  “Yeah,” I nodded as we descended the stairs, anxious to move the conversation away from me.

  I didn’t want to talk about Jeremy, his friends or the rape.

  “Where are you headed anyway…you look nice too,” I offered as we exited the building, me ready to make an escape in my car.

  “Oh…this,” she indicated the short jean skirt and white tank she wore. “Thought maybe you’d want to go for a swim or catch a movie before work tonight… You’re coming back aren’t you…”

  Shit…I haven’t told her yet…

  I’d been so high when Troy pulled me aside last night, that I’d laughed his words off, figuring I had enough money to last me a while. He was just like all the others… If I didn’t lose weight, I couldn’t come back to dance at the club. Some of the customers last night had complained about my flab. Playing it over in my head now, heat crept into my cheeks, and my eyes lowered to the keys in my hand before speaking again.

  “Um…I’m not sure I want to do it again. I was in a bind…but that’s not me. Good girl and all that…” I reminded her with a half smile and a shrug.

  “I’m actually relieved…” Becca sighed slowly. “I couldn’t help but feel like I was corrupting you… You’re the girl I wanted to be. Good and all that…” she repeated my words, giving my shoulder a playful punch. “You have family and friends that care about you. You don’t need to do this…any of it,” she added softly.

  If only she knew…

  “I’ll catch up with you later… I’m running a little late,” I replied, forcing a full smile this time.

  I didn’t wait for her response. I was down the sidewalk and headed to the parking lot before she’d moved. When I was fat everyone thought they knew what was best for me. Weight watchers hadn’t worked. Diet and exercise hadn’t worked –not that I’d tried very hard—and my mother’s constant nagging hadn’t worked either. Being skinny was supposed to be different. I should have been on top of the world, but for some reason everything was falling down around me and much faster. There was no way Becca could know what I needed. I didn’t even know.

  Chapter 13*

  “May I help you?” Nurse Mars peeked at me from over top of her teal reading glasses as I entered the foyer of Sunnyview nursing home and rehabilitation center.

  I was taken aback for a moment that she didn’t recognize me, but then caught sight of my reflection in the glass double door to the right and broke out into a smile.

  “Nurse Mars it’s me…Evelyn…” I answered, holding out my arms for her to inspect me fully.

  “Evelyn…? Oh wow…! Look at you?! How much weight have you lost?! Wasn’t it just last week…or the week before…no…it was…”

  “I’m fine Nurse Mars,” I giggled at her loss of focus. “I’m not sure how much weight I’ve lost. I was sick, and I didn’t want to come in here and infect any of the residents. I know how fragile they can be.”

  Another lie, but at least it was the same lie I’d told Michael, Abbey and Buster. At least there’d be no need to cover my tracks.

  “Well that’s true. Poor George thought you weren’t coming back again, and with the ball being tomorrow… You know he gets his hopes up every year that his daughter will come visit, but…”

  “George…! That’s who I came to see…”

  “Well he’s in the rec room as usual. Those board games…” she shook her head, a tsking sound following. “Hasn’t found anyone that can beat him at checkers yet!” she laughed, still eyeing my body from the neck down.

  “I’ll head in there. When I’m done… If you need some help…I’m free,” I added, a warm fuzzy feeling coming over me when she smiled wide.

  I used to help her all the time. They were always short staffed here, which meant that she pulled twelve sometimes fourteen hour shifts with no company from the other nurses. George would be happy to see me hang around for a while, and I wanted to do something good for a change.

  “Surprise,” I greeted George with my hands held over his eyes and a quick peck on his wrinkled cheek.

  I laughed when
he jumped at the sound of my voice, twisting in his wheelchair to confirm that it was really me.

  “Miss…Evelyn…” he smiled tenderly, soft brown eyes crinkling as they met mine.

  I moved around so that he could see me better, my breath holding at what he would say. The look on his face was the first I’d seen from anyone since my dramatic transformation.

  “You’re…you’re angry?” I whispered, sinking down into the chair across from him, my hands wrapped around my waist.

  His jaw had set firm, his mouth nothing more than a thin line now as he looked at me.

  “What have you done to yourself Miss Evelyn? Trying to please the ones you think you want to be like still…?” he stated rather than asked, disapproval evident in his tone. “I can’t remember for shit these days, but there are two things that I never forget…my daughter…and when I first met you.”

  Silence settled on his words, my eyes lowering from his gaze. I was embarrassed. George was one of the first residents I’d met when I came to do my volunteer hours at Sunnyview, and he’d ended up being the one to become a real friend to me over the last year. I’d continued to come here every day after my hours were fulfilled, mainly because of him. He was the only one that knew how unhappy I was with myself. He shared his war stories that he said he couldn’t even talk about with a therapist, and I shared the miserableness of my life. He’d always told me to just be myself. Be healthy for me, and let the rest sort itself out. He’d never understood that there was no just being happy for me. Fat had always equaled up to unhappiness in my life. I could never be happy like that.

  “George I know what I’m probably going to say is going to sound crazy….” I whispered, my shaking fingers clenched together tightly as I leaned towards him.

  The light was back in his eyes, and he laughed with a smack on his knee. “Try me Miss Evelyn just try me. I’ve seen and heard it all just about. There’s nothing someone as young as you can shock me with.”

  “It’s crazy…” I started, my eyes lowered once again. “I’ve wished and wished -ever since I can remember-for a skinny body. It’s been the only thing holding me back from life ya know…? I mean being skinny would mean that I wouldn’t be the pun of every fat joke… People wouldn’t look at me as if I had a problem with food… I would have friends… My parents wouldn’t hate me… Life would just be…”

  “Perfect…?” he interrupted.

  We’d had this conversation too many times.

  “No…not perfect…” I sighed, meeting his gaze. “Just fair…”

  “But Miss Evelyn don’t you see how fair life has already been to you. Both of your parents are living. You still have the chance to find true love and do it right…unlike me. You have friends…Michael, Abigail…and what’s…what’s that young black boy’s name…”

  “Buster…? No George you don’t get it!” I whispered harshly. “Those people aren’t my friends. They’re almost all as worse off as I am. I want social status not social death by association…”

  “They come here with you nearly every day… That fella Michael…he…”

  “I cut myself George!” I snapped, hiking up the hem of my dress to expose my right thigh.

  Spanx…shit…!

  With effort I rolled the unforgiving spandex just high enough for him to see the seven long scars running across my skin.

  “This…was on purpose. It helps take the pain away…the other pain,” I muttered, pushing the hem of my dress back down. “The last time I saw you…something bad happened after that…”

  “Was it me…?!” George asked in horror, tears brimming his wrinkled lids.

  “No George…never you,” I reassured him, placing my hand over his.

  “Something bad happened once I left, and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I tried to commit suicide and…”

  It all came tumbling out. I left out the rapes and the drugs, but the witch I told him about. My miraculous weight loss and then my downward spiral over the last few days seemed bizarre when thought about with a sober mind, but George’s face never changed. Sympathy is all I saw as tiny wet teardrops fell down onto his shirt. When I was done, he squeezed my hand and pulled himself closer, letting his arm drape over my shoulder.

  “You probably think I’m crazy,” I whispered, trying hard not to let my own tears get the best of me.

  “Miss Evelyn…” he sighed my name heavily, his eyes fading with a long ago memory. “I told you I had a daughter, but I never talked about her because…well… I can’t go back and fix what’s been done. When I got into the army, I thought all my dreams had come true. I was tired of slaving away at the steel mill while all my buddies were coming back war heroes. They gave their wives something to be proud of, and the whole town paid attention to them. I wanted that for my family. It was all I could talk about for years. How I wanted to be just like them, and how unhappy I was with the life I had.

  “So when the Vietnam war came around I enlisted… My wife had just had Majorie when I got the letter. I was to ship out in less than a month. I was too busy being happy about my good fortune, that I couldn’t see my family needed me at home. My wife had been ailing since giving birth, and well…she didn’t want to ruin my dreams, so she let me go. Two long years I was over there. I lost my arm, both my legs, but that didn’t even matter…

  “When I got home, I found out that my wife was dying of cancer. Jorie was only three and I couldn’t deal with both. I gave her to my sister to raise while I spent my days in a bar drinking away my sorrows. My nights I spent at the hospital crying over my wife’s dying body, yet I never even went to her funeral. My sister’s husband got a new job a few years after that and they moved away, but…I didn’t ever ask to even see my little girl. I was scared she’d look just like her mama; I didn’t want to see her. I guess I also figured that if she’d never been born then my wife would have never gotten sick. Stupid…I know… I was so wrapped up in my own grief and my own feelings that I stopped loving her.

  “When I came here, I finally realized that because of my selfishness I’d lost out on a few more happy years with the love of my life, and most importantly a chance to be a father to the daughter we’d created. It is true what they say…the grass is always greener on the other side… That is…until you get there,” he smiled sadly, lost in his own thoughts. “I’ve spent my whole life wishing to be somewhere I wasn’t, someone I wasn’t, something I wasn’t. Now…I just wish that I could have a chance to start over and be myself…a good husband, a good father…a good man…”

  “But you are…” I sighed through the silent tears I’d been shedding, my head now resting on George’s shoulder. “Your daughter…if she saw you now… If you told her what you just told me…”

  “I’ve tried,” George shrugged, his hand patting mine. “She doesn’t want to see me. Every year I sent a letter… Every year I got one back from my sister, telling me that I shouldn’t write again…”

  “But she’s grown now… You could contact her directly…”

  “Yeah…maybe so…” George nodded, swiping the wetness from his face. “Before it’s too late…”

  Yeah…before it’s too late… Except…it’s already too late for me…

  “We should go for a stroll around the gardens. It’s been a while,” I smiled, cocking my head to the bank of windows overlooking the back lawn.

  He nodded slowly, and I jumped up to go grab a pass from the nurse’s station. My hands were shaking so badly that I probably needed the fresh air more than he did. George’s situation didn’t apply to me. My mother had always hated the fact that I was fat. I’d grown up hating myself for being fat. And my so called friends…well…I’d never really considered them friends anyway.

  Chapter 14*

  My visit at Sunnyview left me more tired than I’d been in days. I trudged from my car, my body weary from helping nurse Mars clean rooms, but my mind abuzz with jittery thoughts. I’d been so distracted on the drive home that I’d stalled my poor Jetta o
ut twice trying to get through a stop light. Next year, I promised myself, I would request a dorm that had elevators. I’d had no choice on my freshman year assignment and had killed myself climbing up to the sixth floor every day. Today felt worse than any other day, depression setting in again when my thoughts turned to George and his daughter once more. I had to go to the ball tomorrow night. He needed a friend right now.

  I knew something was immediately wrong when my foot reached the top step leading to the sixth floor. My dorm suite was the first one on the left, and now that I was the only one using a room in there, I always made sure to lock the outer door as well as the door to my bedroom. It was standing wide open. I could hear the cleaning crew, laughing and talking a few doors down, so I wasn’t scared. Nervous was more like it. Did they go into my bedroom too…?

  Panic sank through me as I stepped into the living area of my suite, my eyes holding on my slightly ajar bedroom door. I’d definitely locked it. I remembered…closing my eyes I saw myself, talking to Becca while using the key…

  I suddenly forgot how tired my body felt, my legs moving me in a stumbling burst into my bedroom. Wildly I let my gaze sweep the room, taking in the disheveled covers on my bed, and shuffled books on my desk. There were little things that caught my attention, that shouldn’t have been. The over turned calculator, the little blue box I kept all my spare change in, the out of place mug that read Alabama State University on the side…it was all wrong.

  Within a few seconds I was sitting at my desk, digging in my bottom drawer for the gym bag I’d hidden everything in. My hands reached inside before I looked and I breathed a sigh of relief. Yes…! My coke was still there, and yes…so were the Adderall pills. Oh shit…fuck…Fuck…FUCK! My fingers searched the lining of the bag -even though I knew it was hopeless—a scream ripping from my throat as I turned it inside out and shook it.