by Susan Vaught
Now it's me working not to roll my eyes. "I'm hunting for something in white with blue highlights," I tell Pepper the Blowfish as I gesture to my top region, the biggest part of me if you don't count the hips. "To match my skirt."
My smile would rival any beauty pageant contestant's, especially as Pepper the Blowfish goes crimson around the gills. "We—um, in this store, our biggest size is thirteen. Junior thirteen."
"Okay," I say as brightly as I can. "Give me the largest shirt you've got, and I'll try that."
We can drop the Pepper. She's all Blowfish now, and she hesitates. "We don't have anything that will fit you. Why don't you try—"
"Diana's?" I keep the brightness. "No thanks. Diana's is for old ladies." I gesture to my face. "I'm large, but I'm not old. I'd rather try here and take my chances."
"We don't have anything you can wear," Blowfish insists, this time more slowly, and a little loud, like I might have a mental problem.
The woman at the register stares now.
"Why don't you let me be the judge?" I ask Blowfish. "Just find me a shirt to match my skirt."
She puffs out her cheeks, and I swear the spikes on her head get a little taller. When she turns her back on me and stalks over to the rack, the other saleswoman laughs outright.
Blowfish storms back over with a size 13 white short-sleeve number with the best blue wave pattern sweeping from shoulder to waist. When she holds it out to me, she frowns. "This is it, the largest in the store. If this doesn't work, nothing will."
I keep smiling as I take it from her and head to the fitting rooms.
From behind me she calls, "You break or tear or stretch—you buy."
The other clerk laughs again.
I hear something about me finding a tent store. How original. Don't they ever come up with new insults?
Blowfish doesn't follow me.
From her dressing room, NoNo says, "I really think cabretta might mean animal. I'm not sure I'm completely comfortable putting this against my skin."
Both clerks in the fitting room set about reassuring NoNo—lying wherever necessary—about what she's trying on. They tell her how marvelously everything fits her, and encourage her to try more. Some of the ensembles. What about shoes? Necklaces to match?
Freddie's slipping by the wayside, probably since she has big hips. She shrugs at me and traipses back into her fitting room to retrieve her actual clothes. I wonder if the clerks even notice that Freddie's own outfit probably cost more than two-thirds of what Hotchix has for sale.
Me, I'm something past invisible now. I drift into a dressing room, close the door, and hang the beautiful shirt. Three mirrors show off my size from various angles. Even though I know I'm large, it digs at me, especially since I don't really fit in the fitting room. I bump walls as I turn, position the cameras to miss anything they shouldn't see, and work on taking off my clothes.
I hate undressing in fitting rooms. I know most are monitored by cameras I can't position or, worse yet, actual people. If somebody's on the other side of those mirrors, they're stereotyping and laughing at me—about how I'm deluding myself, about how I have no idea how big I really am or I'd "do something about it."
I think about what I had for breakfast. Boiled egg, grapefruit, toast with just a little bit of butter. My stomach growls, since I won't eat again until I get home. I wanted lots more at breakfast, but I refrained. Not that refraining matters. I might lose five pounds, but I gain them back just as fast, plus a few. Five pounds means nothing at all.
Damn, I'm hungry.
I'm stripped down to bra and skirt now, staring at the gorgeous shirt. My own smell fills the dressing room. A little vanilla from my shampoo and conditioner and body spray, but mostly it's sweat and kind of a sweet but not too nice scent, like dough. I don't sweat a ton, but enough that by afternoon I'm noticeable if you get too close to the pits or other areas. It's a real problem when I'm in costume for plays at school—my dressing counter is full of sprays and creams to reduce the moisture and smell.
Nothing much works.
Even skinny people sweat, the director tells me. But I'm not stupid, and I don't look away from the truth. I stink worse because of my size. And in the dressing room mirrors, the smell takes on an almost visible shape, coating my rolls and folds. Burke calls them curves, like my parents, and my friends too.
But in these mirrors
Like I said, I don't look away from the truth.
I'm here for the story. Don't forget the story.
I actually worry about wounding the beautiful shirt, but I take it off its hanger and pull it over my head. I even manage to get my arms in, though I stretch the fabric as far as it'll go. I can't even begin to pull it down over my boobs, much less my belly. The color's perfect for the skirt, but I'll never see that amazing matching blue pattern on my body.
For a few seconds, I just breathe and sweat and wait for the red to leave my cheeks. I guess I'm red because I'm hot and breathing hard and maybe embarrassed. The camera doesn't need to see that. I lift up my bag, pull out the little wireless lens, and make sure I get my stuffed-sausage arms. I get the strangle-neck, and the fact the shirt won't come down over the rest of my upper body.
"These are my choices," I whisper for the microphones, in case Freddie wants to use it on her cable show. "Diana's and the giant human grape look, or clothes that fit like this. In a store where I should be able to buy something right for my age. This is my life, in a white-and-blue-sausage, strangle-neck nutshell."
Then I put down the camera, take the shirt off, hang it back up, and brush it back into shape as best I can. It takes me a minute to get my clothes back on, to get my wires and mikes and cam repositioned to walk out, and another minute to realize I'm crying.
God, but I despise trying on clothes, even in this store, where I knew what would happen.
Get a grip.
It's not your fault the fashion world uses plastic dolls for design models.
Get ... a ... grip.
I sniff, which sets off Freddie, who must have been lurking close enough to hear me. I never sniff, so she knows what that means. She reaches over the door, feels around, and snatches the shirt. The hanger clatters against the door.
"Excuse me," she says to somebody I can't see, since I'm still in the dressing room. Then louder, "Hey, chica. Listen up, if you can quit slobbering over stick-child there for a minute. Yeah, you. Do you have this in a larger size?"
This wasn't in the plan. Not in the script. We're done. We should just be leaving now. But Freddie's getting louder.
"No? Well, why not? Don't you realize thirty percent of the girls in this town—probably more—can't buy your stupid clothes?"
I snatch my things, bang out of the dressing room, and try to grab Freddie's shoulder, but it's too late. She's gone red in the face, and with Freddie, that's not because she's hot or breathing hard or embarrassed.
"What?" Freddie yells at the collection of saleswomen now clogging the fitting room hallway, Blowfish front and center. "Jamie's supposed to shop at that old lady place, right? Not bother you and your precious little small-people store. Well, here's a clue. Life's a bitch, and so are you!"
And then, as if to bring the wrath of heaven down on Hotchix, Freddie shouts, "Cabretta is most definitely meat. You've got sheepskin touching your bod, NoNo."
NoNo's brain-vibrating scream makes the saleswomen cover their ears.
"No! No! No! No!" She keeps screaming and starts pitching stuff over the dressing room wall like she's got spiders crawling all over her and the clothes and the dressing room, too.
"No! No!"
Then she runs out in her bra and panties, freckles flaring, knobby knees knocking. She starts mumbling, and I'm not sure what she's doing, but I think she might be praying. Only the clot of saleswomen in the door keep NoNo from charging into the supermall half-naked.
"You lied to me!" she screeches at the clerks, who back away, I figure to call security. NoNo throws the "faux" leather jack
et. It snags on Blowfish's hair. "No! No! Filthy, animal-killing liar, liar, liars!"
It takes us a few minutes, but we get NoNo dressed, drag her out of Hotchix before anyone in uniforms (or white coats) shows up, and exit the Garwood Supermall.
Freddie's still fuming as we strap NoNo into the front seat of Freddie's old Toyota, determine that she has no nerve pills, and decide to tell her mom to take her right back to that shrink she used to see for her phobias and panic attacks.
"Those women were so obnoxious to you, Jamie." Freddie opens the back door for me, and I crawl in and use the seatbelt extender she got me a long time ago to fasten myself in place. "I mean, they were bad enough with me, but what they said, how they looked, how they acted—Goddess, I knew it would happen, but I wanted to kill them alU" She yanks off her designer shades and checks the mic wires, then plucks the little cam off her shirt. "Hope this stuff registered. They are so gonna pay. I'm making this story one, leadoff."
Before I can answer, she pins her eyes on me in therearview mirror. "You okay, right?"
"Yeah," I say, making my voice as loud and boomy as possible, even though for some reason I still want to cry, and I definitely want to crush the little cam that got all those pics of me in that pretty, pretty shirt with that delicate little pattern that I will never be able to wear. Not that it would be delicate on me anyhow.
Bul Ihe world needs to see. I have to make them understand. And I have to win that damned scholarship.
As NoNo finally settles and starts sucking down her leftover decaf soy frappuccino (we never let NoNo have actual caffeine, never, never, never), Freddie cranks the car and says, "Want to go to Burke's?"
"We can't." I lean back as Freddie touches up her usually perfect hairdo. "He's grounded for coming in late and calling his sister a witch. Didn't he tell you?"
Freddie's hands freeze on her hair. She takes a few sharp breaths, then turns the Toyota right back off again. She swivels all the way around in her seat, until we're eye to eye. Her expression gives me a total chill.
"Is that what he told you about why he couldn't do stuff this week—that he's grounded?" She turns back around and bangs her hand on the steering wheel. "That coward-ass piece of shit, I swear to God I'll kill him."
My mouth falls open, and that chill turns into an uncomfortable numbness. It starts in my feet and spreads up my back and neck, all the way out to my hands and fingers.
I don't need to be a Sherlock to realize Burke has lied to me big-time. I can read it in every line on Freddie's smooth olive face. I can hear it in the frantic way NoNo's sucking on her frappuccino.
They know something I don't. Something major, and maybe something bad. It happens sometimes, the three original Musketeers sticking together and leaving out the fourth. Me. Only it hasn't happened since Burke and I got serious.
Burke hasn't lied to me since we got serious. Not that I know of.
Is he in trouble for something else? Going on some secret trip?
Is there another girl? God knows he takes enough shit from his sisters over seeing a white girl, even if that white girl is me and they used to like me. They just don't like me dating Burke.
"He's... not grounded?" I ask, feeling thick-tongued and a little unreal.
The world separates itself from me as I have a moment of sensing life-without-Burke. Which would be nothing. No life at all. No dances, no dates, no kisses, no hugs.
That can't be. It can't be that kind of lie.
Right?
The Wire
REGULAR FEATURE
for publication Friday, August 17
Fat Girl Fuming, Part I
The Hotchix Revelations
JAMIE D. CARCATERRA
Check out these pics, [insert image of saleswomen here; make Blowfish prominent] These women did not want to sell me a shirt.
Why?
Because I'm fat.
And Hotchix clearly doesn't want fat people wearing their clothes, [insert image of me in the dressing room]
In fact, they didn't want to wait on me at all. And they had plenty to say, trust me, as if Fat Girl doesn't have ears and can't get her feelings hurt just like the next girl, [insert image of snottiest expressions]
Ask any Fat Girl you know, or any large guy for that matter. They'll tell you what it feels like to walk into a store like this and be glared at like you're nasty rotten gum on the bottom of somebody's pointy-toed witchy-poo shoe.
But before you go picketing outside Hotchix, know two very important things. First, Freddie Acosta already told those women off, and once you've been told off by Freddie, trust me, there's not much left to say.
Second, Hotchix is nothing special, nothing new, and definitely not alone. A few years back, a big clothing designer—who used to be fat himself, by the way—actually had a little snit when some of his creations were manufactured in "larger sizes." (Uh, like size 14? That's sooo large.) "What I created was fashion for slim, slender people," he said.
Seriously.
If you don't believe me, look it up.
So, many—maybe most—of the major designers don't offer "large sizes" (large being defined seemingly at random). If they do, it's only online, not in the brick-and-mortar stores. So, my friends and I, who are all different sizes, can't go clothes shopping together, even for the Senior Shoot.
Never mind the fact that large sizes are lots more expensive, so for those of us not rolling in dough, it's Diana's and the West End or nothing. And I'm sorry. I'm too cool for Diana's and the West End. Besides, the air just doesn't smell good in there.
I need more options. I need real clothes I can actually wear and afford. I need a blue shirt with a wonderful pattern to match my skirt.
Is that impossible?
According to Hotchix and some clothing designers, I guess it is.
CHAPTER
THREE
"Nothing's bothering me," I snarl into my cell as I fold my column and tuck it into my skirt pocket. "I just got Fat Girl done. This one's gonna kick some ass."
Heath Montel stays quiet on the other end for a few seconds. I can hear him breathing. Imagine him sitting at the big brown desk in the journalism suite, talking on that ancient black phone with the handset and cord, and running his hand through the blond hair that hangs in his eyes. "You sure you're... okay after all that?"
No, I'm not okay. Everything sucks right now because my boyfriend's a rotten liar whose probably cheating on me, and Freddie and NoNo are freaked, and I'll never wear that pretty shirt, and now you called in the middle of everything.
Out loud, managing to keep my tone even and calm, I say, "I'm fine."
"Okay, good." Heath lets out a breath. "I was worried about you. That the whole Hotchix scene might have been—I don't know—traumatic, or something."
"It was for NoNo." I give her a glance to be sure she's breathing normally. She is. Big relief. "She got way upset by animal skin. I owe her the best vegetarian meal ever, at some green restaurant that recycles everything."
Freddie nods.
NoNo sighs and fiddles with her recycled straw.
My grip on the cell eases, and I realize my hand's sweating. "Freddie came through okay, too, except the store clerks pissed her off."
Another nod from Freddie. A snicker from NoNo. Heath, too.
"I'm sure she'll handle them on her cable show. That I'm looking forward to." Another pause. Like Heath really doesn't want to hang up, but knows he should. "Will I see you tonight, Jamie? For layout, I mean."
Quick glance at the watch. My heartbeat picks up when I see I've only got about forty minutes to get back to the school. "Wiz practice is seven to eight thirty. I'll be there as soon as it's over."
"Okay, good. That's good."
Weird.
But then, Heath's weird all over, so that's no real surprise. I don't have time to figure him out right now. We're almost to Burke's, so I tell Heath good-bye, punch the phone off, and slide it into my pocket.
Freddie parks her car.
We get out and march up the sidewalk like a stiff, angry army.
The minute Burke opens the big double doors of his fine, fine house on the hill, he knows he's toast.
What with the three of us standing there, me with arms folded, Freddie with hands on hips, and NoNo half-choking on her chewed-to-death recycled frappuccino straw, he can hardly miss that fact.
He doesn't even try to talk. He just lets us in and says, "Can we keep the screaming down? My mom's asleep."
His mom supervises the night shift at Garwood Hospital, and we all love her, so we nod. Then we stalk inside and make a quick visual check for Burke's sisters.
They're both in college, but they live close by—and visit a lot. They're a little hard to deal with, especially where baby-boy Burke is concerned. I'm glad neither of them is hanging around, claws extended, fangs at the ready. If I'm going to kill Burke for lying, I don't need any witnesses who won't help me hide the body.
He ushers us through their big living room and takes us into the fancy, stainless-steel kitchen, where he's chowing on a major plate of nachos and a two-liter bottle of Coke.
Guys.
I swear.
Haven't any of them heard of glasses? Or silverware?
We sit at his family's big round table, Burke between Freddie and me and NoNo on the far side, where NoNo just seems to belong. She plants her hands on the smooth maple and her expression says she'd rather die than keep sitting there, but she keeps sitting. Maybe the cheese on the nachos is bothering her, or the sour cream, or the upcoming conflict. With NoNo, it's hard to tell which phobia or fanatic belief has taken center stage.
As for me, the rich, spicy smell of the nachos bumps against the tight knots of anger and dread in my belly, and I feel a little sick. For a few seconds, I look at the ceiling, at the cabinets, at the nachos, out the window—anywhere but directly at Burke, the boy who is supposed to be the love of my life.