Skinny

  “Well, she was more than just a lady with candy. She had a Ph.D.”

  “Lewis. Please—”

  “Eden’s got problems. Eden’s troubled. She’s one of the troubled kids. I can pick out the troubled ones from ten miles away.” He nudged his glasses up his nose. “Twenty.”

  “All these kids have problems! Everyone in the world has problems! You don’t have problems?”

  “You know what my problem is?” Lewis picked something imaginary off the shoulder of his T-shirt. “My problem is I’m too nice.”

  As if she sensed that we were talking about her, Sheena bent to let the kid off her back, loosened her hand from the other girl’s grip, turned toward us, and hurried up the hill.

  “Lewis,” she said when she reached us, panting. She wore a white-and-red-striped tube top. Her hair was separated into two thick orange pigtails that bounced cheerily against the soft pale spread of her shoulders. “My camera’s busted.”

  “Bennett’s got mine,” Lewis said. “We’ll find him.”

  “He’s in the gym,” I said.

  They looked at me.

  “I think.”

  “Come here, Sheena.” Lewis held his arm out so he could put it around her naked shoulders. He pulled her close and they faced me together like stern parents.

  My vision became very clear for a second, honed to a point. “No!”

  “Sheena?” Lewis said. “Did you—”

  “Lewis!” I grabbed his wrist.

  Sheena looked at Lewis. “What?”

  “Did you dig your fingernails into one of your campers’ arms?”

  “Huh?”

  “Gray here seems to think you had a problem with Eden.”

  “No!” I said. “Lewis, I just—”

  Lewis pulled free of my grasp and held up a palm to silence me. “I’m trying to clear up the confusion.”

  Sheena looked at me, each pupil bleeding into an iris abyss. Then she crooked her fingers and considered them. The nails were bitten down, the cuticles shredded around the messy remnants of black polish. “I don’t even have fingernails.”

  “You see, Gray?” Lewis said. “Kids get hysterical sometimes. You need a better bullshit detector. You need a better filter. You can’t get hysterical every time a kid gets hysterical. You know what you need? A game face.”

  “You do,” Sheena agreed.

  How odd red hair looked without blue eyes and freckles. It was a rare mutation, like fangs—smooth skin, dark eyes, red hair.

  “A game face,” Sheena said. “Work on that.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Later that night, a few minutes before Lights Out, as I was making my way back from Nurse’s office, where I’d gone to get calamine lotion for my mosquito-mauled campers, I saw two bodies, intertwined, standing between two bushes at the side of the girls’ dorm. When I got closer, I recognized Alex’s hands on Eden’s hips, Eden’s arms linked around his shoulders. They were kissing the way kids do when they don’t know what comes next—hands and bodies motionless, heads barely moving, wet kissing noises, erratic breathing.

  If I’d wanted to do my job responsibly, I would have told Eden to get inside and sent Alex back to his dorm. But I stood still and watched them, silver in the moonlight.

  Alex pulled back and said, “You’re the prettiest girl at camp.”

  “Whitney is really pretty.”

  “She’s ugly.”

  Eden giggled.

  “She’s fat,” Alex said.

  “Everyone’s fat.”

  “But she’s mean and fat.”

  “I’m fat.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “What’s beautiful about me?”

  Alex shifted on his feet. I held my breath. The cicadas paused.

  “You have really big boobs.”

  “I know. They hurt my back.”

  “And you kind of look like this girl I know who’s, like, really hot.”

  “Okay,” Eden said.

  When they began kissing again, under a moon so full that it sagged in the sky, I backed away quietly and rerouted to the side door of the dorm.

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Everything began to unravel when a blood vessel burst in Miss’s left eye. I noticed it when I gathered my group in the hallway one morning before breakfast and saw Miss in her red Coca-Cola T-shirt, her hair unfurled in golden swells down her back. All that red and yellow made her damaged eye conspicuous. Almost half of the white was marred by a purple welt.

  “Are your contacts dirty or something?” Harriet asked Miss.

  “I don’t wear contacts,” Miss snapped, linking arms with Whitney.

  Harriet looked at the floor and began to sniffle.

  During breakfast, Nurse came to our table and stood over Miss in her leggings and tent of a T-shirt.

  “I thought I saw something peculiar on your pretty face,” she said.

  Miss set her fork down and looked up at Nurse, the most loved person at camp. It was impossible not to like Nurse. She was coarse and affectionate, like a well-trained pit bull. Nurse and Dance Dance Revolution were the glue that held the whole operation together.

  “Well, I don’t like the looks of that one bit.” Nurse bent closer to Miss, holding Miss’s chin in her fingers, rotating her face from side to side. “Happened to me once when I farted, but not like that. It was just a little red.”

  Harriet covered her mouth and laughed hysterically into her palms.

  “It’ll go away. Just be careful,” Nurse said, standing up straight. “Those blue eyes of yours are too pretty to mess with.” She patted Miss’s head and walked away.

  I saw Miss glance at Whitney, and then at Sheena.

  “What are you looking at, Gray?” Sheena asked. She was smiling. Or rather, her teeth were bared. “You’re always looking at everyone.”

  “I was looking at Miss’s eye,” I said.

  “Look at yourself for once.”

  “Miss’s purple eye is my responsibility. In a sense. So I’m looking at it.”

  “Well, you’re the one with an eating disorder.”

  I squinted at Sheena. “Why do you keep saying that?”

  “How much weight have you lost?”

  “Please.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “I eat what everyone eats,” I said. “I just lost weight quickly. Not my fault.”

  “You don’t eat,” Sheena said. “You never eat. We all see you not eating.”

  I caught my smile before it spread open, and then looked down at my lap. My thighs barely expanded on the bench anymore. My stomach felt flat and light. I looked up at Sheena again and said, “I’m not going to speak with you about this in front of the campers.”

  “First of all, they’re not babies. Second of all, can’t you take a joke? I’m playing with you!” Sheena reached across the table to smack my arm.

  I felt the burn of her fingers on my skin long after she turned away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Something was up. And Eden seemed to know it (she would barely look at me). And Sheena and Whitney and Miss seemed to know it—the knot of them was tighter than ever. And Kimmy seemed to know it, too: Every time I saw her, she was frantically sucking her thumb or holding Whitney’s hand. I wanted to ignore it all. So I did. Until I couldn’t. Because the next morning, the secret came out.

  It happened at breakfast when Whitney went to the bathroom for twenty minutes, and then returned, resuming her place on the end of the bench next to Harriet, smelling unmistakably of vomit. I caught a whiff from across the table.

  “That is gross!” Harriet said, pushing away her bowl of partially eaten oatmeal, her untouched half of a grapefruit.

  I looked at Whitney’s glazed expression, at Miss’s purple eye, at Sheena, who was staring at the window. I looked at Eden, who was looking at Whitney the way she often looked at Whitney—ready with a smile, just in case Whitney glanced at her, the way I used to gaze at my father when he was a nucl
eus in a crowd, using his whole body to tell a story.

  I stood abruptly. “Whitney, Miss,” I said. “Outside. Now.”

  Everyone looked up. I barely spoke around my campers, especially when everyone was together, and if I did speak, I certainly didn’t make demands.

  “Now,” I said. I didn’t look at Sheena, but at the edges of my vision, I saw her head turn from the window.

  On the cafeteria steps, I told Whitney and Miss, “Obviously, you two are making yourselves throw up.”

  They had their arms folded over their chests and were standing so close to each other, their T-shirt sleeves were touching.

  “You’re just saying that because you hate us,” Miss said, squinting her purple eye at me.

  “I don’t hate you. I’m concerned.”

  “Everyone knows you hate us because we’re close with Sheena.”

  “Yeah,” Whitney said. “You’re all up in Eden’s shit and you hate us.”

  I paused to consider the accusation. It was true that I wasn’t crazy about Miss, but once I’d watched her pick a scab off her elbow and inexplicably wanted to cry. And it was impossible to hate Whitney. She gave feverish, nonsensical sermons, and everyone paused to listen. No, I was angry, I realized, the way I felt angry with adults who had been born into limitless wealth. Why should things be so easy for them? Why should Miss and Whitney get to enjoy all the food they wanted, and then flush the calories down the toilet?

  Plenty of times in the past year, I’d wanted to purge. Plenty of times, I’d even hoped that a binge would make me sick. But I’d always stopped myself from forcing it. I’d been afraid to do it, afraid that it would hurt, afraid that if I did it once—ate all I wanted, then vomited—I would spend the rest of my life doing nothing but eating and vomiting.

  “How many other girls are doing it?” I asked.

  “Doing what?” Miss whined.

  “I’m sick,” Whitney said. “I think I have the flu.”

  Miss glanced at her.

  “Whitney,” I said. “I’m not an idiot.”

  “I didn’t say you were. Did I say that? Miss, did I?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Look,” I told them, “I’m not mad. I want to know what’s going on. I want you both to talk with Nurse. I want to know who else needs to talk with Nurse.”

  They stepped closer together, the outer edges of their sneakers touching. They were fused like paper dolls.

  “We’re not equipped for these kinds of problems here,” I said. “That’s what’s upsetting to me. Nurse isn’t even a nurse. If anyone is sick—bulimic or whatever . . .”

  “We’re not bulimic!” they shouted like cheerleaders.

  “Then what? Should I go get Lewis? Should he call your parents?”

  “What would y’all say to our parents?” Whitney asked. “That we have eating disorders?” She took Miss’s hand and raised their arms between them, showcasing their bodies. Whitney had narrowed all over. Her hips had moved inward. Her legs had more shape. But still. She was not thin. Nowhere near. And Miss was larger than Whitney. “Do we look like we have eating disorders?”

  “Whitney, you smell like barf,” I said. “Sorry. But you do. And you lost nine pounds this week. You didn’t even lose that much the first week.”

  “Even if I was throwing up,” Whitney said, “which I’m not, that’s my choice. Females have choices in this decade.”

  Miss hit Whitney’s arm.

  “What? I’m just saying. I’m not throwing up on purpose, but I could if I wanted to. It’s my body.”

  “Wait here,” I said. “Don’t move.”

  I turned and went back inside, straight to the stage where Lewis sat at his kingly table, eating green Jell-O for breakfast. “I need you,” I said. I kept my eyes away from Bennett, who moved his knee to brush against mine. Goose bumps rose on my skin. In the mornings, leaving the warmth of Bennett’s body was becoming an increasing struggle. I had forgone my 5 A.M. run a few times now for an extra half hour in his arms. This was week six, and next week would be week seven, and then it would be week eight. And then.

  I wondered if in this moment I looked different to him, since my attention, for once, was focused elsewhere.

  Back on the cafeteria steps, I told Lewis, “Miss burst a blood vessel in her eye. Whitney just came back to the table smelling of vomit. The weigh-ins have been strange the past couple of weeks. Can we all agree these girls are making themselves throw up?”

  Lewis looked at them. “Girls? You wouldn’t do that, would you?” He was smirking a little, as if to say, I’m on your side, implying that he was as sure as they were that I was acting hysterical.

  “No!” they shouted.

  “You know that’s not a healthy way to lose weight, right?”

  “Obviously!”

  The door opened and Sheena appeared, her fiery hair wrapped into Princess Leia buns. Kimmy followed, her thumb plugging her mouth.

  Sheena gripped my arm. “You’ve got to cut this shit out.”

  I yanked my arm away, stepping backward. “If there’s a problem,” I said, “then it needs to be addressed.”

  “You have problems.” She poked at my chest with her fingertips. “You, you, you.”

  “Wait a minute,” Lewis said. “Everyone calm down. Whitney? Why do you smell like vomit?”

  “Because I threw up. I don’t feel well.”

  “Then please go see Nurse. Miss, what happened to your eye?”

  Miss covered her eye with one hand. “How should I know?”

  “Kimmy?” Lewis said. “Do you have something to say?”

  Kimmy removed her thumb from her mouth, pulling out a string of saliva. “I don’t know.” She reinserted her thumb.

  Lewis looked at me. “And that’s how you mediate a problem,” he said, tugging at his drooping shorts.

  Sheena smirked at me. “Nothing like a good shit storm, right, Gray?” She turned to Lewis. “Have you noticed yet that Gray loves to stir shit up? This is what spoiled brats do. They make drama because they’re bored with their lives.” She looked at me again. “If you had real problems, you wouldn’t have to create fake ones.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” I told Sheena.

  “The thing is,” she said, smiling, “I do.”

  “I’ve been working at camps for two decades,” Lewis told me. “There’s nothing that could shock me. Nothing I don’t know how to handle.” He patted Kimmy on the top of her head and turned to go back inside.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  That night, at a sports bar in Melrose, Bennett and I drank light beer from the taps as half a dozen televisions flickered around us and the occasional tock of cue to pool ball punctuated the din. We sat turned toward each other on our bar stools, Bennett’s hand on my knee, my knee and thigh bare below the hem of the black minidress I’d recently bought at the mall. But for the first time, I wasn’t leaning into him, trying to hook his eyes to mine.

  “Feeling better, Angeline?” Bennett asked as I drained my second beer and ordered a third.

  “The lack of professionalism is disturbing,” I said. “Lewis is a joke. I can’t even do my job because there’s no support.”

  “I support you.”

  “How so?”

  “Hey now. That’s not nice.”

  “Well? You didn’t even come outside today. You stayed in the cafeteria. You didn’t say a word. I think the whole camp knows what Whitney and Miss are up to, and no one’s going to do anything about it. I think Nurse even knows. But everyone’s afraid of those girls. And of Sheena.”

  “Sheena’s okay. She’s just a kid.”

  “Why is a ‘kid’ my co-counselor?”

  “Because this is summer camp.”

  “You should fire her.”

  “No one’s getting fired. For what?”

  “I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I loathe her. She’s up to something with those girls.”

&nbs
p; “That won’t fly. ‘Sheena, go home. Angeline loathes you.’ ”

  “No one will fire her. No one wants to do the right thing,” I said, and then I cringed. Who was I to talk about right and wrong? I wanted to get rid of Sheena not because of her unprofessional behavior, but because I had disclosed too much to her, and I worried that she was ruthless.

  “If you think about it,” Bennett said, “in the grand scheme of things, none of this really matters all that much. You ever think about that when you’re upset? How compared to something really bad, it’s nothing?”

  I stared at Bennett. His eyes were wide and blue. In a lineup, I would have easily identified Bennett’s arms, but his eyes looked like many people’s eyes. They were mass-produced eyes. Flyover state eyes. The largest demographic eyes.

  “Did you come up with that all by yourself?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “That philosophy.” I slid off my bar stool, teetering on high heels.

  “What philosophy? Where are you going?” Bennett grabbed my hand.

  I looked at the rows of bottles behind the bartender. I looked to the pool table, to the exit sign, to the jukebox in the corner, to the TV screens boxing me in. There was nowhere I wanted to go. I wanted to jump out of myself and run.

  “Bathroom.”

  “Are you hungry? I could order some cheese sticks or something.”

  “Fried food? Are you serious?”

  “Out in the real world,” Bennett said, chuckling, “people eat cheese sticks now and then. Remember?”

  I pressed my palm to my stomach. “Stop offering me food. That won’t make anything better.”

  Bennett raised his hands as if I might shoot. “I never—”

  “Just. Stop.” I snapped my purse up off the bar and stomped to the bathroom.

  The lights inside were fluorescent, merciless. The full-length mirror was incongruously, glaringly clean. There I was. A girl with a suntan. A girl who needed a haircut. A girl in a desperate dress. I set my purse on the tile floor and smoothed the dress in the front. I was embarrassed to see how visible my panty lines were through the spandex.