Thin Girls

by Diana Clarke

  “I’ll go,” I said, just a moment before Lily said, “Not Rose.”

  “Why not Rose?” said Jemima, turning on Lily.

  “Yeah,” I said, raising a brow at my sister. “Why not me, Lil?”

  Lily chewed her lip so hard I expected to see blood begin to drool down her chin. I reached for her cheek and tugged it the way Jemima had done to the soccer boy. It had the desired effect. Lily’s lip was saved. “Please be normal, Rose,” she whispered.

  “I’m fine,” I said, before closing my eyes and spinning.

  Even in the dark, it was clear that Jemima was the only one playing. I could feel Lily’s presence behind me, and I could tell she was unhappy by the way my mouth tasted metallic, blood-filled.

  We had been tasting each other’s emotions all our lives. It was irritating, oftentimes nauseating, but when Lily was happy, filled with joy, I savored the flavor and salivated. Each Christmas, Lily’s favorite holiday, I sucked on my tongue, marinated in melted butter all day long.

  “Sister?”

  “Sister,” said Jemima, and her reply came from the same direction as the boys.

  I swallowed, pointed. “Sister?”

  There was a snicker, a series of splashes, and then, “Missed her,” said Jemima. “Mister kisser.”

  I opened my eyes to find Jemima standing in a spot that was not where her voice had come from. I was pointing at the soccer game.

  “You cheated,” I said to Jemima. “You moved.”

  “No, I didn’t,” said Jemima. “I didn’t, did I, Lily?”

  “Did she, Lil?” We both turned on my sister, who was sucking her lower lip again.

  “I don’t know,” said Lily. “I don’t really know.”

  “How could you not know?” I said. “You were watching, weren’t you? Did she move or didn’t she?”

  Lily’s cheeks reddened and I felt a twinge of pain in my mouth. My tongue. Lily had bitten through her own flesh. Her eyes filled with rain. I held my breath, the way Lily had taught me, and counted to five. My anger subsided, a sun shower. I exhaled.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s okay. Doesn’t matter.”

  I smiled at Lily, willing her to relax, willing the lip from between clenched teeth, and it worked. Lily’s poor, battered lip popped out of her pout, an embarrassed red, purpled with bruise. “I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll kiss one.”

  “Rosie, you don’t have to,” said Lily. She knew I had never been kissed. We had never been kissed.

  “Yes, you do,” said Jemima. “That’s the game.”

  I stood from the pool, pulling pink goggles from my head and releasing my hair from its braid. I combed the strands loose with my fingers and tried to appear calm. Cool.

  The girls were silent as I marched over the grass verge, made my way to the game.

  “Stop!” I shouted, the way Jemima had, but the soccer continued. I turned back to the girls and grimaced. Lily was hugging herself; Jemima was folded in laughter. “Hey!” I shouted again. “Stop!” Still, nothing. The boys kept running, darting around one another, zipping away from me like mosquitos. I shrugged and decided on the goalie, the only boy standing still.

  “You,” I said as I neared him. Then I took his child-chubby face in my hands, leaned in, and slapped my lips against his. It felt like kissing a fish; he was slimy with sweat, and his mouth was salted. When I pulled back, the boy wiped at his face with the back of his hand.

  As I walked away, I heard the boys’ laughter start like a storm. Clapping and snorting. Then the goalie: “Why’d Mike get the hot one and I had to kiss the fat one?”

  I thought I would cry until Jemima wrapped herself around me. Whispered, “Proud of you, babe,” into my ear. I could smell the fruit on her lips.

  I stand, open my door, and peer into the hallway, which is empty. I walk softly. These halls are carpeted to keep a creak from sending some thin girl over the edge at the reminder of her body. The supply closet door is closed, and I stand, not knowing what to do, and I am still standing, standing still, when I hear the choking gasp.

  Then I am flattened, on my stomach, a soldier in combat, my eye pressed tight to the gap between door and floor. It’s dark in there, too dark to see, but, listen, the breathing strangled with pleasure, the sighs inflated with want.

  I sit up, lean my back against the door, ear to the sound, and reach into the waistband of my leggings. My heart rate picks up when the sounds do. I try not to think of Kat, her lips, butterflied, beautiful. When I masturbate, I conjure up scenarios in my mind, elaborate scenes, more intricate than any porn plot I know, more nuanced, less obvious. I can’t stand those clunky narratives, a pizza delivery guy who rings the doorbell to find a topless girl, who, shocked despite having opened the door herself, is so overwhelmed with desire for the delivery man that she drops to her knees on her very own doorstep. My scenarios have realism and character development. A woman notices a man out to lunch with another woman. The first woman is sitting at her own table, nursing a cup of green tea. The tea has long since gone cold, but the woman, our protagonist, the porn star, is besotted by the beautiful couple. She watches as the other woman spoons her minestrone and blows on it with such tenderness before lifting it to the man’s lips. When he tastes the soup, he smiles and says something, an exclamation or a positively connoted adjective. It’s important not to get too specific, given the distance between our star’s table and the couple’s, and given that the restaurant is busy and there are servers moving between the watcher and the watched all the time. Verisimilitude is key to a well-directed pornographic film, not many people know.

  The man leans over to whisper something in the woman’s ear. She laughs. They are so happy, this couple. So happy and beautiful they could be the couple that are in the frame before you replace the stock image with your own, less perfect photograph. The couple continue to share their meal, they joke with their server, and it’s clear that they are his favorite table to wait on.

  Their dessert arrives, a brownie as big as your head, and they finish the whole thing between them, feeding each other carefully curated mouthfuls of chocolate and vanilla ice cream from their forks. Usually, that dessert scene will finish me off.

  I don’t often see myself in my pornographic fantasies, but when I am there, it’s very clear that I’m Lily. I can tell by the mole above her left butt cheek. The one physical difference between us.

  For example, now, as I imagine my across-the-courtyard lover knocking on the door to my room, and I imagine myself standing from my bed, where I had been reading about animal behaviors, and he embraces me and I notice his erection, grown from nothing but the intensity of his desire for my body, I zoom out, a long shot, and the woman there, standing there, embraced by such a thin man, is smiling and rosy-cheeked. Her hair is still full-bodied and her skin isn’t grayed as old snow. Suddenly the couple starring in my fantasy are naked, and there it is, the mole, the landmark of her back, announcing her name. Lily. My body trembles in time to the closeted couple’s grunts. And when they come to a stop, I do, too.

  I wonder how many calories an orgasm expends.

  Don’t think about calories, our group leader says. But it’s Psychology 101: the human mind doesn’t register the negative well.

  Test subjects are presented with the sentence: There are no birds in the sky! The same test subjects are presented with two images, one showing a bird in his nest, the other showing the bird in the sky, and, every time, the subjects associate the sentence with the picture of the bird, flying, skyward.

  Instead of Don’t think about calories, try Think about elephants.

  Instead of Don’t think about her, try, Think about rabbits, or food, or a man.

  9

  The days on which we’re allowed to move are rare, but cleaning day is one of them. Today, we’re cleaning our common room, which, like the rest of this place, has a termite infestation. The bugs are so methodical. They march, their trail so consistent in its single file that it looks as if
the ceiling is perforated, as if the left side can be torn from the right.

  The nurses dress our hands in latex gloves that feel like wearing another skin. A blue, smooth, rubbery skin, plump and full. Sometimes girls shriek and let the gloves fall from their hands afraid that the latex might adhere to them and hide those sharp bones protruding from their wrists forever. I keep mine on, suctioned tight to my body, the elastic grip reminding me that I exist.

  2003 (14 years old—Lily: 103 lbs, Rose: 103 lbs)

  On the first day back at school each year, disposable-gloved cafeteria workers served mince on toast for lunch. As a special treat! they told us.

  After the Mister Kisser incident, Jemima bumped two other girls from her table to let Lily and me sit with her. She stopped spreading rumors about me being in love with Lily, and she stopped faux-gagging every time I started to speak. I was so grateful for the pause in cruelty that it almost felt like kindness.

  “Rose,” Jemima called when we arrived in the cafeteria on the first day of term. “Lily.”

  I tried not to feel smug at the order of our names, Rose, then Lily, it meant something. With Jemima, everything meant something. She thought out every detail of her day like a chess match. Who she’d sit next to at lunch, who she’d ask to accompany her to the bathroom, who she’d borrow lip gloss from. Like stray dogs, she gave us all just enough attention to keep us whining for more. The type of love that Jemima Gates sought was Large Group love. The order in which she spoke our names was a calculated move. I had won.

  “Come sit with us,” she said. “There’s space here.” She pointed to the spare seats at her table.

  The table talked around me, I almost felt as if I weren’t there, about blow jobs.

  “You start like this,” said Jemima, lifting her banana and running her tongue around the stalk. “You can’t just go right into it.” We lifted our bananas, ran wet tongues around the stalks. “Then lick all the way up the underside,” said Jemima. “Like you’re trying to stop a popsicle from dripping.”

  We did. We licked.

  “Then you take as much of it as you can into your mouth.”

  We opened wide, we inched the bananas back, like pointing a revolver up, toward the brain. The fruit felt too big for my mouth, but I didn’t mind. This was how to be popular! Practice oral sex at lunch! The hardened tip nudged the back of my throat, and I gagged.

  “That’s my girl,” said Jemima, laughing and removing her own banana from her mouth. “That’s the kind of dedication that’ll get a man to fall in love. Doesn’t it feel good?”

  My throat felt wounded. The banana’s head was red with blood—mine. “Yes,” I said. “It feels so good.”

  “Hear hear, sister,” she said, toasting me with her bottle of orange juice.

  See how easy it is to be normal? Agree and agree and agree! This was something I could do, keep doing. This was a sustainable personality. The new me! Blow-job-loving, oral-sex-wanting, Jemima’s-best-friend me.

  “Now you have a decision to make,” said Jemima, her eyes starry. “Spit or swallow.” Us popular girls, we looked around at one another. This was an ultimatum, no one had to say.

  Lauren, the minion, gulped. Lily quickly copied, swallowed. I glanced at Jemima Gates, whose smile faltered, just a little, but enough for me to know. I took my single-ply napkin and held it to my mouth, spat once, twice for good measure, into the paper, and balled it in my fist. Jemima winked, spat into her napkin, and folded her arms across her chest. “You two just drank jizz,” she said, with a performative gag.

  The other girls stared, their eyes seething, I could almost hear the feline hiss. Lily knew I knew nothing about blow jobs. Her stare was a chill on my cheek, but I was busy basking in the light of Jemima’s approval, and I could barely taste my twin’s disappointment as Jemima took my hand in hers, flipped my arm, soft side up, and pressed her mouth to my wrist. My first kiss.

  “So, I read about this new diet,” she said, turning back to the table, our interaction over. I mourned the moment immediately. The way an extra must feel when the star of a show interacts with them briefly, just to order coffee or push past them on the bus. A fleeting fame.

  Jemima told the table of a diet she’d read about in one of her mother’s magazines: the Apple-a-Day Diet. The diet’s title was also its rule book. Simple. Foolproof. Eat one apple per day for ten days.

  “What do you think, girls? It’s the diet Kat Mitchells is on, and have you seen her? She’s so skinny.”

  “So pretty,” the table agreed.

  Jemima tucked her hair behind her ears. “Okay, then.” She smiled, her lip gloss glinting in the sun. “Are you in?”

  When Lily turned to me, eyebrows raised in proposition, I nodded, eager to do the things these better girls did.

  “Lil?” said Jemima, already pushing her lunch tray away from herself, demonstrating the start of her diet.

  “I’m in,” Lily said, looking at me, then Jemima, then back at me.

  “We’re in,” I said.

  “Diet starts today, ladies,” said Jemima, taking only the apple from her tray and smiling at the group as, one by one, each popular girl picked up her apple. “We’re gonna be Kat Mitchells skinny!” She bit into the apple, and the sound was a sharp crack.

  The rest of the table lifted their apples, our apples, to our lips. We bit, chewed, and it was almost as if we were one mouth, a communal swallow. Lily and I looked at each other and smiled. We were in.

  We’re armed with spray bottles and scrubbing brushes, and the nurses tell us, “Go, clean!” And we do. Say what you want about us thin girls, but we can clean. We scrub at the floors, at the walls, at the tables and chairs. We scrub and scrub at the imperfect and then at the perfect just the same, our skewer arms threatening to bisect all the while. It’s how we earn our keep in this place we don’t want to be kept.

  I love cleaning day. I count lost calories in Tic Tacs. One Tic Tac = two calories. It takes ten minutes of scrubbing to lose one Tic Tac. I scrub the mints out of me and watch them tumble to the floor, scatter, and then I scrub those away, too.

  After school on the day the apple diet started, our parents ordered a pizza and left it on the table for us to find before going out on a date night.

  We were accustomed to being home alone. Our parents had always treated us like each other’s babysitter. When they decided to have a kid, they thought it would bring them together. A filling for the sandwich that was their marriage. But then they had twins, and Lily and I were a ready-made family. We didn’t need them the way an only child might. We only needed each another.

  Lily opened the box and inhaled. “Pepperoni,” she said.

  “We’re not eating, remember?” I took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water, calorie-free and diet-approved.

  “Don’t be stupid.” Lily lifted a slice, used her palm as a plate. “Jemima was joking around.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I’m not risking it.”

  “You’re so weird about Jemima Gates,” said Lily. “That whole banana-blow-job thing today. It’s like you have a crush on her or something.”

  She watched for my response so carefully.

  “Me?” I said. “You’re the one who starts giggling whenever she kisses your wrist.”

  “Whatever.” Lily finished her slice and took another. “You’re seriously not going to eat any of this?”

  I shook my head and sat at the table, sipping water, watching Lily. She ate and ate, slice after slice, she ate her way through the entire thing. I could almost feel the ache in my own belly, but she pretended to be barely full.

  “Yum.” She wiped her lips with a napkin and closed the empty box. “All done.”

  Lily went to watch TV, and I printed a poster of Kat Mitchells in a miniskirt and tank top. Her hip bones splayed out of her body like wings. Her clavicle, sharp cliffs over her chest. I hung it above my bed and smiled up at her, the pop star, so thin. I could look like that.


  As we brushed our teeth before bed that night, I noticed Lily’s stomach in the mirror, swollen, a tiny bulge under her T-shirt. I stroked my own torso, flat.

  When we look in the mirror, we see inverted versions of ourselves. In a photograph, flattened versions of ourselves. The closest anyone can come to seeing themselves is still only a manipulation of the self. The closest I can come to seeing myself is Lily.

  Something that happens when you start dieting: You notice bodies. You notice everybody. You notice every body. Everyone has a body and they bring it with them everywhere they go. You notice fat bodies and remember who you were, and you notice thin bodies and remember who you want to be. You notice gaps between thighs, cellulite on stomachs, arms that tremble, knees that bulge. You notice your mother’s bony fingers and your father’s drooping chin. You notice the body that swells over too-tight jeans and the one whose ribs can be counted all the way up to her neck. Everybody has a body, but you will always feel like an intruder in yours.

  Sarah wipes down windowsills as I polish the glass.

  “A married guy?” she says, when I finish my recount of Lily’s visit. “So what?”

  “He’s married.”

  “Sure, but I thought she always dated terrible guys? I thought terrible was like, her type.”

  “Yeah, but this seems different,” I say. “She’s got these shiny eyes. She’s—”

  “Happy?” says Sarah.

  I spray solvent onto already-clean glass and wipe the splatter away. “Maybe.”

  “If she’s happy, then why do you care? I thought you wanted her to be happy.”

  “Because he’s married!” I climb down from the stool I’d been using as a ladder. “And he’s a smoker. She’s smoking, like, cigarettes.”

  “I miss cigarettes.”

  She looks so eighteen I could cry. Instead, I forge on. There is a point to be made! “It’s like she can’t see that this relationship has an expiry date. She’s going to get her heart broken.”