Thin Girls

by Diana Clarke

  “But—”

  “I’ll join,” says Mim. “I’ll join this YourWeigh thing. This Lara person knows you, but she doesn’t know me. So I’ll join and document it. Get some quotes. Maybe some footage. We’ll make a strong case, and we’ll win. Lily will be out of there in no time.”

  I close my eyes, suddenly exhausted. “I don’t think—”

  “I’m not going to sit here and do nothing,” she says, her hand covering mine. “Not this time.”

  “I just—”

  Mim squeezes my fingers, and it’s an embrace. “It’s not going to stop Lily from dating that guy, but at least it might stop her from eating that zero-calorie shit all the time.”

  I swallow. “Okay. Thank you,” I say. “Thank you,” I say again. And I feel lighter in the realization that Lily might be saved. Nearly weightless.

  There’s an animal called a collared pika that survives on a diet of flowers. They spend their summers collecting up to thirty times their body weight in flora, then nibble on petals as the weather cools down.

  “Hello?” says Mim.

  “Hello?”

  She waves. “Hi,” she says, a smile. She holds out her hand to shake. “I’m Mim. Nice to meet you. Where’d you go?”

  “Where’d I go?”

  “You were somewhere, up there, in your head.”

  “Tired,” I say, and I am! I yawn.

  “Bed,” says Mim.

  There’s a news article about Kat Mitchells’s death. Then another one and another one. TROUBLED child star Kat Mitchells STARVES herself to DEATH, say the articles. They show photographs of her, a stew of them. Smiling onstage, drunk in a club, a mug shot, one of her at her highest weight in a bikini, another at her lowest, also in a bikini, kissing a woman, kissing another, the photograph I had on my bedroom wall, and a final photo of the facility. From the outside, it almost looks like a resort. Each photograph is captioned in the same way, as if there were a formula for it. Kat Mitchells, skinny onstage! Kat Mitchells, curvy in the club! Kat Mitchells looking newly busty in Barbados! Kat Mitchells is all bones in the Bahamas! Name + body-related adjective + location = caption.

  At the bottom of each article: If you have an eating disorder, you can get help. Visit www.eatingdisorderhelp.com for more information.

  Nowhere in the article: Stop commenting on women’s bodies.

  37

  Days pass easily in that white cottage by the sea. Each morning, I wake and take a long, slow walk along the sand, sometimes with Mim, sometimes alone. The beach smells of morning no matter the time of day, and the salt of the ocean spray paints my skin in a new, tighter layer. The wind blows like shaken laundry. I like to walk barefoot, and sometimes a shell cuts my skin, and it hurts, and sometimes the sand is loose and it slips out from underneath me a little, but this all feels important, and, even when these things happen, I keep walking.

  After my walk, I sit on the porch with a mug of coffee, watching the waves harass the shore with an awful persistence. The sun rises above the mountains slowly, and then, all at once, there it is, proudly announcing its rotundity, fearlessly taking up space. Day.

  I only stand when I hear movement in the kitchen, which means breakfast. Sometimes I have a CalSip, sometimes I stick to coffee, sometimes I have a grape or even a handful. Grace and Mim usually eat toast with butter, two foods I can’t fathom ever eating, but some days, when they aren’t so hungry, they make a fruit salad, and I have a bowl of it, and it feels so normal to eat what others are eating.

  Tasting is difficult. I don’t do it well. It’s as if I’ve forgotten how. I remember liking foods as a kid. Getting excited about pizza night and salivating over candy in October. I remember disliking foods, too. Wincing about broccoli and scrunching my nose at mayonnaise. Tasting is different now. Like trying to hear a coveted whispered secret on a crowded dance floor. Things I know are low calorie make me happy, heavier foods are frightening, and it is difficult to find taste beneath all of the calories shouting their values like eager learners in math class. I think, though, that I definitely like strawberries. The way their flesh sweetens with every moment in the mouth.

  After breakfast, Mim goes to classes while I tidy Grace’s house, do the laundry, make the beds, weed the garden, hose sea salt from the house’s exterior and the fence. Cleaning is how I know to earn my keep. It’s more difficult than it had been in the facility, since I’m one-handed now, the other arm still stuck in a sling, but I’ve become accustomed to the impediment. The way we do. Humans are so resilient; we can live through almost anything, adjust to such drastic change.

  Once I’m done with my chores, Grace and I sit down for lunch. She caters to me, calorie-wise, so we usually eat cold vegetables. Carrots and celery, cucumbers and tomatoes, all sliced into sticks. Grace dips hers in hummus and pesto, ranch dressing and oils. I eat mine naked, but sometimes, if I’m feeling good, brave, I will drizzle a sprinkle of fat-free dressing over a mouthful before I chew, and the flavor is welcome on my virgin palate.

  The fairy godmother trope was likely born from Cinderella. A character who appears out of nowhere to help the protagonist overcome an obstacle. But in the original story, Cinderella’s godmother was truly her godmother. She did not appear—poof!—a magic trick. She was there all along and stepped forward when needed most. In life, there are godmothers everywhere. Strangers who step forward—poof!—when they’re needed most.

  When Mim gets home from her afternoon YourWeigh meeting, she tells me about the session and I copy down any quotes that might hold up in a lawsuit. Mim is in full-swing detective mode. I feel less confident that we’re on track to take down Lara Bax’s whole operation, but I don’t let on. Mim’s excitement is effervescent, and I love watching her new energy rise.

  The problems with our plan are obvious to me. There are countless diets just like this one in the world, and none of them have been shut down for causing harm. Neither Mim nor I have any understanding of the law nor how to go about using it. We keep referring to things as evidence without really knowing what evidence means. Still, it feels as if we are doing something, really doing something, and it feels good. I understand why those men push airplanes down runways with their bare hands. Why activists chain themselves to old trees and scream, TAKE ME INSTEAD—it feels good to do something.

  I think of Lily as we toil, of the other women who are following Lara Bax’s unattainable diet. I think of how healthy they could all be because of me, millions of them, and it feels good. I realize that I like to help. That I want to help people. It’s the first time I’ve ever had a goal, an aspiration, something to live toward.

  We prepare dinner together each night, us girls. I do the vegetables, Mim does the proteins, and Grace does the carbs. I make vegetables I feel unafraid of, starting out with undressed salads that the other two can load up with extra calories if they want to, and raw vegetable sticks, and boiled greens on the colder nights. Mim makes chicken or fish, tofu or eggs, lighter proteins that I have a better chance of taking a bite of. Grace bakes fresh breads that make the house smell of heaven, and buttered mashed potatoes, oily fries, and piles of spiced rice. I’m not ready for Grace’s part yet. Even Mim eats those foods sparingly.

  We eat together, around the dining table, and the other two agree to keep their eyes on their own plates during the meal. I am tired of being monitored, watched like a villain about to commit some terrible crime.

  Maybe it’s the house, or the beach, or Mim, or Grace, maybe it’s Kat’s death or Lily’s anger, or my own injury. Something about this time, this decision to recover, is different. I could hide the food, escape the calories, if I wanted to, but I don’t, so I don’t.

  We sip herbal tea around the fireplace into the night. Mim and Grace sometimes nibble on dark chocolate, and, smelling the cocoa in the air, I remember that I had definitely liked chocolate in the past.

  One night, Mim lets me press the pad of my thumb against a square of her chocolate and then stamp the taste onto my tongue.
The flavor is familiar and delicious and terrifying; I resist the urge to spit it into the fire. Mim watches me and whispers, “It’s okay. Look at you. Nothing happened. Nothing changed. It’s okay.” She hushes me until the urge subsides.

  It is sacred time, our evenings around the fireplace, and we are not allowed to speak of food or of Lara Bax or our plan. These are the rules, and they are good rules. We enforce them together, gently steering one another away from the forbidden conversation points if we ever veer too close. Instead, we talk about our lives. Grace tells us of her great losses, greater loves. Her husband, who left her after Mim’s mother was born. Her wife, who left her because she wouldn’t, couldn’t, stop exercising.

  Mim speaks about her friends who died, and then smiles her way through the ones who lived. I mostly listen, because I haven’t lived yet. Not a life outside of food or my disorder. And I can’t talk about those things here. My silence makes me want to live, to have stories and memories, to have wants and desires. Hobbies and interests. Things to be passionate about and to want to talk about. The only time I speak up is when we talk of art, Mim about its history, Grace about her love of collecting it, me about all the things I want to create. When we bid one another good night, it is because our eyes are already halfway closed.

  “No more chores.” Grace stops me from picking up the mop on a brisk, windy morning. The seaside brings wind with it. The air here has no sense of personal space, and it is always moving, always pressing itself against you, winding its way around you. It has a way of making you feel touched and unalone. I vow to always live by the sea, where I can watch the waves thrash the sand, abuse the rocks with such an enraged persistence, smooth the craggy cliffs, slowly, wave by wave by day, month, year, into smooth sheets of rock that look stronger, and that seem to console and embrace the water, rather than remain its victim.

  “I have a different idea for you today,” Grace says, putting the mop back into its cupboard.

  “But the floors,” I say. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it? Floor day.”

  “You are dangerously interested in routine,” says Grace. “And in habit. It’s no wonder you caught on to that diet so quickly.” I had told her about the Apple-a-Day Diet, which she had thought would absolutely catch on were it to be publicized and commercialized. The media loved a fad diet, she told us, when she spoke of the rise of Absolute Abs. Two almonds every hour to keep belly fat at bay or a liter of water before every meal as a natural appetite suppressant, licorice teas that induced diarrhea and miracle pills that swelled in the stomach. Women rushed to each new diet and jumped on board as if what they were mounting were a lifeboat, come to save them from their own fatness. They would spend millions on trainers and surgery, because excess is gorgeous unless the excess is you. Grace was treated as a goddess. Women begged her for tips; everyone wanted the miracle solution to their own bodies.

  “But just because something is routine doesn’t mean it has to be your forever. Routines can, and should, be broken. Or you’d be doing the same thing your whole life, wouldn’t you?”

  I say nothing. I feel boring.

  “Here,” says Grace, leading me by the hand. Hers is very thin and frail, which shocks me, given how strongly she speaks, how proudly, confidently she holds herself. “Come with me.” She leads me to the garage, which has no cars in it. Grace doesn’t own one, and Mim says her bag-of-trash car doesn’t deserve a home or a roof.

  “The door doesn’t even work.” Grace laughs, knocking her knuckles against the garage door and enjoying the echo. “I never got it wired up! It’s a room with no purpose.”

  I feel sorry for the room. Unable to function as itself. “Look,” says Grace, pointing to a stack of canvases in one corner, a pile of supplies in the other. “I haven’t made it into a studio because I’m a weak old girl, but here is everything you need.”

  “You got me this?” I look around. “Why? I mean, thank you. But why?”

  “You need to create,” she says. “I’ve heard you talk about art. About painting. You did that painting for the woman, the one with the child and the elephant tattoo. Laura? Art is important to you. It makes you happy.”

  I’m not sure how everyone knows this about me, but I do feel a great joy at seeing the paints, the brushes, the canvases white with possibility. “Lara,” I say. And it is all I can say.

  “That’s right. Lara. Now, I want a painting for every wall,” says Grace. “It’s too white in here! And no more chores until you’ve covered the house.”

  “Grace,” I say.

  “Rose,” says Grace.

  “No,” I say. “I mean—”

  “Be quiet,” says Grace. “And get to work! Chop chop! I want you started before lunch. Which, by the way, is grilled vegetables today.”

  I look at her. Grilled means oil.

  “I’m using avocado oil,” she says.

  “I’ll have to watch,” I say. “I’ll have to watch you cook them.”

  And she nods. She understands. She understands that if I don’t watch how much oil she puts on, I would imagine she’d used butter, lard, and had ladled the stuff into my food, packed it full of so much fat I would balloon with a single bite.

  “I’ll call you when I start,” she says. Then—“Too-da-loo”—she leaves me to work.

  I choose the biggest canvas. An enormous square. It is taller than me, and its size is loud, an announcement. “Hi,” I say to it. “Hello. I only have one arm,” I tell it, waving my slinged wing. “See?”

  The canvas says nothing, not least because it is an object.

  “It’s just that this whole painting thing might be more difficult with one arm,” I explain. “I don’t want you to think it’s your fault.”

  I think of Lily’s book, WE. The way I feel so connected to it in a way I only ever feel aligned with things that have something to do with Lily. The words are powerful, and they are good. I want to talk to her about it, about where the ideas came from, about whether they came from her life, and I suspect they did, a suspicion that makes bile bubble inside me. Lily always told me everything, she talked about her life, filled our relationship with herself, her words, her experiences, until I was pushed to the side, taking up only the sliver of space that remained, but, I am growing to realize, Lily mightn’t have really told me anything at all.

  With the book in my mind, the first story I had read, about the we losing their virginities, becoming a garden, I take the blue, the yellow, and a dash of white, and pool them together until they make something organic-looking, grassy. I start to gesture across the canvas, thinking of Lily’s story, the we, and thinking of Lily, of us.

  When Grace leans in through the doorway, I’m too involved in my motions to stop. “I’m going to start grilling,” she says, hushed. I only nod and keep painting, keep moving, keep dreaming.

  She returns with the vegetables soon after and pulls a folding chair over from the storage side of the garage. She sits, the plate on her lap, and every so often stands to pop a disk of zucchini between my lips, a wedge of eggplant, a slice of bell pepper. I taste the oil in the vegetables, but the flavor is warm and the texture is soft and I swallow each one that is fed to me, working all the while.

  38

  That night, when Mim gets home from her YourWeigh meeting, she finds me and Grace, sitting, looking at the painting, which I finished over a half hour ago. We’re watching it dry, how the colors settle into themselves.

  “That,” says Mim, and then nothing else. As if the very thought has left her.

  We all watch the painting. I’m not sure if it’s good, or if I like it, but something about it makes it watchable, makes me want to keep seeing it. The colors are vibrant, screaming pinks and greens, blues and oranges. The shapes suggest vegetation, gardens, flowers, trees. The lines, angles, suggest violence, the arches, curves, bring a gentleness. Everything is at once feminine and soft, strong and powerful.

  Grace is the first to stand, groaning as she does so. Her orthorexia had done a numbe
r on her joints. Like a mistreated dog, her body has grown old before she has.

  “You are so afraid to take up space,” she says. “In life, you don’t want to take up any. But look at what happens when you do.” She stretches, and her back creaks like an old hinge. “I’m going to make dinner. You girls are off cooking duty tonight. Rose has done a hard day’s work.”

  I go to change, and Mim follows me to the bedroom. My muscles strain, tired elastics, my bones ache, every part of me is sore from the movement, the exercise of art. The pain isn’t unpleasant. It’s nice to feel my body exist. To feel like it belongs to me.

  “Take a bath,” says Mim as I groan my way out of the day’s clothes, which is the same black T-shirt dress Mim gave me on the day I was discharged from the hospital. I still haven’t retrieved anything from Lily’s place. Mim takes the plastic bag I use for my cast when I shower and tucks my arm into it, knotting it tight. “I’ll go run it for you,” she says, and skips off to the bathroom.

  I step out of my underwear and toss it into a laundry basket. Then I open my closet to hang the dress. On the inside of the wardrobe, there is a mirror, a big full-length one that would let me see my whole body at once if I let it. I close the door quickly, not wanting to know if I have gained any weight, which I surely have, given that I have been eating—not much, but still, food—for the first time in years.

  I read somewhere, maybe back in the facility, where the books were random donations, flotsam and jetsam from local strangers, that, in 2010, the Bolivian government granted all living things equal rights to humans. I also read that Bolivia was home to the world’s largest mirror. I do not believe these two facts to be unrelated. Mirrors force you to see you.