—I’m not mad, I said.
I wondered who came with her to pick it out but didn’t ask, afraid that she’d say she brought Eva and her mom. If they had been with her then there was no way it could have been a spur-of-the-moment thing. It would have been a purposeful exclusion.
—What’s your size? the salesgirl asked me.
—Eighteen, I said.
I checked her face. (I was always on the lookout for shame.) But she was good. She came back with my dress and didn’t say a word.
When you get to be my size, they start pinning pants differently on hangers. They tuck some of the fabric in so it won’t look as wide as it really is from the side profile in a store. They hide my bra sizes, too, usually at the back of the rack or, in fancy stores, in drawers underneath the displays. This dress was no different. They had folded the sides of it inward, like an accordion, and I thought of how nice it would be if I could do that to myself, if I could fold sections of my skin as needed and then fully expand when it was safe.
Lisa rustled in the dressing room beside me. A team of saleswomen stood outside the door, listening for rips.
—My feet are a disaster, Lisa said over the partition.
She was right. Years of dancing had warped them.
—You’ll wear nice heels, I said. None of that rhinestone strappy sandal stuff.
—I’ll have to, she said. If I don’t people will scream.
—The bunion bride, I said.
—Fuck you, she said, and then came out of the dressing room and drummed her fingernails on my door until I opened up, half-zipped.
She looked like the posters, smiling at her feet and all. She’d chosen a sleek satin thing that pulled in tight around her body and then shot out at the thighs in an explosion of tulle.
—You look great! I said, which sounded inauthentic but I meant it, she really did.
—They’re calling it a mermaid cut, she said. It might look idiotic in thirty years. My daughter will look at our photos and ask me what the hell I was thinking.
—Good thing you’re not wearing it in thirty years, then.
—You’re supposed to cry, she said, and I could tell that she was teasing, but she probably wished I didn’t sound so serene, as if I were supporting her choice for dinner rather than her wedding gown.
—Zip me? I said.
The zipper didn’t close. The salesgirl brought a twenty and a twenty-two, and when I zipped into the twenty-two I found myself feeling relieved and disgusted at the same time.
—It works.
—It looks good, she said.
—I plan on losing more before the wedding.
—You don’t have to do that, she said. Then she added, Do you want to order a smaller size?
—No. If I lose the weight I’m sure I can get it altered.
—Say when you lose weight. Not if.
—When I lose weight, I agreed.
We went to the mirror at the center of the store like they do on TV and the salesgirls fanned around us. Lisa stood on a little platform while I stood behind her. It felt like one of our old sorority ceremonies. The salesgirls probably did this fifty times a day. I wondered if they had scripts. They said all the right things. Angelic, and stunning, and lucky husband, and princess.
Anna, disinterested, mashed at the buttons on her phone until Lisa forced her into the fitting room and she came out with her hands over her chest.
—Everyone will see my boobs, Anna said.
—I gotta tell you, kid, you don’t have any yet, Lisa said. Anna slammed the door to her dressing room hard enough that she knocked a screw loose out of the top hinge.
• • •
My sorority sisters never treated me differently because of my size, and they never spoke to me about it directly. My pledge name had been Baby Ruth, but they’d said it with affection. They made me eat clay off of a tennis court during hazing, but contextually it was funny. I could have said no if I’d really wanted to. And sure, they may have hidden me in the Chapter Room during recruitment presumably so I could track Potential New Member reports, but that was because I was good at organization, and who wanted to be talking to a bunch of dumbass potential new members on the first floor anyway? And when we took pictures, they would shift me to the back, but I was tall and that made sense and honestly I liked being in the back row, protected by a squad of lean bodies in front of me, bodies that I could be like if I chose to, bodies that could even be similar to myself one day (if the doctor ever found the thyroid problem I suspected or if they invented a good pill or I had a procedure). From Bid Day to graduation, my sisters had accepted me for who I was, within reason. No one said a word about my weight, except for Lisa, who didn’t see the point in ignoring its reality.
—Why are you sort of fat? she asked me when we were still pledging.
We were crashing in the study after our first mixer. My mouth was dry but I wasn’t as plowed as she was. I never was as plowed as the rest of them. It was my superpower. She was on the floor, shoving marshmallows into her mouth and chugging water.
—Why are you skinny? I asked.
—It’s not the same thing.
—I dunno how to answer your question, I said.
—Was it trauma or something? Are your parents fat? What’d you eat?
—They’re not fat, I said. And it’s not like one meal made me fat. It’s habits, I guess.
—Does it bother you? she asked.
—Sometimes, I said.
(All of the time.)
—Why don’t you do something about it?
—Genius, I said. You’re a fucking mastermind. Why hadn’t I thought of that before?
—What have you tried?
—Everything, I said. Intermittent fasting, points systems, the diets where they mail you your food, that diet where you don’t eat flour, those pills that make you shit out grease, and cleanses. All of it. Multiple times.
—I guess you didn’t try it long enough, she said. Have you tried the grapefruit diet?
—If you ever suggest another diet I’ll sit on you, I said.
She laughed and then started gagging when she swallowed a marshmallow wrong. She rolled onto her hands and knees and I smacked her knobby little back until she hacked a white blob onto the carpet.
• • •
The bridal shower was held at a golf club near Josh’s family’s house. A pair of lesbians had thrown a brunch on the patio just hours before and when we arrived they were taking down a banner that read two chicks getting hitched!
—That reminds me, I said, did Deirdre ever RSVP?
—No, Lisa said. I didn’t expect her to, anyway.
Eva was clopping beside us in a noisy pair of sandals. Her pinched little face was completely twisted against the sun.
—You think Deirdre will stay queer? she asked Lisa.
—I think so, Lisa said. But I don’t think she’ll ever stop looking for Margot.
That was the closest we came after graduation to mentioning what happened. And really, what more was there to say about it? They hadn’t dealt with the body like I had. They knew I’d done CPR. They knew I’d gone to a counselor for a while. Before Margot I’d wanted to be a nurse. Now I worked as a sales rep, distributing sample packs of allergy medication at doctors’ offices. The medical assistants would stop me in the waiting room, take the samples, and usher me away before I could meet the doctors.
During the shower Eva sat beside Lisa and carefully recorded every goddamn present that was opened. Lisa’s mom sat on her right side. Anna sat Indian style on the floor and didn’t even open her eyes when her mom chucked balled-up wrapping paper at her head to get her attention. I didn’t want to intrude so I sat slightly out of the circle and wove the ribbons into a crown.
Lisa had an aunt with a rosy face with full cheeks that made her look like an old-timey barmaid. She saw me sitting outside of the circle and waddled in my direction. No, I thought. Please don’t. But it was too late; she recognized me as one
of her tribe. She noisily dragged a chair through the group and settled beside me, breathing heavily.
—It’s too hot for girls like us, she said.
—I don’t think so, I said.
She wiped at her chest with a napkin. Her hair was plastered to the sides of her face. She was like a caricature of a fat person. I threaded ribbons together and pretended that it was the most engrossing thing I’d ever been asked to do. Lisa unwrapped a box of wineglasses and Eva nodded like it was a very significant gift and began jotting the information down.
—How many wineglasses was that? Eva asked.
Lisa’s aunt opened her purse, pulled out a Baggie of grapes, and began peeling the skin off with her teeth before popping them into her mouth.
Someone tried to toss a ribbon on my lap but it slipped onto the floor and I had to do an awkward reach to snag it. The aunt happily snatched it up and handed it to me.
—Thank you, I said.
I did not turn to her or make eye contact.
—Girls like us gotta stick together, she said.
—I don’t know what you mean.
—Yes you do, honey, she said.
She offered me a grape. I declined.
I ate nothing at the bridal shower but when I got home I locked the door to the apartment and grazed directly out of the fridge. I stared at the cold leftover burrito in my hands and watched it disappear, one bite at a time. A part of me was yelling that I needed to cut this shit out. I could be Audrey Hepburn. I could have cat eyes and arms so small that they could barely hold up dinner gloves. But before I finished the burrito I was planning my next entrée, trying to remember exactly which boxes of cereal were open in the pantry.
• • •
During college I’d go to support Lisa in her recitals. The dancers before and after her would do some stomping and then pitch themselves up and down stage until their time ended and they collapsed onto the floor as if someone had punched the energy out of them. Lisa was different. Her movements were smoother than the other dancers but they also weren’t as risky. She would wear pastels and dance to pop songs about heartbreak and she’d usually end in a position with her hands over her heart, looking mawkish and begging.
After her recitals, Lisa would smoke me and Eva up in her car. She got high, she said, so she could feel more connected to her body, just like she felt when she was dancing.
—What does that mean? I asked her once. Are you usually disconnected if you’re not dancing?
—No, but now I’m more connected, she said.
She grabbed at her own elbows to emphasize her point.
—You sound insane, Eva said.
—Nah, she said. Imagine how you feel when you suck some idiot’s dick and that’s how I feel when I dance or when I’m high.
Eva grinned at her and pulled the recline lever on her seat, hitting me in the knees. Even though the three of us would smoke together Eva never really addressed me directly. I was invisible to her, but I didn’t want to be seen by her anyway.
—So you’re saying you feel peaceful in your body, I said.
—Yeah, she said.
(And the truth is I didn’t know what that could feel like.)
• • •
The only notable thing about Lisa’s bachelorette party was how the bartender looked at us, Lisa wearing her white sash and stupid tiara, me wearing a T-shirt that read team bride. He had spiky hair like it was still 2005 and he kept sliding free drinks our way. He asked us how long we’d known each other.
—Seven years, Lisa said. This girl is my best friend.
She wrapped an arm around me and held me tight. She smelled like pineapple juice. I clutched at her, my best friend.
—You’re sort of an unexpected pair, he said.
He was looking at me.
—Fuck you, Lisa said, and we got our girls and hopped to another bar.
• • •
The next morning the group ate cold pizza out of the hotel fridge. Our room overlooked the parking lot, where the sun was ricocheting off the roofs of cars. We kept the curtains closed. The room was dark and stale and frigid.
—I feel like someone took out my brain and replaced it with flannel, Lisa said.
I sat on her bed and bounced slightly.
—Asshole, she said.
—Bitch, I said.
She rolled over and rested a hand on her belly.
—I can literally hear my stomach slosh when I move, she said.
—You keep talking like I’m going to feel sorry for you, I said.
I pulled marshmallows out of my bag and handed them to her.
—This is why we’re best friends, she told me.
Eva was lying on the floor with her hands flung over her face. In the adjoining room, Elina and two of Lisa’s coworkers were yelling something about the water pressure in the shower.
—I think I ate six thousand calories last night, she said. She paused. How’s your diet going?
—Subtle, I said.
—I’m just asking.
—I don’t know why you ask me about my diet but you didn’t go whining to any of our sisters when they’d purge in the laundry room bathroom.
Lisa put a pillow over her eyes.
—I probably should have said something, she said. I guess the problem with fat is that you wear your vulnerability on the outside. Nobody cared if Shannon’s throat was eroded as long as she didn’t open her mouth and say Ah.
—It’s some shallow bullshit, I said.
—It is, she agreed. But if you want to be fat and adored you’ll have to go to one of those African countries where they worship that shit.
—I hope you throw up this morning, I said. I hope you barf and it gets in your hair.
—Back at you, she said.
She crammed a marshmallow in her mouth. I was waiting for the year when her metabolism would slow down and we could be the same size. We would share clothes. She wouldn’t ask cagey diet questions. (I was starting to suspect this wouldn’t happen until Josh got her pregnant. But I was patient.)
• • •
One night in college, shortly after I’d taken Margot on as my little, I took her to a bar downtown. It was early, and there were no drunk freshmen yet, but she was already trashed. She kept trying to take a drink out of her straw and missing, so the thing poked her in the cheek. I took the straw out and bent it into a star.
—Let me ask you, she began. But she didn’t finish. She was staring into the mirror behind the bar. She lost herself.
—Come back, I said.
—Let me ask you, she began again. Do you want a normal life? Like house, husband, kids and stuff.
—Yeah, I said.
—You do? You really do?
—I really do, I said.
—Why?
—Because I don’t know if anyone will want me to build a normal life with them, I said.
—Oh, she said, and she put a hand on my knee like she’d just heard terrible news.
Margot in the bar mirror was small and mousy. We looked like we came from different species.
—You could have a normal life, she offered. There are plenty of guys out there who—
—Do you want a normal life? I asked.
—Oh God no, she said. But that’s probably because I’m always assuming I’ll be stuck with one.
(When I think of this moment I wonder if she could see what was coming. I wonder if she wanted it like this. And, if I think of her in the bar for too long, I’ll start remembering what she looked like, how her ribs popped under my hands when I tried to help her the morning she was found. I have to leave it here.)
• • •
We spent the morning of the wedding getting our nails done at a salon downtown. Lisa picked out the color of the polish. Her sister Anna refused to have anyone touch her hands. She sat on top of them the whole time, perched in a chair by the door like a little gargoyle. At one point, Eva smiled at me and told me that I had pretty hands.
> We all left the salon in disposable flip-flops and sang sad country songs on the drive over to the chapel. I felt like I had in my sisterhood, like I was a part of something, connected to a tribe, and, by extension, safer than I’d felt in a long time.
A hairstylist and makeup artist were waiting for us at the chapel. Our dresses were lined up next to one another on their hangers. There was a lot of sweet chatter about Josh, and his kindness, and how happy Lisa was going to be. There was a lot of talk about Lisa’s prettiness, and whether or not the makeup artist should lighten up the eye shadow, and how each of us should have our hair curled.
We were running behind.
The first guests were arriving when we went for our dresses.
Our matching robes dropped to the floor.
I took my dress into the bathroom, not willing to be seen by the others. I wrangled legs and belly into my Spanx. I pulled the plastic sheath off of my dress. I peeled it apart and stepped in. I held my breath and tugged the zipper, at first gently, then harder. I stumbled into the suite. My tribe could fix this.
—It doesn’t fit, I said.
—The zipper’s probably stuck, Eva said. Hold your breath.
I sucked in all of the air I had and willed my lungs upward. I thought of feathers. I imagined little pockets of air separating my spine. But soon I ran out of air and had to exhale.
—Damn it, I almost had it, Eva said. Hold on.
I inhaled a second time and this time I thought of being connected to the body. I willed it to obey. I pictured each organ and imagined layers of fat folding themselves together, like pants on a hanger, compressed for appeal. Eva yanked and then unzipped the dress to the bottom.
—I’m going to do a fast pull, she said.
This time I leaned against the wall and pressed my palms against it, breath held, the tension so strong that I felt that if I squashed myself any farther I’d collapse into a diamond, and Eva yanked and the zipper sliced up my back and settled.
—Thank fucking God, Eva said, and I exhaled a sigh of relief that was so momentous that the force of it immediately ripped the zipper away from the seam. I felt my back pour out of the new gap, like water bursting through a broken dam.
—We can fix it, Lisa’s mother said quickly. We can fix it. All we need are some safety pins and—
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