The Next Big Thing

by Edwards, Johanna

  She shook her head miserably. “No, not that. This.” She held up her half-eaten pear. “If anything, I’m even hungrier than I was before I ate it!”

  I felt her pain.

  “I’ve been hungry since the moment I got in this stupid house. The least they could do is give us something edible. I mean, there are low-calorie foods that have flavor. Even poisoned ones,” I joked. “Barbecue rice cakes, for example. Or baked chips. I figured we’d at least have stuff like that. But, no. We get one extreme,” I gestured toward the fridge, “or another.”

  We turned in unison to face the Tomb of Temptation.

  “Hey, Kat, you think they’ve got some baked chips in there?”

  I shook my head. “No way. I’m not going in to find out.”

  “Oh, come on. It’s just a pantry,” Regan said. “It only seems sinful because they gave it that name.”

  “Regan, you can’t be serious.”

  “Think about it! We have this great gym but we can barely exercise because we’re hungry all the time! How can we be expected to lose weight if we don’t exercise?”

  Deep down, I knew better. I knew I hadn’t exercised any more than was required to get paid because I hadn’t wanted to, but at the moment, under those circumstances, Regan’s logic seemed infallible.

  “Okay, you win. Let’s check it out,” I said, rising from the stool. I had said the magic words. I felt like Ali Baba, unlocking the cave with his command of “Open Sesame.”

  With my simple decision, the kitchen had begun buzzing with activity. Out of nowhere, a girl from the crew appeared, holding a boom mic. Regan’s cameraman had positioned himself in front of us and was now walking backward, filming us as we came toward him. We were flanked on both sides by my cameraman and the girl holding the boom mic. We were about to make big news in the From Fat to Fabulous household.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, leaning past the cameraman to open the door. It swung forward noisily, creaking like the entrance to a haunted house. I stepped inside and flipped on the light switch. It smelled wonderfully of fresh baked cakes and pies.

  “Let’s make this quick,” I ordered, scanning the shelves.

  “So many choices!” Regan bounced on her heels. “How am I going to pick just one?”

  I heard some muffled talking, and then one of the cameramen spoke up, “You can pick more than one thing.”

  My jaw dropped. In all the days I’d been here—seven in total—I hadn’t heard so much as a peep out of the crew. Initially, their silence had troubled me. I often wished one of them would open up, crack a few jokes. Now that it had happened, it was making me uncomfortable.

  I hastily fetched a small bag of Fritos from the shelf.

  “I’m finished,” I said, backing out of the room, cameraman in tow.

  “Hang on, Kat. This is the highlight of my week!” Regan said. She sucked in a deep breath, savoring the aroma. “Growing up, I was never allowed to eat fatty foods. My parents always wanted me to be thin like my sister, Briana.” She groaned. “The perfect goddess. They compared me to her every single day. And Briana got to eat cookies, while I ate cottage cheese. She could eat whatever she wanted and still weigh 102 pounds.”

  “Metabolisms are evil,” I agreed. “Wicked, vile things.”

  “I want to enjoy this moment for as long as I can.”

  “Well, then, enjoy it alone,” I snapped, hurrying back into the kitchen.

  Didn’t Regan see she was playing right into their hands? She was embodying the worst of the fat-girl stereotypes—the compulsive foodaholic.

  As quickly as possible, I took a seat at the counter. Ripping open my bag of Fritos I began eating them at breakneck speed, popping several into my mouth at a time. Sure, this was no appropriate way to eat—since coming into the house, I had eaten all of my food very slowly, savoring each tiny little bite in an effort to avoid looking like I was pigging out on camera. But in this instance, I knew I needed to hurry. I was desperately dreading the moment Regan came out to join me.

  I’d be damned if I was going to let those bastards get any footage of two fat girls having a pig-out party.

  I had nearly finished the entire bag by the time Regan emerged, her arms loaded down with high-calorie foods. She made her way over to me, setting her bounty down on the counter.

  “Look, Kat!” she beamed. “I got butterscotch cookies, brownies, pizza-flavored Pringles, which aren’t as good as real pizza but they’ll do. And I also—”

  “Uh, I think I’m going to be sick,” I said, rising from my seat. It was a bold-faced lie, but I needed an excuse to get out of there fast. Another second, and I’d have been a goner.

  “Are you okay? Do you want me to come with you?”

  Regan, always helpful.

  “No, no, I’m fine,” I said. “You enjoy your snacks.”

  I darted out of the kitchen and went running up the stairs. I had to get as far away from the scene of the crime as possible. My cameraman followed close behind, overtaking me at one point and racing into the hall bathroom. He seemed utterly perplexed that I turned left, and went into my bedroom instead.

  And then I realized. Of course. They thought I was going to make myself throw up.

  Janelle wandered into the bedroom. “What was all that commotion about?”

  “A little mass pandemonium in the kitchen. I had to make a quick escape.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Regan and I ventured into the Tomb of Temptation,” I explained.

  “Got it.”

  “The camera crew was going berserk,” I said, feeling slightly self-conscious. I hated talking about people when they were in the room. “They were filming it like one of us was about to give an Academy Award-worthy performance. They even brought out that boom mic thing. It was kind of upsetting.”

  “Where’s the mic now?” She glanced around.

  “Probably still on Regan. She’s downstairs having a small feast.”

  “There’s a lesson here,” Janelle said, smiling wryly. “If you want more screen time, eat.”

  I blinked in confusion. “They’ve never cared so much before.”

  “That’s because before, you were eating celery sticks, which they can’t use. They need to get you eating chocolate cake. On a show like this one, that’s what makes great TV.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  From Fat to Fabulous’ crew outnumbered the contestants threefold. And those were just the ones we came into contact with in our daily lives—the cameramen and sound technicians. There was no telling how many others lurked behind the house’s walls, silently observing from the mysterious place Janelle referred to as “master control.”

  In addition to the wall cameras that had been stationed throughout the house, each of us had been assigned two personal cameramen.

  From what I could tell, they worked rotating shifts, twelve hours on, twelve hours off. The cameramen followed us around faithfully, nipping at our heels day and night.

  There were only two exceptions. They left us alone when we were incapacitated in one of the bathrooms (though, if you were merely blow-drying your hair or applying makeup in front of the mirror, they’d squeeze in). And whenever we were participating in some kind of a group event—a challenge or even a friendly chat—only three cameramen were present. If all six of us wound up in the same room at the same time, three of the cameramen would drop out of sight.

  “It’d be overkill,” Janelle explained. “When you’ve got that many cameramen, they start getting in each other’s way.”

  My daytime cameraman—a young, extremely skinny guy with blond hair—showed up around two o’clock each afternoon. On the rare occasions that I stayed downstairs late chatting with Janelle or Luisa in the kitchen, I saw “blond boy,” as I referred to him, leave around 2 A.M.

  In the mornings, an older, dark-haired man with a beard was there, shoving a camera into my face the second I crawled out of bed.

  From Fat to Fabulous also employed six
sound technicians outfitted with boom mics, and at any given time there were three in the house. They rotated among the contestants, taking their orders from headsets and often appearing when a fight, or some other interesting turn of events, was brewing. I never understood the necessity for this, considering we wore our mic packs virtually 24-7.

  At first, I found it difficult to tell the crew apart, particularly the cameramen. They all dressed similarly, in jeans and black T-shirts, and their faces were almost entirely obstructed by the equipment they carried.

  There were a few exceptions. Both of Regan’s cameramen were black, and in the daytime Maggie was followed around by a camerawoman. I wondered how the producers had decided to divide up the crews, if there was any rhyme or reason behind it. I wondered, also, if the cameramen had any say in who they were assigned to.

  I often found myself wanting to talk to them, to ask them, but stopped myself. It would have been useless—they never cracked, no matter what you said or did.

  Luisa tried on many occasions to get her daytime cameraman to break his reserve. She thought he was cute, “in a scrawny white-boy kind of way,” and enjoyed toying with him.

  “You want a beer?” she’d taunt. “Need to take a piss break?”

  He stood stoic and rigid the entire time, never so much as cracking a smile.

  It reminded me of the queen’s guards at Buckingham Palace—the ones so famous for their rigorous discipline. I’ve seen them so often on TV that, whenever I try to picture England, the image of them immediately springs to mind.

  Nick hates that. “It’s as if the American networks have no footage of England aside from The Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. You see a story about York on CNN, and they throw up a clip of the Thames,” he told me once. “Never mind that York is more than two hundred miles from London.”

  We were contractually bound to spend a minimum of thirty minutes a day in the Confession Chamber. There was no schedule for who had to go when; as long as the room was free, it was fine to go in. We could break up our diary sessions into fifteen-minute increments if we wanted, so long as we logged the full half hour before midnight. We were welcome to go over our allotted time if we wanted and, conversely, the producers could force us to stay in there longer.

  Whenever they came over the intercom and summoned one of us to the Confession Chamber—which usually happened right after an emotional moment or a heated argument—we had to go, no objections.

  Some of the contestants hated it. Luisa, in particular, found the process loathsome. “I got nothing to say for half an hour,” she griped. “I sit in there like a dummy staring at the camera.”

  Maggie wasn’t particularly interested, either. She preferred to spend her days sleeping.

  As for me, I thrived on it. The Confession Chamber was the one place I could speak my mind freely and honestly. I could say anything I wanted without fear of being ridiculed, or even interrupted.

  We were always interviewed, and the number of questions varied depending on how talkative you were.

  They usually started out by asking, “What’s on your mind today, Kat?” which opened up the door to a whole host of possibilities.

  It was a bit like The Wizard of Oz. The interviewer sat on the other side of the wall, posing questions and watching me through a two-way mirror. Usually I could place the voice—often Zaidee herself did the interviews—but occasionally there was a new person, a strange man or woman whom I didn’t recognize.

  A typical session would go something like this: “How do you feel about your housemates?”

  “Some of them are good . . . some not so good.”

  “Is there anyone in particular who has been annoying you lately?”

  “Alyssa,” I’d say. It was always Alyssa.

  “What does she do that bothers you?”

  “She’s started calling me Kit Kat, which I find insulting.”

  “Have you told her how you feel?”

  “I tell her all the time. She says that nicknames are a form of endearment.”

  “How are your weight-loss efforts going?”

  “You guys are all-knowing, all-powerful. You tell me.”

  I liked to play it coy with them at first, but pretty soon I’d succumb to their prodding. It didn’t take much to get me to speak my mind. Day after day I sat there in that big cushiony chair, mouthing off about whatever came to mind. The Confession Chamber was an open forum. I felt like a politician giving an important speech; all ears were on me. Before long, I started using it as a platform to spout my ideas about weight loss and fatphobia.

  “We understand that human beings have different colored eyes and skin, that certain people go bald while others have a full head of hair, that some of us are short, some tall. Noses, mouths, feet, and ears all come in different shapes and sizes. So why not bodies?” I asked. “Why does most of society behave as though all of us—no matter who we are, no matter what our lineage—have been born with identical metabolisms? And that those of us who are heavier than ‘the norm’ got this way out of sheer gluttony? Is it so impossible to believe that our bodies are different by force of nature?”

  “Do you feel the world treats you unfairly because you’re overweight?” Zaidee responded.

  “There’s a definite bias, yes. I mean, I know I overeat sometimes, but people act like that’s all I do. Besides, there are plenty of skinny people who overeat on a regular basis. Also, think of how different the reaction would be if I forced myself to throw up every time I pigged out, instead of keeping it down? People would feel sympathy toward me, not revulsion.”

  I thought of my good friend Cara Magley, and the promise I’d made to her that day we went shopping for plus-sized clothes. I had told her that if I got on television, I would challenge America’s stereotypes about the overweight. No matter how personal the topics became, I honored my vow.

  “My bra size is a 38C, which is by no means gargantuan,” I said in one particularly heated session. “Yet, whenever I go to Victoria’s Secret I can’t find anything that fits me. I search and search and turn up maybe one or two 38C’s. But they’ve got lots of 32C’s, and lots of 36DD’s. How often do you find a non-surgically-enhanced skinny girl with a rack that big? Does Victoria’s Secret own stock in silicone implants or something? Because I am seriously starting to wonder.”

  On some levels it was embarrassing, but I knew all across America millions of big women were watching, cheering me on for speaking the truth.

  At least, I hoped they were….

  ***

  “I can’t believe you’re really letting me do this,” I said, staring at the tiny portable phone.

  “I thought phone calls were strictly off-limits.”

  Jagger nodded. “They are. But this is a special case. Tomorrow’s the big announcement. Zaidee’s giving you guys one phone call each. You get five minutes. And, it goes without saying, it’s going to be taped.” He smiled. “But then, you probably could have guessed that, right?” He leaned forward and handed me the phone and his hand grazed mine.

  It was May thirtieth, the day before the press release was slated to go out informing the world that Luisa, Regan, Alyssa, Janelle, Maggie, and I were the contestants for From Fat to Fabulous. I had gone out to the pool for my interview session with Jagger and learned Zaidee was blessing us with a brief phone call home.

  It was bittersweet. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity, but I knew I’d be left homesick and heartbroken when it was over.

  “It’s kind of like how they give prisoners one phone call,” he said.

  I shuddered. “Bad image.”

  “Maybe. But I do kind of feel like a warden sometimes.” Jagger raised his eyebrows up and down in rapid succession. “Go on and make your call. Your five minutes starts as soon as you dial.”

  I stared anxiously at the phone, turning it over in my hands. For weeks I had been craving contact with the outside world. The obvious choice was to call Donna and beg her for information about Nick
. Trouble was, I had no real way of asking without being obvious. I’d kept Nick a secret and didn’t want to let the cat out of the bag now. I could get kicked off the show for lying on my application.

  The most logical choice, therefore, was to call my parents.

  My mother and father didn’t have the slightest clue I was going to be appearing on a reality show. My dad I wasn’t worried about. He took most things in stride. But my mom was another story. My mom is not the hippest person when it comes to popular culture. She gave up entertainment television when The Cosby Show went off the air. But somehow, someway—whether through a commercial, an article in the paper, or even a well-meaning friend—she’d find out. She’d turn on the television, and there I’d be, in all my debauched glory. I didn’t want her to keel over from the shock. Crossing my fingers for good luck, I punched in my parents’ number in Denver.

  Predictably, Mom answered before the phone had finished its first ring. My mother’s paranoid like that; she’s convinced every call is a matter of life and death. When I was a child, her logic, though bizarre, made the tiniest bit of sense.

  “What if you were kidnapped and had managed to escape from your captors long enough to call me?” she said once. “I’d never forgive myself for not answering in time.”

  My entire upbringing was fueled by her strange beliefs, which rotated from hopeless apathy to extreme paranoia. One minute she was terrified I’d contract the bubonic plague from playing in the park sandbox; the next she’d given up caring altogether. “Why bother? The world’s nothing but a giant deathtrap,” she’d say, sighing. “No matter what you do, death finds you in the end.”

  Her reactions were, at best, unpredictable. There was no telling what she’d say about From Fat to Fabulous.

  “Hi, Mom,” I said. I didn’t waste time asking how she was doing. That was an open-ended question that would invite a twenty-minute answer. I had to cut to the chase. “I need to tell you something.”

  “Oh my God!” I heard her draw in a breath. “You’re pregnant!”