by Amanda Davis
“Remembering. Yeah, that’s a problem,” the fat girl agreed, swishing her cup around, trying to find more milk shake. “But there are ways to change things.” She turned to me with a scary intensity, as though everything in her had melted into anger. “There are ways to even the score. And there are places we could go.”
I closed my eyes. Blood pounded in my ears. I felt her hand move in circles on my back.
Berrybrook had been what you might expect. A long white hallway. Concerned and pointed questions. Lots of sitting in a circle with other angry teenagers trying to explore our rage.
It was an interminable pale blur.
I was kept on an extended plan, fed a special diet and made to exercise. I’m sure my mom coughed up a lot of money for that, but Daddy had died with good insurance, so weren’t we lucky?
I told them what I needed to, but never let on that my head floated like a balloon, far above my body. That from up there I looked down on my exercising self, the nutty group of us talking about our pain. That even my clean white room was seen from somewhere near the ceiling.
There were no mirrors. To relieve us of the eyes of the outside world and add to the illusion that inside Berrybrook we were safe, we were not supposed to see ourselves. I was not shown the removal of my outer layers, though I felt my body become firmer and evaporate, felt whole parts of me fall away.
But after a while, all of that was easy. What was hard was going home. They told us all along it would be difficult, but I wasn’t prepared for the sharpness of the outside, the strong smells, the noise, the color.
When my mother drove me home that first day, the world seemed to be made of marshmallows: everything was spongy and bright. She came through a town that was exactly as I’d left it in an ambulance many months before. She relayed little bits of information: There’s a sale on jeans this Thursday. You’ll need new clothes. Uncle Harry broke his leg. I didn’t speak.
She pulled into our driveway and our house seemed to quiver. It was a giant stone reproduction of the house I’d imagined for so many months. It didn’t seem real.
I waited for her to unlock the door, then bolted to my room. It was extremely clean. I knew, without looking, that it had been pillaged for clues to my unraveling.
While I leaned in the doorway, movement caught my eye. There, in the corner, stood a skinny, stringy-haired girl with huge, terrified eyes. When I moved my hand, she moved hers. I looked to the side, she did the same. I stepped towards her and she grew larger.
When my mother saw me, she smiled and put her hands on her hips. “Dinner is served,” she said.
I followed her to the kitchen but I had no appetite. I couldn’t remember what an appetite felt like. Food was something I had ceased to want or understand, it was instead an evil obligation, something to be endured if possible, avoided if not.
We were much too careful to talk about anything, and the silence was stifling. Even our chewing seemed to echo against the walls. I wanted to tell her something, anything to make it better, but I couldn’t. I kept quiet, nodding and smiling when it seemed appropriate.
“Ground rules,” my mother said, her eyes bright. “I think we need some ground rules. What do you think? Spend some time together. Maybe we should eat together every night? That’s going to be hard, given my schedule, but if you think that’s something you really need, I think I could make some adjustments. At least I can try. Now, I know, these months have been difficult, but look at you! You look terrific, honey, just great! I really can’t wait to take you shopping.”
I tried to swallow, but the turkey had swelled in my mouth. I chewed and chewed and chewed. I felt my face grow red, tears tumble down my cheeks, but I didn’t know what to do. Finally I spit the food into my napkin.
“We can go to Belk’s on Friday and pick out some cute outfits together. Won’t that be fun? Would you like that?”
I wiped at my eyes to dry them and nodded but she didn’t seem to have noticed any of it. “May I be excused?” I said. “Please?”
My mother took a sip of wine, then refilled her glass before answering. She didn’t look at me.
“Sure,” she’d said, but her voice was soft. “You do whatever you want.”
After school I threw my hair into a ponytail, changed into running shoes and sweatpants, a sports bra and my favorite T-shirt—a soft green faded one that had belonged to my dad. The fat girl followed me silently to the edge of the driveway and waved at me with a chicken leg when I took off down the road. I hated running: it hurt and I couldn’t breathe for the first ten or fifteen minutes, but the rhythmic slam, slam, slam of shoe against pavement cleared my head. It was the only time that my body felt like it belonged to me. I rounded a curve and focused only on the road ahead, pushing myself to forget I was running and just float in a blank empty space above the pounding of feet. By the time I got home I was flushed and tired.
I took a quick shower and tried to read the assignment in Our Great Nation but got stuck on page 43. I read it over and over, discovering at the end of each loop that I had no idea what it had said. So I flopped on the couch and watched TV instead, letting canned laughter wash away my jagged thoughts and the shrapnel of the day. At dusk my mother came home.
She entered the house quietly and I heard her leave her bag in the hall and kick off her shoes. By the time she came to stand next to me in front of the television in her stocking feet, she had a tumbler of scotch. I sat up and made room for her on the couch, but she didn’t sit. I watched her cradle her glass in both hands. They were fine and smooth with long fingers. She twisted her engagement ring so it stood upright, then ran a hand through her hair and cleared her throat.
“Learn anything today?” she said without looking at me, and I saw the dark circles under her eyes, her roots growing in gray. I stared at her feet instead.
“I read that President Johnson got impeached.”
“What?” she said. Her feet were tiny, her toenails painted a dark rose color.
“Nothing. Never mind.”
The ice clinked against the side of her glass. “Why don’t you sit?” I said, and patted the couch beside me. She sank into it but kept her attention on the screen, where a TV dad was teaching a TV son how to fix his bike.
“How was your day, Mom?” I said.
“Fine, sweetheart. It was fine.”
I was tired and I wanted something else. I reached out and touched her shoulder. She flinched away, smiling brightly. “I should get going on dinner,” she said. “You must be hungry.” But she returned her gaze to the television, mesmerized only for as long as it took to swallow her scotch. Then she headed back to the kitchen and I spread out on the couch again.
We had a quiet dinner of skinless chicken and microwaved green beans. For dessert there were Weight Watchers brownies, but I didn’t want one. The future streamed ahead of me: a dark, endless river of days just like this one. I made a halfhearted stab at homework and then climbed into bed. Time to sleep until I had to do it again.
But the fat girl slumped in a chair in the corner of my room, eating popcorn with butter from a large porcelain bowl. Her face was greasy from stuffing handfuls in her mouth. Her flesh rippled and hung. She was so disgusting.
“I think we need to talk,” she said.
I stuck my head under a pillow and pushed the fabric of the pillow into my ears.
“Things aren’t going anywhere, Faith,” she said, kicking the chair. “You know I’m right. Don’t even try to ignore it.”
Her muffled voice came through loud and clear. I sat up straight. “How could I know that?! How the hell could things go well when you won’t leave me alone!?”
She licked her fingers, one by one, and watched me.
“You fucking horrible cow!” I yelled. “You miserable piece of shit!”
In charged Mom, barreling through the door. “Faith!” she said, with concern in her voice—but I saw the truth in the stupid expression she’d worn since I came back. She was afraid of me, her
daughter the monster, and she couldn’t hide it.
“You should knock!” I sniffled, and bit my lip. When I turned to her it was with a face of stone. “Hello, I’m sixteen and entitled to privacy…”
She held the doorknob like she could swing in or out. Make your choice, Mom, I whispered deep inside my head, but I knew she wouldn’t choose what I secretly hoped.
I was right: she backed out of the room, closing the door quietly, leaving me alone with the fat girl.
“Things are just never going to be the same,” the fat girl whispered, and I almost heard sympathy, but then she grabbed a handful of M&M’s and cupped them near her mouth.
“Hey, Faith,” she said, giggling. “Do these remind you of something? Something you swallowed?”
“Fuck you,” I said. But she’d been right. The fat girl always spoke the truth. Things were never going to be normal. There was no relief ahead. Each day would be hot and airless, a festival of shame and humiliation just like it was before, only now I’d become invisible.
“Time works wonders,” the fat girl said, and I wanted to hit her.
“Sorry,” she said. “But it does, I’m just saying.”
She was quiet for a moment and then when she spoke her voice was almost tender. “Besides, there are possibilities,” she said. “Plenty of possibilities.”
The next day the fat girl tackled lunch full of information.
I thought about what she said, about what it would mean to strike back, to get even, but I couldn’t imagine it would make me feel better.
“Oh, it would,” said the fat girl. “It would feel really good.” She spoke to me like I was a stupid child. In her lap was a roasting pan with a whole crispy chicken. She severed one wing with a small gold knife. “When someone kicks you,” she said slowly, “you get up and kick them back.”
“I don’t know,” I said, and the fat girl shook her head.
“What do you want to remember,” she asked me, delicately cutting away at the bird, “doing what you’ve been told or changing everything?”
“Changing everything,” I whispered.
“Right,” she said, and gnawed on a drumstick.
“Right,” I said, and took the knife she handed me.
A few teachers had taken me aside to mention carefully that they knew how much school I’d missed and they were available if I needed assistance catching up. No one directly mentioned why I’d been gone. Mrs. Lemont, in math, had looked at me strangely and kept her hands close to her body, like I might leave a sticky stain on her palms if she touched me. Mrs. Wilson, the chemistry teacher, had told me there were no favors for people like me and that phrase sang through my head the whole next day, people like me. It made me laugh. I wanted to stop her and say, Excuse me, Mrs. Wilson, could you clarify? Would that be just attempted suicides, or anyone who’s spent time in a loony bin? I couldn’t even imagine the look on her soft squishy face.
Mr. Feldman, my English teacher, was a mousy man, oddly formal, with small rounded shoulders and a terrible balding pattern. Books got him so excited that his high forehead turned red and beady and he took his round wire glasses off and used them to poke the air. Shakespeare practically made him froth at the mouth.
He asked me to stay after the bell rang and I knew what was coming next.
“I’ll be late to history,” I’d said.
“I’ll write you a pass, Miss Duckle, it’s okay.” Mr. Feldman gestured to a desk near him and came around and sat on the edge of his. He cleared his throat. “Faith,” he said. “I know where you’ve been. I know it must be rough being back here and—”
Then he paused for a long time and I had to concentrate to keep my mind from drifting away.
“—well, I know what it’s like to return to school after a…” He cleared his throat. “…long absence,” he said finally.
He looked at the ceiling and then clasped his hands in front of him and shook them at me like a small round tambourine. “All I’m saying is, I don’t want you to feel pressured. I want you to feel like you have whatever space you need to…adjust.”
I blinked and then realized he wanted something from me.
“Thanks, Mr. Feldman,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
“Your work is…” he trailed off again. I wondered what place he’d been to and where he’d returned but I didn’t ask. “If you’re having problems…” he said. “If you need anything, you can come to me, Faith.”
I wanted to leave the room so badly I could taste it. He looked like there was something else he wanted to say. I waited. Then the bell rang again and I stood. He lunged at me and gave me an awkward, stiff hug. “There, there,” he said.
After my last class, I went to use the bathroom. The hallways were deserted, the day was over. The fat girl was nowhere to be found. I wandered through the school looking but didn’t see her anywhere. I went outside, to the low wall, but she wasn’t there, either.
Then I saw her at the bottom of the hill. She was spinning in loops and arcs in the center of the football field. Her skirt swung over the grass, her body was a giant blue swirl. I got halfway down the hill, then stopped.
Homecoming had been almost a year ago, when I was still huge and lumbering. The bleachers, that night, the whole of it swept up on me then, sudden and hazy.
We stood with our red plastic cups, breath fogging the air. The guys were so friendly and I felt charming. They laughed at everything I said and punched each other’s arms, clustering around. We talked about something, our voices colliding, our steamy breath forming tiny clouds that spiraled up and drifted off into the night. A boy with blue eyes whispered, Where have you been all my life? I hiccuped, giggled. I couldn’t stop grinning. I tossed my hair. They buzzed around me, all smiles.
She’s nice, one boy said to another. Everything was rubbery and unreal. The blue-eyed boy put his arm around me and leaned in close. You’re so pretty, Faith, do you have a boyfriend? he whispered. I flushed, unsteady. Does someone love you like you deserve to be loved? No, I thought. More punch, someone offered, and I took a long drink. The guys nodded their heads, closing in around me. A tall boy’s voice cut the air, loud and clear, John, you know what they say about fat girls, right? My head was thick and cloudy, I couldn’t really breathe. What do they say? answered a boy in a red parka. I didn’t know what to do. Fat girls are hungry, said another boy with a ratty mustache. Fat girls are hungry, an echo. I turned to leave but they had my arms. C’mon, Faith, Blue Eyes said, I thought you liked us. I don’t feel well, I whispered. My heart pounded.
Feed the fat girl! Someone pushed me to my knees. Someone else had my arms, his nails jagged, a striped silver ring on his middle finger. Right in my ear, You tell anyone and we’ll kill you. I stared at buckles and pockets. He pinched my nose so my mouth fell open. Then the terrible sound of zippers and one after the other they came at me, chanting. Feed the fat girl! Over and over I gagged, I couldn’t breathe. We’ll tell what a slut you are. Then I was shoved to all fours. I stared at hands, at sneakers and boots, the cuffs of pants and jeans. The fatter the berry the sweeter the juice. And laughter. The fatter the berry the sweeter the juice.
I didn’t make it down the hill. I got halfway, and my stomach turned over. I sat hard on the ground and smelled fresh-cut grass, honeysuckle. Far away a lawn mower hummed. The field was utterly empty—the fat girl was nowhere, was gone.
I couldn’t breathe right. I closed my eyes, crossed my fingers, and wished desperately for a sign, any sign that things would be okay. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and yelped.
Tony Giobambera leapt away from me. “Sorry,” he mumbled, uneasy. “I saw you sit. You okay?”
“Yeah,” I bellowed. I tried to say, “I’m fine,” but instead began to cry.
“Here,” he said, and helped me to my feet. “Here.”
He put an arm around my shoulders and led me to the bleachers. I smelled him: cigarettes, sweat, something musky and male. We sat side by side and I was drowning and floating a
ll at once. I didn’t know what to do.
“Um,” he said. He shoved his hands in his pockets. “You all right?”
His gravelly voice calmed me. I groped around for an answer. “Sure,” I said, my own voice squeaky and weird. We sat quietly like that for a minute. He looked out over the field. I studied his clear blue eyes and bumpy skin. His lips were perfect and full. One big black curl arced over his left brow.
The silence squeezed at me and I felt like I should say something, anything. “I’m real sorry about your girlfriend,” I said.
“Oh.” He looked at me quizzically. “Yeah…” Then he took a deep breath. “Listen, about what happened…” His voice trailed off. “That was really fucked up is all,” he said.
I wasn’t sure what he meant. But my silence held three things: the desire to preserve that perfect, unspoiled moment, and the knowledge that everything in me that hurt wanted a say right then, and how afraid I was of what would happen if I let it.
I looked out over the field. Far away, by the line of trees I saw a large blue shape spin and whirl, then fall down. She stayed like that for a minute, then rose, lurched wildly, and spun again.
Tony Giobambera lit a cigarette and offered me one. I hesitated, then took it and leaned into the flame he cupped.
I dragged and exhaled. My head fluttered lightly off my shoulders. A bug buzzed by. I swatted it away. The fat girl spun and fell.
I felt the air around us charge with energy, atoms bombarding on all sides. “What do you dream?” I asked him, and he squinted at me.
“Dumb things, mostly,” he said, like it was the most normal question in the world. “Sometimes dragons or really stupid shit, cars, school…”
