The Fat Girl

by Marilyn Sachs

  “Are you going to college?” I asked her briskly.

  “I don’t know.”

  “How are your marks?”

  “Okay, I guess. About a B.”

  “Well, did you apply to any schools?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “It’s not too late. You can still apply to State, and I understand some of the University of California campuses will accept late applications.”

  Her eyes were on my face. She was listening to what I said, accepting my advice. She was going to live.

  “I think you should apply, Ellen.”

  “Well,” she said slowly, “maybe I will. But where?”

  “Start with State. Then phone Berkeley and ask about late applications. If you don’t get in there, maybe Santa Cruz would take you, or Irvine . . .”

  She nodded as I went on talking. Her eyes moved all over my face, but I pretended not to notice.

  I arrived at Norma’s house about ten thirty. The family were all deep into their packing for the trip to Tahoe. One of Joey’s skis was missing, and Mr. Jenkins was shouting, “How can you lose one ski? Answer me that.” Mrs. Jenkins was piling jars of fruit compote into cardboard boxes and listening to a recording of Aida.

  “How come you never can spaghetti sauce or chili?” Lucia demanded. “I’m tired of eating fruit compote all the time. Most of my friends never eat fruit compote. They eat spaghetti or chili.”

  Nobody noticed me particularly, as usual. Even Norma was busy up in her room, rolling some of her pots up in rags.

  “What are you doing that for?” I asked her.

  “A geologist at Berkeley said there might be an earthquake during the next few weeks. I thought I’d better protect some of my pots.”

  It was funny, but now that Norma wasn’t interested in Ellen, I wanted to talk about her. I was high on Ellen.

  “I had a very nice time at Ellen’s house,” I told her.

  “Oh, that’s right. You went to Ellen’s. Here, Jeff, would you just hold this vase up straight for a second?”

  “She lost two pounds this week.”

  “That’s nice. Jeff, could you reach up and take down that blue and white bowl from the shelf. I think I’d better wrap that one up too.”

  “I think she’s in love with me, Norma.”

  “Poor thing!” Norma pushed all of her wrapped pots under her bed. “If anything falls, they’ll be protected here,” she said.

  “I don’t think it’s such a terrible thing,” I said. “She’s not talking about killing herself anymore, and I got her to take lessons with Ida O’Neill. And another thing, she’s going to register for college. Because I said she should. She’ll do anything I tell her.”

  “Poor thing!” Norma said again. She was still sitting on the floor, looking up at me. Her hair lay rumpled but shiny gold on her head. How beautiful her face was, with its bright blue eyes and sharp clear features. What a contrast to Ellen’s.

  “Why do you keep saying, ‘Poor thing’?” I asked.

  “Because if she’s in love with you, it’s sad.”

  “Well, I can still be her friend, can’t I? I can still help her feel good about herself, and maybe I can get her out of her shell.”

  Norma shrugged her shoulders. “I just want to wrap up that big pitcher downstairs in the dining room and the long-necked vase in my parents’ room, Jeff, and then I’ll be finished. Oh, wait! Maybe I’d better do the three green plates, too, and that big blue and white platter . . .”

  Norma liked me a lot, I guess, but her pots always came first.

  eleven

  The one thing my mother did right during the Christmas holiday break was to tell me about Lady Bountiful.

  “One of my patients who’s very fat has a marvelous robe—all rich golds and oranges. I never saw anything like it. She was the one who told me that she bought it in this special shop, just for fat women. You should tell your friend about it.”

  Everything else my mother did was wrong. She didn’t leave Wanda alone for a minute, nagging at her, carping at her, bugging her over nothing.

  I tried to stop her. I still hoped Wanda might change her mind, if my mother could only get off her back.

  “Mom,” I told her, “Wanda’s only fourteen. She’s a good kid, but she’s only fourteen.”

  “She’s a slob,” said my mother. “Did you see the bathroom floor this morning? It’s like there’s a flood.”

  “Please, Mom,” I said, “just try not to notice. Let’s all have a good time this Christmas. Okay, Mom? Let’s plan some fun things together. Just the three of us. What do you say?”

  My mother bought tickets to the Nutcracker ballet. When we were little, she used to take us every year even though I hated it. I still hated it, and Wanda couldn’t see anything because there were three tall people sitting in front of us.

  I took Ellen over to Lady Bountiful, and as soon as we walked into the store, a saleswoman nearly as fat as Ellen stepped forward and greeted us enthusiastically. She was wearing a long, flowing robe with brilliant splashes of reds and golds. Her eyes traveled over Ellen admiringly.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  Ellen looked at me, and I said, “Well, we were wondering if you had anything in her size.”

  The woman’s teeth shone as she lead us over to a rack of clothes and began pulling out one dress after another.

  “But they’re so bright,” Ellen protested.

  “Yes, they are, honey,” said the saleswoman. “Don’t you like bright colors?”

  “It’s not that,” said Ellen, “I just thought . . .”

  “You thought,” the saleswoman said, “that because you were fat you had to wear dark, quiet colors. That you were supposed to wear unobtrusive colors so that nobody would notice you. Well, we don’t believe that here. We believe you should wear the most beautiful clothes there are, so that everybody will not only notice you but admire you as well.”

  She went on talking all the time Ellen was trying on the clothes.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being fat,” she said. “The only thing wrong is listening to people who say it’s wrong. Here, honey, I want you to try this purple and green caftan. It will look good with your green eyes.”

  You could hardly notice Ellen’s eyes when she wore the caftan. The brilliant fabric was overpowering and her face seemed lost on top of that mass of color.

  “Hmm,” said the saleswoman, “you need a little more makeup and you really have to do something with your hair.”

  “My hair?” Ellen was cringing before the mirror. “What’s the matter with my hair?”

  “It’s too tame. Let it grow out and wear a big Afro.”

  “But I don’t like curly hair.”

  “And maybe you need to wear some heavy jewelry. Do you have any of those big clay beads?”

  “No, I like pearls.”

  The saleswoman and I began talking. “They sell a lot of those big necklaces down at Cost Plus,” I told her. “And you can get some heavy metal chains there too. I went there a couple of times with my . . . with a friend of mine.”

  “That’s the idea. See, she has to make herself up much bolder. She needs eye makeup and bright red lipstick.”

  “But my mother doesn’t think . . .” Ellen began to say.

  “I see what you mean,” I said to the saleswoman. “She’s really tall enough to carry it, isn’t she?”

  “Absolutely,” said the saleswoman. “She must be about five seven.”

  “I’m only five six.”

  “And her hair is too flat on her head. She’s got to let it grow out and wear a big Afro. Here, I’ll show you. Sit down over here, honey.”

  In spite of Ellen’s protests, the saleswoman began combing Ellen’s
hair until it stood out straight around her head. “Actually, she’s got quite a bit of body in her hair but she’s been wearing it all wrong. She needs a perm.”

  “My parents just gave me a new hair dryer for my birthday.”

  “Throw it out,” said the saleswoman. “You don’t need one with an Afro.”

  “Well, where should she go for a permanent?” I asked.

  “Try Scissors and Shears on California.”

  “And what about makeup?”

  “I hate makeup,” Ellen was saying. “It ruins your skin and . . .”

  “You can buy some mascara in the dime store and some eye shadow—maybe a green or blue shade for her, and a nice, bright lipstick. She can even smear a little on her cheeks—she has to experiment. But she has a pretty face, so she’s off to a flying start.”

  Both of us paused to inspect Ellen’s face in the mirror. She was watching me in the mirror, waiting for me to say whether or not she had a pretty face. Waiting for me to tell her.

  “She’s going to have a beautiful face,” I said, “by the time we’re through.”

  Those two weeks of Christmas were the happiest I had ever spent in my whole life. I managed to stop thinking about my mother and Wanda. When I wasn’t working at the hardware store, I was busy with Ellen. I was turning her into a human being.

  She completely absorbed me. I started reading fashion magazines—Glamour, Vogue . . . I looked at the painted faces of the models and I learned what to do with Ellen. Money was no problem. Her family was overjoyed to spend it. We bought two caftans at Lady Bountiful and three tunics with matching pants. All of them glowed with brilliant colors and flowed around her body as if she were a monument. There was a gleaming, golden robe that I wanted her to buy, but this time the saleswoman talked me out of it. “Unless she has something really fancy to go to—a formal affair, she wouldn’t get much use out of it.”

  I took her to Scissors and Shears. She went in with her limp hair hanging shapelessly around her face and emerged with a head full of springy curls. I made her buy makeup, and I spent hours with her up in her room, applying lipstick, mascara, and eye shadow.

  “Look how it brings out the green in your eyes.”

  “But it feels funny.”

  “You’ll get used to it. Now, let’s try a little of this eyeliner.”

  We went to Cost Plus and bought heavy bead necklaces and chains with huge metal pendants. She clanked when she walked and I forced her to stand up straight and take long, leisurely steps.

  New Year’s Eve I spent with her. First, we had dinner at her house and she wore her long, blue caftan with the orange and wine birds-of-paradise design. She had large, golden hoops in her ears, and around her neck hung three strands of red and orange clay beads. I checked her over carefully when she opened the door.

  “What kind of shoes are you wearing?”

  “My sandals.”

  “That’s good. Now let’s take a look at your face.”

  She turned it up to me and waited for the verdict. “You could have used a little more mascara, but that blue eye shadow is just right. And I like your lipstick. That’s a good shade for the dress.”

  “That’s the one you told me to use,” she answered.

  Ellen’s brothers were off with their friends, so we had dinner with only her parents. Ellen ate practically nothing, even though her mother had made stuffed breast of veal. She swallowed a tiny piece of the meat and then slowly ate a small salad without dressing. Whenever she looked at me, I nodded approvingly.

  “I do think, Ellen, you could make an exception, since this is New Year’s Eve,” said her mother in a cranky voice.

  “I’ve lost eight pounds,” Ellen said reverently.

  “Well, you do have to be careful, dear. You don’t want to overdo it.”

  “I want to lose at least another seventy-two,” Ellen insisted.

  “But not all tonight,” said her mother.

  Her father laughed. “Go figure out my wife,” he said to me. “For years she’s been trying to get Ellen to lose weight, and now that she is . . .”

  “Oh, I’m not complaining,” said Mrs. De Luca. “I think it’s wonderful that she has such self-control, but it is New Year’s Eve and I do want her to enjoy herself.”

  “I am enjoying myself,” said Ellen.

  “And I do think, dear, that you’re wearing much too much makeup for a girl your age.”

  “But Jeff thinks I should.”

  Mrs. De Luca sighed and cut me a slice of Nesselrode pie. Ellen didn’t have any.

  Her parents went to a party that night, so we had the house to ourselves. I helped Ellen clear the table and stack the dishes in the dishwasher. Later, we sat in the living room, and I told her that I thought in the next few weeks we should start filling out college applications for her. She looked scared.

  “What’s the matter, Ellen? I thought you agreed that you were going to college.”

  “Yes, I know, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  She had a panicky look on her face.

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t want to go away from you,” she cried, and the tears started spilling all over her face. “I don’t want to. I can’t. I can’t go away from you.”

  It wasn’t midnight yet but I put my arms around her, around all of her, and I kissed her soft mouth very gently. Her eyes were smudged from the tears mingling with the mascara, and I blotted them carefully and rocked her in my arms and told her not to cry anymore. I knew that I had brought her back from death and made a human being of her. She belonged to me now and I would never let her go.

  Norma called me as soon as she got back from Tahoe.

  “It was great,” she said. “Joey broke his ankle and Carmen got the worst case of sunburn you’ve ever seen, but I managed to ski every day.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “Just about everybody was up this year. I met John Kingman—you know him, don’t you, Jeff? He’s in my French class, and I think he was in your civics class last year—he knows you. And Roger and Dolores were up for a few days. They stayed with us, and one day we all went cross-country skiing, and Roger managed to get lost and . . .”

  She went on and on, and I didn’t stop her. It didn’t matter to me what she was saying or even what was going to happen after she stopped. It was as if I’d never really known her or cared for her, as if she was always way off in the distance, like her voice over the telephone.

  Finally, she began winding down. “Well, I really had a marvelous time, but . . . guess what?”

  “What?” I asked, looking at my watch. I was going over to Ellen’s house and we were going to decide what she should wear on her first day back at school. Then, later, we’d sit in her living room alone—her parents always disappeared—and we’d talk and make plans. She’d watch me and wait—her eyes fixed on my face, especially on my mouth. I knew she was waiting for me to kiss her, wondering if I was going to. She was so new at it, scared too I guess, wondering if I was going to, wanting me to, worrying that I wouldn’t. But I wasn’t going to hurt her or frighten her. So I’d hold her very gently, and we’d kiss like little kids, and she’d lay her head on my shoulder and listen while I talked to her, and both of us were happy.

  “I missed you, you big jerk. If it weren’t for missing you, I could have stayed there forever. Next year, you’ve just got to come up, at least for a few days. And how come you didn’t write? Just that one lousy Christmas card. I wrote you just about every day.”

  “I was busy, Norma.”

  “Oh!” Her voice grew serious. “Is everything all right at home? Did Wanda move out yet?”

  “No, no,” I said quickly. “I’ve been working and, Norma, I have to tell you something.”

  “What is it, J
eff? Something’s wrong. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “No, nothing’s wrong, Norma, but I’ve been spending a lot of time with Ellen.”

  “Who?”

  “Ellen, Ellen De Luca.”

  “Oh, Ellen De Luca!” She sounded relieved. “That’s nice, Jeff.” She began laughing. “Look, why don’t you come on over right now, and you can tell me what’s been happening with you. The house is a mess and we’re eating pickled cauliflower, but you’re used to that. Just come on over.”

  “I can’t, Norma, that’s what I want to tell you. I can’t because I’m going over to Ellen’s. I’ve gotten to really care about her, Norma. I’m sorry, but I’ll be going around with her now, and I guess that means it’s all over with you and me.”

  That was how I told her. That was the way I said goodbye to Norma. She didn’t deserve it, I know. I should have let her off more gently. She was—she is—one of the nicest girls I ever met. If it weren’t for Ellen, who knows, Norma and I might have ended up married one day with a bunch of gorgeous kids and a houseful of gorgeous pots to go with them.

  Norma didn’t argue with me. She didn’t cry, and she didn’t say I must have gone off my rocker. She just said, very softly, “Good luck, Jeff,” and she hung up.

  twelve

  I coached Ellen the night before school started. I made her try on different clothes and practice entering the living room over and over again.

  “No! No! No!” I told her. “Get your head up and your chest out. Don’t cower. People want to slug you when you slump over like that.”

  She tried. She wanted to please me. In the beginning, that was all she wanted to do.

  “Try it again. And this time, don’t bump into anything.”

  Monday morning, I sat in the ceramics class and waited for her to arrive. As usual, she was late, and the bell had already rung when she appeared in the doorway.

  She was wearing a wine-colored caftan with jagged slashes of gold. Four strands of huge wooden and copper beads hung around her neck. I had given her careful instructions about the kind of makeup I wanted her to wear—green eye shadow and a dark, purply red lipstick. Her hair stood out all around her head and large gold earrings hung down almost to her shoulders.