“Hello.”
He scanned my chart. “How’s that prednisone doing for you?” he asked, sitting in the chair opposite me.
“I think I should stop taking it,” I said.
“Have the rashes recurred?” he asked.
“Not really. But look at my weight.”
He looked at the chart again. “You’ve gained …”
“Eighteen pounds,” I filled in for him.
“Eighteen pounds,” he repeated, nodding, still looking at the chart, “that’s over, what …”
“Almost two months. You said I could retain water …”
“Exactly,” he agreed. “But also, some people report that prednisone affects their appetite and they feel hungry all the time. That can lead to weight gain.”
My hands clenched the sides of my chair, my knuckles white. That explained why I was starving all the time. That explained why I couldn’t stay on a diet!
I put on my best beauty-pageant smile. “You didn’t mention that to me before.”
He smiled benignly at me. “Why put the idea into your pretty little head? You’d be amazed how often patients just happen to develop whatever negative side effect of a drug we tell them is a possibility.”
“But the scale doesn’t lie,” I said timidly.
He sighed and rubbed his chin. “No, it doesn’t. And I have to say this is a fairly large weight gain in a short period of time, even for someone on prednisone. But your allergies are under control now, and it should taper off.”
I forced my clenched fists under my legs so he wouldn’t see them. I was careful to keep my voice sweet. “Excuse me, Doctor, but I’m kind of concerned that I’m getting fat.”
“Ms. Ardeche, I would not call one hundred thirty-six pounds on a healthy, five-foot-seven-inch teenager fat.”
“You don’t understand,” I said slowly. “None of my clothes fit. Everyone in my family is thin.”
“Did a parent come with you today?” Dr. Fabrio asked.
“My mother. She’s very upset about this.”
What I didn’t add was that it had been everything I could do to keep her out of the examining room.
Dr. Fabrio tapped his finger against his lips. “How are things at home for you, Lara?”
“Fine,” I replied.
“No problems?”
“None.”
“Getting along okay at school?”
“I was homecoming queen.”
He tapped my chart against his knee again. “Family pressure, urticaria, origin unknown, weight gain, and you seem very tense.”
I lifted my hand to smooth my hair and then put both my hands back in my lap, one on top of the other, in perfect, ladylike pageant form.
“Doctor, I appreciate your concern.” I smiled at him. “But you see, I’m supposed to compete in the Miss Teen Tennessee pageant early next year. At this weight, I might as well not even enter.”
“See if you can follow me here, Lara,” Dr. Fabrio said. “I think what is happening is that you are blaming the reaction to the problem on your stress, rather than blaming the problem itself.”
I looked at him blankly.
“In other words, the rashes, the weight gain, are symptoms of something that is bothering you.”
Smile. “You’re saying this is all in my head?”
“Look, Lara, it’s nothing to be ashamed of. The teen years are very, very tough.” He rubbed his chin again. “I’d like to put you on Doxepin—it’s an antidepressant with strong antihistamine effects. You’ll take two at night before you go to sleep.”
“And I can stop the prednisone?” I asked eagerly.
“Slowly,” Dr. Fabrio cautioned. “Take half a pill less every two days until you stop, is that clear?”
“The Doxepin won’t make me gain weight?”
“That is not a known side effect of this drug.”
“Thank you, thank you, that’s wonderful,” I said happily. “I’m so relieved.”
He patted my hand. “I hope Doxepin is helpful. But you might want to consider some kind of counseling to help you with whatever is stressing you out.” He stood up. “There’s no shame in it. It can be very beneficial.”
He scribbled out a prescription for the new drug, and I clutched it in my hands like a lifeline as I rushed into the waiting room. Now it all made sense. I wasn’t crazy. It was the prednisone that was making me so hungry. But now that I could stop taking it, I would lose the eighteen pounds quickly and I could pretend this whole, awful experience had never happened to me.
“What did he say?” my mother demanded, standing up.
“No more prednisone!” I cried happily, hugging her.
“Oh, honey, that’s great,” my mother said, hugging me back. “What a nightmare this has been, huh?” She went to the front desk and gave them her medical insurance card.
“Mom, do you think I’m stressed out?”
“Now, that’s ridiculous,” my mother said.
“Do you think I need counseling?”
“You?” She laughed.
“That’s what I thought.” I smiled. “Let’s just go fill this prescription.”
We bundled into our coats—the weather had turned chilly—and, our arms around each other’s waists, headed out of the doctor’s office.
“Is it my imagination, or was that the worst movie I ever saw?” I asked Jett as we left the movie theater that evening.
“Worse than that, even,” Jett joked as he held the door open for me.
“Snow!” I sang out. While we had been suffering through a terrible movie, it had started to flurry. I lifted my face to it and stuck out my tongue.
“Let’s go get ice cream,” Jett suggested, pulling me toward the Baskin-Robbins at the end of the strip mall.
“I don’t need ice cream,” I told him.
“Hey, everyone needs ice cream.” He kissed my cheek.
Baskin-Robbins was already crowded with other loud moviegoers. “What do you want?” Jett asked, getting in line.
I smiled at him. “Nothing, and don’t try to talk me out of it.”
He turned and put his arms around my waist. At first I flinched, sure he felt the circle of fat at my midriff. But now that I knew I could throw out the prednisone and what he felt was truly temporary, I relaxed in his embrace.
“So, is it my imagination, or are you happier tonight than you’ve been in a while?”
He was so amazing, so sensitive to my moods. Yes, I wanted to tell him, I am happy! I don’t have to take prednisone anymore. I’m going to lose all the weight I gained. The nightmare is over!
But I didn’t say any of that. I just smiled, said, “You’re right,” in what I hoped was a provocative, mysterious way, and kissed him lightly on the lips.
“Well, good, whatever it is.” He gently pushed a lock of hair off my face. “You look really beautiful tonight.”
“I do?”
“Yeah. Incandescent. Lit from within.”
“Hey, Lara,” Jennie Smith called, entering the store. She had on a short wrap coat, and even under tights, her legs looked bony. She was so skinny. Her date, a tall, nice-looking guy I’d never seen before, hung back by the door talking to another guy.
“Oh, hi,” I said. “Did you just go to the movies?”
“We saw the new Brad Pitt thing,” she said. She turned and waved to her date, then turned back to us. “He goes to Father Ryan,” she explained, mentioning a private school not far from our high school. “Do you think he’s cute?”
“Sure,” I said.
“He’s okay.” She shrugged. “I’m trying to decide if I should bring him to Amber’s party.” She put her hands on her stomach. “I don’t know what I’m doing in Baskin-Robbins. I am so fat. Besides, this stuff is poison. Dairy and fat—ugh.”
“Ugh,” Jett echoed, trying to keep a straight face.
Jennie looked me over with X-ray vision. “You’re not eating ice cream, are you, Lara?”
“No, of course not,�
�� I assured her.
“I never eat ice cream. I guess I’ll get a diet Coke and watch Taylor eat. Well, see y’all.”
“That girl is a piece of work,” Jett said ruefully.
“I don’t blame her for wanting to stay thin,” I said.
Jett turned and put his arms around me again. “Hey, how about if we blow this off and go back to my house? My parents are in New York, meeting with my mom’s agent.”
Alone with Jett. It sounded blissful. Exciting. And dangerous. What if he wanted to … and was I ready to …?
“Okay,” I said, “but not … I mean …”
He cupped my chin in his hand, his eyes searching mine. “Lara, there’s plenty of time for that.”
“There is?”
“When we’re ready, we’re ready. It doesn’t have to be now. What I meant was that I want to draw you.”
Draw me. He wanted to be alone with me to draw me.
“I’d love that,” I whispered, nuzzling against his chest. I felt all these different things: relief, excitement, disappointment.
He hadn’t asked to draw me since that very first night on the beach. But now I looked “incandescent.” Beautiful. All because my anxiety about my weight was gone.
We slowly drove back to Jett’s house, careful on the slippery roads as the snow changed over to sleet. It was a ranch house, set far back on a wooded lot. It was nice, though it wasn’t nearly as large as my house.
We went into the family room. In the corner was a beautiful old upright piano. On the wall above it were framed photos of sculptures Jett’s mom had done for various corporate art collections.
“Hey, play something,” Jett said, cocking his head toward the piano. “I love to listen to you play.”
Jett sat on the couch and I went over to the piano and got comfortable. I began to play the piece I’d be playing for my upcoming recital, Chopin’s Sonata in C minor. I closed my eyes and the music washed over me, transporting me to some timeless place of perfect grace, beauty, love.
“I know how you feel,” Jett said quietly.
I opened my eyes. He was sitting next to me on the piano bench.
“I feel that way when I’m painting sometimes.” His hand gently touched my cheek. “Come on, there’s something I want you to see.”
Although I had been to Jett’s house before, I’d only been in the kitchen, dining room, and family room. Now Jett led me by the hand into the living room.
It didn’t have the sterile perfection of our white-on-white living room—instead it had more color and emotion. The couch, deep midnight-blue velvet with stripes of blue satin, was set on a jewel-toned Oriental carpet. Incredible art hung on the walls.
“The art,” I said in an awe-filled voice, looking around at the walls.
“By my mom’s friends,” Jett said. “But this is what I really wanted you to see.”
He led me to the far corner, where a sculpture sat on a black marble pedestal, illuminated by a floodlight recessed into the ceiling. It was a nude young woman on her knees, head thrown back, hands raised to the sky. The engraved copper plate on the pedestal read THINGS I CANNOT CHANGE.
“This is so beautiful,” I told Jett, barely touching the cool marble with one finger.
“It’s my favorite piece of Mom’s,” Jett said. “It’s just … it’s all feeling. Like when you play the piano.”
He understood. I reached up and kissed him. He kissed me back.
“What’s it like, having your mom be so famous?”
He shrugged. “She had a piece in the Museum of Modern Art by the time I was two, so I have no basis of comparison.” He sat on the sofa.
“What do you think it means, ‘Things I Cannot Change’?”
He thought a moment. “That everything isn’t in our control, even though we want it to be.”
I was still standing by the sculpture. “You think she’s happy or angry or what?”
“I say both,” he decided. “Happy to believe in a power greater than she is, and angry that she has to surrender to it.”
I sat down next to Jett. “I believe we create our own destiny.”
“Yeah, but there’s a lot we just don’t control.”
“A lot of times that’s just an excuse,” I said firmly.
“But a lot of times it isn’t.” Jett sipped his Coke and lifted a lock of my hair. “Sometimes …”
“What?”
“Sometimes I wish I were a musician,” he mused.
“Or—I don’t know—a photographer. Anything but an artist.”
“Because you think people will compare you to your mom?”
“No, because I know people will compare me to my mom.” He sighed. “Hey, how about if I build a fire?”
“That’d be great. I can never get a fire started.”
“Don’t be impressed—my parents bought these fake cheater logs,” he explained as he knelt in front of the fireplace and held a match to the synthetic log. The flame took. He got up and turned out the light, then came back to me on the couch.
“Nice,” I said. I leaned my head against his shoulder, his arm around me. Slowly he turned toward me, holding my hair away from my face. He looked so beautiful in the firelight.
“I think about going to Europe, you know?” he confessed. “To art school? And changing my name, just so no one will know I’m her son.”
I didn’t say a word.
“Sometimes I think that’s all I’ll ever be—famous artist Anastasia Anston’s son.”
“No,” I said firmly. “Someday she’ll be famous artist Jett Anston’s mother.”
And then he kissed me, softly at first, and then more passionately.
“Jett, I—I …,” I said breathlessly.
“What?”
I didn’t know what to say. I want us to make love? I don’t want us to make love?
“The light on your skin is so beautiful,” Jett said. He got up from the couch. “I’ll be right back.”
I sat there, panicked. Please, God, I thought, don’t let him come back in here naked. No, he would never do that. He could never—
His sketchpad. He came back in with his sketchpad.
I had totally forgotten that was why we were supposed to be there.
Without a word he stretched one hand out to me, and I took it. He lifted me off the couch. And that’s when he said it.
“Take off your clothes,” he whispered.
“What?”
“So I can draw you.”
“Not naked!”
“But, Lara, you’re so beautiful—”
Not anymore! Not with eighteen pounds of hideous fat on my body! Why, oh why, couldn’t this moment have come just a few weeks later, when I would be thin again?
“I am not taking off my clothes,” I said firmly, crossing my arms over my breasts.
He reached out for me. “Look, if you think this is some sophomoric bid to get your clothes off—”
“Forget it.” I moved away from him.
“Okay, okay,” he said, holding his hands up.
“Just forget it,” I repeated, my arms still wrapped around my body.
“Look, I said okay.” His voice had an edge to it.
I sat back down on the couch. He sat next to me.
“I’ll draw your portrait. Neck up.”
The mood was completely broken.
“Fine,” I said.
I sat there and he drew me, and the drawing was good and we pretended everything was fine, only it wasn’t.
I had ruined everything.
As he drove me home I started to open my mouth a dozen times, to tell him that I felt self-conscious because my medication had made me gain so much weight. To tell him that I was about to change medications, and that soon all the extra weight would be gone and everything would be normal again, and that one day I would want him to see me naked and beautiful, and that this was just temporary.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t. So I didn’t say anything at all.
I just sat there like an idiot, clutching my purse, which had my Doxepin in it. Soon that same Doxepin would change everything and I’d be restored to the real me, and then Jett would understand.
And maybe, after I was thin again, I’d even create a classical piece on the piano, kind of an answer song to Jett’s mom’s sculpture, and I’d tell Jett the truth in the only way I could. The song would have no words, only feelings that I knew to be true.
I would call it “Things I Can Change.”
Two weeks later I was off prednisone, and the Doxepin was completely controlling my allergies. Best of all, I’d lost five pounds. The beginning strains of my answer melody rang in my head. I really could change things.
I was on my way back to being me.
I stared at my dinner plate.
One half piece of plain bread. One half cup of fat-free cottage cheese. A colorful medley of raw vegetables. One small orange.
This was my Thursday night dinner on the eight-hundred-calories-a-day diet, handwritten by my mother, now posted on the refrigerator. I’d been on it for a week.
The reason I was limited to eight hundred calories was simple. It was two days before Valentine’s Day now. Since Thanksgiving I had gained another twenty-two pounds. If you included the five pounds I’d temporarily lost when I switched from prednisone to Doxepin, I had actually gained twenty-seven pounds.
I weighed 158 pounds. God, I could hardly bring myself to think the number.
I looked over at Scott’s dinner. Meatloaf. Mashed potatoes swimming in gravy. Buttered biscuits.
The nightmare of the past ten weeks washed over me again, and I closed my eyes. I had been so hopeful, so full of resolve when I’d weaned myself off prednisone and had success with Doxepin.
Then I’d started gaining again.
We called Dr. Fabrio in a panic. He said the prednisone would take some time to leave my system, and I needed to be patient.
My mother didn’t want us to be patient. She took me to the top diet guru in Nashville, who put me on a twelve-hundred-calorie-a day diet, and I stuck to it, too. Okay, I cheated now and then when I got so hungry I couldn’t stand it, but that wasn’t enough to make me actually gain weight, was it? When I was working out five days a week?
And yet I got fatter. And fatter. After three weeks we called Dr. Fabrio again. He said that at this point my allergy drugs had nothing to do with my weight, and he urged me to seek counseling for my emotional problems. My mother told him that was absurd. So with great reluctance, he referred us to an endocrinologist—a specialist who could see if my weight gain had a metabolic cause.
Life in the Fat Lane Page 6
