Coach’s got his hands on his hips and he’s looking at me like I just handed the winning play over to the opposing team in a crucial qualifier. “You’re off, Konopka. Quit daydreaming and step it up.” He blows his whistle and waves the guys in. Then, as he’s leaving the field, Coach calls out, “Tomorrow, ten a.m. Our first preseason game is coming up quickly, and you guys are looking pretty lame.”
“Game, lame. You’re a real poet, Coach,” Craighead says as he sprints in and pulls off his helmet. Then he swings around and whips the helmet into my chest-protected gut—the only place on me that isn’t hurting. “You owe me twenty bucks, Konopka. I had my money on you, dude, and you let me down.”
I yank Craighead forward with his helmet and slip him into a headlock. No matter how tired or pathetic I am, being able to take Craighead is a given.
“That hot-sex-on-a-volcano story is crap,” I snap, pulling him in tighter. “What proof does MT have anyway?”
“MT—show him,” Craighead yells as he struggles against my grip. MT, over by the bleachers chugging Gatorade, puts the bottle down and strides over all cockylike. Like he’s rehearsed this. He reaches into the front of his sweats and rips out a tiny red lace thong. There’s more fabric in my sweatband.
“So that’s what you’re wearing lately, MT?” says Zoo, running over so he doesn’t miss any action. I release Craighead and use my freed arm to give Zoo a high five.
“Funny, dick. They’re Alicia’s. Volcano Girl proof,” MT says, twirling the panties around on his finger.
“Nah—they’re his mother’s,” LaRocha chimes in. Benny, Todd, and a few sophomores from the second string head over, and there’s now a small crowd gathered to inspect Volcano Girl’s thong.
“Like they don’t sell those at Walmart, jerk-off,” Zoo says.
MT’s eyebrows are up and he’s grinning broadly, still twirling the thong. “Oh, yeah? How about Camp Trivia for a hundred. How do kids keep track of their clothes?”
“People know their own clothes,” I mutter. I don’t do camp—I’d be the last to know.
MT makes a buzzing sound. “Sorry, Konopka. The correct answer is: What are name labels?” The guys start howling as MT untangles the thong and turns it inside out. “Alicia Conroy!” he announces, thrusting the panties and the name tag into everyone’s faces. MT scores and the crowd goes wild. The label looks legit.
“You’re smoked,” Craighead says.
“The Refrigerator is da freezah. Dude is froze,” LaRocha pipes up.
“Brrr,” a bunch of guys repeat. “Brrr. Brrr. Brrr.”
“So, Bobby—ready to concede defeat? Unless you scored with those—cough cough—Manhattan babes of yours?” MT says, still grinning and getting in my face.
“Give my boy space.” Zoo pushes him back.
I don’t even care anymore about being the last virgin standing—these guys can be such morons. But I’m tired and my muscles ache, and the heckling is pissing me off. Plus, I don’t need to explain myself in front of these sophomores. It’s none of their business. “Screw off,” I mutter, and walk toward my mom’s car, the guys cracking up behind me. Then a gorgeous blonde in tiny white shorts walking toward me from the parking lot starts calling my name. I think I must be having heatstroke or that the late-afternoon sun is screwing with my eyes. I pick up my pace—the guys aren’t that far behind and I know they’re watching.
“Bobby?” this beautiful girl says, and I nod. It’s a girl I’ve never seen before. “I’m Liselle Rescott, and there are some people who need to talk to you.” She motions her head toward a silver convertible off by itself in the corner of the parking lot. East and Marcie are sitting inside looking in our direction. Char’s not with them.
“Sure,” I say. I turn around and hold my helmet up and sort of wave at the guys, hoping they got a good view of her. And also that they take the hint to back off. “See you tomorrow,” I yell. Then I turn back toward the parking lot and walk up the hill with Liselle.
“I’m Marcie’s stepsister,” Liselle says as we approach the car.
“Yeah, I heard that,” I say, and immediately regret it. I don’t want to be tied to that dildo thing in this girl’s mind.
“Marcie and East were afraid you wouldn’t talk to them, so they sent me out to find you,” she says, ignoring my stupid comment.
“How did you? Find me, I mean,” I say. I glance behind me and see that Zoo, MT, and Craighead have lost the rest of the group, but they’re still heading my way—not in the direction of their parked cars. Crap!
“Oh, that was easy.” Liselle laughs. “You’re the only Konopka in Syosset, and when we got to your house, your mom sent us here. She’s very nice, your mom. She invited us in to wait for you, but we thought we should speak with you alone.”
I’m pretty sure I know who this is all about, but I don’t see any way of avoiding the conversation—the guys are like twenty seconds behind us. I glance back again and Liselle, maybe sensing I’m about to make a break for it, says, “Hop in the back, Bobby. We’ll go get something to drink.”
Liselle’s ride is sweet—a sleek 2008 BMW M6 convertible. Damn thing has a V10 engine and 500 horsepower. But I don’t have much time to drool over this beauty because Marcie, in the front passenger seat, and East, in the back, are both glaring at me.
“Hi,” I say as I climb into the seat next to East. Already I feel like an idiot. Little sports car—the two of us can hardly fit and our legs are riding up against each other. Liselle slams on the gas, propels the car backward, and then zooms off through the parking lot and onto the street.
“Where to?” she asks.
I give her directions to Buetti’s deli and immediately realize how fried my brain must be; that’s a prime destination for the guys after practice. “Let’s make it the Wendy’s on Route 25A—just turn left here.”
The wind is blowing everyone’s hair around like crazy, and East is trying frantically to keep it out of her face. The breeze feels great, and we’re going so fast, I’m hoping it’s carrying away the smell of my sweat. Marcie’s feet are pushed up against the dashboard and she’s screaming, “Liselle, you’re going to get us killed!” Between the roar of the engine, Marcie screaming, and the wind, it’s way too loud to talk, until in two seconds, we whip into the Wendy’s parking lot and Liselle cuts the engine.
“I’m going to get us drinks,” she says as she hops out of the car and walks toward the restaurant. Her shorts are riding up and it’s hard not to watch. Impossible.
East is smoothing her hair and Marcie is cleaning her glasses with her T-shirt. My chest protector is cutting into my hip, and I try to unhook it through my shirt. Unhooking a frickin’ bra. Not a skill I have.
Marcie notices and says, “That thing working?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Great idea you guys had.”
Marcie turns around in her seat and locks eyes with me. “No,” she says, “not ‘guys.’ Char. It was her idea.”
“How’s she doing?” I say, like everything’s totally fine and we’re just a group of normal kids chilling.
“Char’s why we’re here,” Marcie says. “She thinks you hate her.”
“Nah,” I say, “I don’t hate anybody. Why would she think that?”
Marcie looks at me like I’m an idiot. “Because you pretty much ran face-first into her after group on Friday and then bolted without a word.”
“This is what you came all the way out here to talk to me about?” I say and push the driver’s seat forward to reach the door handle. Marcie locks the door from the controls on her side and I laugh and manually pull up the lock. She locks it again as I go for the door handle.
“This isn’t a game,” she says. Not a fun one, anyway. “Look. East and I think you need to understand why Char lied about the surgery to everyone.” Not everyone. Me.
“Maybe if Char thought I should know, she would have told me herself,” I say, and then mentally kick myself for sounding like a girl with all their analytical nonse
nse. I push the front seat forward again, but Marcie crawls over the stick shift and slams it back with the full force of her body. Now she’s peering over the driver’s-side headrest, her face maybe six inches from mine. I drop back into my seat.
“When we tell you the story, you’ll understand why Char couldn’t tell you herself,” Marcie says. “So please, just hear us out.”
I throw up my hands. “Shoot.” Marcie glances at East, who nods back at her. Right. Like East was going to do the talking. Marcie takes a deep breath as if what she’s about to tell me is earth shattering. Just girl drama, probably.
“Park Avenue Bariatrics put Char’s surgery on hold because they had questions about something in her medical history, something Char couldn’t own up to and talk about because it—it could have destroyed her friendship with East. I mean, it didn’t, but it could have.” Marcie stops and looks at East again, but East’s head is turned away, like she’s finding this big green Dumpster really fascinating.
“Look, Marcie, I gotta hit the shower and head to my dad’s store. Is that it?”
Marcie glances again at East, but she’s still looking away. “No. When Char was only twelve, she got pregnant and had to have an abortion. She was so freaked out about it that she took some painkillers she wasn’t supposed to. That’s what’s in her hospital records and that’s what Char was hiding.”
A wave of nausea passes over me. “Man, that’s bad,” I croak. “I had no idea Char was raped.” The car is spinning even with the engine off. I hope I don’t throw up.
“Don’t be stupid,” East blurts. “She wasn’t raped. It was an accident.” I stare at East for a second, and then look at Marcie.
“Nobody hurt Char or forced her to do anything, don’t worry about that,” Marcie says. “So you understand why she lied and forgive her, right?” She’s studying my face. I know I should be relieved that Char didn’t get attacked or anything terrible like that, but apparently I’m not her first boyfriend, let alone her first real kiss. I’m not her first anything. It’s not like she had to tell me about every guy who came before me, but she didn’t have to carry on about what a big “first” I am for her. I guess that’s just her rap—when she’s sixty, she’ll be kissing some old pharmacist guy, flinging her hair and giggling, “That was my first real kiss.”
“Yeah, of course. It’s bad, and I get it,” I say again.
“Sorry I took so long,” Liselle says, placing a tray of beverages on the hood of the car. “I got you guys unsweetened iced tea. How’s it going?” It takes her half a nanosecond to see not so well. Marcie is clenching her headrest like it’s my neck and East is glaring at me again. Liselle sighs. “That’s not your feet on my leather?” she says to Marcie, and Marcie jumps out of the car and brushes off the seat. When she turns to grab her drink, I push the driver’s seat forward again and climb out too.
“That’s okay, Bobby,” Liselle says, handing me my drink. “I’ll take you back to the high school.”
“Nah, that’s okay,” I say. “But thanks for the tea.” I back away from the car and wave at Marcie and East. “Thanks for coming. I appreciate it, I do,” I call out. I suck down the tea, and then turn around and start walking. I’ll probably catch up with some of the guys at Buetti’s and get a ride from there. I hear a car door slam and then footsteps on my tail.
“You’re not going to forgive her, are you?” a voice wails. I spin around. It’s East and she’s not only speaking to me, she’s bounding toward me like she’s out for blood. I stop and wait anyway.
“Are you?” she says again when she’s about two feet away. “Don’t you care about Char at all?” She’s all teary, but she looks more likely to punch me than burst out crying. I don’t know what to say.
“Why can’t you just tell her that I understand about why she lied and there are no hard feelings?”
“So, you forgive her?” East says, moving even closer.
“Yeah, sure. No problem. I forgive her,” I say. It’s a lot to take in. I shrug and take a step back. But East takes another step forward.
“Which means you’re going to call her, right?”
“I—I don’t know.” I turn away and break into a slow jog. The chest protector straps are biting into my back, and I’m picturing the stockroom again, and how Char looked at me—hell, through me—with her big blue eyes and I told her she was the first girl I ever really kissed, and then she said that I was her first too. My stomach won’t stop churning. “Just leave me alone, will you?” I yell over my shoulder. And then I break into a full run.
32
Banding Together
Friday, August 21, 2009
East (−23 lbs); Char (−9 lbs)
“Thanks for saving me the perfect seat, East,” Marcie says loudly as she dumps her bag under the chair and slides in next to me. “This way I can stare the jerk down all session long.” Bobby’s slumped in his chair and he looks deep in thought examining his fingernail, but there’s no way he didn’t hear her.
I’m such an idiot. I’m good at geometry, and I’ve got all the formulas for calculating angles and arcs in circles completely memorized. But I didn’t know the most important thing about circles until today—when you seat yourself at the furthest possible point from somebody else in the circle, you find yourself sitting directly across from them.
“Lookin’ good, girl!” Michelle yells as Lucia enters and lugs herself across the room to the circle. “How’d weigh-in go for you?” Lucia gives her the thumbs-down as she sits. “Down is good, right?” Michelle says. Lucia just hangs her head. Michelle glances at Marcie and me with widened eyes. “Oops,” she says.
“How’d your weigh-in go?” I whisper to Marcie.
Marcie shrugs. “Down about eighteen pounds in what—five and a half weeks since the surgery?” she mutters. “No big deal.”
“Eighteen pounds is a very big deal,” Betsy says as she takes the remaining empty seat and crosses her legs. “That’s a rate of three pounds a week, and you haven’t even had your first fill.” She glances at her clipboard. “Most of you have lost between twelve and twenty pounds, even a few over that already. So. Feel any different?” She nods at Alex to her left to kick it off. Alex frowns for a second, then he just flips his arms over so that his palms face upward and shrugs.
“Whoopie?” he says. “I’m not sure what kind of response you’re looking for. I’m sure that losing a little weight makes us all feel more optimistic, but a few notches on my belt doesn’t exactly change my life.”
Betsy smiles. “So does everyone feel the same way—that weight loss of this magnitude isn’t momentous enough to feel anything different about?” Pretty much every hand goes up. “Okay, so this is another one of Jen’s ‘secrets encoded in fat cells’ moments for me.” She laughs. Nobody’s saying anything—or laughing either. Marcie is just staring dully at Betsy. There’s no reaction or emotion in her face—it’s just like her eyes are resting on Betsy because they have nowhere else to go. Lucia raises her hand and Betsy nods at her, looking relieved. That’s something that Char always did here—jump right in and rescue everyone so that they didn’t feel stupid in front of each other.
“I’d be happy with ten pounds. I’ve only lost five, and my band doesn’t feel like anything,” Lucia says. “I don’t understand how everyone was able to lose so much weight.”
“Lucia raised an excellent point,” Betsy says. “And that’s the first thing we’re going to talk about today—how your bands feel and how it’s affected your eating. But first, Lucia, let me ask you. How well have you been able to stick to your diet?”
Lucia shrugs with one shoulder. “I stuck to it perfectly.”
“Perfectly, huh?” Betsy says. Lucia shrugs both shoulders and looks away.
“Lucia, if you truly were able to stick to your diet for five weeks without even the smallest slipup, I’m not quite sure why you needed the Lap-Band in the first place.”
Lucia slinks down in her chair. “Of course I slipped up. H
ow can I not? My Lap-Band just doesn’t feel like anything.”
“Excellent, Lucia. Thank you,” Betsy says loudly. “I need you guys to talk honestly about your eating behaviors, because if we don’t examine them we can’t change them. Okay? By a show of hands, how many people feel any restriction in their bands?” Everyone is looking at each other trying to figure out what the right answer is. I raise my hand.
“Is East the only person in this room who feels some level of restriction in her band?” Betsy says.
“No,” I say. “I don’t really feel any restriction, but I’m wondering how we’re even supposed to feel anything if all we’re eating is soft foods that slide right through anyway?”
“Very good, East. That’s exactly what I’m getting at,” Betsy says. “So, people? Don’t be afraid to raise your hands.” Michelle’s hand flies up.
“Fine, you got me. I was alone in the house with a two-day-old Big Mac sitting in the fridge. For two days, I looked him in the eye every time I opened the door. But I’d grab a water bottle or a bowl of tuna instead. Then, last night, my family went out to dinner without me. They left a note. They figured I couldn’t eat anyway, so they didn’t wait. And Big Mac was just calling and calling. Does anyone know what a Big Mac tastes like after two days in the fridge?”
“A lot better than two days not in the fridge,” Marcie says, and immediately clamps her hand to her mouth. “Sorry for interrupting,” she squeaks out from behind it.
“A Big Mac that’s spent two days in the fridge is hard as a rock,” Michelle answers herself. “It’s stale. And since it’s two-thirds grease, it’s congealed—like eating uncooked bacon. I felt the band after my first bite—not the band itself, but the food against the walls of my stomach. It wasn’t a big deal—the food got through pretty quickly. The weird thing was feeling it go down. And this experience did change my eating behavior. I ate the rest of the Big Mac a lot more slowly.” Lucia starts clapping first, and we all join in.
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