“I didn’t want to mention it before the show was over because I didn’t want to, you know, distract you or anything.”
“OK, well, I guess I’ll admit that it’s over if that will get you to talk,” I say, and I poke him in the side, which usually makes him laugh. Only now he doesn’t laugh, and now I’m thinking maybe he has a disease. Mono? Lupus? Cancer? So now I’m worried.
“It’s just I wanted to explain to you why I didn’t get all excited about your news about Roger asking you out last night.”
“Oh my god,” I say, “is this one of those Wickham things?”
“What?”
“You know, like in Pride and Prejudice, all the girls have crushes on Wickham and then it turns out he’s kind of a jerk.”
“No,” says Elliot, “Roger’s a perfectly nice guy. It’s just that I — I love you.”
“You’re sweet, Elliot,” I say.
“No, I’m not sweet,” he says. “If I were sweet, I wouldn’t be imagining you naked.”
“What?”
“I love you. I don’t mean I’m your friend and I feel warm and fuzzy — I mean I have strong feelings of romantic attraction. I live for the moment at the end of the day when we’re alone in my car and you give me a kiss on the cheek. I dream about you constantly, and right now it’s all I can do to restrain myself from grabbing you and basically sucking your face off. I love you, I have loved you, and I will love you. I want to date you. I want to be your boyfriend. I want to make out with you. There, OK I said it. It wasn’t exactly the speech I had planned, but I said it.”
“Oh my god,” I say.
“I know, right. It sucks to be me. After three years I finally get up the nerve to tell you and Roger Morton beats me by twenty-four hours.”
“Three years?” I say.
“More or less,” says Elliot.
“But why?” I say.
“Why?” says Elliot. “Why not? You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re beautiful and talented and sexy — and you’re the best friend I’ve ever had. You’re the one person I can talk to about anything. Why wouldn’t I fall in love with you?”
“You think I’m sexy?” I say.
“Don’t even go there, Aggie,” says Elliot, staring ahead. “Friday night you’re gonna be on a date with Roger and I’m gonna be home writing a paper.”
Suddenly Elliot is the cutest person I have ever seen. “Listen,” I say, “I never said anything to Roger about being exclusive.”
“Aggie,” says Elliot, turning to face me, “if you and Roger were not exclusive, that just might make me the happiest man in the world.”
“I’d like for you to be happy,” I say, and I’m about to give him a kiss on the cheek, but it’s six a.m. and I’m emotionally drained and my best friend just told me he loves me and — well, what the hell, right? So I kiss Elliot on the lips and he kisses me back and it lasts a long time and it’s my first real kiss with a boy and it’s — well, frankly, it’s none of your business.
So you wanted to know why I am applying to the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and I guess that’s pretty much the whole story. I imagine next year you’ll change the application to say “Limit your answer to three pages” or something like that — live and learn, right?
Scene 4
Two months later some things haven’t changed — we still hang out in the props shed, although Cynthia and Roger have joined us. We still go to theatre whenever we can. We still have movie night — with Taylor there, of course. And the whole gang of us is cast in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Elliot is Puck and Cynthia is Titania to Roger’s Oberon and Cameron is Peter Quince, the director of the Rude Mechanicals — those horrible actors who do the play within the play. And me? I’m Bottom, the overacting buffoon — perfect, right? I get turned into a donkey, Cynthia falls in love with me, and then I get to steal the show.
“Sorry,” Mr. Parkinson said to me on the first day of rehearsal, “I just couldn’t resist.”
The costumes are going to be fantastic, because after The Fat Lady Sings we donated over four thousand dollars to the theatre department — Mrs. Baxter wouldn’t take any of it back. She said it was money well spent.
As far as my love life is concerned — let’s just say that’s complicated. But then, everything is more complicated than it used to be.
I mean, honestly, life was simpler in black and white. Not better, just simpler. Mom was a drunk — but now she’s been sober for three months and is actually trying to parent. Karl was my own special grownup — but it turns out Cameron needs his advice as much as I do. Cynthia was the living embodiment of all evil — now she drives me crazy sometimes, but I love her. Mr. Parkinson offered me a crap part in my favorite show — but if he hadn’t I never would have discovered playwriting. And then there’s religion — I never really had much time for it, but then a bunch of kids from a church saved our show. So, yeah, the world is more complicated now.
I guess, in a way, everything in the world is like fat — sometimes you hate it, other times, it’s not so bad. Like today, for instance. Today I come home after school to discover two envelopes on the kitchen counter — one from the School of the Arts and one from Iowa — and they’re both fat!
Today fat is a very good thing.
Also by Charlie Lovett:
The Program
Perfection can be deadly. A new weight-loss clinic in New York City has an offer for you — give them $5,000 and they’ll make you as thin as a supermodel. You can eat whatever you want and you’ll never gain an ounce. Tempted? Fledging journalist Karen Sumner would be — if only she had $5,000.
But when Karen finally walks through the blue and gold doors of The Program, she’s on the trail of the hottest story of her career. If she and her friends are right, The Program is doing something even worse than creating an army of unnaturally thin women. Will they be able to stop The Program before it’s too late?
“A lively first novel. Highly recommended.”
Library Journal
“Would you sell your soul to lose weight? What if you did and your husband found you less attractive?..The size-positive characters are heartfelt and quirky, the suspense keeps building and the bombshell on page 25 is not to be missed. Enjoy!
Lynne Murray
author of Bride of the Living Dead, Larger Than Death & The Falstaff Vampire Files
About the Author
Charlie Lovett is Writer-in-Residence at Summit School in Winston-Salem, NC. His plays for children have been seen in over 2500 productions in all 50 states and more than 20 foreign countries. He is the founder of the Charlie Lovett Fund for Elementary Drama, which supports theatre productions in elementary schools. He is the author of 12 previous books, including the novel The Program, works on Lewis Carroll, and the acclaimed memoir Love, Ruth.
More information about Charlie and his works is available at www.charlielovett.com.
About Pearlsong Press
PearlsongPress is an independent publishing company dedicated to providing books and resources that entertain while expanding perspectives on the self and the world. The company was founded by Peggy Elam, Ph.D., a psychologist and journalist, in 2003. Pearls are formed when a piece of sand or grit or other abrasive, annoying, or even dangerous substance enters an oyster and triggers its protective response. The substance is coated with shimmering opalescent nacre (“mother of pearl”), the coats eventually building up to produce a beautiful gem. The self-healing response of the oyster thus transforms suffering into a thing of beauty.
The pearl-creating process reflects our company’s desire to move outside a pathological or “disease” based model of life, health and well-being into a more integrative and transcendent perspective. A move out of suffering into joy. And that, we think, is something to sing about.
Pearlsong Press endorses Health At Every Size, an approach to health and well-being that celebrates natural diversity in body size and encourages people to stop focusing on weight (or any external measurement)
in favor of listening to and respecting natural appetites for food, drink, sleep, rest, movement, and recreation. While not every book we publish specifically promotes Health At Every Size (by, for instance, positively featuring fat heroines or educating readers on size acceptance), none of our books or other resources will contradict this holistic and body-positive perspective.
We encourage you to enjoy other Pearlsong Press books, which you can purchase at www.pearlsong.com or your favorite bookstore. Keep up with us through our blog at www.pearlsongpress.com.
Fiction:
Syd Arthur — a humorous novel by Ellen Frankel
Fallen Embers (Book One of The Embers Series) — paranormal romance by Lauri J Owen
Bride of the Living Dead — romantic comedy by Lynne Murray
Measure By Measure — a romantic romp with the fabulously fat by Rebecca Fox & William Sherman
FatLand — a visionary novel by Frannie Zellman
The Program — a suspense novel by Charlie Lovett
The Singing of Swans — a novel about the Divine Feminine by Mary Saracino
Romance novels and short stories featuring Big Beautiful Heroines:
by Pat Ballard, the Queen of Rubenesque Romances:
The Best Man
Abigail’s Revenge Dangerous Curves Ahead: Short Stories
Wanted: One Groom
Nobody’s Perfect
His Brother’s Child
A Worthy Heir
by Rebecca Brock — The Giving Season
& by Judy Bagshaw — At Long Last, Love: A Collection
Nonfiction:
Fat Poets Speak: Voices of the Fat Poets’ Society — edited by Frannie Zellman
Ten Steps to Loving Your Body (No Matter What Size You Are) by Pat Ballard
Beyond Measure: A Memoir About Short Stature & Inner Growth by Ellen Frankel
Taking Up Space: How Eating Well & Exercising Regularly Changed My Life by Pattie Thomas, Ph.D. with Carl Wilkerson, M.B.A. (foreword by Paul Campos, author of The Obesity Myth)
Off Kilter: A Woman’s Journey to Peace with Scoliosis, Her Mother & Her Polish Heritage — a memoir by Linda C. Wisniewski
Unconventional Means: The Dream Down Under a spiritual travelogue & memoir by Anne Richardson Williams
Splendid Seniors: Great Lives, Great Deeds inspirational biographies by Jack Adler
The Fat Lady Sings Page 17
