Fat Cat

by Robin Brande

  I shook my brain to reset it. Then I sat on the edge of my bed and motioned for Matt to take the desk chair.

  I still hadn't quite processed everything. Matt was there. He brought me chocolate. On Valentine's Day. I was wearing pajamas. And a bra.

  I couldn't say anything. Didn't know what to say. So I hoped Matt had a speech planned, since I was just going to sit and wait for it.

  He did.

  "I've been thinking about what you said," he began. "In my car."

  I nodded. My teeth felt like they might chatter. My body was having a flashback.

  "About how I should have liked you when you were fat."

  I nodded again. So far this was the weirdest conversation I'd ever had, and I wasn't even participating.

  "I did," Matt said. "Really. But I was just ... stupid about it."

  "Yes." I said it as unemotionally as if he'd just asked me whether Wisconsin is known for its cheese.

  "And said some really terrible things," he said.

  "You were stupid," I repeated. It felt good to say that.

  Matt must have felt he could do better standing up.

  He paced a few steps in either direction, and moved on to the second part of his speech.

  "Cat, I really like you."

  I didn't answer. Because I was basically frozen.

  "And it's not because you're not fat anymore, which is apparently what you think. Am I right?"

  I nodded.

  "But it's not," he said. "I've always liked you. Since we were kids. You know that."

  "I thought I did. Until you betrayed me."

  Matt tipped his head back and mumbled something to himself. Then he looked at me again. "Look, I can't keep going over that. I told you I don't know why I did it. I was stupid--let's just agree about that."

  "You were stupid." I liked hearing it out loud. As often as possible.

  "But can we just put that aside for a minute?" Matt asked. "Let's just agree that I was an ass, and I'll never say otherwise, and whether or not I was thirteen doesn't matter because it was just a really cruel thing to say."

  My face relaxed a little. Because now he was getting somewhere.

  "You admit it," I said, because you don't want to just leave a thing like that alone. "You admit that was a horrible, mean, ugly, unforgivable thing to say."

  "Not unforgivable," Matt corrected. "But yes, everything else."

  "So you're saying I should forgive you."

  "Yes. And here's why."

  For a minute I thought the thing he was pulling out of his back pocket was a list he was going to read from, but it turned out to be something else. A Valentine's Day card. A really old and rumpled one.

  He handed it to me. I recognized the handwriting. Oh, no.

  It was from when we were in fifth grade. Who knows what kind of sappy things I wrote back when I was eleven? If it was a poem, I was going to die. I'd never be able to show it to Amanda.

  But it wasn't a poem. It was something that was probably even harder for me to write.

  I like you because your smart.

  Notice the misspelling.

  "I feel the same way," Matt said. "I always have. I never cared how you looked. That's all I wanted to tell you."

  And then he left. Just like that. And left me with the chocolate.

  I sat there for a minute, then collapsed back onto my bed.

  I DO NOT UNDERSTAND GUYS AT ALL.

  80

  "He kept your valentine?" Amanda asked. "For six years?"

  "Yeah. So what am I supposed to do?" I asked. "What does that mean?"

  Amanda and Jordan sat on her couch, sampling the chocolates I had brought for show-and-tell.

  Jordan was there having lunch when I showed up around noon, and I tried to wait him out, but it didn't look like he was leaving. Besides, I needed Amanda's advice more than I needed my privacy.

  "These are excellent," Amanda said, biting into one with a caramel filling. "I say we give him another chance."

  "You're reading it all wrong," Jordan said. "This wasn't an advance, it was debt."

  Amanda and I gave him equal looks of, "Huh?"

  "An advance," he said, taking another chocolate. "Like getting paid for something you write before they publish it. I'm saying he wasn't trying to buy some future right to you, he was trying to pay off a debt he already owed."

  Amanda draped her hand over his wrist. "Sweetie, this is serious. If this girl doesn't have a strategy in the next five minutes, the world will stop spinning."

  Jordan groaned. "It's obvious. If it was an advance, he would have stayed to get what was coming to him. If it was debt, he would have paid it and left. It was debt. He doesn't owe you anymore."

  Amanda and I both paused to take in that bit of wisdom. And try to decide if it even was wisdom.

  "So what you're saying," Amanda translated for us, "is that he brought her chocolate to buy her off?"

  "No," Jordan said, "I'm saying he apologized. That's it. Everything about that was an apology. Why do you two have to make everything so complicated?"

  Exactly what Matt had accused me of back at the beginning of the year.

  "So what does he want?" Amanda asked. "What's the strategy here?"

  "The strategy," Jordan said, "is you should both pull your heads out and stop overanalyzing everything. The guy's sorry. He wants to move on. It's up to Cat if she wants to."

  Jordan crumpled his wrappers and left to go scrounge up something in the kitchen.

  "He may be right," Amanda said. "Back to you, Kit Cat. What does the future hold for the Cat and Matt show?"

  "I don't know," I said. "It's complicated."

  81

  Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.

  I have been walking around for four years with this incredible burden on my heart. I have fed it, nursed it to health; made sure to keep the wound nice and fresh and open.

  For what?

  So that one day I could make Matt McKinney bring me chocolate and apologize to me? Or so maybe I could beat him so solidly at something someday that in addition to that triumph, I'd get to tell him I always hated him for what he said and so this was my revenge? I mean, what is it I've been doing all of this for? What is it I want?

  I know what I want. I've always known what I want. I just didn't want to let myself know that I knew it. How's that for complicated?

  I want a clean slate. Like the day back in August when I decided to start eating and living in a completely different way. If I could do that--and come on, that wasn't easy, no matter how great it's turned out--if I could do that, then why can't I change other parts of my life, just by deciding it's time?

  I could pick a date, like saying I was going to start living like a hominin on that Thursday back in August. Fine. You just decide, and then you do it. Maybe you go on one last binge just to hold you over, but then you wake up the next day and start fresh.

  So here's my binge: Matt, I hate you. Matt, you're a pig. Matt, you're stupid for not realizing I overheard you that night. Matt, you're an idiot for not realizing why I've been so mean to you for the past four years. Matt, your feet smell. Matt, why is it you haven't ever had a girlfriend all this time? Doesn't that tell you something about yourself? You're undatable. No girl is ever going to like you. You don't care how you dress, you don't care how your hair looks, you don't care what people think of you. You're going to lose to me in the science fair. You're going to graduate with a GPA lower than mine. Admit it, Matt: I'm better than you. I'm smarter, I'm better-looking, I'm nicer.

  And I can cook, Matt. You can't even make grilled cheese.

  And here's another thing: I have a really happy life now. I'm not sitting around waiting for you to make it good. I'm not sitting around thinking about how you made it bad.

  Today's a perfect example. I did everything I wanted to do. I hung out with Amanda and Jordan, went swimming, cooked a gourmet meal for my family, caught up on all my homework. Normally on a thre
e-day weekend like this--it's Presidents' Day tomorrow--I'd spread my homework out a little more and watch some TV or go to a movie or something. But I have just one more month of living like a hominin, and I'm going to see it through. Because now that I know what your project's about, I still think I can beat you. And I'm still going to try as hard as I can.

  And here's the other thing, Matt: I know you're probably home today wondering what I'm thinking. You made that grand gesture last night, and today you haven't heard from me at all. You don't realize I can't use the phone, and I wouldn't use it anyway, because this isn't something you handle in a phone call. And so I caught up on all my homework today and cooked ahead, because I want tomorrow to be free. I have things to do, Matt, and you're part of that. So you go ahead and wonder what I'm thinking. Because I know something you don't know.

  And I still know where you live.

  82

  Day 180, Monday, February 16

  Breakfast: Nothing yet. We'll have to see how it goes.

  It was only fair. He showed up when I was in my pajamas.

  His sister, Gracie, answered the door. I wasn't sure she'd remember me--or recognize me the way I am.

  She smiled. "No way."

  It took a good ten minutes for her to look me over and question me. I told her all I had to do was give up chocolate, and the rest just melted away. She might have believed me. She's only twelve.

  "Are you going to surprise him?" Gracie asked. "You should just go in there. Scare him."

  That used to be one of Gracie's and my tricks. We'd hide in closets or behind shower curtains and try to scare each other. I was really good at that. The best was when I folded myself into the nook between their washing machine and the shelf above it. Gracie opened the laundry cabinet, screamed, and wet her pants.

  She loved me.

  "No, you should probably tell him I'm here," I said, being the mature one. Besides, I wasn't sure I wanted to know what Matt's room looks like these days. He always was a slob.

  Gracie went off to scare her brother on her own, and I waited in the kitchen. No one else seemed to be around. His parents must not have had the day off from work.

  I heard the water running in the hall bathroom and the sound of Matt brushing his teeth. A few minutes later he emerged.

  Looking ... it's hard to even describe it. Looking like a little boy, in a way. The little boy he used to be, except now he had the stubble of a beard. There's something about seeing people when they just wake up--before they have a chance to put on the face they show everyone else. There's like this last little hint of innocence.

  He ran his hand through his serious bed-head hair. "Hey."

  Not, "What are you doing here?" or any other obvious question. Just "hey," as if he expected me to show up one day out of the blue.

  "Want to go out for coffee?" I asked.

  "Sure."

  It didn't take him long to get dressed. Why would it? Guys can just throw on shoes and they're ready.

  Gracie grinned as we left. Kind of sweet.

  "Can we walk?" I asked. No reason to call on one of my exceptions. It was beautiful out this morning--cold and sunny. I can take any temperature, as long as the sun is out.

  The bagel place is about eight blocks from Matt's house. I didn't go at my usual race-walk pace. We both took our time.

  "You never finished telling me your story," I said. "About what happened with your internship. And what your project's about."

  Matt turned his head just slightly, then went back to looking ahead. "I think you should wait. Science fair's only a month away. I'll show you then."

  "I'm not telling you my project," I said.

  "I already know what it is."

  "No, you don't."

  "I saw your picture," he said.

  "Don't even try."

  We walked along in silence for a while, until it was time to make the turn.

  "Hope you brought money," I said. "You're buying."

  "This time," Matt agreed.

  83

  I think he understood. How fragile this morning was, and if he said the wrong thing, it was all going to fall apart.

  If he'd asked me, "What gives? Why'd you come over?" or something else stupid like that, I would have bolted.

  If he'd said, "So, are we square now? Everything okay?" I would have shaken my head in disgust and gotten up and left.

  But Matt is smart. And Matt knows me. Knew me, at least, and I suppose I haven't really changed.

  We sat in the bagel place drinking coffee (at least he did) and eating bagels (onion for him, with salmon cream cheese, gross; whole grain for me, nothing on it), and we didn't really say all that much. The conversation was in the fact that we were both there. My coming over this morning was a whole lengthy monologue, if he wanted to translate it, and his saying, "Sure," when I asked him to come with me was as good as a five-page speech.

  I thought it might feel awkward, but it didn't. And I think the reason is I just let it all fall away. I think maybe it could always have been this way, no different at all from how we had been when we were thirteen, and the only thing that would have happened in the last four years is we would have become even more comfortable with each other, the way I've finally started feeling comfortable around my little brother. It takes the same boring dailiness of being around someone to really know him and feel all right about him knowing you. I think maybe if I'd never overheard Matt, we would have been right there at that bagel shop this morning, doing exactly what we were.

  Except I probably would have still been fat.

  Or maybe not. I've been thinking about it all weekend. Amanda made that comment about me losing the weight for Matt, but I strongly disagree. Because I know in my heart I didn't lose it for anyone but myself. I did it because I wanted to win the science fair, get an A in Mr. Fizer's, and finally look good for once in my life. For me. Not for anyone else. I'm a hundred percent certain of that.

  Okay, and to beat Matt, too. But that's not the same as losing weight for him.

  And I have to admit that my looking better changed things today--for me. Because maybe if I'd been sitting there in my old body, feeling fat and self-conscious, I might not have had the guts to imagine the possibilities. Even if what Matt said on Valentine's was true--that he never cared how I looked--I cared. I cared from the minute Willie Martin called me "Fat Cat," and I probably cared before then, too.

  So what would my life have been like? If I hadn't lost the weight? I'd still be Matt's fat friend. And I'd still be in love with him. I wouldn't tell him--I'd just suffer in silence. I'd watch while he dated other girls, and I'd let him tell me about them because I was his pal. His fat platonic friend.

  But what if Matt really didn't care how I looked? Is it possible he might have learned to love me, exactly as I was? I suppose, although it's hard for me to imagine. Not because of Matt, but because of me.

  I think I've really hated myself these last four years. I've finally started to see that. I've been blaming Matt for how miserable I've been, when really it's all on me. I'm the one who's doled out all these secret punishments over the years. I'm the one who's been mean.

  I'm the one who deprived myself of swimming--no one else took that away. Even if I never went back to the team, I could have swum somewhere else. I could have given myself that gift.

  I'm the one who fed myself all that garbage and junk food, then hated what my body had become. I could have stopped at any point--I didn't need a science project to force me.

  I'm the one who swallowed my anger toward Matt and never just confronted him with what I'd heard. Maybe he would have apologized four years ago. Or three. Or anytime before now. Instead I guarded it like a treasure and hated him every day.

  And yet I'm also the one who held on to the dream of the two of us--this fantasy of what could have been if only I'd been a skinny little thirteen-year-old. Then he would have loved me. Then he never would have said such horrible things about me. Then I'd be happy.


  I was wrong. I could have been happy anyway. I just refused to let myself.

  All this looking backward only hurts me. Jordan is right: I have to go forward. I can decide for myself right now what I want my relationship with Matt to be. He's paid his debt. Now it's up to me.

  I can decide never to forgive him, never to enjoy his friendship again, or I can let it go. It doesn't mean it never happened or that it didn't hurt me or it wasn't wrong, it just means I get to decide right now, today, whether I want to carry this burden another mile. I'm not betraying myself if I just leave it on the side of the road. I'm doing myself the kindness of lightening my load. It's like taking your thumb off a bruise.

  "Want to go?" I asked when we had both finished eating and Matt had downed the last of his coffee. "Sure."

  We took the long way home. Walked ten or more extra blocks. I could have walked twenty more. The morning was beautiful, and I was content.

  "What are you doing tonight?" Matt asked me at some point.

  "Homework."

  "Want to go to a movie?"

  "Can't." I saw no reason to say why. "Want to hang out?"

  "Sure," he said.

  I smiled and kept on walking.

  When we got back to Matt's house, I told him I had some stuff to do. I left him in front of his house and kept walking back to mine. We didn't set a time, didn't talk about any of the details. Because this was us again, and there was no need for all that.

  I did what I wanted to do. I swam, cooked myself lunch, put in some hours at Poison Control. And finally around five-thirty I strolled back to Matt's house.

  As soon as I walked in, he asked me what I wanted to eat and I told him Ethiopian. Amanda turned me on to this great vegetarian platter they serve there. Matt ordered takeout and we drove over to get it.

  When we got back his parents were home, and after a few obligatory, "How you been's," Matt and I retreated to his room. It wasn't so bad--he'd obviously picked up a little, since his clothes were piled in a corner instead of strewn all over the room. I noticed he'd also showered and shaved.