Fat Cat

by Robin Brande

  We settled onto the floor, takeout containers between us, and shoveled in a few bites. He clicked on his TV and I said, "No TV," and he clicked it back off.

  And this time when our eyes met, I didn't look away. And when his gaze softened, I smiled. This time when I knew what was coming next, I let what could happen, happen.

  He pushed aside the takeout and gathered me in his arms and gave me the kiss I've waited for for a lifetime. I wove my fingers into his hair and felt his smooth face against my chin and breathed in the smell of him that I remembered.

  It wasn't like Nick. It wasn't like Greg. It wasn't like anything but what I've always hoped for. No, it was better than that. Because we were older, not kids. This was real in a way the little girl in me never could have imagined.

  They say your muscles have memory. Once you've trained your arms to swing a tennis racket or your legs to ride a bike, you can quit for a while--for years, even--and all it takes is picking up a racket or jumping on a bike again and your muscles remember what to do. They snap right back to performing the way you taught them.

  The heart is a muscle, too. And I've been training mine since I was a kid to fall in love with one particular person.

  All it took was four years, a rainy day at the zoo, a box of chocolates, a crumpled valentine, a sincere apology, and an order of spicy lentils, and my heart snapped right back into form. It knew just what to do.

  I am still in love with Matt McKinney.

  And Matt McKinney told me he loves me, too.

  84

  Day 207, Sunday, March 15

  Done.

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

  I simply want to win.

  Not for the reasons I did before, but just because it's time. If you're going to keep competing at something every year, you need to bring home first place once in a while, just to keep your spirits up. People can only take disappointment for so long.

  Tomorrow we'll set up our displays. I've got my abstract, my research notebook, my project board.

  Amanda helped me with the board this weekend. I needed her artistic eye. The board is three-sided, just like the map I wore for Halloween. Bigger, though--enough to partition off my area so when you're standing in front of it, you can't see anyone's project but mine.

  "I was thinking some before and after pictures," I said.

  "Excellent," Amanda said. "We have to find one where you're really your heaviest. Then that one they took at the Winter Formal. Hot."

  I winced a little to remember that night, but Amanda was right--the contrast was too great. She had made me look like a movie star for that, and even though I'm smaller now than I was then, she really did show me at my best.

  We also used the picture she took of me in the skirt and boots--the outfit I wore to the zoo. That seems like so long ago.

  Matt and I agreed not to see each other this weekend. We're both in last-minute mode, trying to get our displays as perfect as we can. We still haven't told each other what we're doing. I like it that way.

  I thought it might feel weird to compete against him, after what's happened lately, but I realize it didn't make me uncomfortable when I was younger, and it still doesn't. What's made it so intense these past four years is that I wanted to beat him so bad. It's been my main goal--more so than even winning for its own sake. It's taken some of the joy out of it, I think.

  I still want to win. Badly. But I don't think I care if I beat Matt. Obviously if I win other people won't, but I don't need one of those people to be Matt anymore. If that makes any sense.

  We're competing in different categories--I'm in Behavioral & Social, he's in Physics & Astronomy--but besides winning our categories, we still have to win overall. There are just three slots to go to internationals--one for a team, two for individuals. I plan on winning one of those spots.

  Amanda worked with me on my project board most of yesterday and today, and I have to say it shows. My best friend is the most artistic, talented person I know. She could make a clump of dirt look like a pile of gold.

  "A poem," Amanda said when we were through. "From Kit Cat's project board."

  I think she made it up on the fly.

  "Tomorrow she will leave me in the cavernous hall

  Among other, more pitiful boards.

  The judges will see me, they will love me, they will need me

  And shower me with all of their awards.

  But Catherine will forget me, she will fold me away

  And go on to more glorious pursuits.

  But I will e'er remember, because it's pasted on my chest

  How hot she looked in that wicked skirt and boots."

  How could you not love a friend like that?

  85

  They let us start setting up our displays at noon. Mr. Fizer didn't hold class today, but told us to meet at the convention center instead. I caught a ride with Matt.

  I kept my board carefully folded as I loaded it into his car. Matt's was folded up, too, so I couldn't read it. It's stupid how secretive we were, since we were going to see them anyway in about an hour, but somehow we both wanted to keep the mystery.

  Once we got there we found our separate sections and both went off to work. It only took me about fifteen minutes to make everything look the way I wanted it to. Then there was nothing more to do until tomorrow.

  Here's the schedule: Monday is setup, Tuesday is judging. The younger kids like Peter are judged just on their displays, but at the high school level we have to do presentations for the judges, too. Tomorrow. And then we won't find out who's won until Friday. So basically it's a whole week of agony.

  Once people finished setting up, we all started cruising the place, snooping around each other's projects.

  Nick's was a study of lichen and fungi. I still have no idea how "cat's gill" factors in. Alyssa studied some rare eye disease. Kiona did hers on aphids. Lindsay analyzed how climate change affects the caterpillar population. Lots of plants and insects this year. My fig wasps would have fit right in.

  And then finally I saw Matt's.

  COMMUNICATION BEGINS AT HOME

  Why do we believe we will be able to communicate with alien species who share none of our DNA, when we can barely communicate with species who share over 97 percent of it?

  Right beneath that was the picture of the baby gorilla. And on either side, pictures of other apes--gibbons, chimpanzees, orangutans.

  And other pictures: Matt in front of the gibbon cage, doing some sort of hand signals to them. Matt at the back door of the enclosure, helping one of the zookeepers feed them. Matt standing right up against the chain link, one of the gibbons' fingers intertwined with his.

  "You learned to communicate with them?" I asked.

  "Not really. I'm still trying. It's not as easy as it looks."

  I flipped through his research notebook--day after day spent at the zoo, trying this strategy and that. He included all sorts of clippings and scientific studies about the efforts made to bridge the human-ape gap. Matt was trying to take things another step beyond.

  He also included graphs and other details about the amount of money and manpower spent trying to communicate with alien creatures, including the project he'd interned for over the summer.

  "I can't believe you did all this."

  "You like it?" he asked.

  "I love it, but ..."

  Matt smiled. "Say it."

  "You entered this in Astronomy. Why? It could have been in Animal Sciences. Don't you think the Astronomy judges--"

  "Are going to hate it?" he finished for me. "Yeah. I think they will."

  "Then why?"

  "Because I'm done with all this." "All what?" I asked.

  He waved his hand around the conference hall. "This. The science fair. The competition. I just want to do science, Cat. I want to investigate things I'm curious about without worrying whether I'm impressing anyone. And I don't want to be stuck with astronomy anymore. I'm tired of it." />
  This from someone who has been staring through telescopes since he could focus his little eyes. This from the guy who could talk about black holes and galaxies and quasars until even I, in my devoted girlish state, couldn't take listening to a word of it anymore.

  "You don't really mean that."

  "Yeah," he said, "I do."

  "Why? Just because that one professor was a pig?"

  "No, he proved to me what I already knew--that I'm not that interested in it anymore. It sort of ran its course."

  It was as if Amanda had told me she was tired of words.

  Matt smiled and wrapped his arms around my waist. "Don't look so serious. It's fine. I worked on something this year that I thought would be interesting, and it was. I know I'm not going to win anything for it, and I don't care."

  "You might win," I said, knowing it probably wasn't true.

  "It doesn't matter, Cat. Really. I wouldn't have even entered the science fair this year if Mr. Fizer didn't require it."

  "But you knew that's the only thing his class was about--that's the whole point of it. Why did you even take it in the first place?"

  Matt brought his lips against my ear. "Because I knew you'd be in there."

  86

  The group of judges finally reached me.

  "Miss Locke?"

  "Yes, ma'am." I cleared my throat and nervously began my presentation.

  "My research project shows the potential evolutionary shift in modern human anatomy and biology as the result of dramatic changes in the quality of our food supply. As part of my research I conducted a thorough analysis of the various factors impacting the health of both modern humans and our ancestors, beginning with Homo erectus. I focused on the impact of environmental, nutritional, behavioral, and technological aspects of the differing lifestyles, and in addition used myself as a test subject to determine the effects of returning to some of the habits of our early ancestors. For 207 days ..."

  Amanda and I had shopped for today's outfit: slim black pants, my black boots, a lavender V-necked sweater. And a bomb-proof, yet feminine bra--Joyce's finest work yet.

  Makeup, of course, and hair straightened, then curled. With electric curlers. Hurray for modern times.

  I gave just a short speech, highlighting some of the features of my project. Then the judges asked me questions: What did I feel I learned; do I think the current state of human health is an actual evolutionary shift or merely a temporary condition; what kinds of food did I conclude we should be eating; what was the hardest part of the project for me?

  "I'd have to say giving up technology," I answered to the last one. "On the one hand, my life was a lot quieter and more peaceful without all that constant noise and distraction. And I had a lot more free time, since I couldn't watch TV or zone out on the computer. But there are definitely times when you want to be able to use a cell phone or drive your car someplace."

  "Do you think this project has changed you?" the woman judge asked. "Beyond the obvious physical changes?"

  I smiled. "You have no idea how much."

  And then it was over. The judges thanked me and moved on to the next display. I leaned back against my table and tried to breathe normally again.

  When I saw Jackie last week, I tried out my presentation on her. And when I was done, she asked me the same thing I had asked her before: whether I thought Einstein's theory about how to save the human race was true.

  "I don't know," I said. "It might be."

  I'm not sure if I can speak for the whole human race yet, but I know I can speak for me. And what's true for me is that eating like Einstein and da Vinci and Newton and Dr. Brian Greene feels like the right thing to do. I like walking the road they walked. And my body likes it, too.

  Although I told Jackie when this project is over, I wouldn't mind being a junk food vegetarian for a while. Maybe just a couple of days every now and then.

  Even Amanda said she's happy eating just vegetarian food.

  "Kit Cat, if you told me from now on you're only making things out of Bermuda grass, I'd eat it because I know you'd make it delicious."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah. So only use your powers for good."

  After a few minutes I wandered over to where I could see what was happening with Matt. The judges still hadn't reached him yet. I caught his eye and gave him a smile.

  I still can't get over everything he told me yesterday--about not caring about the competition anymore. I thought I knew him.

  What really struck me is how futile this whole thing would have been if I were still trying to win just to beat him. Where's the glory in that if your opponent doesn't even care? So much has changed in the last month, it's almost hard to remember how desperately I wanted to grind Matt into the dirt at the beginning of the school year. It's like he and I were both different people back then.

  Okay, maybe it was just me.

  I went over to the kids' area to look at Peter's project again. Amanda gave him a little bit of her magic, too, and his board turned out great. He did all the cutting and pasting, but it was Amanda's idea to use different fonts and colors and scalloped borders. Not the kind of thing an eleven-year-old boy thinks of.

  I looked for Trina's project, too. And I really tried to hold myself back--for Peter's sake. If he likes her, despite all her obvious flaws, I guess I should try to be fair. And who knows? Maybe someday she'll confess what a huge crush she had on him when they were in fifth grade. Could happen, I suppose.

  So there was her board, all girly and decorated: What Makes Flowers Grow? She and two other girls tested a bunch of different additives to water to see which kept cut flowers looking fresher longer--not a bad experiment, I guess, although technically the flowers weren't going to "grow" anymore, since they were already cut. But I decided to overlook that.

  They tried aspirin, ibuprofen, 7UP, Gatorade, and Red Bull. And still nothing was as good as plain water. Kind of like the experiment I did on my own body, in a way.

  I left the kid area and went back to the high school zone. The Astronomy judges were finally at Matt's table. I wished I could have gone over and eavesdropped. At least Matt looked like he was enjoying himself.

  "What did they ask you?" I said afterward as we headed out to his car.

  "It was weird," he said. "All they wanted to talk about was you."

  "Shut up." I bumped him with my hip. He wrapped his arm around my waist to hold me there.

  "I hope you win, Cat."

  "I hope so, too."

  87

  I didn't win.

  Margo, who put together a whole program for teaching autistic children to better understand the facial cues of people they were talking to, won first place.

  And some guy who did his project on how people talk when they're on their cell phones, versus how they talk to each other in person, won second.

  And I got nothing.

  I went up to Margo after the ceremony and gave her a big hug. Because at least it was one of us.

  "Let's go somewhere," Amanda said. She and I had both taken the night off of work. "Let's go somewhere where everything is completely mechanized--somewhere you're not even allowed to scratch your own nose. Reintroduce Cat to the world of technology."

  "Sharpy's," Jordan suggested, and we went there instead.

  Over the sound of people cheering the basketball game on TV, the four of us did our best to analyze the competition.

  None of us could really deny that Margo deserved first place. But Amanda just couldn't accept the guy who won second place. "Were the judges on crack? Did somebody pay them off?"

  We ate our veggie fajitas and let her rant away.

  "That project was completely pedestrian! Totally lame! What did he do--sit around the mall all day listening in on people's conversations? Big deal! You gave up cookies! And caffeine! And bubble baths! And movies!"

  "You gave up bubble baths?" Matt murmured. I squeezed his hand under the table.

  "And what's with Petey only getting
second?" Amanda continued. "That project was golden! He was robbed!" And all I could think was, This is nice.

  Nice to be a foursome, for once, instead of me always being the third wheel.

  Nice to be holding my boyfriend's hand under the table while we listened to Amanda carry on. Nice that I had tortilla chips for the first time in seven months, along with Sharpy's extra-hot gut-incinerating jalapeno salsa, which I may regret in the morning. Nice that Matt and Jordan like each other, so it's comfortable for all of us to hang around. And nice that even though I didn't win this year, the sky didn't fall and I wasn't sitting there all depressed.

  Nothing to be depressed about.

  We split up in the parking lot, Amanda still fuming over the injustice of it all, and when Matt and I finally shut ourselves into his car, we both took a minute to breathe.

  "Are you upset?" Matt asked.

  "No," I answered truthfully, "are you?" His project, like mine, hadn't even placed.

  "Nope." He started the car and turned up the heater.

  I jumped at the sound of Amanda knocking on my window. I rolled it down.

  "I forgot to tell you," she said. "You looked absolutely gorgeous tonight. Not everyone gets to be both smart and beautiful, you know. I mean, Margo's pretty and all, but YOU--" She looked to Matt for confirmation.

  "Smart and beautiful," he agreed. "I'm a lucky guy."

  "Okay, then. Don't forget it." Amanda pinched my cheek, then ran back to Jordan's car.

  "Subtle," Matt said. I tried not to laugh.

  Instead I leaned back against the headrest, closed my eyes, and let out a small groan. "I am so tired. Can we please just go back to your house for a while?"

  "Watch some TV?" Matt asked.

  I smiled and opened one eye. "No TV."