by Nina Beck
This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous
Nina Beck
For Dieter Galt—D, this is just one of the many perks of being my best friend. Just an FYI.
Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Dedication
Letters
LIMERENCE
THINGS I HATE ABOUT MY BODY
MARLEY DIGGONS IS A GRADE-A BITCH
THIS PARTY SUCKS, AND THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
WHY THE CREW TEAM JOCKS ARE DUMBER THAN ALL THE OTHER JOCKS AT CF COMBINED
HOW TO SEDUCE A DUMB JOCK
I.M. CONVERSATION, FOUR A.M. I SHOULD BE SLEEPING. I’M WAITING UP FOR D.
THE EPISODE WHERE I MAKE OUT WITH D (NOT TO RUIN THE ENDING OR ANYTHING)
STEP INTO THE KILL ZONE
I’M SERIOUSLY SCREWED
I HATE NATURE, NATURE STINKS
HOW TO GET OFF ON THE RIGHT FOOT
CASE OF THE CRAZY EX-GIRLFRIEND—TAKE ONE
WHERE I AVOID SERIOUS (PHONE) CONVERSATION
THE POSSIBILITY HAS ARISEN THAT MY ROOMMATE COULD BE A KILLER
SPOTTED DOGS
ATTACK OF THE THIN PEOPLE
CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT
CAN YOU FALL FOR SOMEONE OVER VOICE MAIL?
ROMANCE IS SO MY THING
SUSCEPTIBLE TO THE WILES OF MEN
BACK ON THE COUCH
SAMANTHA GOES CRAZY
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS, ORDER TAKE-OUT
THE PLAN
ON TIME IS LATE, LATE IS UNACCEPTABLE
EAT-IN
UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCES AND MORE UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS
THE LONGEST DRIVE EVER
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Preview
#1 TRY TO CHANGE
To Do List: Read all the Point books
COPYRIGHT
LIMERENCE
I have an important theory about love. My theory is that if you fall in love with your best friend, or if your best friend is everything you’re looking for in a guy (and the list is a long and complicated one, so there are only—like—three guys on the planet who would be eligible for the position of “Mr. Perfect” anyway)…and if you fall in love with him and he doesn’t fall in love with you…he should at least have the decency to be gay.
Seriously.
But Michael D. Hammond III (“D” for short) is not gay. He’s smart, good-looking, and can be charming when he wants to be.
By that I mean that I’ve seen him be charming with other girls. And when I whine that he’s not nearly so charming to me, he holds my hand and smiles like I’ve said something darling, like he’s a proud parent and his little girl just said a bad word without knowing it was a bad word and isn’t she precocious? And then he’ll say something devastating like, “Darling, you’re my soul mate; I’d never lie to you that way.”
And then he’ll kiss me on the forehead and I die. But on the surface? I just roll my eyes and say something bitchy to keep him from seeing how much it kills me when he says stuff like that.
Which makes me sound like a pathetic loser.
But the truth is that D knows how I feel about him, so the reality of the situation is that he’s a jerk, I’m a masochist, and we’re best friends.
And in a perfectly girl-psychotic manner, I feel the need to date and obsess over other guys in front of him. To taunt him with the idea of losing me to some other guy—not just my friendship but the wonderful future I’ve created in my imagination in which he realizes my brilliance, my charm, my wit, the something that makes me special.
I waste all my charm and flirting and brilliance on other guys, always for his benefit. I’ve perfected the art of getting the guy I don’t want, which most people find amazing, considering the fact that I’m a size 10 (okay, 12, whatever). And when you’re “fat” you’re not supposed to get guys. But when you’re desperately in love, anything is possible and although I couldn’t give a fig for these guys…they are there, litter on the ground, dust in my wake, casualties of unreciprocated love. Theirs, mine, ours.
I know that as long as D’s around I will never be able to look at another guy without thinking that he isn’t the one I want. And I wonder if I’ll ever fall out of love with D.
If only D had the good sense to like men. All of this could’ve been avoided.
THINGS I HATE ABOUT MY BODY
It’s a relatively short list, considering what the media would have me believe is wrong with my body. I like my boobs—although I hate the fact that I call them boobs, even in my own head.
Breasts seems too much like something your health teacher would call them. Tits, fifth-grade boy. What’s left? Bazongas? Sure, why not? I like my bazongas. Although I’m pretty sure my left one is a half cup larger than my right one.
In the eighth grade I looked this up on the Internet and it’s a common thing—one being bigger than the other—but I’m still obsessed with it. I think it has something to do with me being a righty, so I spent a year (ninth grade) trying to write with my left hand—or rather, I did this until my teachers all complained and my grades started dropping because nobody could read my homework or test answers.
So I hate my left bazonga but like my bazongas in general.
I like my legs. I think my front teeth could be a bit larger—but they are straight without the benefit of braces. So those are just mild annoyances. My second toe is smaller than my big toe, a fact for which I praise God every day. But—all of my fingers are the same size. They aren’t particularly meaty fingers or anything, but they are literally ALL the same size (except the pinky is a little smaller). I can wear my rings on ANY finger. This bothers me. I point it out whenever I wear rings.
I also have incredible hearing. I hate that.
MARLEY DIGGONS IS A GRADE-A BITCH
Rumors have been flying over why I’m not going on the senior trip to Mexico, especially since I’m the one who planned the whole thing. There were fourteen of us going for the second week of spring break. Fourteen out of the thirty-six juniors in our class and fourteen out of the fourteen who were actually invited to attend.
My favorite rumor so far is that I’m going to visit a seer in Scotland to speak with my dead mother. Others range from rehab (which is popular these days) to going on a love tryst with one of our teachers from Curtis Prep. As if. But I guess it’s better that they think I’m shacking up with Mr. O’Brien (the closest thing to a hot teacher there is at CP) than know the truth.
I’m a little miffed that no one is really upset that I’m not going. Marley Diggons is absolutely ecstatic.
Marley Diggons, aside from the role as Grade-A Bitch, is also a pinch-faced twit and my best friend. Or should I say best enemy? D is always asking why I don’t tell her to take a flying leap, but things like that don’t happen on the Upper East Side.
You keep your friends close, your boyfriend closer, and your best enemy so close, people think you’re conjoined twins. That way you know when she’s talking shit about you and you can combat it quickly and effectively as you whisper your own little subtle death threats in her ear.
Plus, we’ve known each other forever. My dad is always asking me:
How’s Marty Diggons’s girl?
Me: Oh, Mary is fine, Dad!
How’s that girl of Marty Diggons? You two still friends?
Me: Oh, Martha and I are best friends, Daddy!
I saw Marty Diggons today, he asked after you. How’s his daughter doing?
Me: Oh, Melanie is lovely as always. Turning into quite the young lady.
And my dad would nod from behind his newspaper, never looking up. If he ever noticed that Marley-Mary-Martha-Melani
e’s name changed on a regular basis, he never mentioned it. I wonder if Marley does the same thing with her dad?
MD: How’s Richard Swain’s daughter doing?
Marley: Oh, Riley? She’s turned into the biggest tramp in the history of Curtis Prep. She took on half the student body and a few of the younger faculty members last week at the pep rally. It was stunning.
MD: That’s nice, dear (as he gives the paper a good flick to straighten the pages while he reads the finance section).
We’ve remained best enemies for the sakes of our dads. Sometimes parents can be such trials.
But procedure and protocol on best enemies are still very loose. It means that I still invite her to my Christmas party when all of our parents take off for drinks at the Waldorf. Every year she receives an eggshell-colored card with delicate script (all calligraphy done by hand, of course) announcing the X-annual Christmas Party hosted by Miss Riley Swain at her residence. This is out of respect for my father. If it was up to me, I would’ve stopped inviting her after the eighth grade when she got absolutely smashed on cheap vodka and made out with Andrew Benjamin Thompson. Seriously.
I’m sure you’ve seen pictures of Benji and Angela (his girlfriend, sort of) in the Hamptons society pages. They’ve been dating forever, their parents are best friends, and everyone expects them to get engaged when they go off to Yale together next year. Little do they know that Benji is completely and utterly gay. Even Angie knows. But what’s she going to do? There aren’t that many acceptable men at Curtis Prep (four) and everyone knows it is better to have a boyfriend who goes to the gym as much to check out the eye candy as to do thigh workouts than it is to be dateless.
Anyway, Marley and Benji made out. Angela found out and didn’t speak with Marley for exactly two weeks. It was hilarious; I think Marley was more freaked out than Angela was upset. But now it’s just an embarrassing episode that nobody brings up, but that’s just because they don’t know that I have video from my camera-phone of Benji telling Marley to speak in a lower voice while she touched his you-know-what.
I’m still trying to figure out how to deliver that particular gift.
Perhaps for graduation? Text it over to their parents?
I’m almost loathe to call off the tenuous truce that Marley and I have.
We made it when we got a little tipsy at Tricia Owens’s birthday party and I admitted to being in love with D and she admitted that she got breast augmentation done because she had an inverted nipple. We’ve been doing so well that I’m ashamed to admit that I was actually shocked when I overheard her talking about my trip to upstate New York.
I arrive at this party fashionably late (as usual). I barely can make it through the marble entryway of the town-house apartment. There are already so many people crammed into the apartment, mostly people I know from school, but every once in a while I see eyes that I don’t recognize as they linger above the veil of a tipped-back martini glass.
I can barely hear the clink of my kitten heels against the marble foyer as I try to make my way back to the booze in the living room bar (usually where I find my friends congregating) when I spot them huddled into a corner settee—half hidden by a hideously fake palm tree. I wonder who they are hiding from and gossiping about.
What’s that old saying? Curiosity killed the cat? Well, if curiosity killed the cat, gossip revived her and then ran over her with a Mack truck.
Cynthia Juel-Roberts: I heard she’s going to rehab. (Side note: CJR drinks like a fish…but at least she holds her liquor better than her mother.)
Amanda SomethingOrOtherBecauseShe’sNotImportant EnoughToRemember: I heard her father is sending her to a military academy for what happened last month with Edward. (I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s just say the rumors about Edward Junior are completely true.)
Marley: Amanda, don’t be retarded. That was a month ago.
For a second I don’t realize they are talking about me. Even I’m not so egocentric that I believe everyone talks about me every minute of the day (just most people, most minutes…ha-ha). I figure it out when Amanda Something says the thing about Edward. But Marley? Sticking up for me? This obviously shocks me. Truce doesn’t necessarily mean that we go around protecting each other from the opinions and backstabbing of other girls. We just don’t actively participate. While this is a minor shock, the major shock comes when she continues.
Marley:…I hear her dad is sending her to fat camp.
I hear two sharp intakes of breath and then a high-pitched giggle (CJR, bitch).
Marley:…And not a moment too soon.
I walk away. They haven’t seen me.
I mean, it’s one thing to talk about how a girl in your circle of friends is an absolute slut. Or if she drinks like a fish and most nights will be found vomiting in the nearest bathroom or offering the first guy she sees a hand job to drive her home (CJR), or if she role-plays as a boy with a gay guy her friend is dating (MD). But there are some things that should be sacred among women.
Apparently not.
So I do the only thing I can think of doing. I push myself through the throng of people whose faces begin to look all Monet and smeared (I am NOT going to cry) and I do the one thing I know how to do well. I go looking for revenge. I go looking for Marley’s crush.
THIS PARTY SUCKS, AND THE LOVE OF MY LIFE
Having made my escape and my plan for revenge, I blink away my tears fast enough to notice a picture of Amanda Something with two Older Somethings and the ugliest dog I’ve ever seen hanging in a portrait above the fireplace in the living room. I grab a glass of half-drunk red wine off the banister that separates part of the living room where there is a baby grand piano. Which obviously has never been played. Pretension, above all things, makes me sick. You can’t fake the bitchiness that comes with breeding. I should know.
We’re all at Amanda Something’s house. Which is why I guess she’s here. Her parents are probably away at a weekend spa retreat and Amanda is taking advantage of their absence in an attempt to raise her social status. And it is working. For the weekend. She’s still not invited on my Mexico trip and by Monday she’ll have faded better than the wine stain I’m about to leave on her mom’s white rug.
I step behind the baby grand and spill a little bit of wine out and it seeps into the carpet, leaving a deep red stain. Enough? Perhaps. I tip the glass a little more and begin drawing it in the shape of two overly large breasts.
I leave the glass there, stepping back to see my artistic handiwork, and smile. Then I bend down and wipe my fingerprints off the glass—which I admit might be overdoing it a little, but you never know…better safe than sorry.
I feel this is fitting retribution for what she has said.
Not that I’m still thinking about that. Instead I’m focused on finding Timothy. He’s around here somewhere, probably with the rest of the crew team, trying to look cool while they wait for their girlfriends to get drunk enough to screw them.
I make my way through a group of people I don’t even know and into the kitchen to pour myself a drink (using a plastic cup, how lame). There isn’t even a bar here. I’m shaking my head sadly when I spot D sitting on a lounge a few feet away from me. He’s wearing a red satin kimono tied over a tight black T-shirt and Diesel jeans.
I know what you’re thinking…a kimono? WTF? But seriously. If anyone can pull it off, it’s D.
“Have a cobble-squat, sweetheart,” he says in the cutest Brit accent ever. He always says that he attributes at least ninety-five percent of the play he gets to the fact that he pronounces words like basil “bah-zil.” Apparently all women (on this side of the Atlantic) get hot hearing bah-zil. I know I do.
“Thanks.” I give him a kiss on the cheek and he holds out his drink, which I take and drink down—almost all of it—before he has a chance to grab it back. “I just overheard Marley and everyone talking about why I’m not going on spring break with you guys.”
D stops with his glass to his lips, tilted up bu
t not drinking. He quirks an eyebrow. Have I mentioned he’s hot? Have I mentioned that I haven’t told him why I’m not going and that even though he’s dying of curiosity, I would rather swallow my own tongue than tell him the truth?
“I’m either going to military school, rehab, or screwing Mr. O’Brien.”
He relaxes his shoulders and smiles at me before finishing the last sip of liquid.
“Marley’s a bitch,” I add.
“Guess the truce is off, then?” he asks.
“Yup.”
“She’s a pinch-faced twit.” (Note that this sounds way better coming out of his mouth with the Brit accent than it did in my NY brain. But I was used to that.)
“That she is. And now she’ll be a Timless pinch-faced twit.”
D sighs and puts down the glass. I see Marley across the room, drinking, still sitting by the palm with her (our) friends, and Timothy standing on the other side of the room, having just walked in with the rest of the crew team from somewhere in the back of the apartment, probably doing drugs in Amanda Something’s bathroom. One or more people will have undoubtedly puked in there before the end of this party, probably missing the toilet, and Amanda will be grossed out when she realizes, but she’ll probably call the housekeeper and think it was well worth it. Sure that she’;ll be more popular by Monday (nope) and her parents will never be the wiser (double nope).
Marley must’ve caught me staring because she smiles slightly and does a little wave-over. I smile back, shake my head, and hold up a finger. One minute, darling.
“Riley,” D says. “You don’t have to get involved with this. Just ignore her.”
“I will, but just after one thing.” I get up and straighten my skirt and make my way over to the crew team.
WHY THE CREW TEAM JOCKS ARE DUMBER THAN ALL THE OTHER JOCKS AT CF COMBINED
Last year all the crew guys convinced Andy Brince to steal a copy of the English final, which was really screwed up since Andy’s the only guy on the team who needs his scholarship. But it’s an athletic scholarship—which means he’s not any smarter than the rest of them. He gets a copy of an English exam and they all memorize the answers on the stolen paper. The next week they walk into English, sit down, and take the test, apparently without really looking at it. Just a bunch of dumb jocks filling in circles with their number twos.
