by Susan Vaught
For now, instead of looking up your addresses (yet), Fat Girl will just freak out about Fat Boy and worry. I want you to worry with me, and think good thoughts.
Don't make me hunt you down.
CHAPTER
SIX
Two teacher-chaperones, about a dozen junior class "hosts," and the entire senior class minus a few cowards who didn't show up, stumble onto the football bleachers at daylight.
Senior Shoot. Woohoo.
Burke, Freddie, NoNo, and I rub sleep-grunge out of our eyes and squint at the finished versions of seven different "fantasies" the guys from set design constructed for the event. Then we stare down at the selection form and try to focus. We can choose who we take fantasy shots with, and three of the fantasy sets. I check off "Sultan and Sultana," the set with the big tent and red velvet cushions, my first choice out of the whole bunch. Second, I mark Burke's pick, "Rah-Rah" (the football-player-and-cheerleader set, of course). Third, I scratch the little eraserless pencil lead on Freddie and NoNo's choice, "Wild West Shootout." We'll leave "Dungeons, Dragons, and Wizards" and "Otherworldly" to the fantasty/sci-fi nerds, "Wall Street" to the math geeks, and "Victorian Afternoon" to anyone stupid enough to try to lace up a corset so early in the morning.
Besides, thanks to my years in the drama department, I have decent costumes for the three we agreed to choose. Always an important point, where my luscious, curvy body is concerned. The costumes are in my garment bag, which Burke carries for me, along with his own, Freddie's, and NoNo's, too. We girls have our makeup kits to worry about.
The four of us will dress up, pose together, and hope we make weird enough shots to get picked for the yearbook spread. But even if we don't, we'll have copies for our own memories. Then come senior class photos in various states of insanity and goofball posing and, finally, the serious class shot. Last of all, we do group shots, which for me will be drama and newspaper, and individual portraits, which will get sorted for use if we win some honor or other.
One long friggin' day ahead, but hey, at least we don't have classes. Not a bad deal for a Wednesday, if you think about it.
It takes the junior class hosts about an hour to collect the forms, put the groups in order, and hand out donuts and orange juice, the traditional ceremonial breakfast for Senior Shoot. Burke and I lean against each other until the food shows up, while on the metal bleacher step below us, NoNo whips out some kind of vegan bar with soy nuts to eat instead. She gives her sugar-coated donut to Freddie, who breaks it in half, pops a piece in her mouth, and hands the other piece to me. Because of the absurd hour, and how nobody's really that close around us, I do eat it. In fact, I kill Freddie's offering before my donut and juice even make it down the row, hoping the sugar will prop my eyes open another centimeter and make me feel like putting on a harem costume.
Burke takes our food off the tray when it arrives, then passes the tray to me, and I stand up and walk it on down the row. The guy who takes it from me, one of the math geeks, stares at me for a few seconds, then smiles and says, "Thanks, Fat Girl."
People have started that since the newspaper articles.
Some kids seem to mean it in a nice way, like Math Geek, so I don't knock him backward off the bleachers. I just give him a blazing Fat Girl glare, which makes him smile bigger.
When I get back to Burke, he holds on to his donut, napkin, and juice cup as I sit and eat. When I'm finished, he offers me all of his stuff.
"You aren't eating?" My eyelids finally do move a fraction higher. I collect his food and juice, but nothing's computing.
He reaches into his pack on the bleacher step behind us and pulls out a bottle of water. "I have to get ready," he says. "You know, start eating better, so this whole surgery thing doesn't shock my system."
My eyes open all the way. The first bite of Burke's donut turns heavy in my mouth, and I don't think I can swallow it without choking. For some reason, my eyes dart from his dreads and smooth forehead down across his cheeks, to his broad shoulders, belly, and finally come to rest on his powerful legs. I wonder how long he's been "eating better." Is he already smaller? Has he already started to change before he even has that god-awful stomach-stapling thumb-sized-two-tablespoons nightmare?
Christ, Jamie. Does that even matter when he might die in six days?
Smile at him, damn it.
So I smile, and force down the bite of donut, take a swig of juice, and wish I had some idea what to say, because Burke obviously wants me to say something.
"Good for you." NoNo breaks the silence, and I could kiss her, but I'm too busy letting the rest of Burke's donut slip out of my fingers and fall to the grass and mud underneath the bleachers. The ants can have a feast. I don't want anything else.
NoNo finishes her whatever-it-is bar and stretches. Her T-shirt is totally colorless today, with a consistency that reminds me of burlap. Her jeans, though—still bright blue hemp, high waist, and totally dork. "It's important to prepare for body trauma," she continues.
Freddie's face puckers. "Body trauma. God that sounds gross. Don't make me hurl my sugar and animal fat into your lap, 'kay?" She wipes donut crumbs off her chin as NoNo gags. To Burke Freddie says, "I'm glad you're doing that. I wondered when you'd start—well, worried that you wouldn't, really."
"I don't want to be one of those people who gains twenty pounds before they go in." Burke shakes his head, and his dreads brush the shoulders I love to squeeze and poke and rest my head on when I'm tired or sad, or even really happy. "That would make my risk of complications higher."
Everybody looks at me.
My turn to talk.
Only my words fell through the bleachers with Burke's donut.
Guess he doesn't want the four chocolate bars I automatically packed in my makeup kit for him. He probably doesn't want them anymore ever, does he?
/ could eat the ones I have left, or give them to Dad. My stomach lurches, and I taste orange juice when I swallow a burp. Nothing sounds good right now, even chocolate. It'll be nice to save that fifteen bucks a box every week, right? Because that's pretty much where I spend the lunch money my parents give me, on Burke's candy, since I don't eat at school.
After a few awkward seconds, I manage to squeak, "I want you to take care of yourself." Then, after a slow breath, "Can I do anything to help?"
Please say no.
As if reading my mind, Burke shakes his head. "I have to do this part on my own." He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze, his eyes already far away again, studying the crowd.
Fifteen or so minutes later, Freddie gives me hell as we dress in the back corner of the visitor field house. It smells a little like gym socks, boy-sweat, and heinous foo-foo perfume from all of us, which does nothing to help Freddie's mood.
"You need to be more supportive, lamie, I swear." She glares at me over the jeweled veil of her purple belly-dancer costume.
She and NoNo automatically stand in front of me, to give me a little privacy as I struggle into last year's Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp costume. I played Fatima, a healer chick who gets killed, then is impersonated by a genie's wicked brother. Faf-ima. Of course. I'm sure the whole school thought that was a kick, but at least I got a neat custom-sewn blue jumpsuit, jeweled belt, and silky blue face-turban thingee out of the deal.
"I offered to help him." I wrap the turban thingee around my cheeks and chin, realize I'm sweating, and hope I don't stink. "And I tossed the chocolate bars I brought him in the trash. What do you want from me?"
"Oh, I don't know." Freddie folds her purple-draped arms and taps her flip-flops on the field house's stone floor. "How about a hug? Some warmth? Some looo-oove?"
NoNo, who is dressed in a green costume that reminds me of that old I Dream of Jeannie television show, only faded-looking green like all her stuff, nods. The tassel on her blah green hat flips forward. "You need to tell Burke what you feel, everything you feel, so you don't have any regrets if something bad happens."
Freddie and I stop glowering at
each other and laser-eye NoNo instead. "Don't talk like he's going to die," I say, but Freddie's louder with, "Shut up, you morbid bitch!"
NoNo reacts with a twitch in her right eye. "Prepare for the worst, and be grateful when it doesn't happen."
Freddie's next comment isn't even printable.
Both of NoNo's eyes twitch. "Is what she said even possible?" she asks in a mousy voice.
Every conceivable social group has stopped chattering and dressing, and all the senior girls in the field house now stare at us.
I push my way between Freddie and NoNo and strike a pose. "If you want a picture, assholes, that'll be twenty dollars for a package of two eight-by-tens."
Four hands shove me forward before I get any louder, just in case one of the teacher-chaperones happens to be within earshot. Geeks, brains, jocks, freaks, and everybody else scatters before the might of Fat Girl and her entourage.
All the way through the "Sultan and Sultana" and "Rah-Rah" shoots, I try to figure out how to be huggy, warm, loving, tell Burke all my feelings, prepare for the worst, and hope the worst doesn't happen.
The whole thing makes me want to spit orange-juice-donut burps all over the football field.
Right about the time Burke plants an illegal kiss on me even though I'm wearing his last-year's football uniform and hitting him with his own football helmet (you didn't seriously think I'd dress like a cheerleader, did you?), I decide being normal is probably the best bet. Normal, with a healthy dose of it's not happening, it's not happening thrown in. As long as I don't let Burke or Freddie or NoNo hear me, I can say it's not happening as many times as I want, damn it, and hope God decides it's a prayer and that, for once, my prayers might be worth answering.
During the "Wild West Shootout" photos, a couple of news vans pull into the drive that leads to the football field. Two of the three local stations usually run our Senior Shoot as a humor/human-interest sort of piece. Nothing new or unusual, except there are more cameras than I remember from last year, when we had to play hosts to the seniors. Looks like at least one of the big-wig reporters has come, too, instead of the pathetic newbies that usually show up for something like this.
During the serious class photos, a van from the third news station pulls into the drive.
"Man, we're popular," Freddie mutters just before we split up for group and individual photos. The teacher-chaperones float around the edges of the field sucking on tea and lemonade, and still eating leftover donuts off and on. They don't seem concerned about the news vans.
It's getting hot, but the breeze smells like fall and cold air and brown leaves coming soon. I try to keep my focus there instead of on Burke or the hovering news crews, which, oddly, are not approaching any of the kids already done with group and individual shots. Drama photos go fast, since we're all natural hams who so know how to pose. lournalism, however, isn't so smooth. Heath and I are the only seniors, and he's about as camera-comfy as a plastic doll with a stick up its butt.
"Loosen up, Roboto," I whisper as the poor yearbook guy tries again to get a decent shot of us standing next to each other, holding a copy of The Wire—at least one with Heath's eyes open. Other seniors collect around us in small groups, talking and laughing. Some of them look at me. I distinctly hear the words Fat Girl.
What, they never noticed I was fat before my column?
I don't get it.
When I glance at Heath, he's blushing. "I arrange photos. I never said I look good in photos."
With a loud sigh, I slip my arm around his shoulders and goose him hard in one armpit. He jumps, throws the newspaper straight up in the air, wheels on me, sticks his finger in my face and yells, "Damn it, Jamie, don't do shit like that!"
Click, click, click goes the digital camera.
"Print one of those," I instruct the shocked photographer, who has pulled the camera from his eye. "They're more true to life anyway."
But Heath snatches hold of the photographer and makes him delete the last three pictures.
One of the news crews filters through the whispering groups of seniors already finished with their photos. Channel 3, from the big sign on the front camera. The rail-thin reporter has thick black hair cropped just above her shoulders and a red big-shoulder dress that makes her look way too much like Lois Lane. Only Lois doesn't try to interview anybody. She just stands there, gazing at Heath and me.
Heath and I look at each other.
What the hell?
Five slow, hellish minutes pass before we finally get a shot of Heath without an I-have-menstrual-cramps expression. The yearbook guy finally waves us on toward the individual portrait setups, but Lois Lane waves at me and jogs in my direction, dragging her camera crew behind her.
"See?" Heath mutters from behind me. "They saw what you did to me, and now you'll pay. There is justice in the universe."
"Can it," I snarl just as Lois reaches me. Behind her, the clumps of finished seniors gawk, along with the yearbook guy, who is now ignoring the waiting Beta Club.
"Excuse me, are you Jamie Carcaterra?" Lois sounds out of breath. "Are you Fat Girl?"
My mouth runs before my brain works. "Well, I'm sure as hell not Skinny Girl, am I?"
She pauses, huge television smile frozen on her sculpted face. Those poofy, puckery lips so can't be real.
"She definitely has ass fat pumped into that mouth," I tell Heath in low, private tones. "Seriously. That's how they do it."
He bursts out laughing, but covers it by coughing. I get another don't-do-shit-like-that look.
My eyes flick around the gathering crowd, hunting for Burke. Or Freddie. Maybe NoNo would be better. She loves to have platforms for her Green Party educational talks. What better venue than Channel 3, complete with Lois Lane? Television interviews aren't really my shtick. I'm print-media all the way. Unless it would help me get that scholarship...
Sweat coats my face and neck, and I think about how I'll shine and look pale next to pancake-Lois, but oh well.
Lois thrusts the microphone forward. "Can you repeat what you just said?"
I clear my throat. "Yes," I enunciate in my stage voice, "I'm Jamie Carcaterra, aka Fat Girl."
"Fat Girl, can you tell me the real motivations behind the provocative column you're writing for Garwood's school newspaper, The Wire?" Lois beams after her question. It's enough to blind a person, the way the sun blazes off her whitened teeth.
Her question and the mouth-glare catch me off guard, so much so that I don't know what to say. "Uh..." comes out clearly, as well as "I—well..."
Heath steps up beside me in a hurry. "I'm Heath Mon-tel, editor-in-chief. Jamie's writing Fat Girl so people know what it's really like being overweight in today's society."
Lois gives him a look that says, Okay, thanks. Now move. I recognize it, because I've used that look many times myself.
Ever polite, Heath fades back without being asked out loud.
"Ms. Carcaterra, by medical definitions, would you consider yourself overweight or obese?" Lois asks without skipping a beat. "Morbidly obese?"
"I... don't really like clinical terms and distinctions. I'll just stick with fat, thanks." I work up a first-class stage smile, one I hope looks decent on camera.
God, I wish Burke and Freddie and NoNo would show up.
Lois moves in a little closer. "Are you affiliated with the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance that you mentioned in your first column?"
Quick search of the growing crowd. Still no Freddie or NoNo in sight. "No, but they have a lot of great articles and resources on their Web site."
"Why did you choose a column name and a term that most children use to poke fun at overweight females?" Lois's tone gets more strident. "Was that a political statement?"
"No," I say honestly. Then, "Yes. The fat part, but not the girl part, or the whole fat-girl name. It's just what I am. I'm a Fat Girl. I wanted to put the words into print."
Lois blinks like she's not following me.
Freddie so
needs to steal this bitch's job.
Whip-fast, Lois's voice switches from confrontational to sweetly sympathetic. "You must have suffered terribly from teasing and bullying due to your size. Is that why you're so angry?"
I'm angry? The sun seems hotter across my cheeks, and I fidget in my Diana's skirt and blouse, one of my best, a silky brown with tribal prints woven across the belly, arms, and waist. I'm angry right now? Am I?
I shrug. "If I'm mad right this second, it's because you're asking questions that don't make sense. And actually, no, I haven't been teased or bullied much at school. I have good friends. People seem to like me. I'm usually the one doing all the teasing—and the bullying, too."
"You admit you're the bully. I see." Back to confrontational now. "Are you biased against thinness and thin people? Did that bias motivate your sneak attack on the Hotchix clothing chain, because they serve primarily normal-sized teens?"
"Sneak attack?" Who is this chick? Has she been bribed by the fashion industry or something?
Beside me, Heath steps forward again. I glance at his way-red face as he pushes his hair out of his eyes and says, "Hey, lady, you know what you can do with your attitude and your—"
I take hold of his arm to cut him off. After letting him go, taking a second to calm myself, spending another second wondering how red my own face has turned and estimating how brightly my sweat is glowing on camera, I respond with, "Can you define normal for me? Because—"
"I read your column on vanity sizing, Fat Girl," the reporter interrupts. Her voice gets louder, even more forceful, and a little sarcastic. "Tell the truth now. Isn't that just another cop-out to avoid limiting your diet and increasing your exercise?"
My smile goes cold. I feel it, and I don't care. Fine. She wants Fat Girl, then it's Fat Girl she'll get. "That's a first-class boundary violation. You have as much right to ask about my diet and exercise as I have to ask why you got ass fat injected into your lips. Care to share?"
Lois looks flapped. Before she can open her enhanced mouth again, I add, "Did you see Freddie's cable piece on Garwood's channel? I'd say I was the one who was attacked at Hotchix. How fair is it that larger teens have to buy clothes from expensive specialty stores—stores that target older women who enjoy looking like fruit?"
