by Susan Vaught
"Okay." Heath raises one hand and makes a peace sign. "It's just with class and the play and senior stuff and ACT studying, I didn't think—but I'm sure you know what you're doing."
Brain explosion. Brain explosion.
I shove both of my fists against my eyes and shake my head. "Jeez, don't remind me about all that stuff."
"Sorry. Bad idea. Cut the text. Change the font." Heath's embarrassed face swims before my eyes, covered in spots, when I move my fists. He's got that cute oops look again, and it almost makes me want to laugh.
"Well, I've got to go," Heath says. "Will you walk me out?"
The thought of getting out of the waiting room, walking with Heath, maybe getting fresh air and a snack sounds way past excellent, but I'm afraid Burke's parents will come back and I'll miss the update.
"I can't. Sorry." I gesture to Freddy and M & M. "I need to be here in case we get news."
Heath looks unhappy, but he shrugs, and after a few seconds, gives me a too-serious look. "You call if you need me. I'm keeping my phone next to my bed all night, just in case."
"That's completely beyond sweet. You're the best." I want to lean over and hug him, but that feels a little weird, so I don't. But I know I'm looking at him hard, maybe funny, maybe desperate. The wrong way. Enough that I notice Freddie and Burke's sisters staring.
Get a grip, get a grip, keep a grip, look away...
But I can't.
Instead, I stand when Heath does, and walk him to the door of the waiting room.
When I pass Freddie and M & M, one of them sniffs. Loud.
What the hell?
I had to get the article written. Deadlines wait for no man . . . or surgery. They're college women. They ought to know that by now.
At the waiting room door, Heath stands close to me for a count of three, maybe four, looking at me. Before I can ask him to stop, he says, "I'm sorry about all you're going through—and call if you need to."
Then he makes a quiet exit, folder still tucked beneath his arm.
I watch him go and wish I could be as relaxed and calm as he always looks. Like the world is no big deal, like life is easy and fun and just one big endless movie.
It must be amazing to be Heath. Or at least he's good at giving that impression.
Somebody grabs my elbow, and It's Freddie. She pushes me forward a step, out of the waiting room, into the hallway. "We need to talk, Jamie."
"No way." I hold my ground. "Burke's folks will be back any second. Whatever it is can wait that long."
"Now," Freddie says through her teeth.
"No!" I use the elbow she's holding to nudge her backward.
Red streaks form on both of Freddie's olive cheeks. "Fine. We'll stay here and you'll tell me what's happening between you and Heath, right here, right now."
"Wha—?" Like a guppy, I work my lips but don't do anything besides blow air bubbles. My face feels so hot it might as well be on fire.
Freddie's unguppy lips pull tight, and she almost growls out, "You heard me."
Now It's me walking away from the waiting room door, dragging Freddie with me by her elbow. When I finally stop, almost at the end of the hall back toward the ICU, I wheel on her. "What do you mean, what's happening between me and Heath? I told you, he wanted the piece, that's all."
Freddie twists out of my grip and rubs her elbow. "Piece of what?"
"For God's sake, Freddie!" Heat blasts across my face. "I've been waiting at this hospital all day for Burke, and he might be dying, and you're freaked out about Heath?"
Freddie stares at me, evil-eyes me, and scowls. "Wrong answer."
"What the hell do you want to hear?" I wish I had something to throw, since throwing Freddie's not an option. "What's the right answer?"
"Don't be stupid, Freddie, of course I'm not hot for Heath." Freddie props her hands on her hips. "Or how about, Are you nuts, Freddie? I'm totally in love with Burke. You should have seen yourself, Jamie, the way you looked at him—the way he looked at you. Something's up. Admit it."
I'm feeling like I could turn green and spew in a heartbeat. "You know me," I tell her, hearing the death-frost in my own voice. "You know exactly how I feel. Besides, do you honestly think Heath Montel would be interested in me?"
At this, Freddie gapes for a second, then pops back with, "Not everybody's stuck on the fat thing like you are."
Okay, now throwing Freddie does seem like an option. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing." Freddie backs down a little, lets her arms fall, and shakes her head. "Everything, Jamie. And the question isn't whether or not Heath could be drooling over you, because he is. Are you drooling over him?"
"You are nuts," When I glance back toward the ICU, a huge knot ties itself in my belly, just thinking about what's happening to Burke. "Of course Heath's not drooling over me."
As I turn back, she just stares.
I think seriously about finding out if I can turn her into a fastball.
"You don't even hear yourself, do you?" Freddie keeps staring. "Heath can't be attracted to you. Heath's not drooling over you. Fine! Who cares what Heath does? What about you, damn it?"
"I'm in love with Burke." My glare ratchets up five levels, daring her to say anything back, to doubt me.
All the red drains out of Freddie's cheeks, and suddenly, she looks as tired as I feel, except she's still glowering. We eye duel for a few seconds, then turn away at the same time and start back toward the waiting room. Stifflike, almost marching beside each other.
Freddie mutters, "You still didn't say outright that you aren't interested in Heath."
"For Christ's sake, I'm not interested in Heath," I dutifully say to Freddie, but the whole time I'm wondering what I do feel. And why. And my brain starts spewing idiotic crap again, like philophobia, fear of falling in love. Then, metathesiophobia, fear of change.
Heath's face dances in my consciousness—his blond hair and blue eyes, and that smile. Checking on me. Leaving his phone beside his bed all night, in case I need to call.
Oh, why don't we add one morefreak-ass word, while we're at it? What about stygiophobia, the fear of going STRAIGHT TO HELL?
"I'm absolutely not interested in Heath, Freddie. He's just a friend." I stop her at the waiting room door and whisper, "Good enough?"
"Yeah, I guess," she says with her words, but her expression says doubt, doubt, doubt.
When we get into the waiting room, I check with Burke's sisters to make sure Burke's parents didn't slip past us while I was gone. Then I sit down with Freddie and M & M and we talk about little stuff—school, and play practice, and the math and science parts of the ACT giving Freddie and me fits, and the whole time, I'm thinking about Fat Girl and Heath Montel.
My eyes keep flicking back to the chairs where we sat, where I wrote the update for him.
Thank God, thank God, Heath's gone, and I'm done with that for now. One thing off my plate. I'm relieved. I was relieved when I watched him wander away down the long hospital corridor.
Right?
Definitely.
I was relieved.
I've got to be more careful about impressions, though. If Freddie wondered about Heath and me, then M & M might, too. As much as they hate me dating Burke, if I act like I might ditch him for another guy, M & M definitely would grow fangs and suck my blood. I have no doubt.
Besides, I would hate myself for doing something like that. Not that leaving Burke for Heath is remotely an option. Heath is my friend, nothing less and sure as hell nothing more. He's weird and he can be a pain, and there is so totally no way he would ever be interested in me. Heath isn't a date-the-Fat-Girl type of guy. Not an option on his part, or on mine.
The Wire
FEATURE SPREAD
for publication Friday, September 28
Fat Girl Frothing
Fat Boy Chronicles IV
JAMIE D. CARCATERRA
Fat Boy lives.
I hope you cheered. Don't forget I'm watching. F
at Girl has spies everywhere.
So, like I said, Fat Boy's breathing. Fat Boy sits up in bed. He can eat a handful of ice chips. He can drink a few sips of sugar-free noncarbonated beverages (find some of those other than water, I dare you). He can suck a few tablespoons of sugarless gelatin through a straw.
Yum.
He can stand, but a therapist has to help him walk. His wounds hurt, especially the second place the surgeon cut Fat Boy to help him breathe again. He has to blow air in and out of this little spirometer thing and move a little blue ball in a tube to be sure he doesn't get pneumonia.
And today, after three days in the ICU and four days in a regular room on ice chips and gelatin, Fat Boy got to try pureed food.
Of course, nobody told me about the frothing. I'm not sure anybody told Fat Boy about it, and for damn sure nobody told NoNo, who fainted, and Freddie, who barfed. Fat Boy's sisters and parents turned kinda green, too, though his sisters always look a little—well, witchy.
Frothing works like this:
Normal stomachs make acid to help with digestion. Stapled guts fail to make enough acid, so the teeny pouch manufactures mucous to help digest food like pureed pale goo. Mucus builds up in the tube between the pouch and Fat Boy's mouth, called the esophagus. He sucks down goo, feels sick, and back the goo comes, mucus and all, bubbling up the esophagus and blowing out his mouth and nose. No, scratch that. Frothing. Like what cappuccino machines do to milk to make that foam on top.
Only out the mouth and nose.
I thought it would come out his eyes and ears before it was done. Fat Boy yelled and said he felt like somebody turned him into an exploding soda can.
Not fun. Not pretty.
Ruined my lunch and scarred NoNo for life. Freddie's talking about therapy.
Raise your hand if you think this surgery ought to come with a full-page, all-caps FROTH WARNING.
Well, that's unanimous.
Time Postsurgery: 10 Days
Pounds Lost: 16
CHAPTER
TEN
Burke studies me with his dark eyes, which seem wider and bigger as the days pass. He's propped on pillows in his hospital bed, and he has one arm draped across his belly to hold everything still. Every time I see him do that, I want to yell at him for choosing to have this procedure, but I don't because he's trying so, so hard to get better.
We're alone in his clean white hospital room with its clean white tile, because It's morning. I get before nine and after play practice, by agreement with M & M and Burke's parents, even on Saturdays and Sundays. Freddie and NoNo usually come with me at night, but in the morning, Burke's all mine.
"What time do you have to leave?" His voice sounds hoarse and weak, but at least he's been upright for my whole pre-ACT visit, and that breathing-tube hole in his throat is closing up.
I glance at my watch and taste a backwash of the coffee and pretzels I ate for breakfast. "Ten minutes. Mom's picking me up out front."
Burke coughs. The wet, rattling sound gives me cold chills.
"Is Freddie taking the test today, too?" He blinks those big eyes at me, chasing the chills away.
"Are you kidding?" I smile. "This is Freddie we're talking about. She's waiting until three Saturdays from now. The absolute last moment she can get a score turned in with her applications on time."
"Yeah, should have figured." He shifts his weight and winces. "You're ready. You're gonna kick major standardized-test ass."
Is his hair getting thinner? My smile fades to nothing even though I'm trying to keep it. I mean, I understand this whole losing-weight thing, how the pounds are falling off of him. He does have a stapled gut, and he's had complications, and he's been sick as a dog and frothing every other time he tries to eat. With all of that, nineteen pounds in eleven days isn't completely unreasonable.
But Burke won't lose his hair, right?
I didn't read anything about losing hair. Anorexics lose their hair and get all hypoglycemic and stuff—but I didn't think that was such an issue for bariatric patients.
I'd go check the top of his head and make sure his dreads are still firmly attached, but that might freak him out. After all the volcanic goo eruptions, I don't want to do anything to stress him. Stress makes mucous bubble like Evillene's cauldron.
After a few seconds, I realize we've stopped talking, and he's back to studying me. It's strange not to be eating breakfast with him. I must have had breakfast with Burke hundreds of times, but how can I eat real food in front of him?
We probably won't share meals hardly ever now. We'll have to find other stuff to do while we talk, so we don't just stare. Staring is weird.
"Can you tell I'm losing?" Burke asks for probably the twentieth time in the past three days.
I nod, like I always do. "More and more."
And I can tell.
His cheeks sink in and his neck's starting to sag, and under the sheets, his legs don't look so big. I'm not sure what I'm imagining and what's real, and what's because he's been so sick. If I lose thirty pounds, or even forty, people don't notice. I lost fifty once, and only Freddie and NoNo and Burke and my family had a clue.
Can I really see Burke's missing nineteen pounds?
Or am I seeing the future?
The thought makes me want to froth.
"Gotta go," I tell him. When I get up to give him a kiss, my hip bumps the chair and turns it over. I grab it before it clatters on the floor, because that happens a lot. My body doesn't work well with hospital furniture. My body doesn't work well with hospitals, period. Too big for the beds. Too big for the rooms. Definitely too big for stupid little wooden chairs.
Too big for Burke.
I set the chair upright and lean down to kiss Burke. His lips feel moist and soft again, like they're supposed to feel. I linger, tasting hints of cherry Jell-O. Burke always liked whipped cream with his desserts, but he can't have whipped cream now. Too much sugar. Not enough room for extras in a thumb-sized stomach.
"Mmm," Burke says as I pull away. His gorgeous eyes are still closed. "You'll ace this. Good luck, babe."
A nurse comes in carrying a tiny bowl of pureed goo.
It's green.
I glance from the goo to Burke, imagining green froth even though I'm totally trying not to.
"Good luck to you, too."
. . .
When I climb into our old Ford, Mom smells like garlic and she's dressed in home clothes.
With a sigh, I push at the pile of mail on the seat between us.
"Checked it before I left," she says as I rifle through the letters, still thinking a little about the goo and wishing Mom would wear better clothes to places where she might run into my friends. Or at least take a bath.
An envelope from Dad's insurance company catches my eye. When I pick it up and ask Mom, she says I can open it. I hear the sudden strain in her voice and know we're both thinking the same thing—that this might be the letter about bariatric surgery and whether or not we have benefits that cover it.
My back and shoulders tingle as I hold the monogrammed parchment and blink at our address on the front. The letters blur even as I'm trying to focus.
I don't want bariatric surgery. There's no way I'd go through what Burke's going through.
But here's the letter telling me whether or not my family could afford it—for me, or for Mom or Dad.
Why does it matter? Why am I even looking? Would / let any more people I know get their gut stapled?
The envelope won't give.
Finally, I just rip off the end like Dad does, tearing half the letter in the process.
"What does it say?" Mom asks as she drives slowly through the Saturday morning traffic.
"I don't know yet." When I glance up, I calculate the distance to the testing center over at West Memorial Library. About ten minutes. We've got half an hour, but taking the ACT doesn't seem important all of a sudden.
The paper in my hand feels monumental.
I gaze at it, hold it car
efully, treat it like It's fragile.
What if the procedure is covered?
Will Mom and Dad push me to get the surgery? Will they want it for themselves?
Do I want it?
My eyes drift from the folded paper downward, to my big belly, spread across my bigger knees.
For a split second, I can see myself without the fat roll. I can see my own thighs, trim and sleek and muscled, like those underwear models on television. I'd pump a lot of iron, walk miles, go up and down stairs as fast as Freddie—and I wouldn't even have to hold on to the railings. Maybe I'd never have chafe marks again, or a heat rash, or new stretch marks.
Maybe I'd quit worrying about whether or not I slink.
Maybe I'd shrink as fast as Burke. How small could I get, with a thumb-sized pouch instead of a stomach?
Would I be like NoNo, all sticks and bones, or like Freddie—just right, with wide girl-hips?
If I got small, I'd go back to Hotchix and buy that shirt with the blue pattern, even if NoNo disowned me for supporting animal torturers.
Hell, I'd about have to disown myself, buying from Hotchix, but that shirt would be worth it.
Little by little, I unfold the paper.
My eyes blur at the words, hoping they won't say we can have the surgery, and at the same time, hoping that we do have the benefit. My brain yanks in two different directions, toward thin me and back toward fat me.
The first thing I read is a salutation addressed to Mom, with a note that Dad's the insured, and the name of his employer. Below that, in straight, clear type, the print reads:
Dear Mrs. Carcaterra:
Thank you for your recent inquiry about bariatric surgery. At this time, GetLifeRight does not cover weight-loss products, procedures, or programs. These items are not scheduled for review during this calendar year.
We wish you good fortune in your pursuit of health, and urge you to Get Life Right!
Sincerely,
Ann Smith
Enrollee Representative Class III
