Fat Chance

by Brandi Kennedy

  Knowing better than to answer that, I heave a sigh. I know I’m going to have to go, that’s all there is to it. I know she'll never let me out of it. This, of course, means that I need new clothes. I need a girdle. I need a body transplant, or a charitable doctor who could help me vacuum all the unsightly fat from my body. He could donate it to a third world country; according to Rick, I have enough meat on my rear to fatten up an entire orphanage.

  "I know what you're thinking," Janet says quietly, somehow listening to my thoughts as she has always done. "But it would sure mean a lot to me if you would come. I know the girls would love to have you in the house again; they always miss you when they come home without you. Your room's still here, you know."

  "Okay. Okay, I'll come, Mama," I answer, hearing her breath hitch at the endearment. It always trips her emotions when I slip like that. She talks for a few more minutes, trying to sound like she isn't choked up as she gives me the basic details of the reunion, and then says she has to go. I end the call and can’t help smiling to myself, remembering the way she and her husband accepted me without hesitation as their own, right from the beginning.

  For the first year that I’d lived in her house, she'd only been Janet, and her husband had just been Jim. I had held myself back from them as much as possible; for me, they were just another family that I was sent to live with. They were nice enough but they could never be anything special to me, because I had grown used to temporary families; by then I spent every day just waiting to be told that I was moving again, transferred to yet another foster home. I refused to create any sort of emotional bond to anyone, believing as I did that they would disappear from me just as my biological family had.

  Eventually, Janet became the only one in my collection of foster mothers who was able to reach through my barrier of self-protection. She just sat me down one day and flat out acknowledged my fear of abandonment, challenging me to open up and give someone a chance to be close to me.

  Jim took me to dinner that night too, just like a father-daughter date, and he spoke with me also, informing me over steak and baked potatoes that they had petitioned to keep me with them, and that even though it was really too late for a formal adoption, the state had agreed to stop moving me, to finally allow me to have some stability. He told me, in his strong and quiet way, that I'd found a home.

  They knew, though, that they could never really be mother and father, because I had already had and lost both a mother and a father. Janet and Jim had never even tried to replace my original family, only to give me a new one. After that dinner date with Jim, they had slowly become "mama" and "pop" to me, secretly, just as they were "mama" and "pop" to their daughters. I had kept it to myself for the longest time, my sense of having been taken in and accepted. At that time, my new sense of them as my family was like a precious secret that I kept guarded in my heart.

  Too soon, it was time for me to branch out on my own and make my way in the world. I remember Janet crying on the front porch when I moved out of her house, only eighteen years old but determined to make my own way. I remember hugging her tight to me, clutching my suitcase in one hand, and I'd had my first verbal slip.

  "I'll be ok, mama," I'd whispered into her hair, filling with regret for the slip, misunderstanding as she'd stiffened against me.

  "What? Did you say mama to me?" she'd asked me, her eyes shimmering and her lower lip trembling.

  Frozen, I'd just stood there in shock, terrified of what she would say to me. Never had I expected her to really accept me as a genuine daughter, never had I allowed myself to hope that she would. But she had, wholeheartedly and without hesitation. She'd grinned and burst into fresh tears, pulling me back into her arms.

  "You don't forget your mother," she'd whispered fiercely. "Not ever, but don't you forget your mama either. You'll always have a place, right here, with me."

  It would be perfect, this deep-seated sense of belonging that she gave me, if not for the fact that these people I love, who have reached out to me, had also reached out to Rick. The jerk.

  Well, I’m just going to have to suck it up; I guess I’m going home.

  Chapter Three

  Having to get up and get ready for work is one of my least favorite parts of the day. I have a decent sense of fashion, and I know how to dress well, but no matter how well it starts out, there is always a part of the process where I'm pretty vicious with myself.

  While I chose my favorite dress to wear, I analyzed the simple wrap style and how it fit me. I second-guessed the shade of pink even though it matched my coloring perfectly. Pairing the dress with a violet scarf headband that had long parts, which hung down over one shoulder, I couldn't help wondering if it made my face look too round, or if the set of purple bangles I wore on one wrist made my hands look too fat. I wore boots in the same shade as my headband; they had a short chunky heel and they rode up my calves to just below the knees. Even these made me doubt myself, though I have no idea why.

  I work in a call center; it's one of the things in my life that I'm sort of emotionally mixed about. I like my job and I work with nice people, but I'm always wondering; if I were thinner, would I have a better job? Would I have more pay, or even a better position? Even though I'm one of the neatest, cleanest, most responsible people that I know, I seem to be passed up pretty often for the proverbial hot blonde with big jugs and an airhead voice.

  Anyway, for now, I don’t mind feeing like my body keeps me on the bottom; working where I am gives me lots of time to myself, since I don't have to work very long hours. Also, I'm only two desks down from Jackson, this guy that I've crushed on for a good long while now. He's been working two desks down for pretty much the entire time I've worked here.

  I have to admit that I don't really know him well though, since I have never spoken much with him, other than a generic hello in passing. He used to talk to me sometimes, when I first started here, but I have always been afraid to talk to him. I guess it's possible that he thinks I don't like him; I've been told that my self-consciousness makes me seem more than a little aloof. This, of course, makes me more self conscious.

  Still, I can't help watching him; he's really kind and he always gives his best to the people he interacts with. I've seen him buy lunch for people at work on several occasions, and once he anonymously donated a good chunk of money to an old boss' retirement fund. Sometimes he jokes around with his friends on lunch break and he's absolutely hilarious. A few times, I had to leave the breakroom to keep myself from laughing out loud at his jokes and looking like an eavesdropper.

  Too bad for me, I'm not sure he's really seen me in a long time. I mean, he sees me, but he sort of looks through me, or beyond me, and not really at me. I think I get resentful; it's too easy to forget how shy I was with him at first, how likely it is that it made me seem standoffish.

  Wrong or not, I tend to blame my weight for his disinterest. I've sort of convinced myself that he'd have been in more active pursuit if I were slim and strong, physically fit with high cheekbones and a model figure. After all this time working together, I wonder if he even knows what I look like, if there is anything about me that sticks in his memory, other than my size.

  He sure sticks in my memory; I know his cool blue eyes by heart. I can see them in my sleep. If I push my imagination, I can feel his hair in my hands, soft and black, shining and wavy. I just love the image of him. He's beautiful, physically perfect from what I can see, but as I've said, I don't really know him. I know only what he shows at work, because for whatever reason, we’ve never quite made it to the next level.

  When I get to work, I get this little thrill in the pit of my stomach because he's already there and he's smiling, laughing at some joke another guy has just told him. They talk often, but I don’t know much about the other guy; I think maybe his name is George.

  George catches me walking by; he smiles and says hello to me, but as I answer him politely, all I see is Jackson, which is sadly ironic because all he sees is Claire, the gi
rl who just walked in behind me. She is of course, thin and beautiful, with eyes that are not my muddy brown; they are instead the perfectly delicious color of dark smooth bourbon, under hair that is the shade of red velvet cake swirled into dark chocolate.

  I lower my head, embarrassed to be wishing for him to notice me. In my mind, I'm taunting myself with mental images; a clothesline goes by in my mind, old fashioned like a scene from my grandmother's television. On the clothesline, there are panties and I know they are mine. Large as they are, they simply cannot be denied; they are plain cotton in boring colors and probably big enough to fit a St. Bernard dog. Or maybe a walrus.

  The clothesline continues, little slingshot panties passing by in bright shades of red and blue and yellow, silk and lace. They would probably give an anorexic Chihuahua a wedgie.

  Next, I'm thinking that I should go on a diet; I can hear old insults playing in my head; old taunts from back when it got hard to live in Janet's house with the other foster kid, Rick. After spending my later teen years being told that I’m worthless, useless, it is my typical mental behavior to berate myself, and I'm being pretty harsh today because I'm disappointed. It doesn't help that over the years, I've had one person or another always sort of implying that I am nothing, that I am less of a woman because I am a large woman.

  I felt pretty enough leaving the house this morning; I felt attractive, which always takes me mentally down to somewhere around a hundred and twenty luscious and sexy pounds. I was encouraged by the way George looked at me, and thrilled when I received a random compliment in the post office on the way to work. Having Jackson look right through me is like a bucket of ice water on my spirit, though.

  I can't help wondering why I do this to myself, why I give so much of my personal power to random strangers I pass in daily life. Until that moment, I had felt wonderful, beautiful, and confident. Suddenly now, in the face of Jackson's inability to see me, I am four hundred pounds, with yellow pointy crooked teeth and hairy moles; I feel sloppy and gross.

  Is it right, really, for me to feel this way? I don't know, and I don't know how to change it. I notice the way other people react to me, and I can't deny that it affects the way I react to myself. The family reunion coming up is becoming a real source of dread, and I can't help wondering if I can really handle it. With my confidence in the pits, I go about my day, typical things bothering me much more maybe than usual.

  Sitting in my chair, I am ginger and fearful, knowing how humiliated I'd be if this was the day that my weak office chair collapsed under me. I lift the phone to take my first call of the day and I can't help noticing how puffy my fingers look, which leads to me thinking how fortunate I am to not be married; if I had a husband, he would likely be disappointed in a woman who couldn't wear her wedding rings. Irritable thoughts follow me all day, even into the bathroom.

  At work, we have floating toilets, the kind that are mounted mercilessly on the wall instead of sitting solid on the floor. Since the second day I've worked here, I've never set foot in this bathroom without my giant purse. No one knows, but inside, I've got a canvas zipper bag and it has a change of wrinkle free clothing in it. If one of those toilets breaks loose from the wall, what dignity I can hold onto will be in my ability to change clothes and pretend it wasn't me.

  In the bathroom on my lunch break, I hover to the best of my ability, feeling the toilet give just a little under the backs of my heavy thighs. Short as I am, I don't have much choice about how much of me is touching the toilet; they were mounted for taller women than me, certainly, or maybe for women who can levitate. Being too heavy to levitate, it doesn't matter much to me; and anyway I'm still a little depressed over Jackson, over my damaged history with Rick, over the childhood that set me up with this sense of weak vulnerability.

  I debate with myself for a while, thinking through the merits of the various diet plans I've been on during my adulthood. Each has its good points, things that I liked, but each has its own set of faults too, ways that the plan just didn't work for me. Finished, I stand in front of the mirror to check my makeup and be sure that my dress is still looking as it should be; As I stare into my own eyes, I realize with shock what my motive is in the dieting thought process.

  I want to diet successfully; I want to watch the pounds fall away, I want to buy new clothes over and over. Ordinarily, this would be a healthy thing for an overweight woman to crave, but I've just realized how wrong my personal motives are. Better health is nice, but that isn't the motive here. I want to be thin enough to wipe the inevitable self-satisfied smirk from Rick's face at the reunion. I want to slowly become visible to Jackson, pound by pound and inch by inch. I want to be thin enough to wear backless dresses, sleeveless tops, skirts that stop before my knees instead of after. And then, I want to look through him as he has done to me, whether his physical preferences are wrong or not. I am fully aware that we all have a certain look we are attracted to; I myself have certain preferences.

  Still, how shallow is it that all men seem to want big perfect breasts floating over a slender waist and round hips shaking as they get carried around on long silken legs? In that moment, I've forgotten that some men really do like a larger woman; I've forgotten that some men are actually more attracted to a woman whose bones are softened by flesh, whose body is rounder and more voluptuous. In that moment, I hate all men, each for his own part in making me feel invisible and unworthy because of the number on my scale or the number on my clothing tags.

  In that moment, when I realize fully where my thoughts have gone, I hate myself too. I'm not just fat, I'm weak. I'm giving the power of my own self-esteem to others, expecting everyone around me to define me, to make me worthy. This simply cannot go on, and I know it, but for now, I have several hours left in the work day. Determined to get a better grip on myself, I take a deep breath, staring into my face in the mirror. I plaster on a moderately content look, and I go back to work.

  Chapter Four

  My forced good cheer only lasted through the work day; by the time I got home I was feeling a little hopeless and a lot bitter. As I chose and cooked food for my dinner, I berated myself for everything that led to my current life and body, including the simple human need to eat.

  Mmmhmm, my inner voice chanted. That's what you need, chubby. You need mayo on your sandwich.

  Like the noise of a broken record, I kept hearing a running commentary in my mind, a sound track of hurtful things from the past. Interlaced with memories of things Rick had said, there were other memories; a boy I'd liked who'd teased me for having breasts in third grade, a girl I'd been friends with in middle school who had suddenly turned on me and called me a whale when she'd joined the in-crowd.

  Even in the medical profession, I'd been ridiculed and made to feel somewhat inhuman because of my body. Once, when I was young and maybe a little naive about how society saw me, I went to a doctor asking for help with my weight; he had looked at my chart in his elegant hands, a quiet smile threatening as he suggested that I should go on a diet.

  I don't suppose it was very nice to flip him the bird and sarcastically thank him for giving me such a great idea. Not my proudest moment, but right then, I had only two choices: lash out, or break down.

  "Why thank you doctor," I had raged, choosing to go on the attack, rather than trying to explain all the diets I’d tried. "I can't believe all this time, all I had to do was stop eating entire boxes of snack cakes and washing them down with can after can of soda. Because I clearly could not possibly have tried dieting or even exercising before; obviously I am here to see you because I'm so lazy I just expect you to lose all this weight for me, and I don't intend to make any effort at all, not at all. Clearly I would not have made any personal effort of my own before humiliating myself by coming to you."

  Taking in the shocked look he wore, I had stood there with a hot face and watery eyes, shaking with embarrassment and anger. "I'm so glad I came here," I had said to him. "Thank you for stereotyping me so well and having such a hu
mble and compassionate view as a doctor. Let’s not try and see if there might be something medical going on, you know, this being a doctor’s office and all. Gosh, I can't wait to tell all my friends and family about this life changing encounter we've had."

  Finished speaking, I'd walked out of the office and never looked back. I may be pretty down on myself, but even I know that I deserve much better than that.

  Thinking back to that moment, I stood up from the table, my dinner mostly untouched as the pain of that particular memory rose up and slaughtered my appetite. I chose the same sort of dinner that other people chose; I ate the same types of foods, and in the same average amounts. Why, then, did my food settle on me in such an undignified way, a history of meals wobbling around my hips and giving others the impression that I am without basic self-control?

  Well, honestly, if I look around me, that question answers itself. In a country of excess, fat is normal even while we see it as ugly. We drive through fast food restaurants, too lazy to even get out and go order our food, and then we eat far too much of it, judging others who are doing the exact same thing. I guess fat explains itself, to some degree, regardless of health.