Exposed (6 page)

She puts a scrawny arm around my waist, and Adam-P steps back, and all of a sudden, I’m furious, but I don’t know who I want to throw my stupid book of love poems at, him or Carny.

I don’t have to decide, because Adam-P turns around and walks away without another glance or word.

As loud as I can, I yell, “Asshole!”

He doesn’t slow down.

Everyone left in the hallway stops and shuts up, though, and Carny snatches the love poem book right out of my hands. Double time, she drags me and the book and my bag down the hall before any teacher can stomp out in the hallway and give me detention for the rest of my natural life.

We make it to the band room in one piece, but of course Ellis is there, and the sight of her laughing with all her snot friends makes me want to grow fangs and claws and commit bloody, disgusting murder on the white tile floor. If it’s really murder when the victim’s not truly a human being, but a witch-monster.

Instead, I throw myself into a chair, fold my arms, and sit there. Just … sit there, listening to my hair dry. Even as the music starts, and Devin’s trying to get my attention. I can’t speak. I can’t listen. I can’t march. I can’t do anything but sit—and tuck that poetry book Carny hands me into my bag, so it’s not technically in the same room with Ellis.

Who laughs at me three times, and gets in three
skank
coughs between routines.

The band director doesn’t make any attempt to get me out of my chair. I’m pretty sure he’ll tell the Bear, though, and I’ll probably get a
lot
of laps to run.

By the time we make the slow walk to the practice field to march, Carny’s filled Devin in on the latest Chan–Adam-P hallway scene, and Devin’s right beside me, doing her best to make me smile. “He’s not worth it, baby. Keep your head up. He’s an apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal—”

“Okay, okay, okay.” I wave both hands to stop her before she can get all the way through her all-time favorite bunch of long words, the Abecedarian Insult—but my mind reels through it anyway.

Apogenous, bovaristic, coprolalial, dasypygal …

It’s from the
Superior Person’s Book of Words
, by Peter Bowler.

Translation: impotent, conceited, obscene, hairy-buttocked …

Second translation: Adam-P. No, wait. Ellis. Both of them.

Devin gives my shoulder a squeeze as we make it to the field. “I’ll stop if you’ll march and smile so the Bear doesn’t
kill
you.”

I march and smile.

Well? What would
you
do?

But when marching’s over, I go to the stinky single-stall field bathroom to lose Devin for a few minutes and hang back from everyone else. Partly because I’m still thinking about the extremely low form of animal life, and partly because I can’t stand weighing in in front of people, and it’s mid-week check time.

When I’m sure everybody’s ahead of me, but well before the football team and Adam-P come charging out to take over the grass, I make my way across the field and the parking lot, back to the gym where we have twirling practice.

Weighing in before weigh-in sucks, but not knowing where I stand sucks even worse. So, like everybody else, I do it. The Bear always leaves the smaller digital scale out before, during, and after practice, but she puts it up between times, so it won’t get broken.

I know this seems harsh, my girls
, she explained when she made us start weighing in last year.
But you vill never make it on a college level if you don’t accept this pressure now and find vays to cope.

She’s right. I know she is. All the best schools have height-weight requirements, and stocky majorettes never do as well as Devin-majorettes, even if they twirl better.

I tap the scale to make it reset. The scale’s display moves to zero. I suck in a breath of sock-tennis-shoe-sweat-steam air, let it out in a rush, and step on the little white platform.

Numbers whirl upward. High. Higher. Too high.

No way.

Lightning crashes through my brain. I close my eyes and open them, but the truth stares back at me in square red numbers.

Another pound up?

No Cheetos, no dinner, no breakfast, a salad for
lunch (no dressing), a run this morning—and I’m up
another
pound?

Doesn’t this just frost the perfect frigging cupcake of a day?

The locker room’s empty since Devin and the other girls have already dressed out and hit the track for a warm-up jog. Nobody’s here to laugh at me, so I get off the scale, zero it again, and get back on.

Nothing changes.

If my tear ducts hadn’t been … I don’t know … broken since last year, I’d burst out crying. My eyes actually hurt like they want to have tears, but nothing happens.

I can’t cry.

Two pounds over limit, and two days before the Bear bumps me to the JV squad and I miss Regionals and my chance to beat Ellis. I’ll die if she does that. But she will.

“Bad?” asks a quiet voice from behind me.

I spin around, grab my chest, and glare at Devin. “You scared the crap out of me. Don’t do that!”

“Sorry.” Devin tugs at her purple warm-up jacket. “I came back to check because I was worried.” She glances at the scale, her dark eyes wide and sympathetic. “Did the number come down?”

For a few more seconds, all I can do is look at Devin.

She’s probably dropping pounds just standing there—but that’s not her fault, right? She doesn’t have Dad’s genes. I got those. Me and only me.

“It’s up a pound.”

Devin’s face freezes, part sad, part shock. “Chan, what did you do?”

“Nothing!” I rub my eyes, wishing, wishing, wishing I
could
cry. “I’m starving to death, and I’m gaining! How is that even possible?”

Devin runs to me and hugs me. “Don’t starve. Don’t freak out. Just—just keep eating less. You
have
to lose before Thursday. If the Bear boots you before Regionals …”

“I know, I know.” I hug her back.

“Maybe you should spend less time on the computer?” she whispers in my ear.

With a start, I realize I haven’t thought about Paul for at least ten minutes, or the illegal chat we’ve got planned tonight. I pull away from Devin and shake my head.

Crap. Why didn’t I throw
that
little fact at Adam-P—that I’m not all alone anymore?

Get away from me, you lying freak. I’ve got a new guy now. One that can kick your sorry ass all over West Estoria High School.

Okay, so I don’t exactly have Paul. I don’t even really know Paul yet, and he’s not my boyfriend … but that would have been way fun.

Devin’s chattering about Pilates and yoga and elliptical trainers and saunas at her mother’s health club that would sweat the pounds right out of me.

“It’ll be okay,” she assures me as I grab my practice clothes. “We’re going to figure out how to keep you where you need to be, okay? We’re taking Regionals, every category—and after that, Nationals, this year
and
next year. Besides, this freaking out every week makes me agitated.”

The whole time I’m changing into my West Estoria sweats, I want to scream. Devin keeps listing exercise regimens and diets she’ll help me follow, like I haven’t tried all of those, like I haven’t tried everything from cabbage soup to grapefruit fasts. She thinks I’m eating too much, or not moving my ass enough, or else I wouldn’t be pounding up.

Spend less time on the computer.

Devin thinks this is my fault, that I just need to try harder.

The Bear probably thinks that, too. And Mom and Lauren and everyone else.

And I don’t eat that much. I really, really don’t. Since yesterday at dinner, I’ve had one salad, for cripe’s sake. A
salad
.

Who else but me can gain weight eating lettuce?

Majorette practice drags by, from my warm-up jog to our stretches to our twirling.

I only drop two tosses, though, and don’t break any of my blisters from last twirling practice. Mom shows up five minutes late to pick me up, breathing hard and saying something about the “latest polls had to be posted, sorry.”

The slogan on her shirt says,
If you can read this, you’re too smart to vote Republican
.

My stomach growls as we leave the gym, and I want to scream at Mom to get me a hamburger. A big double cheeseburger with fries and a milk shake, too. “Do you
always
have to wear shirts that slam other political parties?”

Mom glances down at her chest as she gets in her car. After about two seconds, she says, “Yep!”

I sigh and buckle up. “Some people actually think Republicans are good at running the country and stuff.”

“Then they should read all of my shirts—and get brain transplants.” Mom sounds way too perky for my need-a-cheeseburger-now mood.

I really, really want a cheeseburger, and I really, really don’t want to talk about politics anymore. So instead of screeching at Mom to let me make up my own mind about government—or forcing her to stuff me with junk food—I do something much worse. When we’re halfway to the Civic Center to pick up Lauren from her gymnastics class, I ask Mom about seeing a nutritionist.

“What?” She hits the brakes hard at a yellow light, and I’m scared to death the car might snap in half from the g-force. “Who put that idea in your head?”

“Mom, I’m almost seventeen. Believe it or not, I can have my own ideas.” I close my eyes and press my palms against them to stay calm. If I was going to have this conversation, I should have done it from the backseat.
A foot from my left elbow, Mom’s energy’s way too intense.

“But why would you think you need to see a nutritionist, Chan?” She flashes me a what’s-wrong-with-you look. “You’re within the weight range for your height. Normal. Absolutely healthy.”

She doesn’t say
Nothing like your father
, but I feel it.

She keeps up the look and adds a concerned frown. “Are you having body image issues? Are you thinking about purging—you know, vomiting? Oh, God. You’re not doing that, are you?”

“No!” I rub my hand across my throat. “I don’t want to talk like a million-year-old smoker, thanks.”

I’m not bulimic. For real. Tried it once. Puking just wasn’t for me. Besides, I gained weight while vomiting. Big surprise.

“Do you think you’re fat, honey?”

Like your father?

“No.” I squirm in my seat, then realize I might as well scream
I’m lying
and sit still. I suck at lying to Mom, among other things—at least outright lying. “I don’t think I’m fat. I mean, I don’t think I have a bad problem like Dad, but I don’t think I’m normal, either. My body, I mean. I think I’m made like Dad even if I haven’t gotten really big yet, that I gain weight really fast, even though I’m not eating much. If I don’t learn how to eat—for me, for my body and genes—I’ll be dieting my whole life.”

I’m sick of dieting
. That much, I don’t say out loud. I also keep
It’s easier for everyone else
to myself, but it is. Everything’s easier for Devin and the other majorettes and probably witch-monster Ellis, too.

Whenever I say “diet” or compare myself to other people, Mom goes into near-hysterics over me getting anorexic or bulimic. She even programmed those two words into the security program on the downstairs desktop so I couldn’t go find pro-ana or pro-mia Web sites, in case
somebody put that idea in my head
.

“I don’t have an eating disorder,” I assure her for the zillionth time before she can ask me about all that mess yet again.
I’m probably the only person in the history of humanity who actually
tried
to have an eating disorder and failed.
“I just really need some help, that’s all. From an expert.”

Mom lets off the brake when the light changes. She doesn’t say anything for a mile or so, and I actually get hopeful that she’s hearing me, that she’s listening—but as we turn into the Civic Center, she says, “Nutrition is pretty basic, Chan, and your problem is nowhere near as bad as your father’s. I’ve got some books, and I know some Web sites. Let’s start there and …”

And, and, and … the same old thing.

Eat less. Eat better. Exercise more.

Do all stick-skinny-eat-anything-they-want people think the same thing?

It’s so simple. It’s so easy.

A salad. I gained a pound from a salad, and I have weigh-in in less than forty-eight hours.

Easy, my ass.

My stomach growls, and it’s all I can do not to start yelling at Mom about her stupid political shirt, just so I’ll have something to yell about.

“Devin,
please
don’t break up with Eric.” I stare at my ceiling so I can’t see
Poems of Love
lying on the corner of my desk and start thinking about Adam-P again. The cordless feels slippery in my tight grip. “Eric is nice.”

“Nice is boring.” Devin’s voice sounds tense and distracted, and my heart sinks.

Devin never stays with a guy longer than a few weeks, sometimes only a few days. In between hookups, she gripes about being lonely and how nobody really likes her for herself—other than me, of course.

The patterns in my ceiling spackle look like angels or whipped cream or maybe ocean foam. “Nice is hard to come by. You really should give him a chance.”

She blows air so loud I move the phone away from my ear. By the time I put it back, she’s going on about twirling practice and the Emily paper all at the same time, and I know Eric’s history. Which is too bad. He’s her best pick in a year.

Talking to Devin about her seriously bad disposable boyfriend habit is a lot like talking to my dad about how much he eats. Saying it out loud just makes everything worse.

Devin talks and talks and talks, but her words fade into the background as I remember how Dad looked when Mom and I got home.

No food smells in the house tonight, but he was sweating, and that made my neck go tight, because when Dad had his heart attack, he was sweating major. Like, enough water pouring off his forehead to need towels.

Maybe I can get him to walk with me tomorrow.