Fatty Patty: A Romantic Short Story (San Juan Island Stories #1) (3 page)

She tried to arrange her mouth into his match.
Little filets of pain traveled across her skin like a sushi knife,
paper-cutting right up to her heart.

That depth behind his eyes wasn't interest. It
was friendliness. He probably wouldn't even blink if she pulled off
her black dress or all her clothes.

She couldn't hold her smile. As soon as he
looked away, she did too, squeezing her hands between her
knees.

The academic awards started and her name echoed
across the theater in reflexive waves, echoing the effort she had
put in for the past years.

Applied Science, English, Knowledge Bowl, Math.
Her parents squeezed her arms as she squished by and the Danish
intern gave a misty-eyed cheer. After the fourth time they all had
to stand to let her by, everyone shifted over a seat and stuck her
on the aisle away from Julian.

Oceanographic Studies, Physics, Spanish. The
principal's special award for consecutive quarters of Honor
Role.

Her family's thrilled hugs lofted her back to
good feelings, though Julian leaned his elbows on his knees and
studied the seat backs in front of him, completely
bored.

The event ended and everyone rose.

The Danish intern ruffled her hair. "We'll
start a brain trust together, you and I. Yes?"

Julian pushed past her.

She gave the intern her handful of award keys
and forced her way through the crowds like a whale chasing the
receding tide while deadly gravity held her to the beach. She
followed him around the building, almost breaking into a jog.
"Julian!"

He turned.

She caught him and wheezed, nearly bent double.
Her dress stuck in patches. She hated her weakness and herself, but
she had to make him stop.

His hands jammed in his shorts pockets and his
face looked over his shoulder. Away.

She mustered her courage. "Did you want a ride
to my place?"

"I'm gonna head."

Her hands opened and closed. "There'll be
cake."

He snorted and shook his head.

A hole opened in her stomach. There had to be
something she could say. Something that would make him stay with
her a little bit longer.

He squinted at her, behind her, and away again.
Over his shoulder. As if he couldn't bear to face her fat
self.

Or as if he couldn't wait to be with the
athletic, beautiful surfer girl who was his actual
girlfriend.

Her aching heart pressed her one step forward.
It was pointless. She knew it was pointless. Still, she pulled out
her graduation gift, a sleek new Razr. "Can I at least give you my
new phone number?"

He focused on her.

She flipped it open. Gleaming. "We could stay
in touch. You could visit me in New York."

His focus shifted. Face blanked.

"As friends, you know. I don't mean anything
weird by it."

His whole body froze into a cliff-side
rock.

"We've got our own lives. It'll be a good
chance to get off the island. You have another person you know to
visit." Her words tumbled, faster. "Because we're friends,
right?"

He shifted, rubbed his nose, stared at the dirt
beneath his ripped tennis shoes.

She poised with her phone. "Please? Can I give
you my new number?"

He looked her dead in the eyes. Hard as the
ocean from a twenty-story fall. Flat as a glassy, airless day. "Why
would I ever want that,
Patty
?"

The deck slammed into her knees and the impact
ricocheted up her body, shuddering in her jaw and elbows. She
remained on the deck, palms on the wood, for one deep breath and
another, unable to face the shocked-silent room. Then, still
without looking up, she shifted her feet under her to
stand.

Hands—her classmates' hands—lifted her up.
Concern blurred beneath the heat waving off her cheeks.

She blinked to focus and pulled her elbows free
from the helpers.

Murmured "are you okay?"s crystalized in
Allison's pitying head-shake. "Not everyone can wear those high
heels."

Across the room, Julian looked away. Dropped
back into his conversation with the athletic surfer
woman.

The burn localized to Pepper's chest. She
recognized it. Not anger at the others. Anger at herself. And
disappointment. She was not that kind of woman any more.

"Nice entrance." Mia gravitated to her as
unnaturally as they had in elementary school, one freak to another.
Her braces-straightened teeth gleamed in the dusky roll of the
ship, brown eyes blinked naturally behind their contacts, and her
smart business suit and smarter heels suggested that they shopped
at the same New York boutiques. "He's still pretty cute, isn't
he?"

Pepper shifted on her wobbling heels and tugged
down her skirt. Adrenaline pounded through her body, breaking like
the waves of a rough storm. "I'm not looking."

"The blonde is supposedly his client, a
semi-pro surfer from Hawaii." She looked down on Pepper's wrinkled
outfit and dreams. "Some things don't change. He always did go for
the graceful sporty types."

The crash in her heart sounded as loud as the
crack of a chair separating in assembly.

Pepper tried to make her gaze appear to focus
on the buffet tables, not tempt his gaze by staring directly at
Julian. "Maybe she's with the other guy."

Mia snorted. "The shorty? That's
Ellis."

It wasn't fair. It so wasn't fair.

She was supposed to have been the graceful one.
She was supposed to be the beauty now. She was supposed to have
made Julian and all the blade-slim girls desperately jealous of her
obvious success.

Julian followed the surfer babe away from the
table to the side doors leading to the whale-watching area.
Devoted. Practically her husband.

"I forgot our class was so small." Mia rubbed
her nose as though trying to push up her non-existent glasses.
"There was no need for Rizzo to introduce you. Fat or thin, your
face is the same." She lingered on Julian's new girlfriend, her
face echoing the jealousy in her tone. "I wish I had her
quads."

"I'm going to eat." Pepper stomped to the
buffet to load a paper plate with apple wedges, pear chunks, and
celery sticks without dressing.

She
was supposed to be beautiful.
She
was supposed to have attractive quads.
She
was
supposed to have changed.

Ellis wandered up, munching a cracker-cheese
hors d'oeuvre. "Looking good, Patty."

She snapped the celery. "My name is
Pepper."

"Seriously? I never knew that."

She gave his average, ordinary, wedge-shaped
face one solid glare.

Long enough for his brows to rise and his eyes
to widen and genuine fear to replace whatever average, ordinary,
wedge-shaped feeling had originally crawled from his hollow heart.
In second grade, his stupid questions led the class in a taunt that
had shaped her life.
Is Pepper short for Peppermint Patties? Did
you eat too many and that's why you're so fat? Fatty Patty, Fatty
Patty, Fatty Patty!
He used to be a thousand times bigger, but
now she towered over him in heels.

"Now you know." She flounced to the
bar.

Vastly depleted beer and wine, and mostly full
carafes of orange juice and soda, greeted her wrinkled composure.
The high school her would've carted the entire soda carafe to a
hidden corner.

She poured lemon-scented water into a plastic
cup.

Julian sidled up beside her.

She swallowed drily. "Julian."

His voice, smooth and lazy, caressed her.
"Pepper."

With just those two syllables, she fell five
years back in time. Her heart pounded, her body pulsed, and her
tongue twisted in her mouth. She hadn't seen him coming and now he
was here, at her elbow, too close. Too hot. Too present. She
thought she had prepared herself, but nothing could have prepared
her for this. She was seventeen, and thicker around than she was
tall, and desperately, palpitatingly, sickeningly in
love.

He gazed at her.

She felt it as a heat, even though she couldn't
meet his gaze. If she met his gaze, he would know how he still
affected her, and she couldn't stand that. She grabbed the nearest
thing with shaking hands. "Bud Light?"

He took it from her, set it down, and selected
a Coke. "I don't drink. Not anymore."

Her insides trembled. "No?"

He smiled, slow and lazy, never once taking his
gaze off of her face. As though etching the lines of her in his
head, in case they didn't meet again for another five years. "I
didn't want to end up like my dad."

Her chest rose and fell.

He had taken her advice. And remembered it five
years later. And specifically mentioned it.

Desire rose between them, shimmering, like
waves upon the horizon. Waves of yearning.

She picked up her paper plate and plastic
cup.

And met his eyes.

Such blue, blue eyes.

He smiled and pushed her, without her raising
one objection or fighting for control, to the door.

Wind whipped past and the dark islands chugged
by, houses secret on their cragged and tree-lined faces.

He moved her aft, to the covered deck, to empty
chairs where she could eat in the windless sun.

She bit the fruit, sweet and
succulent.

He watched her. Sitting so close, the long
tender hairs vibrated on his hands where they curled around the
soda cup. He studied her so deeply, all the edge-shifting in the
world wouldn't alter the angle of his gaze.

"Where's your client?" she asked.

He tipped back his drink, the moisture running
down his kissable throat, luscious with salt, and stretched his arm
across the seat back.

Across
her
seat back.

Drawing him a little bit closer. Making her
part of his orbit once again. "Calling her fiancé."

She wanted to believe that. "Why bring a
'client' on a reunion cruise?"

"They're having a pre-wedding honeymoon. She
wanted a free ride." He licked his lips. "I wanted to see
you."

Her other questions all died. She sucked on the
sweet Bosc slices as the ship's white wake propelled her into the
past.

"I heard you went to New York." He put his
ankle on one knee, the thick hard length of his thigh brushing
hers. He wore a loose T-shirt that couldn't disguise the underlying
ripple of muscle, and surfer shorts that allowed his calves to rub
hers. Skin to skin. "You're working for the Japanese
consulate?"

"
Hai, hai
." She sipped her lemon water.
Cool, to stop her from perspiring. "You left the island too.
Congrats."

He bumped her. Subtle but unmistakable. "Why
did you come back?"

"I saw too many remakes of
Carrie
." But
of course he didn't smile, because he didn't read and he didn't
watch movies and he didn't sit around when there were athletic
worlds to conquer. He didn't know what it was to be mistreated, to
be misunderstood, to know everyone would like her if only they knew
her inner beauty. He was too easy-going to get upset about all of
that. "I never showed my true self in high school. I came back to
be known for who I am."

He didn't laugh or joke or say
that's deep,
man
. "And who are you?"

She finished her lemon water, folded her plate,
and stood.

The wind caught her hair, whipping it around
her face.

She smoothed it and faced him, shadowed, as
they moved deeper into the setting sun. So he would know this was
truth. "A shy girl grown up to a successful woman who was once
totally in love with you."

There. She had said it.

Usher in the age of vengeance.