Life in the Fat Lane (10 page)

Now I knew. And I wanted to die.

The phone on my nightstand jangled and I snatched it up.

“Hello?”

“Lara? This is Dr. Laverly.”

“Yes.” I sat on the edge of my bed.

“Are your parents there?”

“No,” I lied.

“Well, have one of them call me on Monday. In any case, I’ve got the results back from the tests we did on you, and it’s good news.”

Hope surged through me. “You found something?”

“I mean your tests were all negative. You check out fine.”

“But … But that can’t be right,” I sputtered.

“Well, there is always a possibility of lab error,” the doctor said, “and we could repeat them. But I suggest you try a controlled eating plan and see how you do.”

I clutched the phone so hard that my knuckles turned white. Had she forgotten everything I had told her in her office? “But I’ve been dieting for months,” I reminded her, trying not to cry. “I still keep gaining.”

“Often people eat a lot more than they realize,” the doctor said. “Now, a food diary would—”

“I already
did
that,” I told her. “I’m seeing a diet specialist. I’ve done
everything
.”

“Well, it’s possible there’s something that just didn’t show up on the tests. I’m afraid nothing is one hundred percent accurate.”

“So you’ll do them again?”

“We could,” the doctor said. “But my best advice right now is that you continue with your diet specialist. And perhaps look into some counseling. Some teenagers find that—”

I hung up on her.

Right after I did it, I stared at the phone, aghast. I had never hung up on anyone in my life. No pageant winner would ever,
ever
do such a thing. But monster-Lara would. I could taste the triumph of it, like bittersweet chocolate.

I took off Molly’s jeans before she came out of the bathroom. I pretended Dr. Laverly hadn’t called. I forced my heart to play dead. I got dressed for the party, and I vowed to myself that no one was going to see me cry.

“P
retty out there, huh?” Jett said, coming up behind me.

I was standing at the picture window in the living room, looking out at the snow, which had been falling for the last two hours.

“Very,” I agreed.

It was near ten o’clock, and the party was in full swing. About twenty of my friends were there, dancing, eating, having fun. I had told all my girlfriends that my weight gain was some kind of thyroid thing and they all pretended to believe me, but I knew they really didn’t. I could feel things changing. A homecoming queen does not wear a tight size twelve.

Over in the corner I saw Amber whispering with Lisa, and then they both looked over at me. I just looked away.

“Want to dance?” Jett slid his arms around me.

“I don’t really feel like it.”

“Want me to get you something to eat?” he asked.

“Eating is the last thing I need to do, Jett.”

“Drink, then?”

“I’ve had about six diet Cokes already, but thanks.”

“Wow, some bash,” Molly said, walking over to us, eating a petit four. “I love the decorations!”

The living room was lit with tiny pink lights. Red and pink Cupids were suspended from the ceiling by wires so thin that the Cupids appeared to be flying.

“Where’s Andy?” I asked her.

“Upstairs playing Nintendo and listening to Jerry Garcia with your little brother and the Junior Deadhead Society. Would you please tell me why I go out with him?”

“ ’Cuz you love him,” Jett pointed out.

“Nah, I think he’s just a habit—like brushing my teeth.”

Jennie Smith waved from across the living room and came over to us. She had on a tiny tangerine-colored satin minidress that would have looked like a washcloth on me.

“Jett, you’re going to dance with me, aren’t you?” she asked prettily, putting her arm through his.

“Not right now,” he replied.

“I’ll get you yet,” she said playfully; then she air-kissed my cheek. “Did I tell you how much I love your dress, Lara? Where did you get it?”

“The Paris Shoppe.”

“Really? Well, it’s just so cute. It’s really flattering, you know, cut full in the hips like that.”

My hands clenched into fists. “Thanks,” I said.

“I swear, I am so
stuffed
! I ate
three
of those tiny seafood tarts. They were so good I couldn’t help myself!”

I smiled at her.

“You really have to try them, Lara. In fact, be a sweetheart and eat them all so I won’t be tempted.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Great party, honey!” She drifted back to her date, the guy from Father Ryan.

“Let’s beat her up,” Molly suggested. “Wait, better yet, let’s tie her down and force-feed her.”

Jett laughed. I managed a grin.

Molly hugged me and waltzed away.

“What a bitch, gloating over the fact that you’ve gained weight,” Jett said.

“Everyone gloats about it,” I said. “The only difference is that Jennie gloats to my face.”

Jett shook his head. “That isn’t true. Some people don’t care. Like Molly. Like me. Like—”

“How’s my big, beautiful doll?” my grandfather asked, his voice booming. He came over and gave me a bear hug. My mother’s father was a big man, tall and barrel-chested. Everything about him was outsized—shoulders, feet, belly, cigars. Even his generosity. Although we never talked about it, it was his money that allowed our family to live in the style to which we had become accustomed.

“I’m fine, Grandpa.”

“Helluva party, huh, sweetheart?”

“It always is,” I said, trying to sound cheerful.

“Better be, cost me a bundle!” Grandpa said. “Hey, did you try that smoked salmon? It’s damned good!”

“I’m on a diet, Grandpa.”

“Coulda fooled me, from the looks of ya!” he boomed. Then he hugged me. “Aw, I’m just kiddin’, kitten. Now there’s just more of you to love!” He hugged me again, winked at Jett, and went off to dance with Grandma, a tiny woman who lived in my grandfather’s oversized shadow.

How could he say that in front of Jett? I fought back tears of embarrassment. But I would not cry. I would not.

“Lara?” Someone tapped me on the shoulder. It was Mrs. Armstrong, my beauty pageant coordinator.

“What are you doing here?” I blurted out

Her eyes took in the horror that was me. “Your mother was kind enough to invite me.” She reached out and gently touched my arm. “Sweetheart, what happened to you?”

I stumbled away from her, from Jett, from everyone. I ran upstairs to my bedroom. I could hide in my bathroom and cry where no one could see.

A lot of coats were piled on my bed, and someone’s fur had fallen to the floor. As I went to pick it up, I heard voices in my bathroom. The door was open a crack and I could see the edge of a silver dress I recognized, and one slender leg. I knelt behind the pile of coats and peeked out.

“I just couldn’t believe it when I saw her!” exclaimed the woman in the bathroom with my mother. “How could you let it happen, Carol?”

I knew the voice. It was my mom’s friend Elaine Hirschbaum, who had moved to Nashville from Los Angeles with her doctor husband three years before.

“What am I supposed to do, lock up all the food in the house?” my mother’s voice replied.

“You know it can’t be easy for her, having you as a mother,” Elaine said.

“I happen to be a very good mother—”

“Oh, I know that,” Elaine said. “I just meant I think she feels competitive with you, that’s all.”

“Look, this is not my fault—”

“No need to get so defensive, Carol,” Elaine said.

“I just don’t know what to do with her anymore!” my mother moaned.

I saw the silver skirt and the leg move, and now I could see my mother’s cheek resting on Elaine’s shoulder. They were hugging.

“Hey, now, don’t get so down about it. At least it’s not you who got fat, huh?” Elaine said.

My mother laughed through her tears. “God, Jimbo would kill me.”

“How are things with you two?”

“Great!”

“Well, thank God for that, anyway,” Elaine said. Her head turned so that she was facing the mirror. “This lighting makes me look like death. I look like I’m carrying my luggage under my eyes. Getting old is the pits, Carol. But at least I’m not fat.”

“Maybe I need to get Lara some counseling,” my mother said nervously.

“Maybe?”
Elaine echoed dryly.

“Jimbo doesn’t believe in it,” my mother explained.

“Well, honey, he told you he doesn’t believe in having affairs, either, but that didn’t stop him from having one, did it?”

“That’s just a vicious rumor, Elaine.” They started out of the bathroom, and I fled. It was all just too horrible. I ran down the back stairs, way from everyone and everything. I wanted to run into the snow and disappear. I wanted to go to sleep and never wake up.

I stood in the backyard, the snow swirling around me, and I didn’t feel a thing. How could I? Everyone was shocked at how I looked. My mother had invited Mrs. Armstrong to the party to try shame me into losing weight. People were spreading lies about my father. I hated myself and I hated my life.

“Hey.”

It was Jett. He put his leather motorcycle jacket around my shoulders and turned me to face him.

“I saw you come outside,” he told me. I began to
shiver and he slipped my arms into his jacket, then cupped my freezing hands in his.

“I just heard … something terrible,” I managed to get out, my teeth chattering.

“What?”

I couldn’t tell him. It seemed so disloyal. Besides, it couldn’t possibly be true.

And then something flashed in my brain. Me, at about age eight, lying in my bed, late at night. Mom and Dad fighting in their room—loud, scary voices, vicious words, something about Grandpa’s money.
Bitch
, he had called her.
Bitch
. Then she yelled that he would never be half the man her father was, and then there was the sound of a slap. And Mom was crying.
Stop
, I’d wanted to scream at them.
Stop
. But I didn’t scream. I just put my hands over my ears and I sang to myself and pretended I was winning Miss America and my parents were in the audience and they were so happy.

The next morning, at breakfast, no one had said anything. Mom and Dad had smiled at each other. Everyone had just pretended it had never happened. Including me.

“Lara?” Jett asked.

I blinked. There was snow on my eyelashes. “I can’t tell you.” I gulped hard as he held me. “You can hardly get your arms around me anymore.”

“I can get my arms around you fine,” he assured me. He lifted my chin and kissed me softly. “You’re so hard on yourself, Lara. You need to quit beating yourself up.”

“I just want my life back,” I said, I tearfully.

“Some things change,” Jett said, looking into my eyes. “And some things don’t. Like how I feel about you. That hasn’t changed.”

“But—”

“It hasn’t changed,” he said firmly, kissing me again.

The snow fell on us, and I clung to him. Hanging on to Jett was the only thing that seemed to make any sense.

Thank God he still loved me.

Thank God.

“L
ara?”

I put down the magazine I’d been pretending to read and stood up, all 180 pounds of me. “Yes.”

“I’m Karen DeBarge. Come on in.”

I didn’t want to “come on in.” I wanted to scream or spew obscenities or slap her skinny, patronizing face. I wanted to act like the horrible monster that I felt everyone saw when they looked at me.

But that would be crazy. Lara Ardeche was sweet and polite, a pageant winner everyone admired. And she did not weigh, dear God, 180 pounds.

So, clearly I really had turned into someone else, morphed into some hideous, fat monster-creature, full of sizzling rage.

I held the monster at bay and followed Karen DeBarge into her office.

She was in her forties, very thin, wearing a bright red suit with a conservative skirt that fell just below her knees. The ugly blouse she wore under her suit jacket had little cherries parading all over it. Her hair was sort of no-colored, and short. So were her nails. She was a bone-thin total stranger with no taste in clothing, and I was supposed to bare my soul to her, tell her the most intimate details of my fat, messed-up life.

It was April first. It had to be an April Fools’ joke.

“Please, make yourself comfortable,” she said, waving me toward a tweed couch. She sat opposite me in a hard backed chair. On the wall above her was a framed photo of her, some thin guy with an overbite, and their two thin, horsey-looking children already in need of orthodontia. Next to that was a framed diploma from Trevecca Nazarene College’s graduate school of counseling, and a certificate from the State of Tennessee.

“Are you comfortable?” she asked.

No
.

I nodded.

“Good. And please, call me Karen. I can call you Lara?”

I nodded again.

“This will just be a brief get-acquainted meeting, and then you can decide if you’d like to pursue this or not, okay?”

I gave my patented nod again.

“Your mother mentioned that you’ve been having some problems you might want to discuss. But I’d like to hear from you why you’re here.”