Life in the Fat Lane (19 page)

Frannie Jenkins was waiting for me when I came out.

“Allegra Royalton is a bitch,” she told me, pushing some hair behind her ear. “She makes fun of everyone. I hate her so much. I hate all her friends and her whole clique.”

I headed for the sink to wash my face.

“She only cares about the perfect people,” Frannie went on. “I hate snobs like her. They run this school, it’s so unfair. That’s why us nobodies have to stick together.”

Leave me alone and go whine to someone else
, I wanted to
yell at her.
I’m not a nobody. I’m nothing like you and your geekoid friends. Nothing
!

Frannie and I walked toward the main doors of the school. I had nothing to say to her. All I could think was: At least this hellhole called high school is over for another week.

“Hey, what’s up?” Perry Jameson asked, falling in next to me. He had on his usual superbaggy jeans and a gigantic long-sleeved T-shirt that read
I’M NOT STRESSED OUT, YOU’RE JUST INCREDIBLY ANNOYING
. The inner thighs of his jeans swished against each other with every step he took.

“Hi, Perry,” Frannie said eagerly. She’d confided in me that she had a crush on him. She thought he had such a handsome face—it was such a shame that he was gay.

“Hey,” Perry replied.

“I have to run and meet Kendra,” Frannie said. “I’ll see you guys. Call me, Lara!” She hurried off.

“Are you two buds?” Perry asked me, surprised.

“No,” I admitted. “She kind of whines.”

“Tell me about it.”

We turned the corner and headed for the doors. Perry pulled a candy bar out of his back pocket and tore it open.

“Want a bite?”

“No, thanks,” I said, trying not to show my distaste.

“So, I’ve been thinking, you really ought to do the piano solo at the winter concert,” Perry said, his mouth full of chocolate.

The only extracurricular activity I’d signed up for was a quartet of classical pianists who played with the school orchestra. The teacher, Mr. Webster, had asked me to
play a piano solo in a school concert that winter, and I had promptly declined. It was bad enough that I would be playing in public with the quartet—I did not plan to play a solo ever again. No one would be listening; they’d be too busy gawking.

Perry was in the orchestra, too. He played saxophone and he played it well. Unlike Frannie and Kendra, Perry was smart and funny and I actually kind of liked him, although I was grossed out that he never seemed to stop eating. Of course, back in Nashville, I would have been nice to him, but I never would have hung with him. But I wasn’t in Nashville anymore.

“I already told you, I’m not playing a solo,” I said as we turned the corner.

“Why? You more into blues than classical, I hope?”

“Why do you hope?”

“I live for blues,” Perry said. “T-Bone Walker? Gatemouth Brown? Johnny Winter?”

I shook my head.

“They’re only everything,” Perry said. He took another bite of his candy bar. “I’ll make you a tape.”

I smiled politely, basically wishing he would just go away so that I wouldn’t have to watch him eat.

“Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I’m free at last,” Perry sang out as we reached the front door of the school. He popped the last of his candy bar into his mouth and tossed the wrapper into a trash bin.

Kids streamed around us, out into the fall sunshine. Some guy bumped into Perry from behind in his rush to get out the door. “Watch it, Tubs!” he yelled over his shoulder.

“So, have a nice weekend,” I said, turning away.

“Wait,” Perry said quickly. “Uh … there’s this club downtown I go to on Sunday afternoons. A lot of great musicians hang out … I mean, you’re a musician, you might like it.”

Was Perry Jameson asking me
out
? How could that be? He was gay. Not that I was even remotely attracted to him, anyway. I mean, he was just so … so fat.

“Gee, I’m really busy this weekend,” I lied. “Maybe some other time.”

“Whoa, it’s Fat America!” Dave Ackerly boomed, striding over to us. “It’s Fairy Perry the Fatboy and Lardass!” He put his arms around our shoulders.

Dave always referred to Perry as Fairy Perry, or Fatboy, or, if he was feeling particularly imaginative, Fairy Perry the Fatboy. This was clearly one of his imaginative days.

“Go take your Ritalin, Mainstream,” Perry mumbled, but I could tell he truly was embarrassed.

“You two geekoids could make some bi-i-ig babies, huh?” Dave said gleefully, thrusting his hips forward obscenely. “You ought to give her a tumble. Fatboy! You can’t stay a faggot forever!”

Perry’s hands clenched into fists, and he turned red with rage. “Get out of my face.”

“Oh no, Fatboy and Lard-ass are going to sit on me!” Dave yelled in falsetto horror. “Save me! Save me!” He ran away, laughing, toward the parking lot.

“What an asshole,” Perry said, unable to look me in the eye. He slunk off toward the school buses.

Just as I was about to go to my car, I heard a girl’s voice from somewhere behind me.

“Is that really your
sister
with the fat guy?” she asked.

I turned around. There, near the doors, stood my
brother with two girls and a guy. They all looked like freshmen and they were all cute.

Scott didn’t see me looking at him. Quickly I turned my back so that they wouldn’t know I could hear them.

“Yeah, so?” I heard Scott ask belligerently.

“So … she’s kinda … big,” the girl said.

“So?” Scott asked again.

“Tell her to go on a diet, man,” the boy said.

“She’s got a disease that made her gain weight, okay?” Scott said. “She used to win beauty pageants, okay?”

“I am
so
sure,” one of the girls said.

“Here, check this out,” I heard Scott say.

A beat of silence.

“Wow,” one of the girls breathed. “When was this picture taken?”

“Last year,” Scott said.

“Last year?”
the other girl echoed incredulously.

“She was homecoming queen and everything. I’m tellin’ ya, she’s got a disease, so don’t rag on her.”

“Wow,” the girl said again, her voice awestruck with horror. “I would just kill myself if that happened to me. I am totally serious.”

I walked away and headed for my car. Scott showed up a few minutes later. I was so mad at him I couldn’t speak. We drove toward home in silence for a few minutes. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore.

“You carry my homecoming photo with you to
school
?”

Silence, as he figured out that I had overheard his conversation. Then he shrugged and stared out the window.

“I thought you thought all that pageant stuff was so stupid,” I reminded him.

He shrugged again.

“I thought everyone who’s into looks is so superficial, such a hypocrite,” I said coldly.

“People say stuff about you,” he muttered.

“No shit,” I spat at him.

“I’m just trying to defend you—”

“You are not,” I snapped, the acid of his betrayal gurgling in my stomach. “You’re embarrassed that I’m your sister. Admit it!”

“What, you want them to think you’re like that Perry guy—some kind of
pig
or something? It’s not your fault that you’re fat.”

“Did I give you permission to talk about me or to carry my picture around? Did I?”

“Look, I just didn’t want them to think that you were … you know, like him.”

“A fat pig,” I filled in as I pulled into the driveway. “So now they can feel sorry for me instead. If they even believe you. So sorry I embarrass you in front of your cool new friends.”

I got out of the car, slammed the door behind me, and hurried inside and up to my room.

“W
ell, isn’t this nice, the whole family together,” Mom said cheerfully as she scooped some mashed potatoes onto my father’s plate. She wore size-six jeans and a tiny, fuzzy pink sweater with too many buttons unbuttoned down the front. As she bent over she looked to see if Dad was checking out her cleavage. He wasn’t.

“That’s too much, Carol,” he protested. “Gotta watch the ol’ waistline.”

“Oh, honey, you’re perfect,” Mom said, kissing him.

“So are you, honey,” he said dutifully.

It was like watching two terrible actors in some really bad play.

“Well, I’m not perfect,” I said, my voice a little too loud as I reached for the potatoes. “Being fat is very freeing. You can eat anything you want.” I plopped three heaping spoonfuls of potatoes on my plate.

“If you’d count calories, Lara,” my father said, “you might be able to do something about your problem.”

Lara. Not princess.

I guessed there weren’t any fat princesses.

“Now, honey,” Mom chided him. “You know she can’t help it. She has a disease.” She put the world’s tiniest portion of potatoes on her own plate.

“Yeah, poor me,” I agreed, putting a big gob of butter on the potatoes.

My father gave me a look of what was supposed to be understanding but was actually thinly veiled disgust. He didn’t seem to be able to get his mind around the facts of Axell-Crowne. No matter what anyone said to him, in his heart he still believed that all I needed was discipline: eat less, work out more.

“You’ll never know if your Axell-Crowne goes into remission,” he said, “if you keep eating like that.”

He knew as well as I did that every other week I dropped down to a twelve-hundred-calories-a-day diet and checked my weight, per the instructions of Dr. Goldner. Dad knew that so far there was no change in my weight no matter what I ate or what I did.

And he
still
ragged on me.

I gave him a defiant look and added more butter.

Silence. Chewing.

Then finally, “So, kids, how’s school?” Dad asked heartily.

“I hate it,” Scott said.

“Me too,” I added.

“I want to move back to Nashville,” Scott said.

“Me too.”

“Well, that’s not going to happen,” Mom said sharply, shooting me a murderous look. She took a dainty bite of chicken, chewed, swallowed. “How’s dinner?” she asked Dad.

“Great,” he said.

More silence. We were four strangers sitting there, masticating.

“Molly’s coming to visit me for Thanksgiving vacation,” I announced. “She called this afternoon.”

“That’s great!” Mom said. She turned to Dad. “Isn’t that great?”

“Great,” Dad said.

More chewing.

“Lara’s first piano lesson with her new teacher is tomorrow,” Mom said brightly. “I hear he’s wonderful!”

I had changed my mind and decided I would take private lessons again after all. I was definitely not going to play solos in public, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to deprive myself of studying with a qualified teacher. Music was all I had left.

“Terrific,” Dad said, nodding his approval. “Remember, Lara, if you can dream it, you can achieve it.”

“Geez, did you get that from her pageant résumé?” Scott said.

“Watch your mouth, son,” Dad warned him.

Scott stuck out his lower lip and looked down, as if he were trying to literally watch his own mouth. I snorted back a laugh.

Dad pointed at Scott. “I’ve had just about enough of—”

The phone rang. Before anyone could stop him, Scott was out of his seat to get it. “It’s for you,” he told me.

“This is family time,” Dad said sternly. “Tell them to call back after dinner.”

“It’s a guy,” Scott said.

Jett! It had to be Jett! My heart pounded in my chest. I ignored my parents and ran out of the room.

“Hang up after I answer it!”

I reached the externsion in the family room, forced my breathing to slow down, and picked up the phone.

“Hello?”

“Lara?”

“Yes.”

“It’s Perry. You know. Jameson.”

Perry Jameson. Not Jett. The weight of disappointment forced me heavily to the couch.

“Perry,” I said dully.

“I, uh, got your number from information,” Perry said.

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you talk now?” Perry asked.

“We were eating dinner, actually.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I can say this real fast. The thing is … ahm-na-gay.”

“What?”

“Yeah, slow down, Per,” he told himself. “What I said is, I’m not gay.”

“You’re—”

“I realized that you might think—I mean, a lot of people at school think … but I’m not.”

“Oh.” I had absolutely no idea what to say. It wasn’t like I cared one way or the other.

“It’s just … last year there was this gay guy at school, a senior, Jack Parton, and we used to hang out,” Perry rushed on. “He was one of my best friends and he was real out about being gay and everything, and a lot of kids dissed him. So I guess they just figured I’m gay ’cuz we hung together.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied.

“I never cared that much, because school is so lame anyway. But … well, the thing is, there’s never been a girl at school that I liked before. Before now, I mean.”

He meant me. He liked me.

“I … really have to go, Perry,” I said. “Thanks for calling.” I hung up.

This was so awful. He had only asked me out because we were both fat. He probably figured I was the only girl at school who wouldn’t shoot him down. God.

“Was that a boy from school?” Mom asked eagerly as I came back into the kitchen.

“Yes.” I took a sip of lemonade.

“That Perry guy, I bet,” Scott said with disgust.

“You know him?” Mom asked. “Is he cute? Was he asking you out, Lara?”

Her neediness on my behalf made my teeth hurt. “I’m not interested,” I said, my voice low.

“A boy from your new school just asked you out and you’re not
interested
?” Mom was incredulous.

“What, just because I’m fat I’m supposed to go out with anyone who asks me?”

She sighed. “That’s not what I meant at all. If you’d just be nice to people, they’d see beyond how you look.”

I hated her. I hated her so much.

“Hey, here’s an idea,” Dad said. “How about if we go shoot some hoops in the driveway?” He pushed his chair back.

“I hate basketball,” I said.

“Me too,” Scott said.

“Why did I bother to put the basket up, then?” Dad asked.