Life in the Fat Lane (28 page)

“Not unless we’re having the same dream,” he told me.

Then he put his arm around my shoulders, and we walked to the car, where Molly was waiting.

J
ett pulled his car up in front of my house. It was already dark out, but the bright floodlights lit up our driveway. I twisted around to the backseat so that I could see Molly. “Mol, you should come with—”

“Wrong,” she said. “You guys need some time to be
alone. And if I don’t study for the chem test I missed, I’m flunking out of high school. Just don’t leave me here for more than two hours, or your mom will probably force me to exercise with her.”

“We won’t be gone long,” I promised her.

Jett pulled out of the driveway. “Where to?”

“I don’t know.”

“Me neither.” He gave me a quick, uncertain look.

“If you turn right at the light and then keep driving, you’ll end up at a small pond,” I suggested.

He made the turn. “We gonna swim or ice-skate?” he asked me, turning the heat on in the car. “It’s freezing here.”

“We’re going to talk,” I said quietly.

The paved road turned into a dirt road, and finally we came to the pond, where Perry, Devon, Mike, Crystal, and I had held a crazy winter picnic last Sunday. I’d been home, wearing sloppy sweats and doing my homework, when they had come over and kidnapped me. We went to the pond, ate Chinese take-out, and huddled against the cold while Perry serenaded us, and the woodland creatures, on his sax.

Jett turned off the ignition. Moonlight illuminated the car.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” I whispered.

“Me neither.”

“So … you live in New York now?”

“Yeah.”

“I guess it’s great, huh?”

“Some of it,” he said. “It can get lonely. And my apartment is this little dive in the East Village. My mom did a cool thing for me, though. You know that
sculpture,
Things I Cannot Change
? She gave it to me, for my apartment.”

“Don’t you worry it’ll get stolen?”

“Yeah,” he said. “So does she. But she did it anyway. I mean, it’s insured through the roof. But it’s priceless, you know? She said she wanted me to have it more than she was scared that it would get ripped off.”

“That’s nice.”

Silence.

“How’s Visual Arts?” I asked.

“It’s great,” he said. “To be with so many artists is just so … Nashville seems like this dream that never really happened.”

“Oh.”

“Except for you.” He turned to me. “I missed you.”

“You did?”

He nodded.

“In New York, with all those really cool, artistic,
thin
girls?” I asked pointedly.

He didn’t answer.

“You never even called me.”

He looked out at the lake. “God, Lar, I’m so much less cool than I thought I was,” he said. “I’m a joke. You gained weight and I couldn’t deal with it, only I didn’t want to admit it, not even to myself …”

“Well, maybe that’s just one of those ‘Things I Cannot Change,’ huh?” I asked bitterly.

I could see tears glistening in his eyes. “Maybe it’s one of the things I
can
change,” he said quietly. “When I got to New York I told myself, ‘She dumped you, you didn’t dump her.’ So I started seeing all these other girls. Only I
just kept thinking about you, missing you, and feeling like a fool because I let you go.”

How many times had I dreamed this moment? How many times had I wished that Jett would come back to me? I had fantasized diving into his arms, his apologies, his passionate kisses. And now the moment was actually, really here, so wonderful, so perfect—

Only it wasn’t perfect. And I couldn’t pretend that it was. One part of me wanted to kiss him, and another part of me wanted to pound him. Why couldn’t he be the perfect guy I wanted him to be? What was I supposed to do if he
didn’t
change? And if he didn’t, how could I possibly live through his breaking my heart again?

I took his hand. “My parents broke up,” I told him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m not. She still wants him back. My mother’s been jumping through hoops for my father for years. She’s so afraid she’s not good enough just the way she is.” I hesitated a moment. “I won’t jump through hoops for you.”

“I’d never ask you to—”

“And I
am
good enough just the way I am—even if you don’t think so,” I said, and I tried with all my might to believe it.

Jett was silent.

Then I looked down at my small fat hand in his large skinny one.

“I love you,” I said. “But … I can live without you.”

He nodded, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. “I love you, too.”

“It might not be enough,” I told him.

He put his hand on my cheek. “Can we try?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and a tear fell from my cheek
onto his hand. “Either way, it’s really risky. And either way, it really hurts.”

I laid my head against his chest, and, wrapped in his arms, I once again listened to the steady beating of his tender heart.

I
was half asleep in Jett’s arms. We were back home now, in the family room. I had no idea what time it was, but I knew it was late.

“I should go see Molly,” I finally whispered.

“Your mom said if you didn’t kick me out, it was cool for me to stay in the guest room,” Jett said.

“Down that hallway.” I cocked my head toward the kitchen.

We got up, and he put his arms around me again and kissed me. “Will you visit me in New York?”

“Yes.”

“I’m really glad I came.”

“Me too.”

I crept up the stairs. Molly was fast asleep, sprawled across one of my twin beds, her chemistry book open, her clothes still on.

“Mol?” I said, shaking her lightly.

“Huh? What?” She opened her eyes and squinted at me. “Did you and Jett kiss and make up?”

“We kissed,” I said. I quickly got undressed, pulled on a big T-shirt, and crawled into the other bed.

“He still loves you, Lar,” Molly said sleepily. “He told me so.”

“I still love him, too,” I admitted.

“God, it’s all, like, so perfect!” Molly said with a sigh.

“No, it’s not,” I said.

“You mean you’re not getting back together?” she asked, incredulous.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Even though you love him so much?”

“Yeah.”

“Wow. That’s way too complex for me.” She got up and pulled off her jeans, then stumbled back into bed and under the covers. And for a moment she looked just like she had at thirteen, when she’d lain in my twin bed and confessed how much it had hurt when Tommy Baigley had said she looked pregnant in her new babydoll dress.

And I realized something: Molly had always been way more honest with me than I had ever been with her. I had
pretended
to be honest, but really I had always been putting on a front—Lara Ardeche, Pageant Queen, with her happy, perfect family and her happy, perfect life.

I hadn’t really let her in at all.

But then, I hadn’t let myself in, either.

“My parents broke up,” I told her. “My dad’s been having an affair for years.”

“No!” Molly exclaimed, rising up on one elbow.

“Your perfect father?”

“He’s not perfect,” I said. “He’s not even close. Neither is my mother. And neither am I.”

Molly sighed. “I told you, you’re going to lose all your weight—”

“I didn’t just mean my weight,” I said. I put my hands under my cheek and looked at her.

“So, what did you mean, then?”

I struggled to explain. “I always let you think my life was so wonderful. Before, I mean. But it wasn’t. I was a big fake.” I thought a moment. “Being thin and popular
and winning all those pageants—who was that girl? It’s not like it made me happy. Not really.”

“Okay, the pageant thing was always lame,” Molly allowed. “But wouldn’t you give, like,
anything
to be thin again?”

“I’d give a lot,” I admitted. “But not
anything
.”

She looked at me in the dark. “You really
are
changing, Lar.”

“Yeah, I guess I am.”

“Well, don’t change too much,” Molly said with a yawn, “ ’cuz I love you just the way you are.” She snuggled her head against the pillow. “Remember that summer I went away to camp and we signed our letters to each other, ‘Love You Till Mount Ever Rests’?” She yawned. “God, I am so beat. When I close my eyes, I see huge trucks passing us on the highway. If I snore loud, just throw a pillow at me or something.”

I stared up at the ceiling. “There’s so much I want to tell you, Molly. About my family, and all the lies we told everyone. And I finally made some friends here. I want you and Jett to meet them, and—”

She was already snoring.

I smiled at her in the dark. “Love You Till Mount Ever Rests, Mol,” I whispered.

I turned over and closed my eyes. And I, too, saw a highway that stretched into a future I couldn’t know. Some of that future I could control, and some of it I couldn’t. And some days it would be all right, and some days it wouldn’t.

That was just the way it was.

I’m not telling you everything was fine, or that I knew what would happen with Jett, or that I didn’t still long to be thin, because I did. So much.

But it wasn’t
everything
anymore.

And so, though the bedsprings creaked form my weight as I rolled over, I had a happy–sad-cool–hot–classical–jazz–angry–peaceful–thin-girl–fat-girl smile on my lips.

I wasn’t perfect. But I was okay.