Life in the Fat Lane (7 page)

“Well, color me shocked, boys and girls,” Molly had said. “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”

“Dieting is just a matter of willpower.”

“Uh-huh.” There was a smirk on her face.

Well, let her smirk. I always accomplished everything I set my mind to. Losing ten pounds was nothing. I loved Molly to death, but frankly, she was lazy.

I bumped up the speed setting on the treadmill yet again.

“I’m sending for this strip thing,” Molly decided. She leaned on the handlebars of the treadmill. “I have one eensy little problem, though. I can’t have it delivered to my house.”

“Why not? Your parents don’t read your mail.”

“True,” Molly said. “But what if it says Skinny Strip on the return address and my mother picks up the mail? She’ll give birth. So can I have it sent here?”

“Mol …”

“Pretty please and I’ll be your best friend forever?” I laughed. “You are a pain in the butt.”

“No, I’m immensely charming. It’s to compensate for my immense thighs. And thank you for your love and support.”

“Hey, you two, what’s up?”

It was Jett, an hour early.

“You’re not supposed to be here yet,” I scolded him. “Don’t look at me, I’m a mess.”

“Nah, you look cute like that.” He looked over at
Molly, lolling on the floor. “Gee, Mol, strenuous workout?”

“The Skinny Strip is about to change my life,” she told him solemnly.

I jumped off the treadmill and wrapped the towel around my neck. “You are seeing me at my total worst.”

He grabbed both ends of the towel and pulled me to him. “You really think I care?” He kissed me tenderly.

“How come you’re early, anyway?”

“I was sketching at Radnor Lake and it started to rain. So I thought I’d see if you wanted to grab a pizza before we study. You too, Mol.”

“Gotta get home, but thanks,” Molly said.

“Oh, I already ate,” I told him.

“So?” Jett asked.

“I’m just not hungry,” I lied.

“Ha!” Molly barked. I ignored her.

“Hey, you’re not going to turn into one of those girls who pretends to eat like a bird, are you?” he asked me. “You love to eat.”

“As long as it doesn’t show on her hips,” Molly added.

“That is totally unimportant,” Jett told her.

“You don’t by any chance have a twin brother who’s been visiting distant relatives, do you?” Molly asked hopefully.

Jett laughed and turned to me. “Come and watch me eat, okay? I can’t face math with a growling stomach.”

“Don’t worry. Her stomach is growling, too,” Molly said wickedly.

“Kindly shut up,” I told her.

She pretended to zip her mouth shut, her eyes dancing with mirth.

Okay. I could see the humor. If I was fat and my best friend was thin and had to diet for the very first time, I suppose I’d enjoy it, too. So I decided to forgive her. In fact, I said she could use my address for her Skinny Strip.

After I showered, we drove Molly home. Then Jett and I headed for Pizza Doctor, the best pizza place in Nashville.

The fantastic smell of baking pizza assaulted me before we even got out of the car. My stomach felt concave with emptiness.

“Want to split a medium?” Jett asked as we stood in front of the counter.

“No, I told you, I already ate.” I salivated. I was
so
hungry.

“That’s never stopped you from eating pizza.”

He ordered a medium with everything and got us both drinks, and we settled into a booth. Over the blaring jukebox, we talked about everything—Jett was so easy to talk to. He showed me the new sketches he had done that day, I told him about piano practice, and for a while I actually forgot how hungry I was.

Until the waitress brought the pizza to our table.

“Help yourself,” Jett told me as he lifted a fragrant, steaming slice to his lips.

“I’m really not hungry,” I lied.

He wiped his mouth. “Listen, you’re not doing anything stupid like dieting, are you?”

“Why would it be stupid to diet?” I asked, swallowing the extra saliva in my mouth.

“Because you don’t need to. Because it’s stupid to think you have to conform to some arbitrary standard of how other people
think
you should look.” He took a large bite out of his slice. “I mean, it’s pointless. Like, take that girl, the one that sings with the Sex Puppets—the one with the pierced cheek? Didn’t you find her beautiful?”

“I take it you did,” I said, making sure there was a sweet smile on my face as I said it.

“I’m just trying to say that there are all different kinds of beauty, that’s all,” Jett said. He reached for another slice.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting to look your best,” I argued.

Jett shrugged. “Whatever that means.”

“What? Are you saying you could be attracted to a girl like, say, Molly?”

“Sure,” Jett said.

I folded my arms. “I don’t believe you.”

He took a sip of his drink. “I guess you don’t know me as well as you thought you did, then.”

I was so hungry I didn’t think I could stand it. And I had only been dieting for two meals. How was I supposed to last for an entire week? Or an entire
month
? How long did it take to lose ten pounds, anyway?

“You’re staring at the pizza,” Jett pointed out.

“What? Oh, I was just … thinking. So, tell me more about your sketches.”

He talked, but I didn’t really hear him. I could actually
feel
a slice in my hand, taste it in my mouth. All I had to do was reach out, and—

No. I was not going to eat that pizza. I was going to stay on my diet. I knew I could. It couldn’t be that big a deal to lose ten pounds. My friends did it all the time, and I was definitely more disciplined than they were.

All it would take was willpower. I was sure of it.

I
t was three days before Thanksgiving, but I was not filled with the holiday spirit. I had gained eight more pounds in four weeks from the prednisone, and I now weighed 136 pounds.

I was fat.

Me. Fat. All because of a stupid drug for some stupid allergies. I stopped taking it and my lips and eyes swelled up. So I took it again, vowing to eat even less. Prednisone was not going to get the best of me.

It was no use. I got fatter.

Everyone knew I had gained weight, they just didn’t know how much. Except my mother, who could peg my weight gain to the pound. She was appalled at how I looked and found it impossible to believe that it was just because of prednisone. So she watched every bite I put into my mouth.

She also called the allergist and demanded an appointment, which was set for the next day, two days before Thanksgiving.

Dad, away on a long business trip, called often and asked how my weight was. He talked about willpower and positive thinking. I told him I’d try harder to lose.

And I did try. Only it wasn’t working. I was turning into this fat
thing
.

It was a nightmare. Most of my clothes no longer fit. Just today after school I had made a desperate, secret trip to the mall, where I’d used the credit card my grandfather had given me on my last birthday to buy exact copies of many of my clothes, in a larger size. I hoped against hope that no one would realize they were a size nine/ten instead of a five/six.

And now, as I lay at home in my bed after an hour on the treadmill, two hours of piano, and two more of homework, my stomach growled with emptiness. Breakfast and lunch had both been diet Coke and lettuce. For dinner I had eaten a small, skinless chicken breast, three tomato slices, and half a plain baked potato.

Here it was midnight, and I was
so
hungry.

But no. I wouldn’t eat. Would not. Eat.

I padded to my door and opened it. Mom wasn’t home yet from the after-theater dessert party she had catered that evening. Scott’s room was quiet.

I could picture the inside of our refrigerator: fried chicken left over from Scott’s dinner. Half of a coconut cream pie a neighbor had made. And in the freezer, ice cream. Chocolate Häagen-Dazs, with nuts. Behind it, two jumbo-sized frozen Snickers bars.

Before I knew it, my feet were carrying me downstairs,
into the kitchen. My hand was in the refrigerator. I brought a fried chicken drumstick to my lips, and—

No. I wouldn’t eat it. Would not. Willpower.

I put it back and turned to walk out of the kitchen.

And then someone who was not me went back to the freezer and took out both frozen Snickers bars. That someone ran with them up to her room.

Whoever she was, she didn’t even turn on her light to eat. She just sat there in the dark, like some fat, feral creature of the night, cracking the frozen chocolate off with her teeth, loving the sensation of rich, sweet, comforting chocolate in her mouth, mixing with her saliva, sliding down her throat.

The candy wrappers got stuffed behind her bed.

It wasn’t me.

“O
ne hundred and thirty-six pounds,” the allergist’s nurse, Mrs. Rankin, said as I stood on the scale in the examining room. She wrote it on my chart. “And you’re five feet, seven inches, right?”

“I know I’m too fat,” I said quickly, my face burning with embarrassment. “I’m on a diet, but—”

“Honey, you’re not fat,” the nurse said, chuckling. “All you young girls are so obsessive about your weight. The doctor will be in to see you in a few minutes.” She bustled out the door, her tree-trunk legs rubbing together as she walked.

I sat there staring at my enemy: the scale.

The only two people who didn’t seem to care about my weight were Molly and Jett. When dieting didn’t
make me lose weight, Molly enjoyed seeing that I was, as she put it, “human after all.”

As for Jett, he didn’t seem to mind, either. I did, though. I felt so ugly—certain that he felt the roll of fat at my waist every time he held me, disgusted that my thighs were probably bigger than his.

I glanced over at a wall calendar from some pharmaceutical company and counted the days until New Year’s Eve. In a little over a month Jett and I were going to Amber’s New Year’s Eve party. But I refused to shop for a new dress in a size ten.

I had to lose weight. I
had
to.

“Hello there, young lady,” Dr. Fabrio said, coming into the examining room. He was tall and thin, with a long nose and bloodless lips.

“Hello.”

He scanned my chart. “How’s that prednisone doing for you?” he asked, sitting in the chair opposite me.

“I think I should stop taking it,” I said.

“Have the rashes recurred?” he asked.

“Not really. But look at my weight.”

He looked at the chart again. “You’ve gained …”

“Eighteen pounds,” I filled in for him.

“Eighteen pounds,” he repeated, nodding, still looking at the chart, “that’s over, what …”

“Almost two months. You said I could retain water …”

“Exactly,” he agreed. “But also, some people report that prednisone affects their appetite and they feel hungry all the time. That can lead to weight gain.”

My hands clenched the sides of my chair, my knuckles white.
That
explained why I was starving all the time.
That
explained why I couldn’t stay on a diet!

I put on my best beauty-pageant smile. “You didn’t mention that to me before.”

He smiled benignly at me. “Why put the idea into your pretty little head? You’d be amazed how often patients just happen to develop whatever negative side effect of a drug we tell them is a possibility.”

“But the scale doesn’t lie,” I said timidly.

He sighed and rubbed his chin. “No, it doesn’t. And I have to say this is a fairly large weight gain in a short period of time, even for someone on prednisone. But your allergies are under control now, and it should taper off.”

I forced my clenched fists under my legs so he wouldn’t see them. I was careful to keep my voice sweet. “Excuse me, Doctor, but I’m kind of concerned that I’m getting fat.”

“Ms. Ardeche, I would not call one hundred thirty-six pounds on a healthy, five-foot-seven-inch teenager fat.”

“You don’t understand,” I said slowly. “None of my clothes fit. Everyone in my family is thin.”

“Did a parent come with you today?” Dr. Fabrio asked.

“My mother. She’s very upset about this.”

What I didn’t add was that it had been everything I could do to keep her out of the examining room.

Dr. Fabrio tapped his finger against his lips. “How are things at home for you, Lara?”

“Fine,” I replied.

“No problems?”

“None.”

“Getting along okay at school?”

“I was homecoming queen.”

He tapped my chart against his knee again. “Family pressure, urticaria, origin unknown, weight gain, and you seem very tense.”

I lifted my hand to smooth my hair and then put both my hands back in my lap, one on top of the other, in perfect, ladylike pageant form.

“Doctor, I appreciate your concern.” I smiled at him. “But you see, I’m supposed to compete in the Miss Teen Tennessee pageant early next year. At this weight, I might as well not even enter.”

“See if you can follow me here, Lara,” Dr. Fabrio said. “I think what is happening is that you are blaming the reaction to the problem on your stress, rather than blaming the problem itself.”