Teenage Waistland (22 page)

This was only three years ago, and Char’s been my best friend forever—I don’t know how I didn’t know about this! I’m just sitting there with my mouth open, shaking my head. “Char, what’s ‘a few’ pills? You had to have taken enough for them to get this idea in their heads,” I finally say.

Char smiles sheepishly for a second. “Yeah, well, I don’t remember exactly. Maybe four or five. Not a lot, but, yeah, obviously enough to get them all bent out of shape. I was just in a lot of pain, but they won’t let it go, and now next week
I have yet another meeting with my parents and a new doctor they want to evaluate me.”

“Oh, Char! You didn’t need to keep this from me! I know you’d never do something to hurt yourself. Never in a million years! What do your parents think? They believe you, right?”

Char leans forward again. “Well, that’s just it, East. I mean, they do. But whenever they try to make Betsy understand that I would never hurt myself—then or now—Betsy gives them her psychobabble about how quote resistant unquote I am to
admitting
to emotional issues, let alone willing to deal with them. And then she spooks them further with her rap about how when people who don’t address their emotional reasons for eating get weight loss surgery, they can end up seeking substitutions, like alcohol and drugs. So then, they come running back to me and make me swear that I’ll never even take so much as a Tylenol, and I have to convince them all over again. The whole thing is a stupid circus, but Betsy thinks it’s important that I continue with group for the time being, which hopefully means she’s coming around.”

I feel a surge of relief. “So what’s the big problem, Char? All you have to do is become serious about addressing your ‘emotional issues’ instead of disrupting all the time, and you’ll get your surgery. If Betsy wasn’t still open to letting you have it, she’d have kicked you out of group already.”

Char looks up at me, reaches her hand out for another noodle, and then abruptly pushes the bowl away. “Yeah, you’re right, East. I’ll just give Betsy what she’s looking for, keep starving myself, and then, once I have the surgery, no one will ever know that I lied. But you swear you won’t tell anyone about any of this, no matter what happens?”

“I promise: I’ll never tell a living soul about any of this,” I say solemnly.

A cell phone starts buzzing, and I don’t even bother going for mine. “It’s Bobby,” Char says, miraculously all lit up again. She’s showing me his text:
You made your train right?
“Yeah with East now,” she says out loud while typing.
Say hi
, she shows me.

“One more sec, East. Let me just tell him I’ll call when I get home.”

“No doubt you’ll call
him
when you say you will.” But I’m smiling as I say this. My best friend’s got enough on her plate.

Teenage Waistland is a freaking mausoleum this session, the first group meeting since we’ve all had our surgeries. I mean, yeah, there was high-fiving when we all first got into the room, and everyone spewing stuff like, “Oh, but how do
you
feel?” and, “Wow, I can see a big difference in you already,” to each other. But after we took our seats and Bitsy had us
clap for ourselves
like we just climbed Mount freaking Everest, all the life pretty much got sucked out of the room. And it takes me only like two seconds to figure out why: Char’s gone mute.

Seriously. She’s sitting there between Bobby and East as usual, but it’s like the invasion of the body snatchers! And instead of snarling and watching Char’s every move, East has gone freaking
Buddha
on us—she’s all happy and calm, like she’s at peace and one with the universe. And Char. Well, Char’s sitting here beaming as usual, maybe even more so, but it’s like she’s had a lip zipper installed and that’s
all
she’s doing—beaming! I mean, she’s beaming at me, and beaming
at Bitsy, and beaming at the other kids depending on who’s talking, and beaming at East, and beaming at Bobby.… Especially at Bobby. And the two of them are constantly like leaning into each other and smiling into each others’ eyes and touching each other’s hands and all of this frankly vomit-y crap. Yeah, they’re cute together and I’m happy for Char, and I haven’t even minded analyzing “the Kiss” one hundred times. But what about me? This whole lovey-dovey serenity thing is
B-O-R-I-N-G
, and, I swear, if there was loaded artillery within reach, my brains would be splattered all over the wall.

Everyone is getting up and droning on about how their surgeries went—
Oh, and two seconds later I was out like a light
—and how the nurses were so nice, and how changing the bandages was gross, blah blah blah. I expect the tiniest bit of action when the “sharing” gets to Char, but she stays seated and waves
demurely
—like she’s passing on a tray of hors d’oeuvres being offered to her at some elegant cocktail party. In a tiny sweet voice she says, “Oh, nothing to add—let’s move on to East.” And Bitsy, who doesn’t normally sanction hesitation in the sharing department, clears her throat and says, “Okay, East, your turn. Tell us about your surgery experience.”

Each second here feels like an hour, and I’m just dying for this torture to end so that we can head out to Chow Fun House. The gag is, none of us can get more than two bites down before we’re full. So I can’t wait to snap the photo of Freddie Kawasaki’s face when the four of us—or however many kids join us tonight—waddle in like freaking mall Santa Clauses, and order
one
dumpling appetizer. To share.

Abby’s been on my case to visit Gran in the hospital after group tonight since the hospital is literally two blocks away. I’m not sure exactly what’s even wrong with the woman. She’s only like seventy, which I think seems early for all that lovely organ-failure crap that happens when people get really old. But my only theory on the situation, based on the paucity of available facts, and, admittedly, my own piss-poor level of interest, is that Gran’s fifty-five years of bulimia are finally catching up to her.

Abby says that Gran keeps asking for me (and asking if
I’ve
called Jen yet!) and that the least I can do is visit for a few lousy minutes.
Gran’s mind is going
, Abby pleads.
You shouldn’t hold anything she says against her
. But Gran’s never been interested in my high grades or all the creative writing awards I’ve won, or anything like that. It’s just always about my appearance. Oh, and my mouth—how men don’t like women who have minds and speak them or women who curse like truck drivers. Which, I believe, is yet another one of her unfair stereotypes, since I highly doubt Gran’s ever
met
a truck driver, let alone gotten into an obscenity-riddled conversation with one. Mind or no mind, Gran is still an expert at making me feel like crap, and there’s no way I’m missing our after-group soiree just to get harassed, especially now that my own blood has taken Jen’s side!

Chow Fun House won’t take long anyway. The dumpling will be quick to eat, and Freddie will probably kick us out pretty quickly: the last thing he needs is a bunch of raucous fatties hogging a table when they’re no longer ordering half the menu.
Then
I’ll get over to the hospital—just in time for visiting hours to end. Abby’s my ride back to Jersey tonight, and she’ll be furious with me, of course, bitching the
whole way about my heartlessness. But traffic is usually light on the George Washington Bridge that time of night, and a twenty-minute barrage in exchange for another great evening with Teenage Waistland sounds like an excellent trade to me.

Here’s the scene. Group has finally ended and we’re in the elevator: Char and Bobby are sucking face and mauling each other, and East and I are rolling our eyes and sticking a finger into our mouths like we’re about to hurl chunks. And then on the street: Char and Bobby are sucking face and mauling each other, and East and I are rolling our eyes and blowing our brains out with imaginary guns. And then outside the entrance to Chow Fun House: Char and Bobby are sucking face and mauling each other, and East and I are rolling our eyes and pretending to throw ourselves in front of moving traffic. Finally I screech,
“Get a freaking room!”
and Char hits me and laughs and Bobby blushes and East gives me a high five, and we go into the restaurant.

But the joke’s on us. Freddie is nowhere to be seen, and another fellow leads us to the table—a table big enough to comfortably seat us without Char getting to pull any theatrics. Then, after this new waiter says something to East in Japanese (presumably—it could be Swahili, for all I know) and she reddens and ignores him, he takes our order of one fried shrimp dumpling appetizer without even twitching. But the irony of this failed gag turns out to be hilarious too, so we’re shaking our heads, laughing so hard that our eyes tear,
and thumping the table with our fists. That is, until a booming voice—sickeningly familiar—fills the restaurant.

“Marcie! Get over here right now!” I spin around. It’s Abby storming toward us, and I’ve never seen her this crazed before. She digs her fingernails into my arm and yanks me out of my seat so hard the chair falls onto the floor.

“Your grandmother is dead.”

It’s like all hell has broken loose
everywhere
in the city tonight. Ambulance sirens blaring, crosstown traffic crawling an inch per minute, and Abby’s face glistening with tears as she sits frozen behind the wheel.

“Mom?” I try. “Maybe we should pull into a garage and have Ronny come get us? Or I can drive. I mean, not legally or anything, but Carlo’s been letting me practice. I’m not bad, although I’m not quite sure I could pass a road test if parallel parking a fifty-foot stretch limo is involved.” She remains stone-faced, not even a hint of a smile at my attempt to cheer her up. At the intersection of Seventy-second Street and West End Avenue, an ancient bag lady wearing ten layers of clothing in this miserable summer heat crosses in front of us pushing a shopping cart. Abby finally turns to me, her face hard and tight.

“You know what your grandmother’s very last words were, Marcie? I’ve been debating in my mind whether I should tell you, but at this moment, all I can think is how much you deserve to know.” I shrug, but only to myself—no point in getting Abby freaked out with me. Abby takes an angry swipe at her eyes, leaving a black streak of mascara—it looks like
war paint—across her face. “I’m at her bedside and I’m holding her hand. Her breathing is so shallow that I’m grateful for each tiny exhale. And here’s my mother, so delirious she doesn’t even recognize me. Instead, she thinks I’m
you
! ‘Marcie, my beautiful baby. I’m so very happy you’re finally here.…’ That’s it—the last moment with my mother that I’ll ever have. And it was all about
you
, the selfish granddaughter she yearned for in her final breath. The one who wouldn’t give her one lousy inch! The one who wouldn’t give her the tiniest bit of time, love, or warmth. Even if you couldn’t find it in your heart to do it for a dying old woman, what about me,
your
mother?”

I can’t for the life of me decipher the reaction Abby’s looking for. It’s not like my feelings about Gran were a mystery to her. “I’m sorry, Mom,” I say. “It should have been your moment. But it’s not my fault that Gran—”

“What? I don’t know where you came from,” Abby cries. “It’s not about ‘my moment’ or fault! It’s about acceptance!”

“I know it’s about acceptance!” I cry back. “She didn’t accept me! I wasn’t good enough!”

“My mother was a good woman,” Abby practically spits. “For all her flaws and all the ‘beauty baggage’ you hate so much, she loved you the best way she knew how! She never said, ‘Oh, Marcie and I aren’t on the same page, so I’ll just write her out of my life!’ the way you did to her. All she wanted was a little love from you, a little respect. But every time you opened your mouth—almost from the time you were a toddler—you made her feel small, like she was a pathetic moron living a silly shallow life. Who are you to judge anybody? You didn’t grow up in
her
generation, you didn’t think for one second to put yourself in
her
shoes—you
simply chose
not
to understand her. And then you shut her out. Why couldn’t you just love her the way she was? Because it’s Marcie’s way or the highway, that’s why. Right?” We’re finally
on
the highway now. I just clench my teeth and stare out the window.