Teenage Waistland (6 page)

I cut her off before she says it’s not a good idea. Any time she voices a fear, it takes on a life of its own in her mind and is that much more likely to come true. “I need the sur—the Lap-Band. And yes, Char’s doing it, and Crystal has totally checked it out.” Mom and Crystal stopped talking a few months after Dad died, and by then, Crystal wasn’t just her oldest, best friend, she was her only friend left. Dad’s death was like this irresistible force—whoever Mom didn’t push out of her life eventually pulled away.

“Crystal’s been in on all this?” Mom says, harshness seeping into her voice. My heart starts racing as I try to calculate the source of her anger and respond in a way to defuse it. I take a deep breath and choose my words carefully.

“Well, of course Crystal had the exact same response as you when Char first told her about it—she knows how impulsive Char can be better than anyone. But after Crystal read the materials, researched it online, and talked with Char’s physician, she became completely convinced that this sur—program is the only way to ensure that her
daughter
live a long, happy, and healthy life.” I can’t help that my voice cracks on this last part.

There’s no longer any trace of anger on Mom’s face, but her eyes are darting back and forth. Like she’s thinking …

“There’s paperwork I need signed just to qualify for the
procedure
, and I’ll need a few routine medical tests and a psychological evaluation so that they can see how responsible I am. Then there’s one more evaluation session to get in to the trial—the first part is with the teen, and the second is a private consultation with the parent alone. Mom, there’s a really beautiful outfit I planned to buy you for your birthday anyway, so you could wear it to the meeting—or I bet I can even get them to interview you over the phone and then you won’t have to—to go all the way into the city and deal with parking and stuff. And then Char can be with me at the hospital, and you wouldn’t even have to come—”

“East, please stop,” Mom begs. “You’re talking a mile a minute.”

“I know it’s a lot. But like I said, it’s safe and you won’t have to do—” My voice is cracking again when she cuts me off.

“Honey, stop. I’ll read the brochure, okay? And if everything’s as you say, then I guess letting you get this surgery is the least I can do for you.” She takes a deep breath, but her eyes begin to water and when she starts speaking again, her voice is shaking. “F-forget about phone interviews and having Char with you at the hospital. I’ll do what you need me to, and
I’ll
be with you at the hospital too. I’m going to be with
my
daughter every step of the way. If we’re going to do this, we’ll do it right.”

We?
It’s like a wave of bright light sweeps through the room. I jump to my feet completely stunned for a moment,
then fling myself into my mother’s arms—something I haven’t done in years. She’s holding me tightly right back, stroking my hair and sobbing at the same time. Suddenly this surgery is bigger and more important than I realized. Maybe it could even save us both.

If there’s one thing that has gotten me in trouble throughout my entire life, it’s my mouth. What goes into it, but even worse, what comes out.
Your mouth is your own worst enemy, Marcie. When in doubt, keep it shut
, Abby always says. Dad says I’m sometimes too honest for my own good, and Ronny thinks I’m
spirited
, surely his euphemism for “loudmouthed, opinionated brat.” Whatever I am, it can’t be helped. Normal people are born with a flap that prevents everything on their minds from spewing uncontrollably out of their mouths. I have a genetic defect—no flap whatsoever. That’s why, on the three-block trek from the parking garage to the Park Avenue Bariatrics office, Abby is harassing me for my big interview: the “psychosocial evaluation.”

“Just watch your mouth and be polite,” Abby warns. “No wisecracks or snide remarks. And for God’s sake—do not insult anyone.”

“Are you saying I
shouldn’t
mention that recurring dream of mine—where Liselle and her whole shallow crew of
size-zero bimbos get wiped off the face of the earth in one fell swoop of my butt?” My laugh comes out more like a wheeze as I struggle to maintain her pace. But Abby halts in the middle of the sidewalk and I plow right into her. She spins around and squeezes my arm.

“Let’s get something straight. If you don’t make it into this clinical trial, don’t think for a minute I’m taking you to Mexico. Your surgery gets done here or it doesn’t get done at all. Do I make myself clear?” I yank my arm from her grip. WTF?

“What if
I
say all the right things, but I don’t get in because after talking to
you
, the shrink decides that my living environment sucks and that that homeless fellow living in an old dishwasher carton on Forty-second Street would provide a more supportive family environment than chez Rescott? Wouldn’t you take me to Mexico
then
?”

Abby glares at me through watery eyes for a moment, then pivots and resumes walking.

“Mom—wait! I’m sorry,” I call, lumbering after her. Abby speeds up, but I catch up with her at the crosswalk. She gives me her back as she dabs at her eyes with a Kleenex, and I step around to face her. “Listen,” I say softly. “What I said back there was really wrong. I’m like ninety-eight point three percent positive that I’d get
less
support from that guy in the box, okay?” Abby tries to suppress a smile, but when I raise my eyebrows—the
c’mon, I know you wanna
look—she finally lets it out.

“Okay. But stop giving me such a hard time.”

“Mom,” I try in the sugary voice that always works for Liselle, “don’t you see how you’re the one who gave
me
the hard time?” Abby’s face tightens, but she doesn’t turn away,
even though the light has changed.
It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it
, Abby says, so I soften my voice even more. “I know you just wanted me to be with you, but that’s meant I’ve had to give up everything else I care about—Dad, my best friend—hell,
all
my friends. I haven’t made
any
since we moved here, which isn’t my fault. You’re the one who agreed to push me up to eleventh grade—they’d have kept me in tenth even with my test scores if you asked them to—and now I fit in even less.”

Abby looks straight ahead without blinking, but she hasn’t budged. I keep it soft.

“Mom, I fit in at Fuller. Everyone but like two people voted for me for class vice president. Here, I’d be satisfied with being invisible. But I’m not. I’m a joke—Liselle Rescott’s ‘new’ sister.
I didn’t know Liselle was a quintuplet. Why did Liselle bring her house to school today? What’s her name again? Moosie?
Do you have any idea how many times a day I hear that stuff?”

“How many?” Abby sighs, checking her watch. And that’s when I lose it.

“Damn it, Mom! I want to go home. Just let me go home. Please. I’m miserable here.”

“You
are
home,” she snaps. “And I know you’re unhappy, Marcie. Believe me, I know. That’s why we’re here, okay? Please, let’s just go while we still have the light.”

A huge woman with mammoth hips is waiting in front of the elevator when it opens. “Excuse me,” Abby says, though she could easily slip right past her. The woman apologizes
profusely and steps to the side. I follow Abby out, and the woman smiles conspiratorially at me. As if all fat people belong to a secret club. I don’t smile back and catch up with Abby as she beelines down the hall, scanning the suite numbers for the right door. She stops in front of one and waits for me to catch up.

While Abby goes to the receptionist’s window, I survey the waiting room with relief. Long green pleather-upholstered benches line the walls. All-you-can-eat seating—no armrests to signal where your buttocks must end so others may begin. There’s nothing more terrifying than entering a waiting room, or a classroom, and trying to find a seat while others are watching.

A few Saturdays ago, my worst seating disaster ever … It was at a special creative writing seminar at the community center. I had been so excited—only two kids from my school were selected, and the presenter was one of my favorite authors. By the time I arrived, she was already speaking and only middle seats were available. It was bad enough the kids had to grab their notebooks off their desks and lean away to make room for me to get through the aisle, but the desks—the kind with tops that lift up like tray tables on airplanes—were like freaking doll furniture. The desktop just wouldn’t clear my stomach on the way down, no matter how hard I pushed. I had to sit with the table up for the whole morning, mortified and barely processing a word. Then, at lunchtime, I tore out of the building and frantically dialed Abby on my cell phone from behind a tree, imploring her to come pick me up. I never even got my book signed.

I’m beached on a sagging, rust-colored corduroy couch in Dr. Glass’s brown-paneled office, waiting for the inquisition to get under way. The springs are completely shot in this old sofa—not surprising, given the clientele—so my butt is basically on the floor. Her walls are plastered with framed certificates. Master’s in Social Work. PhD in Clinical Psychology. Big deal. My dad, the top lit professor at Fuller Prep, has
two
PhDs—one in literature and one in education. He turned down a position at Tufts so that I could go to Fuller. Now he’s stuck in a crummy apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, all by himself, and I’m living in a ten-thousand-square-foot McMansion in New Jersey with my mother, Rich Ronny, and brain-dead Liselle.

My parents met in a classics seminar at Harvard, and Dad would always go on about how clever and resourceful my mom is. But that was before she dropped thirty pounds and started spending late nights with her editor at
Inc
. magazine. Then, while I was away in Mexico with Jen, Abby announced that she was going to marry the cover boy of the November issue—Ronny Rescott—and asked my father for a divorce.

It didn’t occur to me that Abby planned to take me with her. Fuller is one of the country’s best schools, and with my top ranking and assistant editorship at the
Review
—a huge accomplishment for a ninth grader (though a few jerks suggested Dad pulled strings)—I could have been a shoo-in for Harvard. But Abby said that Tenafly High is one of the best public schools in the entire country and that I could always come back to Boston for college. Even then, I wasn’t too worried. There was no way my father was going to let me go. Except he did.

I shouldn’t blame the divorce entirely on my mother; the
academic life just isn’t in her gene pool, and there’s no fighting DNA. My father hails from a long line of rabbis and scholars; my mother, bulimics and anorexics. I know there was a time in history when food was scarce and being a cow was de rigueur. But as far back as my great-grandmother, whom I knew only from photos, the Lipsky women were cramming themselves into girdles; starving themselves before weddings, bat mitzvahs, and vacations; and disappearing into bathrooms after meals.

With that sludge clogging her gene pool, Abby’s addiction to diet pills, liposuction, and dudes with cash isn’t much of a shock, but
her
mother totally takes the cake (and most assuredly pukes it up later). To Gran, being thin, gracious, gorgeous, and perfectly coiffed in order to get a rich man to marry you is the entire meaning of life. That’s it. Women are bait and men are prey, and the concept of growth and self-discovery involves nothing more than identifying the exact shade of shadow that brings out your eyes. The only time this woman probably ever even picked up a book was to put it on her head and practice walking around the room for good posture.

I was most likely still in utero when Gran began feeding me the program—according to Abby, I was a big kicker from the time she was six months pregnant with me, and I haven’t stopped kicking since. When Gran’s hospitalizations started becoming more frequent last year, I tried one more time to communicate with her—to let her know that my sights in life were set much higher than on landing a man and that she should just accept that.