Teenage Waistland (9 page)

“Okay, East,” Betsy says. She rises to her feet and removes her blazer from the back of her chair. “Thank you for coming in again. I’ll walk you out.”

“But aren’t you going to call my mom back?” I say. I’m afraid that if I stand, my knees will really buckle this time.

Betsy comes around from her desk and slowly lowers herself into the chair next to mine again. “East, I don’t think your mom’s quite up to it. And it sounds like something more than a seasonal allergy. Perhaps we’ll get another opportunity to talk in the future, okay?”

The future?
I lean over to make the sharp cramp in my stomach go away.

Betsy touches my shoulder. “You are a wonderful, responsible young lady, but I’m not convinced you have a
strong enough support system right now to be a good candidate for surgery. It doesn’t mean that—”

“I need to do this. Please let me in,” I blurt, and the levee holding back my tears finally crumbles. Betsy leans over to retrieve the tissue box from her desk. When she hands me one, my eyes meet hers and the pity in them makes me cry harder. She puts her hand on my arm, but that makes it even more impossible for me to stop, so I shake it away.

“I’m really independent. I take care of myself. I’m my own support system. And I have Char! Please,” I plead between sniffles.

“You take care of your mom too, don’t you?” Betsy says softly.

I shrug. “It’s hard for her to do things. She’s even more overweight than I am. A lot more. And she’s …” I can’t say it.

“She’s depressed,” Betsy says.

“Yes,” I whimper. A new wave of sobs takes over my body.

“I know. It’s in her voice.”

“But, it’s worse!” I blubber. “She doesn’t leave the house.”

Betsy shakes her head while she studies her hands. “It must be terribly hard for you. Has your mom tried to get professional help?”

I shake my head.

“Has anyone tried to get professional help for her?” she asks more softly. I cry harder into my tissue.

“East,” Betsy murmurs, “I’m so sorry—”

“No—please don’t say you’re sorry. Please. Just give me a chance,” I sob. “Look at me. I’m going to be just like her! I’ll get bigger and bigger and one day, I won’t be able to leave the house either. I promise, Dr. Glass. I promise. I’ll do
everything right. I’ll prove it to you! My dad didn’t just die from some illness—he killed himself and I’m the one who found him. But I got straight As that semester anyway, and every year since. I arrange for the gardener and the housekeeper and the plumbers—everyone who has to come to the house. And all the bills too! I’ve never paid one bill late. I cook for myself and my mother. Don’t you see? Compared with everything I already do, complying with the clinical trial will be easy for me. I’ll have the most detailed food and exercise diary you’ve ever seen—I’ll be the most dedicated motivated teenager you’ve ever had. Really. I promise.”

Betsy stands up and takes my hand. She’s got tears in her eyes. “You are a very strong young woman. You should be very proud of yourself.” She puts her hand on my back as I get up, and gently guides me toward the door.

I stop and turn to face her just before she opens it. “Please,” I beg. “Please don’t make me turn out just like her.”

Abby is waiting in the pickup line at Tenafly High with a huge grin on her face, and she’s waving frantically through the open passenger-side window for me to hurry up. On principle, I won’t jiggle down the pavement for anyone’s amusement, so I keep a steady stride as I make my way to the car. There’s screeching and whooping as kids pile out of school and horse around until their rides come. God forbid these little debutantes, who aren’t yet driving their own luxury car, take the bus or walk. Instead, it’s like a damn mommy fest every day—the circular drive packed with Mercedes, BMWs, and Hummers, and the mommies out in clusters gabbing about this one’s botoxed brows or that one’s new double-D implants and whatever other minutiae is making the rounds.

Alpine, New Jersey, the zip code with the highest income per capita in the country and the exclusive enclave of my personal hell, is too small to have its own high school, so it feeds into Tenafly’s—the next town over. I’m a proponent of bussing—it was a big deal in Boston when mostly black kids
got bussed into more-affluent white areas. Diversity is great for building tolerance, but here it’s just one overprivileged school district merging into another. The only diversity in this population is Asians and fat people. And I represent 50 percent of the latter.

I used to ride the bus. I insisted on it—I’m no prima donna. But when my butt got so ginormous that there was no room for anyone to sit next to me, some little bulimic in Juicy said, “Could you move over, please—you’re taking up the whole seat.” I couldn’t move over unless I climbed out the window and she knew it. But she kept insisting and soon the whole bus was chanting, “Move it on over.” I called Abby crying from the bathroom before first bell, and never took the bus again.

Liselle kisses up to Abby by occasionally offering to drive me to school in the new red Beemer convertible Ronny bought her when she passed her driving test (on the fourth try). My mom won’t hear of it. “That’s sweet of you, honey, but it’s your senior year, and driving to school with your friends is part of the fun.” In fact, Abby won over Liselle instantaneously by making it clear on day one that our moving in wouldn’t, in any way, screw up her glamorous little life. The truth is, Liselle is the spaciest imbecile that ever got behind a wheel, and I’d sooner get into a car with Lindsay Lohan on crack than with her and her band of giggling morons—most of whom wouldn’t fit if I were along anyway.

By the time I reach Abby, she’s practically halfway out the car window. I chuck my backpack into the backseat and climb into the front. I know the “cat that ate the canary” expression is cliché, but there it is, spread all over her face.

“You can’t be so happy because it’s my last day of school, right?” I say as we pull away from the curb.

“Of course, there’s that,” Abby chirps. “And, I get to look at your smiling face all summer.”

“No you don’t,” I mutter. “I’m going up to Dad’s just as soon as I can pack. Jen and I are probably going to look for internships in Boston together.”

“You have much bigger plans here,” Abby singsongs. She turns to me and grins madly.

“Wait? The trial? Mom, no way? I’m in?”

“
Way
, my darling. We got the go-ahead in today’s mail. You are going to be T-H-I-N before you know it!”

I cover my face with my hands. I hate phonies, wannabes, skinny imbeciles who think they have the world coming to them, and everyone who thinks physical appearance makes a lick of difference to who someone is. Nevertheless, I’m bawling like crazy. Abby starts crying too, and neither of us give a rat’s sphincter that we’re blocking the school exit and half of Tenafly’s finest are beeping and flipping us the bird.

I’m walking home after swimming at Zoolow’s—our annual last-day-of-school pool party. My shorts are still wet and sticking, but I threw on a dry T-shirt the second I got out of the pool, so nothing’s showing up top. The guys didn’t rag on me about having brought an extra shirt this time. Last time, when MT asked where my hat and coat were after I jumped in the pool wearing a shirt, I held him underwater until he turned blue.

Zoolow’s mom offered me a ride, but I needed to take off.
A bunch of girls were heading over and I didn’t want to be wet in front of them. Or the only guy not in the pool.

I’m pretending I’m Curtis Martin rushing for a fifty-yard dash, fourth-quarter, game-winning touchdown. I cradle my backpack in my arms, do a quick check to see there’s no one around, and start running it.
And there’s Konopka, all-stater back in his high school days. He’s got the ball! This guy’s as quick and powerful as any of the league’s top running backs—look at him go! Konopka’s weaving his way straight to the end zone! He’s at midfield! He sees an opening, he’s at the 40, at the 30, 20. They can’t touch him! The crowd is going wild! “Bobby, Bobby!” He could go all the way! Yes! Touchdown! Can you believe they once called this guy Refrigerator? Man, the only name for him now is Six-pack. “Bob-bee, Bob-bee!” This crowd is out of control! They’ve got him in the air! Look at those cheerleaders clawing at him!

I’m holding my backpack above my head with both hands—
I am the man. I went all the …
A car beeps loudly behind me—I hadn’t even heard it coming. I hop onto the curb and turn to see Dad, on his way home from the store.

“Hey, buddy—hop in.”

“Hey, you’re home early,” I say, to change the subject of me being caught with my backpack over my head. I quickly pull the towel out of my backpack and spread it over the front seat to spare his leather my damp, chlorinated butt.

“You coming from Zoo’s?” he asks. “When’s everybody leaving for the summer?”

“Most of them tomorrow and Sunday,” I say, seriously bumming about the ghost town this place will be when everyone’s off on their teen tours and stuff while I’m “tooling
around”—stupid family joke—at Konopka & Son Lumber.

“The summer flies,” Dad says, like that’s consolation. He pulls into our driveway and backs up to the garage at the side of the house. I hop out of the car quick to answer the call of nature, but Dad’s calling louder.

“Whoa, Bobby. Give me a hand unloading.”

I toss my backpack onto the ground and go around to the trunk. He zaps the Unlock button, and I lift the door. The SUV is packed with cartons splashed with stickers of totally jacked bodybuilders.

“Dad—are these weights?” I feel a rush of excitement.

“You bet. You can throw your old dumbbells in the basement. Got a four-hundred-seventy-pound Olympic free weight set, new barbells and dumbbells.”

“Niiice.”

“And a Smith machine squat rack. Your old bench is still good. This should be all you need to build mountains of mass.”

The whole thing doesn’t click for me until Mom sprints out through the side door. She’s smiling wide and nodding her head. Big eyes.
Oh man
.

“The letter came? I’m in?” I yell. She’s nodding harder. I spin around to give Dad a high five. He hands me the barbell instead.

“Oh yeah, kid. Letter from Coach also arrived today. Practice starts second week in August. If you’re dead set on having this stupid surgery, you’d better get cracking.”

I still haven’t replaced the bulb in the lantern outside the front door. And, another mental note—I have to get a repairman to fix the lamppost next to our rusty mailbox. It could topple any day. And, I need to speak to the creepy gardener. Weeds are choking off what’s left of the lawn, and he’s got to get rid of the dead rosebushes lining the driveway. These plants aren’t coming back.

Not that anyone but Char and service and delivery people come over, but still. If not for the TV’s bluish glow in my mother’s bedroom window, this place would look completely abandoned. Or haunted. Dad would be upset if he could see what’s happened to our house. Though, as I walk up our crumbling concrete walkway with the rest of the mail, I can’t remember the place looking much better while he was alive. Except maybe the time Mom threw him a surprise thirty-fifth birthday party. Months before, Julius dug out flower beds and I helped Mom plant bulbs and then, magically, our flowers bloomed the day of the barbecue. I was so proud showing them off to everyone. Dad twirled me around that day, calling me his flower goddess. The next time we had that many flowers was a year and three months later, at his funeral.