Big Fat Manifesto (17 page)

Something about the whole situation feels way past twisted to me.

"Next time, when he tries to pressure you again—" Marlene begins, but I cut her off by holding up my hand.

"There won't be a next time." I shake my head. "No thank you."

NoNo makes a whispery-gurgly noise that might have been, "Yeah."

Freddie says, "Damn—uh, darn straight"

From upstairs, Burke calls,
"Da-ad.
Hey, Dad!"

Mr. Westin's up before I process what's happening. My thoughts seem to be working slower than the rest of the world's.

Marlene gestures toward the door. "You all should probably head out for the night."

NoNo virtually leaps to her feet. Freddie stands with more dignity. As I shove myself off the couch, both knees pop. My whole
body hurts, like
I
dumped instead of Burke.

Marlene heads upstairs to help her father with Burke. Mona braves the newly scrubbed kitchen to retrieve the unruined stacks
of fliers, loads us up, and sees us out.

I manage to pause on the front stoop and look at Mona, so she can tell I'm serious. "Will you tell him I'm sorry? I had no
idea. I really didn't know."

Mona's usually sharp, severe expression softens. She pats me on the shoulder. "I'll tell him—but you don't have to apologize.
This is on Burke, one hundred percent. He needed this lesson."

The Wire

FEATURE SPREAD

for publication Friday, November 16

Fat Girl Flirting

JAMIE D. CARCATERRA

So many assumptions.

Here's one. If a Fat Girl manages to have a boyfriend, she needs the guy's attention to feel good about herself.

Truth is, feelings of well-being in fat people have more to do with strong family connections—like moms and dads and siblings—than
with a love life. Which is a good thing, because sometimes love-life connections get way bungled up and impossible to fix.

Here's another. Fat Girls get depressed because they're fat.

Guess what? Big studies with thousands of kids show that the depression-fat connection works in reverse. Fat kids aren't necessarily
more likely to be depressed, but depressed kids are likely to be fat. So depression might cause fat, but fat doesn't have
to cause depression.

Surprised?

Here's another big one I faced recently. Fat Girls don't have sex (unless we're the town slut, because of course, we're fat,
and how else would we get laid?).

News flash: That's not true, either.

Half of us Fat Girls are sexually active, just like our skinny friends. We just don't tell
you.
Or sometimes, anyone else. We have a harder time getting adequate female exams and proper birth control, and we suffer more
side effects from virtually every available method—but baby, let me tell you, we're out there using the stuff anyway.

We. Love. Just. Like. Skinny. Girls.

We worry what our hair looks like when a guy flirts with us. We worry if our clothes are straight, or if we have dirt on our
noses, or that our breath might smell bad. We stiffen up when his hands move toward our butt—but not too much, especially
if we
want
his hands to move there.

Sometimes, we do want those hands to move.

Trust me on that.

Am I squicking you out?

Why? Because I'm talking about a) sex or b) Fat Girl sex?

If you answered
a,
I have some books for you to read. If you answered
b,
there's this doctor named Meacham who thinks Fat Girls don't have sex. You'd really like him. Stop me in the halls. I have
his card.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

I finish getting a week ahead on my column about halfway to Garwood High, and I tuck the scrawled-on paper in my pocket.

My hands are still shaking from Burke's dumping incident.

For a few more miles, I stay quiet, still too mad to speak.

We're almost to the front parking lot when my mouth goes dry. My head starts to pound. Every muscle in my body cranks so tight
I feel like I'm going to snap in seven different places, and I just want to fill the backseat of Freddie's Toyota with endless
screams.

"I've been right there every step with him." Heat and more heat floods my body. The seat belt starts to suffocate me. "I'm
trying to do everything and finish applications and keep up with the play and the paper and homework and worrying about college
and scholarships and he's making me watch him vanish inch by inch and pound by pound—and now he sets me up to be eaten by
his sisters and hated by his entire family?"

"They don't hate you." Freddie's not yelling, but close. "He tried to get us to bring him stuff, too." "He tried to get us
to bring him stuff, too."

I bang my hand on the fliers. "You aren't his girlfriend!"

"Yeah, well, it seems like you don't want that job anymore!" Freddie slams on the breaks and we jerk to a stop in the Garwood
High main drive.

For a few seconds, I sit there breathing, breathing, then rip off my seat belt and jerk open the car door. "Maybe I don't,
okay? Does that mean we won't be friends anymore?"

"What?" Freddie looks truly wounded. She bites her bottom lip.

"Don't," NoNo says quietly. "Our friendship with you isn't all about you and Burke, but you can be an ass. Don't be an ass."

Freddie's got tears on her cheeks, and her expression says I stabbed her directly in the heart.

Give me a friggin' break.

Two thousand totally cruel things ram through my brain, but I look from NoNo to Freddie, from Freddie to NoNo, and I get the
hell out of the Toyota before I can say anything else.

I slam the door.

Freddie squeals off.

I don't care.

Yes, I do.

But I'm turning away from the taillights and moving fast toward the buildings, into the dark, away from Burke and my friends
and everything about my entire life. I want to be somebody else. Somewhere else. I want to be in the cave, doing layout and
talking to Heath about stupid stuff like soccer and not-so-stupid stuff like scholarships. Anything but Burke, or bariatric
surgery, or weight loss, or anything remotely related to frothing or dumping or any other
-ing anything.

When I burst into the cave, Heath stands up from the layout table, takes one look at me, and drops his blade and T square.

"What's wrong. What is it?"

"Burke!"

"Jesus. Is he—?"

"Bariatric surgery!" I'm on a roll now. "Thafs what's wrong. Frothing. And
losing weight.
And doctors—and dumping! And Freddie. The national news—NoNo and deadlines and college and the National Feature Award!" I
shake my head. Rub a hand across my forehead. Swallow an urge to keep ranting or start laughing like a lunatic baying at the
full moon.

Heath's standing in front of me now, taking hold of my shoulders. "Look at me," he says.

I'm still making lists in my head. Heath's on the list. I'm about to tell him that when he says, "Look—at—me."

Deeper. More commanding. More direct.

I look at him.

Straight into those worried blue eyes.

"Breathe," he says.

I breathe.

Once. Twice. One more time for good measure.

Heath nods. "Better. Now stand still."

I stand still.

He leans down, pulls me against him, and presses his lips tight, tight, tight against mine.

He tastes
good.

Like cinnamon and chocolate, probably from those little mints he pops when we're pulling a late night. I don't know where
to put my hands, what to do with my arms, so I wrap myself around him.

Music plays softly in the background, some old song about the Only Living Boy in New York.

Heath's the only living boy in Garwood, as far as I'm concerned.

His lips feel like heaven, and his tongue is all rough and smooth at the same time, and he holds me like I'm tiny and fragile
and perfect, like I'm the only living girl in his world.

Our bodies press together until there's no air between us. My heart pounds so hard I'm afraid It's going to leap right out
of my chest.

I can't breathe, but I don't want to breathe and I don't ever, ever want this moment to end.

Heath breaks off the kiss but starts another without ever opening his eyes.

I squeeze my eyes shut tight, like if I open them again, I might break the spell.

My entire being tingles, head to toe, inside out and outside in. He strokes my face with one hand, then smoothes my hair as
he kisses me deeper, even better. My skin catches fire everywhere he touches me.

A few seconds later, when his hands move around my body, I
don't
get stiff. I
don't
want him to stop. And I'm not thinking about features or manifestos or anything in the universe but Heath Montel.

His palms trace the curves of my hips for a few more kisses, then he stops, and eases back, and I still don't want to open
my eyes.

"Jamie."

Not opening my eyes. Not doing it. Nope.

"Jamie. You can look at me."

"If I look, I might wake up."

When I open my eyes, he's smiling this lazy, happy smile. "If you're dreaming, then when you wake up, come find me and kiss
me. Things'll turn out the same, I promise."

"How long have you wanted to kiss me?" Heath shrugs and rubs my shoulders. "A while."

Typical Heath answer. Hard to pin down, impossible to grasp.

Now I'm wanting to ask why, but I don't. Can't Scared to death to hear the answer, so I lean forward and kiss his cheeks instead.
Smooth, but stubbly near the bottom. He stands still and holds me gently, but tighter when I kiss his neck, which has that
delicious spice-aftershave scent.

"You always smell so good," I murmur as I pull back.

He gives me a raised-eyebrows sort of look. "You notice how I smell?"

Insta-red face, for me. "Urn, yeah. It's a girl thing."

More with the raised eyebrows.

Redder and redder. Cripes, I'm acting like I'm thirteen. Breathe. Breathe.

"Okay, Jamie," Heath mutters into my ear, sending waves of happy-chills up and down my back. "How long have
you
wanted to kiss me?"

Thinking fast, I go for, "A while," and smile before he can argue.

More kissing.

A lot more kissing.

I get lost in Heath, in the way his mouth feels, and that spicy guy scent, and how his arms feel so perfect around me. I'm
me, but I'm not me. I'm something else when he touches me, something more and brighter and happier. We move like we already
know each other, no awkward bumping or stumbling, no miscues. Like we're laying out the perfect paper, with print, pictures,
and columns.

How long have we been standing here?

Minutes?

Hours?

Do I care?

Except, the paper's not done.

Except, even though It's usually just Heath and me working on layout, there's a chance somebody could burst through the cave
door.

Except, outside the cave, the world's still there, waiting.

And I'm supposed to do a thousand things.

And I'm supposed to have some best friends, only I pissed them off by being a bitch
again.

And I'm supposed to have a boyfriend.

What was his name again?

Started with
aB...

Do I care?

No.

I really, really don't.

Heath holds me tighter, and I hold him and I don't let go. The cave's an island now, and we're the only living people on it,
and the whole world and all its deadlines and Tightness and wrongness can go straight to hell.

Heath finds this place on my neck, this perfect spot. Even his breath makes me shiver, and he knows it, and he nips me there,
and kisses, until I wriggle and beg for him to stop, then do it again.

It doesn't take me long to find that spot on his neck.

More kisses, and more, but we're slowing down a little. Not as desperate and fast. Not as rushed and scared.

God, like this might not be the only time. Like this might last?

I get tense.

Too much to think about. Too much reality.

"What's wrong?" he asks, because we are in sync, we're always in sync. I
do
know him, so much better than I realized, and he knows me. Heath knows my patterns, my rhythms, my reactions, almost better
than I do.

When I look at him, I don't even have to speak, and I know he knows.

Nothing.
This is perfect. Which makes absolutely everything wrong.

For a while, Heath holds me without kissing me.

I press my face against his shoulder and don't cry, because I don't feel sobbing sad or half out of my mind. I feel like I'm
floating, just drifting along in that ethereal way Heath drifts through everything. It's contagious, that vague, smoky existence
of his. He's so visible, yet invisible, too. Hard to define. I wish I could be like him, that I wasn't so Jamie, so Fat Girl,
so everything I've made myself be.

If I were like Heath, I could start myself over anytime I wanted to.

If I could start myself over right this second, I'd have broken up with Burke maybe last year, when I caught him making google-eyes
at a visiting team's cheerleader. That would have been a good excuse. I at least would have kicked him to the curb when he
lied about getting grounded instead of telling me he'd decided to have that monstrous surgery. Nobody would have blamed me
for that.

Now—now I'll be the asshole, no matter what I do, or how I do it.

If I could start myself over, I wouldn't be an asshole. I'd be gentle and sweet like NoNo, and only half-visible like Heath,
and maybe curvy like Freddie instead of Carcaterra-huge. That would be the ideal Jamie. Something more... moderate, softer,
and easier to take.

"Should I be nicer?" I whisper.

Heath kisses the top of my head. "You're nice." Another kiss. "Most of the time."

"Thanks. I think."

Heath laughs. I like the way his laugh feels, so close and rumbly.

Why does none of my past feel real?

It's like Burke never existed, like I don't know my friends, or have any worries. My family, college—nothing.
Poof,
all gone.

This is completely, totally different from anything I've ever felt before.

Is Heath feeling the same way?

We need to talk. Only, if we talk, we can't kiss, and kissing is so fine.

In sync, yeah.

Heath kisses me again.

Then he says, "I guess we should talk, or something."

"Something."

More kissing.

After a few minutes of tongues and lips and hands moving everywhere, we finally sigh and sit down against the wall by the
door. For a second or two, we don't say anything. Then, like somebody gave us a stage direction, we both get back up, walk
over to the drafting table, and sit down against
that
wall, with the table like an umbrella over our heads.

The radio plays softly, and everything feels normal now that we're sitting shoulder to shoulder and leg to leg underneath
the drafting table, where we belong.

This part of my past is real, the part where it smells like school cleanser and developer and glue and newspaper-in-progress.
We pass a little time covering the basics—like the weather and all the college applications we've finished and mailed, which
schools we hope to hear from, and that I got the Fat Girl portfolio submitted for the NFA on time. Barely. And we wonder what
the judges are thinking—and watching—so far.

Then I dare to tread on scarier ground. "Have you had a lot of girlfriends? And don't just shrug and say 'a few.'"

Heath freezes midshrug. When I glance at him, he's staring straight ahead and looking a little embarrassed. "Six or seven,
I guess. I haven't been keeping records."

"Who?" I take his hand in mine and play with his fingers.

Heath names off a few girls from his freshman year, one from his sophomore year, then sheepishly admits to a brief fling with
a Catholic girl from over at Father Ryan's down the road, mainly because he thought her uniform was sexy.

"She turned out to be a real bitch, though. Almost got me beaten half to death by some nun who caught us out by a Dumpster."
Heath shakes his head. "My junior year, I grew a brain. Calmed down some."

Millions of questions churn through my mind, but the one I ask is, "How do you do it? Be handsome and liked by everybody,
but stay so far off the gossip radar?"

This time, he does shrug. "Guess I just don't talk much about my life, so other people don't talk either."

I lean my head against the cinderblock wall. "I talk about mine too much, don't I? In the newspaper, no less."

"Not really." Heath squeezes my fingers. "I mean, you do talk about the obvious stuff, but the down-deep stuff you keep to
yourself until it explodes. Like tonight."