Big Fat Manifesto (6 page)

I've talked to Burke about his surgery, but that's a little like talking to a zealot about religion. It bothers me, that wild
sparkle in his eyes, when he talks about being "normal" soon, but what can I say to him? It would be nice to magically be
normal. I can't deny that.

"The stuff with Burke, it's private," I grumble, trying not to think about Heath and his warning that I need to put my feelings
about Burke's surgery in
The Wire
before people start writing in to ask about it.

"Nothing's gonna be private for long," Freddie shoots back. Her olive cheeks tinge red, and for once, her black hair isn't
hanging frizz free around her face. It looks a little messy, like she's picked at it. "He'll be out for weeks, and when he
comes back, he'll be shrinking like crazy."

My jaw clenches, and I have to force myself to stop gritting my teeth. Whenever the subject comes up, I just want to cry.
"It's private for now, okay?"

Freddie gets a stern expression that's much worse than NoNo's. "He goes under the knife in a little over two weeks, Jamie.
You can't pretend it's not happening."

"I can until they roll him away. He could always change his mind."

We all go quiet.

The television in the kitchen doesn't. Somebody won big money.

Freddie, NoNo, and I all have the same look on our faces about Burke changing his mind on the gastric bypass.

The look says,
Yeah, like
that's
going to happen.

No matter what we want, no matter how we feel, short of divine intervention, Burke is having that surgery. I glance down at
my belly-spread and the way my thighs look bigger than NoNo's whole body, at the awful brown "landlord carpet," and finally
at the blank essay paper. All proof that God has never been too fond of answering
my
prayers.

Freddie shifts tactics faster than I can work up a good feeling-sorry-for-myself attitude. "Are you going to the hospital
even though Anastasia and Drizella will be there?"

"Damn straight." I can't help grinning at Freddie's Cinderella's wicked stepsisters' nicknames for Burke's older siblings.
Their names are really Mona (oldest) and Marlene (meanest—as in, she really could drink blood and take over the vampire world
with no guilt at all), M
&
M for short.

"Good." Freddie scratches something on her Vanderbilt application. "We'll be there too. Early."

Which draws a horrified look from NoNo, who views hospitals as vile pestilence-spreading ecohazards—but she knows better than
to argue with Freddie and me about something this important.

After a few seconds of trembling disgust, NoNo closes her eyes, opens them, and looks at me. "When's opening night for
The Wiz?"

"October sixth," I say, then fish around for something witty and Evilleneish to keep it light. Find zero. Nothing. My brain
is flashing
almost three weeks after Burke,
but I shake it off. Burke isn't going to die on September 18. He'll come out of the operating room just fine, except his stomach
will be stapled into two parts, with the food-getting part about the size of my thumb.

He'll feel full after two tablespoons of food, especially at first.

I've done my reading.

The thought of a thumb-sized stomach,
two tablespoons,
completely freaks me out. I like to eat. Especially if something tastes good. I like to eat until I can't eat anymore, if
something's perfect, like Mom's stew.

My hand goes to my belly, until I realize Freddie and NoNo are both staring at me. I jerk my hand off my stomach and stuff
my fist into the brown carpet. "I don't want to talk about Burke's surgery." All of a sudden, my stew isn't sitting well inside.
My arms and legs and chest tighten, and it gets hard to breathe. "Tonight, I just want to finish these damned applications,
okay?"

Freddie gives me another shrug and scrubs her palms against her jeans before going back to her Vanderbilt application. NoNo
lowers her head and colors Green Party logos on her fliers.

Through the end of one game show and the start of another, I stare at my blank paper and reswallow the stew that's burning
up my throat. My chest pulls and squeezes whenever I try to breathe.

The only thing I can think about is Burke and Burke dying and Burke not being in the world anymore. Even if he survives, our
world will change so much. Our world together, I mean. We won't be going out for pizza anymore after he has that surgery,
or sharing a milkshake and fries, or anything much to do with food at all. He probably won't even eat popcorn at the movies,
and he definitely won't be scarfing down his absolute favorite: four plain chocolate bars, snapped in half, two bites per
half. That box of chocolate bars I keep in my closet just to take candy to him—it'll have to go.

Two
tablespoons.

Tighter chest. Blank paper. What am I going to put on the blank paper? I have to put something there.

We can always go to movies with no popcorn, or find other stuff
to do. Get a grip. He said you were his goddess. He asked you not to
leave him.

But I'm scared.

Burke's scared, too, at least somewhere in those glittery-zealot eyes, or he wouldn't have been worried I'd leave him.

Me
leave
him?

Stop it. Not thinking about it. Applications only, at least for tonight.

On my blank pages, I write
TWO TABLESPOONS.

Then
THUMB.

And glance at my thumb. And at my big fat belly.

Thumb.

The sounds of a weight-loss commercial drifts down the hallway. One of those advertising the newest fabulous miraculous, lose-fifty-pounds-in-one-week
pill. The kind with the writing at the bottom in two-point mi-crotype that flashes by so fast you'll blink and miss it. If
you freeze-frame and whip out a magnifying glass, it'll say something like:

These claims have not been evaluated by the United States Food and Drug Administration. Do you think they would touch us with
a ten-foot research beaker? This product does not treat, cure, or prevent any diseases or medical conditions. Taking this
pill does not guarantee you'll lose weight, but we know you'll spend the bucks anyway because you're desperate. Individual
weight loss will vary with how much you diet and exercise, because any fool knows pills don't make you lose weight. Our spokespeople
are probably paid actors but we call them compensated voluntary endorsers to confuse the hell out of you. Testimonials are
total bullshit and for informational purposes only and we don't even endorse, research, or verify them (Bob's uncle wrote
them all anyway). If anybody does manage to get results from this bit of pressed sugar and herbs—other than indigestion and
high blood glucose—they aren't typical. Don't crush or snort this product. Don't stick this product in your ear. Don't heat
this product and spill it on any part of your body. If you do, you're a dillweed and we're not liable. The guys in white coats
talking to you are not medical doctors. Duh. We can't believe how many stupid asshats will actually buy this RIDICULOUS trash.

I laugh and look up.

Freddie and NoNo are gazing at me, seeming relieved.

Freddie nods to the notes I'm making on the paper that used to be blank. Fast notes. A satirical diet ad, only the sad part
is, the real commercials are so much worse if you really read and listen.

I whip a clean page over my notes, write the title in big letters, and hold it up for their review.

I LOST 500 POUNDS OVERNIGHT WITH HOODWINKIA!

Freddie's grin gets huge. "Go, Fat Girl."

And I take my pen, and I go.

The Wire

REGULAR FEATURE

for publication Friday, September 7

Fat Girl Freaking

Fat Boy Chronicles I

JAMIE D. CARCATERRA

My freak-out cauldron is approaching rapid boil.

I've been gigantic since I was born, and the biggest health crisis I've ever had was the first day of my freshman year, when
I got stung in the nose by a bee. Nothing like a Fat Girl with a big red swollen nose, wailing and blubbering all over study
hall. Took me a while to live that one down—but I did, because I'm not just any fat girl. I'm
the
Fat Girl. Remember?

My boyfriend Burke, who has given me permission to dub him Fat Boy, must feel like he has a lot to live down. He's tired of
assumptions, stereotypes, snarky comments, and attitude thrown in his general direction. He's tired of the things people say.

Mostly, he's tired of being Fat Boy.

Yeah, that's right. Fat Boy has had enough. He's so sick of it that he's going to risk his life to change his outsides.

What do you think of that?

Fat Boy's giving up football.

Fat Boy's giving up a chunk of his senior year, and some of his counts-for-college grades.

Fat Boy's going under the knife, and all Fat Girl can do is watch and pray and make sure all of you, every one of you in this
whole school, get this one crucial point: Obesity surgery is
not
an easy way out of being fat.

Don't even think it. Don't even imagine it.

You have no idea what Fat Boy is about to go through to look more "normal," to feel more "normal." Never fear. I'm going to
tell you. I'm going to report as Fat Boy works harder than most Marine recruits, hurts worse than most people in horrible
car wrecks, and risks so, so much.

By this time next year, because he's choosing surgery, Fat Boy has a one in twenty shot of being Dead Boy.

Dead and buried from surgical complications.

But he's had enough, and he'd rather be dead than fat.

So, here's the thing. I have to support him, because he's mine, and he needs me to be there.

If he makes it through this and comes to graduation all buff and healthy, every damned one of you better stand up and cheer
like crazy monkeys, because Fat Girl can find out where every last one of you lives. If you don't cheer, I'll know, and I'll
find you.

For now, instead of looking up your addresses (yet), Fat Girl will just freak out about Fat Boy and worry. I want you to worry
with me, and think good thoughts.

Don't make me hunt you down.

CHAPTER

SIX

Two teacher-chaperones, about a dozen junior class "hosts," and the entire senior class minus a few cowards who didn't show
up, stumble onto the football bleachers at daylight.

Senior Shoot. Woohoo.

Burke, Freddie, NoNo, and I rub sleep-grunge out of our eyes and squint at the finished versions of seven different "fantasies"
the guys from set design constructed for the event. Then we stare down at the selection form and try to focus. We can choose
who we take fantasy shots with, and three of the fantasy sets. I check off "Sultan and Sultana," the set with the big tent
and red velvet cushions, my first choice out of the whole bunch. Second, I mark Burke's pick, "Rah-Rah" (the football-player-and-cheerleader
set, of course). Third, I scratch the little eraserless pencil lead on Freddie and NoNo's choice, "Wild West Shootout." We'll
leave "Dungeons, Dragons, and Wizards" and "Otherworldly" to the fantasty/sci-fi nerds, "Wall Street" to the math geeks, and
"Victorian Afternoon" to anyone stupid enough to try to lace up a corset so early in the morning.

Besides, thanks to my years in the drama department, I have decent costumes for the three we agreed to choose. Always an important
point, where my luscious, curvy body is concerned. The costumes are in my garment bag, which Burke carries for me, along with
his own, Freddie's, and NoNo's, too. We girls have our makeup kits to worry about.

The four of us will dress up, pose together, and hope we make weird enough shots to get picked for the yearbook spread. But
even if we don't, we'll have copies for our own memories. Then come senior class photos in various states of insanity and
goofball posing and, finally, the serious class shot. Last of all, we do group shots, which for me will be drama and newspaper,
and individual portraits, which will get sorted for use if we win some honor or other.

One long friggin' day ahead, but hey, at least we don't have classes. Not a bad deal for a Wednesday, if you think about it.

It takes the junior class hosts about an hour to collect the forms, put the groups in order, and hand out donuts and orange
juice, the traditional ceremonial breakfast for Senior Shoot. Burke and I lean against each other until the food shows up,
while on the metal bleacher step below us, NoNo whips out some kind of vegan bar with soy nuts to eat instead. She gives her
sugar-coated donut to Freddie, who breaks it in half, pops a piece in her mouth, and hands the other piece to me. Because
of the absurd hour, and how nobody's really that close around us, I do eat it. In fact, I kill Freddie's offering before my
donut and juice even make it down the row, hoping the sugar will prop my eyes open another centimeter and make me feel like
putting on a harem costume.

Burke takes our food off the tray when it arrives, then passes the tray to me, and I stand up and walk it on down the row.
The guy who takes it from me, one of the math geeks, stares at me for a few seconds, then smiles and says, "Thanks, Fat Girl."

People have started that since the newspaper articles.

Some kids seem to mean it in a nice way, like Math Geek, so I don't knock him backward off the bleachers. I just give him
a blazing Fat Girl glare, which makes him smile bigger.

When I get back to Burke, he holds on to his donut, napkin, and juice cup as I sit and eat. When I'm finished, he offers me
all of his stuff.

"You aren't eating?" My eyelids finally do move a fraction higher. I collect his food and juice, but nothing's computing.

He reaches into his pack on the bleacher step behind us and pulls out a bottle of water. "I have to get ready," he says. "You
know, start eating better, so this whole surgery thing doesn't shock my system."

My eyes open all the way. The first bite of Burke's donut turns heavy in my mouth, and I don't think I can swallow it without
choking. For some reason, my eyes dart from his dreads and smooth forehead down across his cheeks, to his broad shoulders,
belly, and finally come to rest on his powerful legs. I wonder how long he's been "eating better." Is he already smaller?
Has he already started to change before he even has that god-awful stomach-stapling thumb-sized-two-tablespoons nightmare?

Christ, Jamie. Does that even matter when he might die in six
days?

Smile at him, damn it.

So I smile, and force down the bite of donut, take a swig of juice, and wish I had some idea what to say, because Burke obviously
wants me to say something.

"Good for you." NoNo breaks the silence, and I could kiss her, but I'm too busy letting the rest of Burke's donut slip out
of my fingers and fall to the grass and mud underneath the bleachers. The ants can have a feast. I don't want anything else.

NoNo finishes her whatever-it-is bar and stretches. Her T-shirt is totally colorless today, with a consistency that reminds
me of burlap. Her jeans, though—still bright blue hemp, high waist, and totally dork. "It's important to prepare for body
trauma," she continues.

Freddie's face puckers. "Body trauma. God that sounds gross. Don't make me hurl my sugar and animal fat into your lap, 'kay?"
She wipes donut crumbs off her chin as NoNo gags. To Burke Freddie says, "I'm glad you're doing that. I wondered when you'd
start—well, worried that you wouldn't, really."

"I don't want to be one of those people who gains twenty pounds before they go in." Burke shakes his head, and his dreads
brush the shoulders I love to squeeze and poke and rest my head on when I'm tired or sad, or even really happy. "That would
make my risk of complications higher."

Everybody looks at me.

My turn to talk.

Only my words fell through the bleachers with Burke's donut.

Guess he doesn't want the four chocolate bars I automatically packed in my makeup kit for him. He probably doesn't want them
anymore ever, does he?

/
could eat the ones I have left, or give them to Dad.
My stomach lurches, and I taste orange juice when I swallow a burp. Nothing sounds good right now, even chocolate.
It'll be nice to save that fifteen bucks a box every week, right?
Because that's pretty much where I spend the lunch money my parents give me, on Burke's candy, since I don't eat at school.

After a few awkward seconds, I manage to squeak, "I want you to take care of yourself." Then, after a slow breath, "Can I
do anything to help?"

Please say no.

As if reading my mind, Burke shakes his head. "I have to do this part on my own." He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze,
his eyes already far away again, studying the crowd.

Fifteen or so minutes later, Freddie gives me hell as we dress in the back corner of the visitor field house. It smells a
little like gym socks, boy-sweat, and heinous foo-foo perfume from all of us, which does nothing to help Freddie's mood.

"You need to be more supportive, lamie, I swear." She glares at me over the jeweled veil of her purple belly-dancer costume.

She and NoNo automatically stand in front of me, to give me a little privacy as I struggle into last year's
Aladdin
and the Wonderful Lamp
costume. I played Fatima, a healer chick who gets killed, then is impersonated by a genie's wicked brother. Faf-ima. Of course.
I'm sure the whole school thought that was a kick, but at least I got a neat custom-sewn blue jumpsuit, jeweled belt, and
silky blue face-turban thingee out of the deal.

"I offered to help him." I wrap the turban thingee around my cheeks and chin, realize I'm sweating, and hope I don't stink.
"And I tossed the chocolate bars I brought him in the trash. What do you want from me?"

"Oh, I don't know." Freddie folds her purple-draped arms and taps her flip-flops on the field house's stone floor. "How about
a hug? Some warmth? Some looo-oove?"

NoNo, who is dressed in a green costume that reminds me of that old
I Dream of Jeannie
television show, only faded-looking green like all her stuff, nods. The tassel on her blah green hat flips forward. "You need
to tell Burke what you feel, everything you feel, so you don't have any regrets if something bad happens."

Freddie and I stop glowering at each other and laser-eye NoNo instead. "Don't talk like he's going to die," I say, but Freddie's
louder with, "Shut
up,
you morbid bitch!"

NoNo reacts with a twitch in her right eye. "Prepare for the worst, and be grateful when it doesn't happen."

Freddie's next comment isn't even printable.

Both of NoNo's eyes twitch. "Is what she said even possible?" she asks in a mousy voice.

Every conceivable social group has stopped chattering and dressing, and all the senior girls in the field house now stare
at us.

I push my way between Freddie and NoNo and strike a pose. "If you want a picture, assholes, that'll be twenty dollars for
a package of two eight-by-tens."

Four hands shove me forward before I get any louder, just in case one of the teacher-chaperones happens to be within earshot.
Geeks, brains, jocks, freaks, and everybody else scatters before the might of Fat Girl and her entourage.

All the way through the "Sultan and Sultana" and "Rah-Rah" shoots, I try to figure out how to be huggy, warm, loving, tell
Burke all my feelings, prepare for the worst, and hope the worst doesn't happen.

The whole thing makes me want to spit orange-juice-donut burps all over the football field.

Right about the time Burke plants an illegal kiss on me even though I'm wearing his last-year's football uniform and hitting
him with his own football helmet (you didn't seriously think I'd dress like a cheerleader, did you?), I decide being normal
is probably the best bet. Normal, with a healthy dose of it's not happening, it's
not
happening thrown in. As long as I don't let Burke or Freddie or NoNo hear me, I can say
it's not happening
as many times as I want, damn it, and hope God decides it's a prayer and that, for once, my prayers might be worth answering.

During the "Wild West Shootout" photos, a couple of news vans pull into the drive that leads to the football field. Two of
the three local stations usually run our Senior Shoot as a humor/human-interest sort of piece. Nothing new or unusual, except
there are more cameras than I remember from last year, when we had to play hosts to the seniors. Looks like at least one of
the big-wig reporters has come, too, instead of the pathetic newbies that usually show up for something like this.

During the serious class photos, a van from the third news station pulls into the drive.

"Man, we're popular," Freddie mutters just before we split up for group and individual photos. The teacher-chaperones float
around the edges of the field sucking on tea and lemonade, and still eating leftover donuts off and on. They don't seem concerned
about the news vans.

It's getting hot, but the breeze smells like fall and cold air and brown leaves coming soon. I try to keep my focus there
instead of on Burke or the hovering news crews, which, oddly, are not approaching any of the kids already done with group
and individual shots. Drama photos go fast, since we're all natural hams who so know how to pose. lournalism, however, isn't
so smooth. Heath and I are the only seniors, and he's about as camera-comfy as a plastic doll with a stick up its butt.

"Loosen up, Roboto," I whisper as the poor yearbook guy tries again to get a decent shot of us standing next to each other,
holding a copy of
The Wire
—at least one with Heath's eyes open. Other seniors collect around us in small groups, talking and laughing. Some of them
look at me. I distinctly hear the words
Fat Girl.

What, they never noticed I was fat before my column?

I don't get it.

When I glance at Heath, he's blushing. "I arrange photos. I never said I look good in photos."

With a loud sigh, I slip my arm around his shoulders and goose him hard in one armpit. He jumps, throws the newspaper straight
up in the air, wheels on me, sticks his finger in my face and yells, "Damn it, Jamie, don't
do
shit like that!"

Click, click, click
goes the digital camera.

"Print one of those," I instruct the shocked photographer, who has pulled the camera from his eye. "They're more true to life
anyway."

But Heath snatches hold of the photographer and makes him delete the last three pictures.

One of the news crews filters through the whispering groups of seniors already finished with their photos. Channel 3, from
the big sign on the front camera. The rail-thin reporter has thick black hair cropped just above her shoulders and a red big-shoulder
dress that makes her look way too much like Lois Lane. Only Lois doesn't try to interview anybody. She just stands there,
gazing at Heath and me.

Heath and I look at each other.

What the hell?

Five slow, hellish minutes pass before we finally get a shot of Heath without an I-have-menstrual-cramps expression. The yearbook
guy finally waves us on toward the individual portrait setups, but Lois Lane waves at me and jogs in my direction, dragging
her camera crew behind her.

"See?" Heath mutters from behind me. "They saw what you did to me, and now you'll pay. There is justice in the universe."

"Can it," I snarl just as Lois reaches me. Behind her, the clumps of finished seniors gawk, along with the yearbook guy, who
is now ignoring the waiting Beta Club.

"Excuse me, are you Jamie Carcaterra?" Lois sounds out of breath. "Are you Fat Girl?"

My mouth runs before my brain works. "Well, I'm sure as hell not Skinny Girl, am I?"

She pauses, huge television smile frozen on her sculpted face. Those poofy, puckery lips so can't be real.

"She definitely has ass fat pumped into that mouth," I tell Heath in low, private tones. "Seriously. That's how they do it."

He bursts out laughing, but covers it by coughing. I get another
don't-do-shit-like-that
look.

My eyes flick around the gathering crowd, hunting for Burke. Or Freddie. Maybe NoNo would be better. She loves to have platforms
for her Green Party educational talks. What better venue than Channel 3, complete with Lois Lane? Television interviews aren't
really my shtick. I'm print-media all the way. Unless it would help me get that scholarship...