Read Conversations With the Fat Girl Online
Authors: Liza Palmer
I straighten my back and breathe deeply
?Yeah, well, about that. Since I'm going to be moving out, I figure I
should have full access to The Driveway I can't start moving my stuff
out if I'm parked all the way out on the street, now can I?? I realize
my arms are frozen in a game-show hostess manner and The Driveway is now
behind Door Number Two.
?You just pulled in,?Faye manages to say as she digs out the loose
saliva from the corners of her mouth and proceeds to investigate.
19 Conversations with the Fat Girl13
the house,?I say pointing to my destination one foot away from where I
am standing. Suddenly all the way seems exaggerated. "So take them in
and then move the car?Faye flicks the
salva from her fingers, then bends down to weed her bed of tulps, giving
me enough visual material to populate every nightmare I will ever have.
I think about it for one second. What is she going to do? I've already
been evicted and I know I can take her if it comes down
that.
I'm going to keep my car parked here,?I say
The wind blows my hair over my shoulder, and I imagine the slow-motion
shot of a girl victorious walking into her house. One foot falls in
front of the other, hips locking into place. Faye Mabb standing there,
throwing her fist to the sky, arms flapping like the bat she is, and
saying, 'That girl. Who can control that girl??My Fancy New Car will
stay there as a reminder to Faye of the dawning of a new age.
It's all fun and games until a few hours later when Faye's eon, Stan,
stops by and blocks my Fancy New Car in The Sacred Driveway I now have
to knock on Faye's door and beg Stan to move his car, promising never to
raise my voice to his harpy of a mother ever again.
I decide to put a call into Olivia on my cell phone as I get in my car
to leave for work. The battery is low, so this will be a short call. I
am already ten minutes late, and I'll hear about my tardiness throughout
my entire five-hour shift at the coffeehouse. My manager, Cole, will see
to that.
20
Thar She Blows
O
liviaMorten and I met when we were twelve years old. We found each other
in physical education class. Olivia and I
would stand against the chain-link fence and watch as the team captains
chose every other student, until it got down to the two ?fat girls.?At
that age, this just meant I was developing earlier than all the other
girls. Olivia, on the other hand, was officially overweight-even at the
age of twelve. As the agonizing minutes passed, we were eventually
chosen and promptly benched.
At first I hated Olivia. People began to lump us together as one single
Fat Entity-moving about the playground in an amoeba-like fashion,
glomming onto groups of people at will. Before Olivia came along, the
cliques of girls at my school tolerated me. I convinced myself I was on
the outside because I was a little chunkier than most. I never once took
into consideration that they just might not like me. With Olivia, I was
now part of a new club I didn't want to belong to. I imagined there was
this constant deliberation about the ?fat girls.?Olivia couldn't run,
but she could catch and throw. I could never catch and throw, but I
could run. Who was the better athlete? Who was more
21 Conversations with the Fat Girl15
agreeabIe? Who was more desperate? I never questioned whether these
scenarios were based on actual facts. Once you're labeled in school, no
amount of factual information can unstuck it from your psyche.
When it was just me, I was never under such a microscope. Before Olivia,
I would position myself just outside a group of popular girls, craning
to hear the latest gossip and noteworthy fashion tips. I laughed when
they laughed and sputtered nonsense when they spoke to me. But it
worked. It worked for me and my twelve-year-old fantasy of what
friendship was supposed to be. As the months passed, I found myself
forever on the outside of the group at the end of that picnic table,
craning my neck and never getting any closer. I wanted to be popular. I
wanted the life they led. The valentines. The designer clothes. The pack
of friends.
Olivia was cocky for a twelve-year-old. Hers was always the first hand
to go up after any question. I heard she beat up Reed Anderson in fifth
grade for calling her out in kickball. I found myself drawn to that. Day
after day, after spending my obligatory time at the end of the popular
table, I would walk up to Olivia with her tinfoil-wrapped soda. She was
consistently flippant and never once asked me to sit down. One day, I
motioned for her to scoot over, and she begrudgingly obliged. I tried
complimenting her lunch. I tried gossiping about the other girls.
Nothing. Then one day I cracked a joke about squirrels and our math
teacher and for the first time I made Olivia Morten laugh. I held this
position in her life for the next fifteen years.
By the time we reached our high school years, we had developed a rich
fantasy life. One of our favorites took place in an upscale, imaginary
bar in Old Town Pasadena. Olivia and I, both pounds lighter and under
the tutelage of a well-respected stylist, toast with our flutes of
bubbling champagne and scan
22
the room. Mary Benicci, Gretchen Bliss, and Shannon Shimasaki enter the
imaginary establishment. Our hatred of Mary Benicci, Gretchen Bliss, and
Shannon Shimasaki bridged both the imaginary and real worlds. They were
on the high school swim team, had dates to every dance, shopped at the
mall, and had pictures mounted on their dressers of all the events they
attended with their endless ranks of smiling, tanned-faced friends.
The fantasy would inevitably turn to revenge. The threesome of
she-devils enter the bar to our raised flutes of champagne. We turn
around slowly The record screeches to a halt (it appears there is now a
circa-1970 record player in this establishment). The years have not been
kind to the threesome. Mary is ?intimately corresponding?with prison
inmates. Gretchen refuses to admit that her high school sweetheart has
been seen canoodling with an as-yet-unnamed man and Shannon has gained
approximately three hundred pounds, causing her friends to worry she's
?eating herself to death.?Our equally fit lovers- The John Sheridan, now
a veterinarian, and Ben Dunn, a movie star-join us. John and Ben chime
in as we point at Shannon Shimasaki's stomach, squealing, ?Looks like
you've found what we lost,?at the top of our lungs, gales of our
laughter filling the restaurant. We then ooh and ahh at Mary Benicci's
proclivity for prison inmates and shudder at the thought of turning a
straight man gay This all takes place as ?our men?both break down in
tears as they propose marriage in tandem on bended knee.
Back in our sweaty pimple-ridden real world, Olivia and I ordered up our
usuals at a local fast-food eatery and tried to forget a future both of
us knew would never happen.
By the time Olivia and I went off to college, she could be officially
classified as ?morbidly obese.? I was gaining ten to fif
23
teen pounds a year pretty steadily, but I had to go some to catch to
Olivia. We spent four years at University of California at
Berkeley hiding in the library and driving across the Golden Gate
Bridge late at night-she told me it made her feel weightless.
One night during our senior year, Olivia drove me to the
entrance of the Golden Gate Bridge. She parked the brand-new car her
parents gave her for getting whatever it was she did to have her parents
lavish gifts on her. We got out of the car and headed to the walkway of
the big orange bridge. It was a freezing night in San Francisco, but the
wind felt good and the city smelled wonderful. I looked down at the
water and saw the lights of the city twinkling back at me. Olivia was
leaning over the fence and down at the water below. A passing car of
young males with nothing better to do honked and yelled out, ?Thar she
blows.?Olivia straightened herself and turned to me. Her blond hair was
now dyed a more sunflower color with beautiful
highlights. Her skin had cleared up nicely, and she was dressed
in the height of plus-size fashion. But at that angle, on that
on that bridge, she was still just another fat girl. I was good at
giving advice and picking Olivia up after these kinds of comments, but I
could never follow these prescriptions myself. Had someone yelled that
at me, I would have been deciding whether to just go right over the side
of the bridge. While Olivia dressed to get attention, I made a promise
to myself to blend in to the background as much as possible.
My life is about never putting myself into that situation. I niever call
attention to myself. That is the code I live by I don't go into movie
theaters late. I don't buy tank tops. I don't sing along with the car
radio. I try never to walk in front of anyone. I constantly pull at my
clothes. I walk with my eyes to the ground. I constantly apologize for
myself. I don't like hugs. I don't look in
24
mirrors. I don't smile in pictures because of a possible doublechin
incident. It boils down to this: If I am invisible, no one can make fun
of me. Olivia didn't have the ability to become invisible. Her sheer
size made her the epitome of visible. But it was visibility at a
distance. You couldn't avoid looking at her and how big she had gotten.
But you also couldn't touch her or get close to her because of how big
she'd gotten. That night, I remember smiling at her and coming toward
her. I had my whole speech planned; I was even working on a joke about
how at least they were well read enough to make an obscure whaling
reference here in San Francisco. She tilted her head back so that I
could see her take a slow swallow I could see her breath in the cold
night air as she finally exhaled. Olivia was never one to talk about the
pain we shared or the shame e carried with us. I never said a word. The
next day, she made the calls to set up her gastric bypass surgery. ?Hey
Olivia, it's me,?I trail off on her answering machine, thinking that
maybe she'll pick up after hearing who it is. She does. ?Wait!?Olivia
picks up huffing and puffing.
?What are you doing??I squeal. ?I was bringing groceries in. What's
going on?? I can hear the crinkles of a bag in the background. I imagine
my best friend now. It's been five years since the surgery. After the
first round, going under the knife became second nature to Olivia. She
went in for two more plastic surgeries to ?correct? certain problems and
side effects of the surgery. Her goal: the elusive size 2. Her hair is
perfect. A blond messy shat that takes forty-five
25 Conversations with the Fat Girl 19
minutes to look like it's right out of the shower and windblown to
perfection. She has dark brown eyes that until recently went unnoticed
because they were hidden by bangs, excess flesh, or her habit of never
looking anyone in the eye. She is probably wearing full eye makeup and
just a swipe of pink lip gloss. I can see her pressed white peacoat and
camel shift dress now Olivia swore she would never wear black once she
started losing weight. I've never seen so much as a black barrette in
her perfect blond hair. But she's still my Olivia. The tinfoil-wrapped
colas are still her history, just as they are mine. Her life is now
eerily mirroring our high school fantasies. I just thought it would
involve me more. ?1 have to move in one week,?I say, turning down
Colorado Boulevard. ?Girl, you should have moved a long time ago.?I can
hear cans being put on tile counters and cabinets being open and closed.
The contents of those cans will be eaten one tablespoon at a time.
?Yeah, I know. I just feel a little guilty because this is happening
right now. With the wedding and everything,?I say. ?Oh, don't worry; it
won't affect me. Come on, now, that's crazy talk,? Olivia says. ?Right
... right. How's Adam??I stop at a red light and watch the minutes pass.
I'm sure Cole is doing the exact same thing right now. ?Fabulous. He's
in India for some Doctors Without Borders thing.?Olivia sighs. Olivia
met Dr. Adam Farrell when he was the featured speaker at a PR event she
put on for his hospital. It was almost a full year and half after she
graduated from Berkeley and nearly two years after the surgery that
changed her life forever. Dr. Farrell flew in from Washington, DC, and
when Olivia met him at the airport she knew then that he was the man she
would marry