Fat Angie (24 page)

“Event?” asked Angie. “Her death is not an event.”

“Fine. Poor choice of words,” said her mother. “That’s the way it always is with you.”

“Why can’t you just say it?” Angie asked.

Her mother went back to the eggs and announced to everyone, “We’ll all have breakfast.”

“No,” said Angie.

Her mother busied about the kitchen in an attempt to deflect any potential for further discussion of her recently buried daughter. But Angie was not letting things slide any longer.

“You want me to be skinny. You want me to be normal. You want —”

“I want you to be happy,” said her mother, cracking an egg with a chef’s precision. “You and Wang. All of us.”

“Happy?” said Angie, throwing the apple in the stainless steel garbage can.

Wang zipped his Tony Hawk lamb-lined hoodie and scratched his sweaty head.

“My sister is dead,” said Angie. “They sent us a casket with
bones.
With pieces. You think making a breakfast will make us happy?”

Her mother dropped a shell piece in the bowl and desperately attempted to remove the bits of shell swimming in the slimy egg white. After several failed attempts, she stretched her neck, decided the shell bits would not affect the overall presentation of the breakfast, cracked another egg in the bowl.

“Mom, she’s dead,” said Angie.

“Jake, do you like scrambled eggs with cheese?” asked Angie’s mother.

“Sure,” Jake said.

“Listen to me!” said Angie.

Angie had unknowingly raised her voice. As a result she had become the absolute center of attention in her mother’s otherwise myopic world. Connie was, in fact, listening.

“You couldn’t see her. You couldn’t be bothered,” said Angie. “You couldn’t be bothered with
anything
! She didn’t want to just save the world. She wanted
you
to see her. The
real
her. But your ideas — about what she had to be — the ‘required steps of her future.’ That’s why she left us. That’s why she left us all.”

“Your sister made a choice, Angie.”

Angie considered this thought. The idea of the choice. The veracity of it.

The silence. It was deafening until Jake twisted in his chair in what might be counted in mere increments. His sneaker, wet with snow, squeaked against the floor.

“You’re kinda right,” said Angie to her mother. “She made a choice. But she made that choice for you. And you know . . . at the funeral, all this time. All I could do was think how it was your fault. How you killed her because you just couldn’t be bothered to see her. She’s dead. Like really dead. And that’s real, Mom. It’s not an event. And I’m empty sometimes and I’m sad but mostly . . . I’m relieved.”

“Relieved?” asked her mother. “Don’t ever say that again.”

“I am
relieved
she’s not in some dark place, scared and thinking of all of us,” said Angie.

Relieved. Angie was, in fact, absolutely and completely relieved. Until right then, she had had no idea. Not so much of an inkling. She had run. She had run because:

The word fit. It was the perfect size. And that was OK.

The doorbell rang.

It was one of those moments of not knowing who should move first.

“I’ll just go . . . to the door,” Jake said, stepping behind Angie.

“Are you finished?” asked her mother.

Angie shook her head. “I don’t know what it takes.”

“What does that mean?” asked her mother.

“Angie,” Jake called from the front door.

“You shouldn’t have to ask.” Angie headed down the hall.

“Angie,” said her mother. “I am not cold. I am not narrow.”

Angie considered her mother’s statement for 3.2 seconds. Then walked to the door.

Jake stepped aside. KC Romance stood on the welcome mat.

“Hey,” said KC, her purple heart tattoo extra beautiful somehow.

Angie was not pleased to see her. Not in any way that could be clocked.

“I think this is the part where I go home,” Jake said.

“Stay,” said Angie.

“Text me,” he said.

Jake jogged across the street.

“You OK?” asked KC.

“Yeah,” said Angie.

KC shook off a shiver. Her breath cloud puffed and faded between breaths.

“I’ve seen you around town,” said KC, shivering in the cold.

“I run.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen — saw,” said KC. “That was something this morning. You running.”

“I guess.”

That awkward space that finds its way into most lives had found its home between the girls. It was that sad awkward that didn’t know what do to with itself.

“What do you want?” said Angie.

KC nodded, the toe of her right combat boot tipping up. “Guess I’m a little late to the ‘I’m sorry,’ huh?” asked KC.

Angie was no longer one for revealing cards.

“But I am — sorry,” said KC. “About what I said to you — what I called you that day at my house. It was all melted-crazed — my dad and me. I didn’t —”

“It doesn’t matter,” said Angie.

Unbelievable heavy pause.

“Yeah, but it does,” said KC. “I was at the funeral.”

Angie nodded.

“I just kinda hung back. Behind a camera crew. I left flowers after. On top of the T-shirt.”

“What?”

“The one you were always wearing. Your mom put it on the casket after you took off.”

All of the running. All of the anger.

Angie had not remembered the T-shirt moment until that moment.

She had never thought to ask where it had gone.

Her mother was not frozen. Not in any absolute sense. The reality of the thought had caught Angie very much off-guard.

“Anyway, I just wanted —”

“Well, thanks for the flowers,” said Angie, closing the door.

In dramatic fashion, KC jammed her boot between the door and the frame.

“Let me SparkNote it,” said KC.

“I’m not much into the abbreviated truth,” said Angie.

“Yeah, I know,” said KC. “The thing is . . . you saw me as cool and beautiful and . . . kind of on the rebel side.”

“No,” said Angie.

“Yeah, you did.”

“I saw you as my friend,” said Angie.

“I am your friend,” said KC. “But friends screw up, Angie. They have flaws. It was a shit day. And no one’s ever walked in on the whole slice and dice —”

“Cutting.”

“Yeah, cutting,” said KC. “It’s kind of a private thing. I freaked.” KC’s boot toe turned upward again. “Look, I was ashamed that you busted in — that you saw. Plus, I was just —”

“Free fallin’?”

“Kinda,” KC said. “And I lied. I wasn’t over the whole cutting. Angie, it’s just . . . It’s so hard when the person you look like on the outside doesn’t really match how you feel on the inside. You know?”

Angie nodded. She did, in fact, know.

“Anyway, Esther’s got me in with some twelve-year-old shrink with more degrees than a freakin’ thermometer,” said KC.

“That’s, um . . . that’s good.”

KC heaved one of those rather enormous breaths.

“It is, actually.”

KC drew a miniheart in the snow with the toe of her boot.

“Well, I guess . . .” said Angie.

“I messed up.”

“Yeah,” Angie said.

“Really bad,” KC continued.

“Yeah.”

“I miss you,” said KC.

Pause.

Dramatic movie-like pause.

KC’s hand reached into her hoodie pocket and emerged with a closed fist. Angie, functioning on Angie processing time, took a moment to realize she should open her hand.

“It’s for you,” said KC.

The crackle of plastic was the first sound before KC pulled her hand away from Angie’s. It was a Japanese-imported light-up candy ring.

“I hope you like watermelon-kiwi-banana. That’s all they had. I mean, I asked. They had, like, three cases in the back of the same kind.”

Angie’s shoulders relaxed. Her entire body felt less rigid.

“It’s my favorite,” said Angie.

KC bit her lower lip and reached into her messenger bag. “Here. I read it.”

The joy of the candy ring faded. Angie took the crumpled envelope.

“I think you should mail it,” KC said.

“My sister’s dead, KC,” said Angie.

“That doesn’t mean you can’t mail it.”

“Thanks,” said Angie.

“For?” asked KC.

“The Japanese-imported light-up candy ring.”

“Yeah,” said KC. “I mean . . . yeah.”

“I gotta . . .” said Angie.

“Yeah, I was — I should. Leave,” said KC.

“Look, this. You and me,” said Angie. “It’s like you said. It’s complicated.”

“Hmm.” KC nodded and then began doing what the neighbors would later call quite unusual.

She belted out a song that mashed the wickedness of pop rebel Pink with the nostalgia of Patsy Cline,
“Heard you’d been feeling kinda low . . .”

“KC . . .” Angie said.

KC continued singing, pulling Angie out into the falling snow.

The very high-octane teen-drama moment seemed too well scripted for the life of Angie. But there she was. Standing in such a moment with KC Romance, snow falling all around them. Interestingly enough, she did not feel an urge to pee.

“Angie, everything’s complicated. Look, you really want me to go — be gone. I will.” KC dug through her messenger bag. “But while I pay ample lip service to my frustration with the capitalistic system that is America, I got this for you.”

Angie held the thinly wrapped item with the signature KC Romance heart on the front. Only the signature heart was red, not purple.

“It was for Christmas but it didn’t seem like the right time,” KC said.

With a few quick movements, Fat Angie had opened . . .

“The
Freaks and Geeks Yearbook Edition,
” Angie said.

“It’s used, but
gently
used,” said KC.

“It’s the best gift ever. I mean, besides the Japanese-imported light-up candy ring.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” said Angie.

“So . . . maybe you wanna marathon? We got some great soy nog at the house,” said KC. “It’s Esther’s specialty.”

Angie considered this offer for quite a long time. For . . . exactly 3.5 seconds, give or take a second for good measure.

“OK,” Angie said.

“OK,” KC said, her smile ultra-electric.

Angie stopped at the mailbox and slid the letter to her sister inside. She lifted the flag.

She took KC’s hand. Smilefest revved at full throttle as they stepped off the snowy curb.

“I wonder what happens next,” said KC.

Angie grinned. “I don’t know.”

The two girls neared the end of the cul-de-sac, turned the corner, and . . .

There was a girl. Her name was Angie. She was happy.

Amazing thanks . . .
to my insightful, fantastic agent, Andrea Cascardi, and to my inspiring editor, Joan Powers. And thank you to my friends and colleagues: Josh Flowers, C.G. Watson, Howard Wells III, Karl Miller, Andrew J. Brown, Esme Codell, Sondra McClendon, Sally Derby, Galen Todd McGriff, Sara St. Martin-Lynne, Leslie Gallagher, Amanda Cunningham, Patrick Zapata, Stephanie Schiro, Abigail Sanders-Wells, Margaret Coble, Tina Tramel Zapata, Matthew Gallagher, S.E. Miller, Anouck Van Troy-Struyf, Betty Thomas, Amber Nash, Jordan Neff, my fantastic brother Kurt Struyf, and Joss Whedon for inspiring me to write strong female characters!

Absolute Special Thanks . . .
To Linda Sanders-Wells for recognizing my potential as a writer, filmmaker, and human being; and Shirley Klock for your kindness, quirkiness, and love for
Fat Angie.