Fat Angie (9 page)

“I’m sorry,” said Fat Angie.

“For?”

“I should’ve . . .” Fat Angie shook her head. “My family’s a little complicated.”

“That’s not your fault,” said KC. “Come to one of my so-called family reunions. A competition of Coach purses, fake-and-bake tans, and motorcycle hippies.”

KC eyed Fat Angie’s serving of cake. “Can I yum?”

Fat Angie passed the plate to KC, who picked up a fork and ate what Fat Angie imagined was a toe.

“It’s fine,” KC said, smiling with a smudge of gray icing on her upper lip. “Just eat it with your eyes closed. I do it with squid.”

Fat Angie closed her eyes and ate very quickly — so quickly that her acid reflux refluxed. She sprinted out of the room.

Four and a half minutes later, clocked by her Casio calculator watch, Fat Angie was still on the bathroom floor. She had hurled only for the first minute and twelve seconds after jamming her finger down her throat like Marcy Winters on the cheerleading squad. She spent the rest of the time hunched on her knees, staring at the cake remnants floating in the toilet bowl. They did not resemble a person’s image anymore. She could not understand why.

The 1970s hit “Ring My Bell” boomed from the living room. The drunken women sang off-key. Fat Angie began counting out loud as her therapist would have suggested. She began to digress.

The ambulance ride to the hospital . . . sirens wailing . . .

Fat Angie squinted. She drew her knees to her chest and counted aloud from one. The song seeped through. . . .

Her sister dribbling the basketball . . . crowds cheering . . . bombs . . . war . . .

“Lester hates his name. He won’t respond to it.”

She began counting from one again.

Children screaming on the CBS Evening News. There was blood — everywhere.

She counted louder, squinted harder.
Her sister —

Fat Angie stopped.

She could not remember her sister’s voice.

Pause.

Stop pause.

“One two three four five six seven . . .”

She counted so loud and ran the numbers together so quickly that she did not recognize the knocking on the door until —

“It’s KC. You cool?”

“Um . . . just a second,” said Fat Angie.

Fat Angie lowered the seat and opened the door.

“Hey,” said KC. “Can I . . .” She motioned to come in.

Fat Angie perched on the toilet as KC leaned against the wall. Neither one of them really looked at each other for six and a half seconds.

“I hate parties like this,” Fat Angie said. “These family things my mom drags me and Wang to. Well, when he’s not incarcerated or off his Ritalin. She keeps trying to dress me in something with flowers and lace. Tells me how to walk and talk. And she does this laugh. Where it’s, like, coming through her nose.”

KC grinned. “Yeah, I kinda noticed.”

“It’s just really pathetic, you know?” said Fat Angie.

“Just because your family sucks doesn’t mean you have to,” said KC. “Not that I’m all Buddha-wise on some mountaintop. I just think everyone should carry their own baggage. Like at the bus station.”

“Yeah,” said Fat Angie.

“Look, let’s bail. Go over to my place.”

Fat Angie sighed, washing her mouth out at the sink. “My mom will spit branding tools if I leave.”

“She’ll get over it,” said KC. “Not to mention she’s on the distract. Some half-a-hunk showed up and they stepped out to his car.”

“Sporty red with pleather seats?” asked Fat Angie.

“Yeah.”

“I guess she’s getting less worried about the PDA.”

“Huh?” said KC.

“She’s dating Wang’s court-appointed therapist,” said Fat Angie. She wiped her face with the underside of her frilly shirt.

“That’s so weird,” KC said, chuckling.

Fat Angie lowered her chin. It doubled.

“Look, if I sing you a song, can we bail?” asked KC.

“Seriously, I can’t,” said Fat Angie.

KC jumped up on the toilet, one foot on the tank. Her head was less than an inch from bumping the ceiling.

“KC,” said Fat Angie.

KC sang.

“KC, please,” Fat Angie said.

KC continued.

“C’mon, you know this one.” KC grinned.

That beat thing occurred. Then, out of somewhere, Fat Angie’s breath formed into a harmony.

Fat Angie softly sang with KC.

The girls grinned. KC continued, her voice full, alive . . .

KC moved to the edge of the tub. She swung back and forth, gaining balance as she sang.

KC smiled, for the first time seeming self-conscious. Fat Angie sobered up from her singing delirium.

“What?” KC said.

“My . . . my sister loves that song.”

Fat Angie bit the inside of her cheek.

Pause.

More awkward pause.

They were swaddled in the uncomfortable pause.

KC stepped down from the tub edge. For such a large bathroom, the two girls were incredibly close.

“Hey,” said KC.

“Hey,” said Fat Angie.

“Um . . .” said KC. It was an unusual filler in her vernacular.

“Yeah?” said Fat Angie.

“So you wanna . . .” said KC.

“Yeah,” said Fat Angie, unsure of what the “wanna” actually was.

Fat Angie’s heart exercised at rapid heart pounding rate. Having KC so close — so deliciously vanilla-and-Coke–smelling close — automatically parted Fat Angie’s closed lips. She could not explain the sensation swelling in her growling stomach. She was hungry but it was more. Much, much more. And when some clarity for Fat Angie’s parted lips seemed to be on the horizon, KC unlocked the bathroom door and twisted the knob open.

Fat Angie gulped. Her parted lips smashed shut.

“C’mon,” KC said.

“Um, yeah, OK,” said Fat Angie.

KC slipped around her.

Fat Angie flushed the toilet and caught a glimpse of herself in the ornate mirror. A glimpse that became a stare. She tried to see the Angie beneath the fat. She tried to see her wrists without the scars. She tried to see a girl who could be brave like the woman in KC’s song. But she just saw fat . . . Fat Angie.

Fat Angie stood behind KC, who was peering through her hands as though she were a director framing a shot.

“Sweet,” KC said.

KC stepped back, critically admiring her newest installment, a five-by-seven copy of the cell phone pic of the ultrasound cake. It was plastered in with precision among a wall collage of Johnny Depp’s tattoos, off-kilter postcards, artsy magazine clippings, and a 1950s ad encouraging women to eat tapeworms to stay thin. From the grin on her face, it was clear that her Wall of Thoughts So Twisted had reached masterpiece status.

“What do you think?” KC said.

Fat Angie was more uncomfortable with the image than she had been at the baby shower. The photograph was grainier than it had been on the cake, the result of a low pixel count on KC’s camera phone. The picture reminded Fat Angie of the printouts she had collected of the war in Iraq. Of the Shock and Awe bombings. Of terrains she had Google Earthed and circled in red marker as potential hostage havens for her sister.

“It’s OK,” said Fat Angie, sitting on the end of the bed.

But it wasn’t OK.

“It’s actually very disturbing,” said KC, getting online to post the image on her various social networks. “I like that. People should be disturbed sometimes.”

This was a peculiar notion to Fat Angie.

A sort of secret code knock thumped on KC’s door.

“Yeah,” said KC.

A woman in trendy rimmed glasses, which clashed with the faded vine tattoo twisting along her arm, poked her head in.

“Sorry, didn’t know you had company,” she said.

“Esther, Angie. Angie, Esther.” KC hooked her arm across Esther’s shoulder. “This is my hippie mama.”

“Quit it,” Esther said. “Good to meet you, Angie. The resident smart-ass has said a lot about you.”

Esther shook hands with Fat Angie, who stared at the arm inked with fall leaves.

“Did you do that?” Fat Angie asked.

“The ink? Hell no, darlin’,” said Esther. “My first ex —”

“Not my dad,” KC interrupted.

“Don’t get me going on your dad,” Esther said to KC.

“Esther,” said KC, struggling to remove her boots.

Esther grabbed the heel of KC’s boot. With a few calculated pulls, the boot released.

“You know I hate these boots,” said Esther.

“You hate that
Dad
bought me these boots. The boots themselves are fine,” said KC.

“Yeah, yeah. You know, you coulda told me you’d be hanging around. I would’ve left you something in the fridge.”

KC and Esther stood face-to-face.

KC said, “And what would that something be?”

Esther pinched KC’s cheek. “A piece of your pretty face.”

“Ha-ha,” said KC. “Don’t quit your day job.”

Esther’s attention fell to KC’s forearm. The forearm that she was scratching beneath her T-shirt. Before Esther could reach for her arm, KC slid her hands in her back pockets.

“How was the baby shower?” Esther asked KC.

“Completely on the nine. I would’ve given it a ten but they didn’t have caviar. Oh, they loved the shirt, by the way,” said KC.

“I bet,” said Esther.

KC dragged Esther to the Wall of Thoughts So Twisted. “Check this.”

“Is that a . . . ?” said Esther.

“A fetus,” said Fat Angie.

“Wow!” Esther said.

“Yeah,” said KC. “Can you believe? Ultrasound pic on the cake?”

“Huh?” Esther said, tilting her head as if a new angle would give some different meaning to the image.

KC aimed her camera phone at Esther and snapped a picture.

“That better not end up on your Wall of Twisted,” Esther said.

“We’ll see.” KC smirked.

“Angie, you need anything?” Esther asked. “I could bake some
taquitos.
”

Fat Angie shook her head, mostly because Mexican food gave her gas.

“Hey, paparazzo,” Esther said to KC, who was framing up another picture. “I’ll be in the basement with Mike.”

“What’s Mike doing here?” said KC.

“He wanted to get some practice in on that pig ear you scratched on.”

“Don’t knock my skills, Esther. Besides, that ear is old.”

“I’ll see ya’ll later,” said Esther. “Nice to meet you, Angie. Don’t let her cynicism rub off on you.”

No sooner did KC’s door shut than Fat Angie said, “Pig’s ear?”

“It’s a tattoo practice thing,” KC said, sliding backward in a desk chair and landing in front of her computer. “It’s not alive or anything.”

Regardless of the pig’s status, a horrible pang welled up in Fat Angie.
Charlotte’s Web
had been a childhood favorite. However, she strongly objected to the death of Charlotte. While able to process the logic of Charlotte’s death for heightened dramatic tension, twist in plot, she felt it was unnecessary.

“You cool?” said KC, clicking on the computer keyboard. “Esther can be a shock rock.”

“Remember my mother?” said Fat Angie.

“Right . . .” said KC.

Wandering around the room, Fat Angie took note of a massive stack of vinyl records and boxes of unpacked clothes. Peeking beneath a Pink Floyd tee, Fat Angie saw half of a framed photo of KC. She bit the inside of her lip as she moved the shirt only a few centimeters to reveal KC cheek to cheek with a rather attractive pom-pom teen.

“Who’s this?” said Fat Angie, holding up the frame.

“Nobody,” said KC. “Just a girl I knew in the Hills.”

Fat Angie studied the image and the shift in KC’s posture at the computer. It was not a nobody. She was very pretty. A very, very perfect kind of pretty.

KC’s phone beeped. She read the text and then tossed her phone in a basket of dirty clothes.

“Everything OK?” Fat Angie asked.

“Yeah. Just my dad. He’s what I call a Sometimes Dad. He’s only around some of the time and only when it gels for him.”

“I like the boots he got you,” Fat Angie said.

KC cracked a grin. “Yeah, he really didn’t get ’em. That’s just what I told Esther. He gave me plastic and dropped me at some megamall in Minneapolis. Said, ‘Get whatever you like, sweetheart.’ I kinda wanted to scream because he’d promised to go with me. So I bought a pair of six-hundred-dollar boots instead.”

“Wow . . .”

“It was stupid petty,” KC said, scratching at her shirtsleeve. “I mean, he loves me. He’s just really hard to talk to.”

“Yeah . . .”

“Yeah?” KC asked.

“Yeah.”

Beat.

KC peeled a postcard off the Wall of Thoughts So Twisted. She handed it to Angie. Dusk. A guy in a dusty white T-shirt stood in the middle of a road. Canyons filled out the space around him. A teardrop trailer accented with Christmas lights and a woman in the doorway. She had a pie in hand. Angie could not assign meaning to all the elements in the image, other than to call it artsy.