Fat Chance (6 page)

Mentally, I shut the cheerleader up, and I know that even with the deeper-than-I-like "v" neckline, Chelsea has done it again. Maybe I'm outside of my comfort zone, and maybe there's a little cleavage showing, where usually I allow none. Maybe it skims over my too-large waist and gives the illusion of an hourglass, though I suppose I'm a larger hourglass than most. Maybe, I'll buy that fruity bra to wear under it, something scandalous and sexy and confident, just for me. Either way, I'm buying the dress.

Sitting in the breakroom, I'm enjoying my typical lunch, a raw spinach salad topped with cherry tomatoes, shredded cheese, chicken, cucumbers and a variety of other vegetables. As usual, I’m spending my break chatting on the phone with Janet; today, she's going on about the reunion.

"I really am so glad you're able to come," she says, as I fork a cherry tomato and pop it into my mouth. She stops then, waiting for me to say something, so I stuff the little tomato down into my cheek before answering.

"Me too, and I really had a great time shopping with Chelsea. Is there anything you're going to need me to bring?" I chew my tomato, listening to Janet list all the things she is planning to cook or order. It seems like she has it covered; in fact, I'm pretty sure the only thing she needs me to bring to the gathering is a liposuction specialist for later, to keep the pineapple upside-down cake from giving me a top-heavy upside-down body.

Okay, so you're coming at nine, right?" she asks, and I can tell she's making lists again by the distracted tone of her voice. Janet is a little OCD, and she manages her entire life by the word of a little notebook full of lists.

She keeps grocery lists, to do lists, monthly chore lists for her house maintenance, car maintenance, and personal maintenance. Her one flaw is her vanity; the personal maintenance is a list of appointments for her hair styling sessions, laser hair removal, and other stuff I don't care to ask about.

"Yep, I'll be there, nine sharp," I say. "Look, Janet, my break will be up soon, so I need to go."

She is distracted enough with her listing that I can actually hear the scrape of her pen in her notebook, and she barely mutters agreement before hanging up. I laugh to myself, because I can just imagine her sitting there, lost in her own little world. I can only imagine the length of the party-plans list.

Spearing a piece of grilled chicken from my salad, I swipe it through the little cup of ranch dressing I've got on the side of my plate. Two really snarky girls that work on the other side of the call center are in the breakroom too, at the next table, so I want to eat quickly and get out of here. Their backs are turned to me, but their chatter is probably much louder than it ought to be, considering the subject of their conversation.

"I don't know, I don't think I could stand it. I mean, ew," Kayla says, flipping her vibrant red hair over her shoulder as she gazes into the mirror of her compact. I can't see her face, but I can imagine her batting her blue eyes at herself, slicking her lips with that shimmer stuff she wears all the time. That girl takes "confident" to the extreme, and her little friend sitting there next to her is just as bad.

"Me either," Claire answers, her neat white teeth taking the end off of a candy bar. "I mean, really, I couldn't believe it either. How can she stand to shop for herself? I bet it takes a magic girdle to make anything fit. It's gross; I think I'd rather be dead than to be fat."

My fork freezes in mid-air, and a little piece of shredded cheddar slips away from the spinach I've just picked up. Are they talking about me? Maybe they aren't. Who knows? Maybe they are. Suddenly, I'm nauseated, and I can feel rage coming up fast inside of me.

Who do they think they are? What makes them better than I am? Is it the size of their waists, that theirs are so much smaller than mine? Or is it the fact that I've never seen either of them eat anything more than a variety of chocolates while I eat as healthy as I can afford to, and yet
I
am the fat one?

It's on the tip of my tongue to stand up and say something, but I don't know what to say, I'm so shocked and embarrassed. All I know is, I've lost my appetite, and I am really wondering if I'm going to be sick. Sometimes anger does that to me. Throwing the rest of my lunch in the garbage, I race for the ladies room.

I step into the room, wrinkling my nose at that typical public bathroom smell. It's not as bad as it's been before, but there's just a faint undertone of urine and other nastiness, laced with lavender and something else that only makes the smell worse.

I'm feeling low now; I feel fat and gross and unattractive. I just keep hearing Claire in my head, this horrible girl that has Jackson so enamored.
My Jackson
, the guy I've liked for forever, sweet kind Jackson. And Claire is the kind of girl he likes, nasty and vulgar as she is. I'm pretty sure the pedestal he used to be on just crumbled out from under him, under the weight of his girlfriend's big ego.

"I'd rather be dead than be fat,"
she'd said.

Walking into a stall, I wonder if I have the power to starve myself thin, to just stop eating altogether until I am whatever size society requires. What size is it, I wonder, that takes me from being seen as a lazy slob who can't stop eating, and turns me into just a regular normal woman like all the others?

I can't starve myself thin. I know I can't, it's too unhealthy, and even though I know it would work eventually, I also know that I'd be killing myself slowly, denying my body even the basic nutrients. I'd be destroying my digestive system, my bones, and my organs.

"I'd rather be dead than be fat."

What about bulimia? If I eat and then throw up, I can still lose weight, and it would happen pretty quickly, too. I can eat anything I want, just like other women. I can eat candy for lunch, like Claire and her stupid friend, Kayla.

My health class knowledge from high school rises up in my memory. Is it really worth ruining my esophagus and my teeth just to be thin? Could I live with a lifetime of sore stomach muscles, exhausted from the binge and purge cycle? Could I do it?

I can't. I don't want to. I'd rather be fat than live with that kind of sickness.

"I'd rather be dead than be fat."

Would I? Would I rather be dead than be fat? I'm a healthy woman. Large as I am, my body is actually rather fit and I am pretty strong. I'm not likely to die of natural causes anytime soon. Still ...

Standing there in a stall in the bathroom, I feel a tear slip down my cheek as the old urge rises up. Growing up as a foster kid bullied about my status and my weight, I'd always battled feelings of worthlessness and depression. I'd always battled the idea of suicide.

Once, I'd stolen a page from Janet's proverbial notebook, and I'd listed all the possible routes of suicide that I could think of. I'd listed the pros and cons of each method.

When I was fifteen, in the foster home before I was placed with Janet and her husband Jim, I'd chosen an over-the-counter painkiller and taken three quarters of a bottle with a glass of vodka from my foster father's desk drawer. He came home early that day and found me, so here I am. Still alive. Still fat. Still miserable.

I'd try again, but now I'm not alone anymore. I don't have a ton of friends because I don't go out; my insecurity doesn't allow that. But I have a family now, and aside from Rick, they love me. I'm standing there staring at that floating toilet that always terrifies me, and I'm thinking again of suicide. I can't believe myself.

"I'd rather be dead than be fat."

I don't know that I'd rather be dead. What I do know is that something has to give. I can't walk that path again; it would tear Janet apart to think that she's failed me somehow, even though she hasn't. It would kill my sisters, for them to realize that as close as we are, there are just some times when I can't turn to them.

I can't do that to them; I can't put them through another death in the family just because I'm fat and humiliated and full of self-hatred. I can't take myself out of their equation, not after they have fought so hard to include me over the years.

Besides, my giant ass will need a giant coffin, something close to the size of Rhode Island. And I can't afford that.

"Oh my God," I mutter to myself, drying my eyes and cleaning myself up to return to work. "I need therapy."

I really do need therapy. Over the past week, my thoughts of suicide have become more frequent. I can't help it; it's the combination of my own self-disgust and my realization that I disgust others. It was bad enough before, when I was being so cruel to myself on a daily, hourly, basis. But now? It has spread to other people, people in my workplace, no less.

I know that I'm a good person in general, and I know that I don't look that terrible. I suppose I'm even sort of pretty, you know, for a fat girl. But I just can't live like this anymore.

It isn't even the mirror, really, that drives me to therapy. I have my bit of injured pride, and it definitely has a place in all of this, but that's not it, really. I don't know, maybe it's the sense of always being disgusted with how much I hate my own body, how it sort of leads to me simply hating
myself
. I even stereotype myself!

I'm ashamed, every single time I eat, no matter what it is. I'm ashamed, every time I shop for clothes, because I need a special store that carries clothes for my body, because I am seen as unworthy to buy clothes in the "skinny" stores.

It's not really that other people feel that it's okay to be cruel to me, though as I've said, it does hit my vanity pretty hard. What really sends me into suicidal thoughts and makes me realize that I need help, is that
I
am no better, that
I
am being cruel to
me
.
I
have turned into this vile, nasty person, spending all of my time being
horribly, emotionally abusive to myself
.

This, I cannot live with.
How can I ever expect anyone to love me, as I am, if I don't even like myself? How can I show anyone the good in me, if I can't see it?

So I've just hung up the phone; I called a therapist who does emergency appointments. He's agreed to see me today, and even as I go through the process of admitting that I'm messed up and I need help, I can't turn it off, my instinct to berate myself mercilessly.

Wow, you just can't get more screwed up than this
, my inner evil cheerleader chants.
Therapy? Now you need therapy? Poor little chubby lady, can't keep her big fat emotional breakdown in check.

Unfortunately, for me, my sweet and confident inner girlfriend is silent today. Maybe she's drowning herself in chocolate-covered chocolate ice cream.

Anyway, it's a long morning, getting ready for the appointment with the therapist and making the drive to the office, all with the constant broken record of self-abuse constantly playing in my head.

I walk in the door of the office and take a deep breath, looking over the waiting room. It is simply decorated, with a receptionist working behind a window, just as if this place is a regular office instead of a refuge for the mentally cracked. I walk close and clear my throat, drawing the attention of the receptionist, smiling in spite of myself as I am greeted by faded blue eyes in the midst of a sea of wrinkles.

She must be in her seventies, and as she pats her fluffy cloud of short gray hair, she smiles back at me welcomingly. She looks the way I imagine my grandmothers would have looked, had they been given the chance to grow really old.

"Uh, I'm here for an appointment. Cassaundra Keaton," I say, trying to force some volume through the nervous lump in my throat. I know my face is colored; I'm not sure I've ever felt more humiliated than I do right now, having to admit that I really have lost control over my life, and that my own emotions are my biggest fear. It's hard to admit to myself that I am my own worst source of emotional and physical danger.

"Dr. Caswell is expecting you, dear," she says, her short manicured fingernails clicking away on the keyboard. She's smiling to herself, and I can't help wondering why. She looks me over, and her smile grows wider; my hand rises up without my permission, my fingertips smoothing my hair. Her scrutiny makes me nervous, so I look behind her to the clock, her little wall calendar, and some pictures she has framed on her desk.