New York Debut (8 page)

“Give it a rest,” warned DJ.

“No, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

“Good luck,” said Casey.

“I’ll bet she’s pregnant,” said Eliza suddenly. “I’m going to ask Seth. He’s been playing dumb too. But my guess is he — ”

“She is
not
pregnant!” snapped DJ.

“Well, then she’s in jail.”

“She’s not in jail either!” DJ stood now. “Please,
excuse
me.”

“You seem to know where she’s
not
, DJ,” continued Eliza, “and that must mean you know where she
is
. I promise you, I’ll find out.”

“And I’ll get her, my pretty . . .” Casey cackled like the Wicked Witch of the West. “And her little dog too!”

Everyone except Eliza and Kriti laughed as they all made an exodus from the breakfast table. This was followed by the usual last-minute get-ready-for-school rush, including much clomping up and down the stairs and the touching up of makeup as everyone got their bags and things and headed off to beat the bell.

“Why is Eliza so obsessed with finding out about Taylor?” asked Rhiannon as DJ backed out of the driveway so that Eliza could get out.

“I think Casey hit the nail on the head,” said DJ. “Because Taylor is her main competition in the fashion show.”

“It’s not like it’s a competitive event,” said Rhiannon.

“Eliza acts like she’s fighting to become America’s Next Top Model,” added Casey.

“Everything is a competition to Eliza.” DJ watched as Eliza’s Porsche zipped out, taking off ahead of them. “She has a need to be on top. And, no offense to you guys since I think you’re both gorgeous, but Taylor is probably Eliza’s biggest beauty rival.”

“Yeah . . .” Rhiannon sighed. “I think Eliza is secretly hoping that Taylor doesn’t come back at all.”

“She doesn’t have to be such a witch about it.” Casey shook her fist at the back of Eliza’s car.

“It’s probably not helping that she’s still in a snit over her house arrest,” suggested Rhiannon.

“I have a feeling she’s about to receive her get-out-of-jail-free card,” admitted DJ. “My grandmother really does have a weak spot when it comes to beauty. Did you hear her complimenting Eliza on her hair and makeup this morning? I could see her softening up to Eliza already.”

“I know,” Casey agreed, “and it probably doesn’t hurt when Eliza puts on her Miss Perfect Manners routine.”

“At least when my grandmother is watching.”

DJ turned into the school parking lot, quickly spotting a vacant space. “Hey, Rhiannon, can you get a ride home from school again tonight? Casey and I have a game.”

“You can always ask dear, sweet Eliza for a ride,” teased Casey.

Rhiannon frowned as they got out of the car. “I know Eliza has her problems . . . but I think we still need to love her.”

“That’s true, Rhiannon,” admitted DJ. “I guess I just need to be reminded . . . a lot.”

“I’ll leave the loving Eliza thing up to you guys,” said Casey. “I’ll try to be a little more tolerant, but I can’t promise anything.”

As they walked toward school, DJ suddenly remembered her conversation with Kriti last night. “Oh, yeah!” she said “I almost forgot to tell you — we might need to do another intervention.”

“What?” Rhiannon looked shocked. “Don’t tell me that Eliza is — ”

“Not Eliza,” corrected DJ. “I mean Kriti. And this time it’s not drugs or alcohol.”

“Is she a secret gambler?” ventured Casey.

“No!” DJ couldn’t help but chuckle to imagine little Kriti glued to a one-armed bandit. “Nothing like that.”

“What then?”

So DJ quickly explained about Kriti’s new obsession with weight loss — how she was overdoing the exercising and not eating. “She’s totally convinced she is too fat!”

“No way!” Rhiannon cried. “She’s so tiny.”

“Eliza told her she should weigh less for her height. And now Kriti is freaked. I watched her at breakfast this morning, and she barely ate a bite of toast. I think she’s starving herself.”

“Poor Kriti.” Rhiannon shook her head. “I guess we should’ve seen this one coming.”

“I blame my grandmother partly,” added DJ as they entered the school. “Her manic focus on low-fat, low-carb, low-taste foods . . . well, it’s no wonder Kriti has fallen into the gotta-be-skinny trap.”

“So what do we do?”

“I’m not sure,” admitted DJ. “But I wanted you guys to know so we could start thinking of some way to help her. She’s totally miserable.”

“I knew something was wrong. But I thought maybe she was sick or brokenhearted or something,” said Casey. “She hasn’t been herself for weeks now.”

“Why don’t we get together after your game,” suggested Rhiannon, “and do some brainstorming.”

“Sounds good,” agreed Casey.

“I’ll try to do some research in the meantime,” said Rhiannon.

“Research?”

“Yeah. So we can bring some facts to the table for Kriti.”

“Good idea,” said DJ. “And maybe we can help her to see that exercise is healthy, but not the way she’s doing it.”

“I guess it was good that your grandmother moved her out of Eliza’s room after all,” said Rhiannon. “Who knew?”

“So . . . what did you find online?” DJ asked Rhiannon after dinner that night. The three of them had holed up in Casey and Rhiannon’s room to figure out a way to help Kriti. Rhiannon actually made a list of their observations. 1) Kriti barely ate a bite at dinner, 2) she tried to appear to eat by moving her food around the plate and nibbling on mini bites of vegetables, and 3) she was clearly miserable. After dinner, the three of them had spied on her doing jumping jacks on the third floor — very vigorously too.

Rhiannon picked up what she’d printed from a website.

“Well, she’s most likely anorexic and not bulimic.”

“What’s the difference?” asked Casey. “I always thought they were kind of the same thing.”

“Bulimics overeat and then purge.”

“Purge?” Casey looked confused.

“You know, they barf.” DJ made a disgusted face.

“Right, I knew that. But why not just call it barfing?”

“Well, there are other ways they purge too,” explained Rhiannon. “They also use laxatives.”

“Ugh.” Now Casey made a face.

“But anorexics basically starve themselves,” said Rhiannon. “They live on things like diet pop, rice cakes, green salads with no dressing, and — ”

“That’s almost exactly what Kriti has for lunch most days,” said DJ. “A plain green salad, but she has iced tea, not soda. And I never see her adding sugar to it.”

“Right.” Rhiannon nodded. “But here’s something else. These girls — the ones who become really seriously anorexic or bulimic — often develop a skewed body image.”

“What do you mean?” asked DJ.

“There’s actually a scientific name for it, but I can’t remember it right now. Anyway, it’s like these girls look at themselves in the mirror but instead of seeing what they actually look like, they see something totally different. One website described it like looking into those wavy carnival mirrors that make you look short and fat and weird.”

“I think I saw something like that on TV,” said Casey. “Like sometimes a woman thinks something’s wrong with her face and even though everyone else tells her she looks great, she keeps getting plastic surgery until she doesn’t even look human anymore.”

“Yes,” said Rhiannon. “I saw a woman who wanted to remake herself to look like a Barbie doll — she had like fifty plastic surgeries and ended up looking totally bizarre.”

“But back to Kriti,” said DJ.

“That seems kind of like what Kriti is doing,” said Rhiannon. “Not the plastic surgery part, but the way she sees herself.”

“Thinking she’s fat,” added Casey.

“Which is nuts,” said DJ. “I mean, she has curves, but she is
not
fat.”

“Apparently that’s not how she sees herself.” Rhiannon looked at Casey and DJ and sighed. “Although I kind of understand her perspective.”

“What do you mean?” asked Casey.

“Well . . . you and DJ and Eliza and Taylor are all tall . . . and slender. It’s like you four really do look like models. I might not be as short as Kriti, but I know how she feels in a way.”

DJ punched a pillow. “I blame my grandmother for a lot of this. She makes such a big deal about modeling.” She looked at Rhiannon. “But I always felt like you were pretty grounded.”

“Yeah,” agreed Casey. “You seem to have a good self-image.”

“Maybe it
seems
that way, but believe me, I have plenty of insecurities.”

“Like what?” demanded DJ.

“Like it’s not easy being the poor girl.”

DJ shook her head. “Hey, you might not have as much money, but you are wealthy when it comes to natural talent, Rhiannon.”

“And wealthy when it comes to being a genuinely good person,” added Casey.

Rhiannon smiled. “Thanks.”

“Besides the fact that you’re gorgeous,” said DJ. “Even Grandmother has said — plenty of times — that you’d be a great print model.”

“I just want to be a designer,” said Rhiannon. “But we need to get back to Kriti.”

“Yeah,” said Casey. “What are we going to do?”

“For starters, we could try to convince her that she doesn’t need to lose weight,” said Rhiannon.

“Not that she’ll listen,” said DJ. “I mean, you should’ve heard her when I tried to point out that she was
not
fat. She couldn’t hear me. It’s like she’s been brainwashed.”

“In a way, she probably has.” Rhiannon shook her head sadly. “Too many skinny images in movies, TV, and magazines. Don’t we all get a little brainwashed?”

“Eliza always has a pile of fashion magazines in her room.”

“Hey, do you think Eliza is anorexic too?” asked Casey.

“I think she
plays
with it,” said DJ. “I know she counts calories and watches her carbs and fats.”

“But she’s not obsessed by it,” added Rhiannon. “I mean, we’ve all seen her eat. She’s not a pig, but she’s not starving herself either.”

“And she seems pretty pleased with how she looks,” said DJ.

“Why shouldn’t she be?” Rhiannon sighed. “She’s beautiful.”

“And she wants everyone to notice too.” Casey scowled.

“Okay, we’re not here to bash Eliza,” Rhiannon reminded them.

“So what’s our plan for Kriti?” asked DJ.

“Well, I think your idea for an intervention was the perfect answer,” Rhiannon told her. “We just need to figure out how to do it.”

“You ever get the feeling we’re running some kind of clinic here?” joked DJ. “Like maybe my grandmother should switch her focus from fashion to mental health. We could be the Carter House Rehabilitation Center for Young Women.”

They all laughed, but DJ actually thought it was sort of pathetic. She also thought that her grandmother should bear some of the blame if the girls under her care got any more messed up. Oh, sure, maybe these things would’ve happened anyway. But maybe not this latest problem with Kriti. It seemed a direct result of the atmosphere in this house. Not that Grandmother would be that concerned to hear about it.

“So how do we intervene?” asked Casey. “Like you did with me when I was stealing DJ’s pain pills? Remember how you cornered me in my room and went into attack mode?”

“We didn’t attack you.”

“That’s what it felt like.”

“Do you wish we hadn’t intervened?”

“No, not at all. But it sure wasn’t easy at the time.” Casey’s expression grew serious. “Now it’s hard to believe that I really did what I did. Not to mention embarrassing. I honestly don’t believe I would ever do anything like that again — although my counselor still reminds me not to let my guard down.”

“Let’s hope you don’t.”

“I’m still doing my counseling,” said Casey quickly. “I’ve committed to go twice a month until the end of the school year.”

“Cool,” said DJ. “Now back to Kriti. What’s next?”

“We agree she needs to be confronted.”

“And we need to be honest and direct with her,” said Rhiannon, “but with kindness and love. She needs to know we really care about her.”

“And we’ve got to make her see that she’s not fat,” added DJ.

“Or at least we have to try.”

“Plus we need to attach some consequences,” said Casey. “Like the way you guys did with me. Otherwise, it’s like the intervention has no teeth.”

They all thought about this, and then DJ spoke. “The consequence will be that I’ll inform my grandmother, and she will inform Kriti’s parents.”

“Yes!” said Casey and Rhiannon simultaneously.

“The question is
when?”
said DJ.

“There’s no time like the present,” said Casey. “I mean, why put it off?”

“The sooner we can help her, the sooner she can get better.” Rhiannon held up another sheet of paper. “I printed out a list of all these horrible side effects. We may need to read it to her.”