Size 12 and Ready to Rock (40 page)

The reality is that most people who are considered “overweight” are not unhealthy, just like most people who are thin are not anorexic. These days, we see some average- and even plus-size female characters in books and film, but I wish we could see even more. It would be great if someday size 12s become the norm on our television screens just as they are in real life.

      So, that’s where Heather came from.

3.
Size 12 and Ready to Rock
seems to explore slightly more serious issues than the previous books in the Heather Wells series, like intimate-partner violence and infertility issues. What’s up with that?

What could be more serious than murder? But I get where you’re coming from. To be honest, incidents of teen dating abuse occurred a lot more often than murder in the residence hall where I worked for over ten years in New York City. Very rarely did the victim (usually female, but occasionally male) come forward herself. These incidents were nearly always reported by a roommate, and often accompanied by statements such as, “I don’t understand why she stays with him. If my boyfriend ever hit
me
, I’d hit him back.”

My bosses and I always wanted to tell them that if hitting someone back was really all you needed to do to end an abusive relationship, intimate-partner violence (also known as domestic abuse or domestic violence) wouldn’t be the number-one cause of injury to women— which, sadly, it is. It’s estimated that at least two-thirds of restraining orders filed due to sexual-partner abuse are violated. And one in three female murder victims is killed by her intimate partner.

      The truth is, half of the female population will experience some form of violence from a partner during the course of a relationship. Domestic-partner abuse isn’t something that occurs “only” to a single type of person belonging to a particular ethnic, cultural, or socioeconomic group. Statistically, you know someone who has been, or is being, abused. If you or someone you know needs help or more information, go to http://www .thehotline.org/ (but remember that if you are in an abusive relationship, computer use can be monitored and can never be completely cleared) or call
1-800-799-SAFE(7233)
or
TTY 1-800-787-3224
.

4. Infertility is a subplot of this book. Is this an issue with which you’ve struggled?

Yes . . . and no! Like Heather, I suffer from endometriosis, and a few years ago I underwent surgery to find out what was going on with a large, painful ovarian cyst that had been giving me trouble for nearly a year. Before the surgery, my doctor asked how important my reproductive organs were to me— meaning, if she went in there and found that she had no other choice but to remove them, would that be okay?

Up until that point, I’d honestly never given much thought to the matter! Like Lisa in
Size 12 and Ready to Rock
, I had spent so much time babysitting other people’s kids when I was growing up, and I now have so many nieces and nephews thanks to my husband’s and my own family (not to mention my literally millions of readers, many of whom write regularly to say they’ve grown up with my books), that I’ve always sort of felt like I already have kids.

So when my doctor asked if I’d be okay with her removing my reproductive organs if she had to, I didn’t hesitate.

“Of course!” I said.

I’ve never been worried about not having a family. My husband and I already
have
our family, it simply isn’t a traditional one comprised of a father, mother, and baby. Instead, it’s made up of friends and neighbors, aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, parents and grandparents, stepsisters and stepbrothers, cats and coworkers, bloggers and booksellers, readers and librarians, not to mention their wives, husbands, and partners, and an endless stream of children—so many children, frankly, that sometimes those of us who don’t have kids full time wonder how those of you who do have the stamina to keep up with them.

Fortunately, my doctor ended up having to remove only one of my ovaries. She assures me that there are women in their forties who have endometriosis and are also missing one ovary who have still gotten pregnant. So if you fall into this category and do not have the energy to be a parent (like me), use birth control, for God’s sake!

      And always remember that on the path to happiness, sometimes there are unexpected twists and turns . . . but that doesn’t mean they aren’t the
perfect
twists and turns for you.

5. When will Heather be back?

Soon! Look for Heather in
Size 12 Is the New Black
in 2013.

Heather and Cooper can finally afford the wedding of their dreams . . . but it looks like that dream has a good chance of becoming a nightmare, and not just because, on the advice of her perky new boss, Heather’s hired a wedding planner, and that wedding planner has turned out to be . . . well, less than reliable.

That’s because he’s missing and feared dead!

Heather doesn’t have time to solve a missing-person case right now, not with seven hundred freshmen checking into Fischer Hall, hundreds of guests RSVPing to her wedding reception, and one out-of-towner who simply showed up without an invitation at all: Heather’s long lost mother.

But with a runaway wedding planner to track down, a groom who’s just about ready to call the whole thing off, and a residence hall to assistant direct, a mother-and-bride reunion is the last thing Heather wants—especially since there’s a new RA who’s doling out a lot more than advice to the incoming freshmen, which could mean that instead of wedding bells, Heather might be hearing wedding bullets . . .

Read on

Want More?
Keep reading to see where it all began.

Size 12 Is Not Fat

A Heather Wells Mystery

by Meg Cabot

Every time I see you

I get a Sugar Rush

You’re like candy

You give me a Sugar Rush

Don’t tell me stay on my diet

You have simply got to try it

Sugar Rush

“Sugar Rush”
Performed by Heather Wells
Written by Valdez/Caputo
From the album
Sugar Rush
Cartwright Records

“U
M, HELLO
. Is anyone out there?” The girl in the dressing room next to mine has a voice like a chipmunk. “Hello?”

Exactly
like a chipmunk.

I hear a sales clerk come over, his key chain clinking musically. “Yes, ma’am? Can I help you?”

“Yeah.” The girl’s disembodied— but still chipmunklike—voice floats over the partition between our cubicles. “Do you guys have these jeans in anything smaller than a size zero?”

I pause, one leg in and one leg out of the jeans I am squeezing myself into. Whoa. Is it just me, or was that really existential? Because what’s smaller than a size zero? Negative something, right?

Okay, so it’s been a while since sixth grade math. But I do remember there was this number line, with a zero in the middle, and—

“Because,” Less Than Zero/Chipmunk Voice is explaining to the sales clerk, “normally I’m a size two. But these zeros are completely baggy on me. Which is weird. I know I didn’t lose weight since the last time I came in here.”

Less Than Zero has a point, I realize as I pull up the jeans I’m trying on. I can’t remember the last time I could fit into a size 8.Well, okay, I
can
. But it’s not a period from my past that I particularly relish.

What gives? Normally I wear 12s . . . but I tried on the 12s, and I was swimming in them. Same with the 10s. Which is weird, because I haven’t exactly been on any kind of diet lately—unless you count the Splenda I had in my latte at breakfast this morning.

But I’m sure the bagel with cream cheese and bacon I had with it pretty much canceled out the Splenda.

And it’s not exactly like I’ve been to the gym recently. Not that I don’t exercise, of course. I just don’t do it, you know, in the gym. Because you can burn just as many calories walking as you can running. So why run? I figured out a long time ago that a walk to Murray’s Cheese Shop on Bleecker to see what kind of sandwich they have on special for lunch takes ten minutes.

And a walk from Murray’s over to Betsey Johnson on Wooster to see what’s on sale (love her stretch velvet!): another ten minutes.

And a walk from Betsey’s over to Dean & Deluca on Broadway for an after-lunch cappuccino and to see if they have those chocolate-covered orange peels I like so much: another ten minutes.

And so on, until before you know it, you’ve done a full sixty minutes of exercise. Who says it’s hard to comply with the government’s new fitness recommendations? If
I
can do it, anyone can.

But could all of that walking have caused me to drop
two whole
sizes since the last time I shopped for jeans? I know I’ve been cutting my daily fat intake by about half since I replaced the Hershey’s Kisses in the candy jar on my desk with free condoms from the student health center. But still.

“Well, ma’am,” the sales clerk is saying to Less Than Zero. “These jeans are
stretch
fit. That means that you’ve got to try two sizes lower than your true size.”

“What?” Less Than Zero sounds confused.

I don’t blame her. I feel the same way. It’s like number lines all over again.

“What I mean is,” the sales clerk says, patiently, “if you normally wear a size four, in stretch jeans, you would wear a size zero.”

“Why don’t you just put the real sizes on them, then?” Less Than Zero—quite sensibly, I think—asks. “Like if a zero is a really a four, why don’t you just label it a four?”

“It’s called vanity sizing,” the sales clerk says, dropping his voice.

“
What
sizing?” Less Than Zero asks, dropping her voice, too. At least, as much as a chipmunk
can
drop her voice.

“You know.” The sales clerk is whispering to Less Than Zero. But I can still hear him. “The
larger
customers like it when they can fit into an eight. But they’re really a twelve, of course. See?”

Wait.
What?

I fling open the door to my dressing room before I stop to think.

“I’m a size twelve,” I hear myself saying to the sales clerk. Who looks startled. Understandably, I guess. But still. “What’s wrong with being a size twelve?”

“Nothing!” cries the sales clerk, looking panicky. “Nothing at all. I just meant—”

“Are you saying size twelve is
fat
?” I ask him. “No,” the sales clerk insists. “You misunderstood me. I meant—”

“Because size twelve is the size of the average American woman,” I point out to him. I know this because I just read it in
People
magazine. “Are you saying that instead of being average, we’re all fat?”

“No,” the sales clerk says. “No, that’s not what I meant at all. I—”

The door to the dressing room next to mine opens, and I see the owner of the chipmunk voice for the first time. She’s the same age as the kids I work with. She doesn’t just
sound
like a chipmunk, I realize. She kind of looks like one, too. You know. Cute. Perky. Small enough to fit in a normal-sized girl’s pocket.

“And what’s up with not even
making
her size?” I ask the sales clerk, jerking a thumb at Less Than Zero. “I mean, I’d rather be average than not even
exist
.”

Less Than Zero looks kind of taken aback. But then she goes, “Um. Yeah!” to the sales clerk.

The sales clerk swallows nervously. And audibly. You can tell he’s having a bad day. After work, he’ll probably go to some bar and be all “And then these women were just ON me about the vanity sizing. . . . It was awful!”

To us, he just says, “I, um, think I’ll just go, um, check and see if we have those jeans you were interested in the, um, back.”

Then he scurries away.

I look at Less Than Zero. She looks at me. She is maybe twenty-two, and very blond. I too am blond—with a little help from Lady Clairol—but I left my early twenties several years ago.

Still, it is clear that, age and size differences aside, Less Than Zero and I share a common bond that can never be broken:

We’ve both been dicked over by vanity sizing.

“Are you going to get those?” Less Than Zero asks, nodding at the jeans I have on.

“I guess,” I say. “I mean, I need a new pair. My last pair got barfed on at work.”

“God,” Less Than Zero says, wrinkling her chipmunk nose. “Where do you work?”

“Oh,” I say. “A dorm. I mean, residence hall. I’m the assistant director.”

“Rilly?” Less Than Zero looks interested. “At New York College?” When I nod, she cries, “I thought I knew you from somewhere! I graduated from New York College last year. Which dorm?”