Skin and Bones (3 page)

“Are you decent?” she asked.

“I was about to hop in the shower.”

“That sounds dangerous,” she said, chuckling at her joke. “Just kidding. I’ll slip your menus under the door.”

“Thanks.” Bones picked them up, staring at lunch. His throat closed up and his heart worked at recalibrating itself as he read the number of calories listed on the menu. Two-hundred-and-fifty: one-quarter-turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with crust (125 calories), one-half medium apple with skin (40 calories), mixed green salad (40 calories) with one-tablespoon of balsamic vinaigrette (45 calories).

He knew his calories as well as he knew his ABCs. Counting calories usually quieted his brain. But not today. Two-hundred-and-fifty calories were more than he’d consume all day at home. He’d have to jog three miles to burn it off—or find a way to exercise for half an hour by (1) swimming, (2) rock climbing, (3) or ice-skating. Not very likely in this place!

Bones showered and put on his XL sweats, because baggy made him look bulky, and maybe that would be enough to keep Dr. Chu from piling on more calories. He buffed his buzzed head. He’d first shaved it in middle school after reading about a mathematician who’d figured Rapunzel’s fourteen-inch locks weighed fourteen ounces.

He’d once shaved his body too, even his eyebrows, which his friends said made him look like a hundred-year-old baby. He gave it up because the outgrowth drove him nuts.

Bones folded the menus and shoved them into his journal.

He had to find Dr. Chu.

Bones found his office down a long hall past the dayroom. He knocked and waited. Knocked again, waited some more.

Where’s the friggin’ doctor?

Cell phones and laptops weren’t allowed in the program. Except for letters and occasional family therapy nights, any contact with the outside world was highly discouraged, according to the thick paperwork the hospital had had him and his parents sign.

Bones should have at least tried to smuggle his cell phone in so he could text his mom and tell her he was being poisoned or tortured or something. She’d realize the program was a mistake and come and take him home. He knew she would.

Where is he?

Bones didn’t know he’d fallen asleep, sitting on the floor, until he heard Lard’s voice. “You missed breakfast, man,” he said. “You are so screwed.”

Bones stared across a cluttered desk at a silent Dr. Chu who’d formed a steeple with his fingers while waiting to hear the reason for Bones’s visit.

“Can I call my mom?” he asked, sliding lower in the fake leather chair.

Dr. Chu didn’t answer. It was like he’d manipulated the second hand on his clock so it wouldn’t move. Even the miniature ivy on his desk was dying under the strain of stopped time.

Finally Dr. Chu picked up the phone and dialed. “Nancy, please bring Mr. Plumb’s breakfast to my office. He’ll be dining with me this morning.”

“But I’ve always been able to call home.” Bones hated the desperate sound of his voice. “Anytime, any place.”

“Sorry, Jack,” he said. “Not from this place.”

There was only one way to make it through this. “Can I…? I mean, is it okay…? Do you have…rubber gloves?”

Dr. Chu frowned over a drawer, pulling out checkers, jacks, cards, and a pair of latex gloves. “You may think I don’t understand, but I do. Just give yourself time. It’ll get easier.”

Bones took the gloves, rolling them onto his fingers, exhausted all over again from the strain of the program. At least the calories from the impending feast wouldn’t be absorbed through his fingers and stomach.

Nancy walked in holding the same type of cafeteria tray used at his high school. “Here you go, Jack.” She smiled at him and left.

Bones stared at a cheap melamine plate with an omelet, fruit bowl, and dry toast.

“Is something wrong?” Dr. Chu asked.

I have the stomach flu, sore throat, tooth abscess, migraine, allergy to gluten…I never eat breakfast on Wednesdays or in closed rooms or during a lunar eclipse, especially in July or when I’m out of deodorant…

“I’m just not hungry.”

“Take your time.”

Bones cut the omelet in half, turned it, cut it in half again, and then once more. He couldn’t breathe, dying the slow death of a bug on a fly strip. Fifty-three minutes and seventy-two bites later nothing was left on the plate except years of scratches.

Back in his room, Bones paced from the window to the door and back. He counted thirty twelve-by-twelve linoleum tiles, slapping the windowsill before turning around, petrified that fifteen minutes of speed walking wouldn’t burn off breakfast.

Lard looked up from a celebrity chef cookbook. “You’re driving me nuts!”

Bones hit the deck. First sit-ups, then he rolled over for push-ups. The tip of his nose grazed the towel he’d thrown on the floor. He blinked salt from his eyes, then felt a heavy weight on his butt, knocking the air out of him. “Get your skinny ass up,” Lard said, releasing his boot. “I need a smoke.”

Bones rolled out from under the boot. He had a really, really bad feeling about this. But he gathered up his sweaty self and draped the towel over his shoulder.

Lard pushed two cookbooks at him. “If anyone asks, you’re helping me in the kitchen. Follow me.”

“Okay.”

Lard and Bones slowed at the dayroom when they saw Eve sitting on the couch sipping from a two-liter bottle of Crystal Light (5 calories per serving).

Where’d she get that?

Morning light filtered in, turning her wavy hair bronze. Her blouse was unbuttoned enough to show off the frilly lace of her bra. She’d kicked off her shoes, revealing perfect toes with cranberry polish.

Normally Bones didn’t notice feet, but Eve was unbelievably
hot
for someone his aunt’s age.
An experienced older woman
, he thought. When he felt himself harden under a thick blend of cotton and polyester he mentally did the times tables backward. Unfortunately it only worked part of the time.

Eve caught him staring. “How’s your second day going?”

“You can call me Boner,” he said like an idiot. “I mean
Bones
.”

Lard snorted.

Eve smiled knowingly.

Bones tagged along behind Lard through the dayroom and down a corridor to a service elevator, trying to will his erection down.

“Nothing’s going on until lunch,” Lard said when the elevator opened. “So don’t look so guilty.”

Bones shrugged and followed him into the elevator.

The doors opened onto what looked like a storage area crammed with paint cans and rolls of carpet. Lard led the way to a fire door. Stenciled letters warned
restricted area. no exit: alarm
.

Lard bulldozed right through it. They emerged onto a portion of the roof about the size of a basketball court. A chain-link fence protected the perimeter, but the smoggy air smelled like freedom. “Come on.”

They walked around a jumble of junk—antennas, air compressors, satellites—and rounded a corner to a smaller area with raised vegetable beds.

“I’ll never buy food shot up with hormones when I own a restaurant,” Lard said. “Chicken nuggets sound healthy enough, but they have more than three dozen ingredients—not a lot of chicken in a nugget.”

Bones put on his gloves in case he’d have to touch something with calories, like dirt. “Can we talk about something else?”

“That’s the wrong attitude, man. Don’t you want to get over this shit?”

“Not at this particular moment, since it’s almost lunch and my jaw still hurts from breakfast.”

Lard shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t live inside your skin.”

“It’d be a little crowded.” Bones was thinking this buddy thing was overrated. He gripped
Celebrity Chefs
in one hand, Rachael Ray in the other, and launched into bicep curls.

Lard probed the dirt with his fingers. “Peppers could use a drink,” he said. “Get the watering can. Over there by the faucet.”

Bones filled the two-gallon can and carried it back, pumping it up and down like a dumbbell. Lard squinted under his shag of hair. “One sick fuck.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Some more than others, and some of us are just regular guys who wanna get laid.” Lard dug at the base of a tomato plant. He unearthed a ziplock sandwich bag, kissed it, dirt and all, and dragged two chairs into the shade. “Have a seat.”

The contents of the bag may have looked like dried oregano, but even a guy who’d led a pathetically sheltered life knew better than that. Lard took out a packet of Zig-Zags and brushed it off. He smoothed out the thin sheet of paper.

Bones watched while Lard pinched and sprinkled the dried stuff with precision. He licked a seam, rolled it easily, and twisted the ends.

“Are you crazy? Smoking that up here?”

Lard struck a match in reply. He lit up, inhaling. The tip glowed red. A seed popped, hitting his T-shirt, burning a tiny hole. So those weren’t dots of Worcestershire sauce on his shirt after all. He held the joint out to Bones.

“That stuff’s bad for your health,” Bones said. “It gives you the
munchies
.”

“Pot is one of your basic greens,” Lard said, exhaling smoke. “It has all kinds of nutrients, even omega fatty acids. Pot, my friend, is part of the fucking food pyramid.”

Lard snuffed the burning tip, put what was left in the bag, and offered up a mint. “Sugar-free.”

They worked their way back through the maze of junk—barely reaching the door when it flew open. A beanpole guy with mushroom cap ears emerged in chef clothes—white shirt with two rows of black buttons and the same type of pinstripe pants Lard wore. Suddenly he was in front of them, sniffing the air. Lard threw his arms around the guy like he’d been reunited with his long lost dad. “Gumbo!”

“Have you been smoking? I told you, if you get caught—”

“This is Bones,” Lard said quickly. “In case you can’t tell, he’s anorexic.”

“Pure?” Gumbo turned to study him. “Or purge?”

“Look at his teeth.”

Bones smiled, offering proof in enamel.

“And no scars on his knuckles—I checked.”

“Have they given you a job yet?” he asked Bones.

“Nuh-uh.”

“I could use some help in the dayroom,” Gumbo said. “Setting up tables and chairs for meals, then breaking them down afterward. I can talk to Dr. Chu if you’re interested.”

It sounded like calorie burning to Bones. “Sure, thanks.”

With little time left before lunch, Bones decided to work in his journal. He wished he could delete the memory of that fateful day in the department store with the insensitive sales clerk.

He flashed on the first time he’d worn his new
Huskies
to school. He’d been walking through the cafeteria when his plate of custard slipped off the tray. He’d knelt in the stiff knees to wipe up the mess when cross-eyed Valerie Willendorf shrieked, “Jack’s eating off the floor!”

At first the room was quiet, in fact the space had never been so quiet, unless the principal was on duty. Then the kids fell all over each other laughing.

“Get the dork a fork!” Valerie again.

The rest of the year, anytime something spilled—watercolor in art class or slime during a science project—some jerk called out for Jack to lick it up. He’d heard,
Hey, Jack, suck it up
countless times. He only wished he’d had the guts to defend himself, gotten in their faces, and given it right back to them.

Bones went to the dayroom hoping the pain of homework would be lessened if Eve occupied the couch. He’d just sat down, disappointed not to see her, when Unibrow rounded the corner, pushing a wheelchair occupied by a slight girl, his jowls flushed under the strain.

The girl was connected to an IV line that ran from a clear bag on a pole clamped to the chair’s back. She wore a low cut black leotard over thin black tights. Leg warmers ran from her ankles to the top of perfectly straight thighs. Her eyes were downcast, their color a mystery.

Bones tried to look away. But. Could. Not.

She was as thin as a hummingbird feather and just as translucent. So frail. So incredibly delicate. He drank in the sight.

The girl looked up and saw him staring. Her eyes were raw almonds, her freckles fine as sifted cinnamon.

Lard sauntered in, breaking the spell. “Hey there, Alice,” he said. “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up. I’d ask how you’ve been, but that seems obvious.”

She smiled in a way that commanded the room. “I’ve missed you too, you big tub of lard.”

Just as suddenly, she was gone, wheeled down the hall. Bones stared at the space, swept away by perfection. He wondered where Unibrow was taking her. And when she’d be back.

The next two days passed in a blur of agonizing meals, painfully boring therapy sessions, and inane writing assignments. Bones couldn’t shake the vision of Alice in the tight-fitting leotard and tights, like a thin layer of extra sexy skin. He sat alone in the dayroom with his journal, wondering if she’d been real.

The girl who’d been crying in therapy strolled in. Tamara? Tasha? No. Bones remembered her name was Teresa. Her makeup looked like it had been cried off. She wore a turquoise T-shirt, which she kept tugging over her voluminous butt.

Bones tried to think of something nice to say to make up for all the mean things he’d thought about her. Truth was he’d started judging fat people long before he’d started trying to lose weight. Twisted logic, for sure.

He tried to put himself in Teresa’s place, imagining how hard it’d be to squeeze into the hospital’s stall shower, how horrible it would be to see all that flabby flesh in the mirror. But the images required her being naked so he shrugged them off.

Teresa picked up the TV remote and folded her overly stuffed self into an easy chair. She clashed with its sickly yellow and brown stripes. “Hardly anyone talks about shame,” she suggested, noting his journal. “Or remorse. Dr. Chu would wet himself if you wrote about that.”

Teresa surfed the channels, finally settling on a reality show about disgustingly fat people who were looking for someone to share their life with. “The guy on the left used to have a twin brother,” she said. “But he ate him.”