Skin and Bones (7 page)

“Should I change in here?” he asked. “Or the laundry room?”

“In there.” Lard threw his bedspread haphazardly over his bed. “Don’t worry, it’ll be over in a flash.”

Bones rushed through his bathroom routine. His pee smelled like cat piss. He flushed. He used his towel to clear a swath in the foggy mirror. And there he was, all bloat and jowls.

Lard’s voice came through the open door. “Don’t sweat it, man.”

“People only say that when there’s something serious to worry about,” Bones shot back.

“Just trying to help.”

Bones rummaged through his closet for clean sweats, changed, and grabbed his gown. “Yeah…okay…sorry,” he said, rushing out, as the knives faced off in the hem of the gown.

The door to the examination room opened just as he got there. Teresa came out still in her gown. No bra, he noticed, looking away.

“I lost seven more pounds,” she said. “It feels good, you know, not to be puking in a gas station bathroom after binging on hamburgers. Even the sores in my mouth have healed. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know you think that stuff’s gross.”

Bones raised his shoulders. “It’s okay.”

“It’s so not okay, Bones. I don’t ever want to be that person again.” She shook her head in that way of disbelief. “I never thought I’d be able to eat like a normal person and lose weight.”

“You’re up next,” Unibrow said from the doorway.

Bones sat hunched in the droning silence of the too-bright office. The overhead light sounded like it was full of dying flies. Dr. Chu’s fingers were never still, unless they were forming a steeple, and even then they
tap, tap, tapped
. Bones wanted to break them off.
Snap, snap, snap.

Bones knew what was about to happen.

Dr. Chu confirmed it. “How are you feeling today?”

It was a trick question.

Bones let his eyes roll back in his head, trying to figure out what Dr. Chu wanted him to say. The truth was, he felt like crap. Unibrow had noticed the sagging hem in his gown when Bones stepped off the scales. Unibrow didn’t seem surprised. More like,
Knives? Not very original
.

“Can you tell me why you added weight to your gown?” Dr. Chu asked.

Another trick question.

Bones shrugged. “I wanted you to think I was gaining weight.”

Dr. Chu nodded. “We need accurate records for every patient.”

(Our job is to make sure you gain as much weight as possible while you’re here.)

Dr. Chu leafed through Bones’s file, checking off little boxes. “Since you lost weight—even with two stainless steel knives in your gown, it’s obvious you’ve been purging. Either by vomiting or—”

(We have closed-circuit cameras and hidden microphones in your room.)

“Or engaging in unauthorized exercise.”

(Bingo!)

“I know this may be difficult,” Dr. Chu said. “But the nutritionist and I have decided to raise your calories.”

(We won’t be satisfied until you resemble a scrap-fed hog.)

“Are you listening to me, son?”

Bones’s eyeballs hurt from so much nodding. “Yes, sir.”

(Fuck you!)

“One-hundred calories isn’t as bad as it sounds.” Dr. Chu dropped his voice, forcing Bones to lean forward in his chair. “That’s it for now.”

Bones got up and headed to his bathroom, where he stripped, cold and shaking. He stood on the overturned waste can, knowing he’d never see his ribs again. Not with an extra one-hundred calories per day. He focused on his collarbone, his sternum. His reflection flashed:
The object in mirror is larger than it appears.

He grabbed the can of shaving cream and doused his pathetic self in menthol foam.

Lard sat slouched at his desk reading
Great Meals for Couples or Crowds
. He’d added two-for-one restaurant coupons to his bulletin board. “How’d it go with Chu Man?” he asked, looking up.

“I feel like I’ve sucked a dozen raw eggs,” Bones said.

“Don’t do that, man.” A Lard snort kicked in. “You’ll get salmonella.”

Bones passed the rest of the afternoon in an invisible cloud.

The only thing clear was Alice’s absence. Nancy said she was downstairs undergoing tests and took the opportunity to explain the seriousness of electrolyte imbalance.
Blah, blah, blah
.

Bones opened his journal and flipped to his last entry. He’d been writing about the day the scales dipped below 107 lbs.
I felt like I’d sunk the winning basket in a tie-breaker game because that’s how people treated me. Being skinny made me a winner
.

He closed his journal, barely remembering he’d written that. He and Lard decided to spend the hour before dinner on the roof. Bones was surprised to see Alice there, lounging on a yoga mat.

“Hey there,” she said, smiling at him.

Bones shook off his cloud of doom and stepped into a world of sunshine. “Hi.”

He blinked at the pale skin peeking through her ripped tights, then noticed cotton taped inside her elbow. “Damn vampires,” he said.

She tucked a strand of strawberry behind her ear. “And I still have to down an eight ounce glass of some sodium crap.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Lard said.

“You have an amazing power for stating the obvious,” she said and shrugged. “I suppose they’ll want a sample of my scales to see if I’m a fish.”

Bones laughed.

But Lard said, “You’d better get back before they come looking for you.”

“You used to be more fun,” she said. “Besides, the lab’s a certified zoo—they won’t miss me for days.” Then she asked Bones to help untie her yoga mat. “The string has a knot.”

He bent down beside her, blinded by suntan oil glistening on her chest. Apparently she’d cut a hole in the mat’s seam because she slipped her hand easily inside. She made a face in concentration and drew out a silver case, matches, and a foil packet.

“There you are, you little beauties.” She tossed the packet to Lard. “Turkey jerky,” she said. “Low fat. No MSG, artificial coloring, or flavorings.”

“And I have something for you,” he said, handing her a tube of hemorrhoid cream.

“Awesomeness!” Then she explained to Bones, “I rub it on my feet to numb the pain. Pointe shoes can be a real killer.”

Who knew hemorrhoid cream was multitalented?

Alice sat on the mat with a cigarette between her delicious lips.

“Sorry, I have to ration them,” she said, lighting up. Even though everyone knew smoking could kill, she looked amazing doing it. “I don’t know how long I’ll be stuck here this time.”

“I don’t smoke,” Bones said.

She tilted her head. The sun peeked over the edge of the roof, turning her arm hairs bronze. Bones wanted to lick them, calories be damned. “Not anything?” she asked.

“Nope.”

“Cigarettes curb your appetite, unlike—” She paused watching a white ribbon of smoke curl up.

As if on cue Lard lit a joint.

Alice spread her legs into a perfect V. Her muscles were long and taut. She stretched over one leg and then the other. Bones almost passed out when she stretched forward between those same widely spread legs. He wanted to kiss all her stretchiness right then and there and everywhere.

“I have an audition in a couple of weeks with a new ballet company,” she said, sitting up. “It’s at the opera house downtown. You should see it. Amazing, with crystal chandeliers and velvet seats.”

Bones remembered the bus ride to and from the theater more than the theater itself. “Our class went there in fourth grade,” he said. “There was a car lot down the street with a Felix the Cat sign.”

“That cat’s famous, man,” Lard said, dragging a chair over. “Historical.”

Alice tapped ash into a paper cup. “Did you see the dressing rooms? I practically grew up in them. My parents are actors. Sometimes they direct.”

“Cool,” Bones said.

Alice snuffed her cigarette. “Not really.”

Lard inhaled, coughing. “Will you be able to dance that soon?”

Bones was wondering the same thing.

Alice ignored him. “A real friend would help me find a place to practice my leaps.”

“What about up here?” Bones suggested.

“Too rough on my shoes.” She stood up and made her way across the roof, clutching her tube of cream.

Bones watched her go.

Lard took another hit. “I hate to say it, but she’ll never change.”

“Who wants her to?”

“I mean, change, as in, get better. She’s in and out of here so often they could name a revolving door after her.”

Lard might have known her longer, but that didn’t mean he knew her better. “I can help her,” Bones said.

“Isn’t that like the blind leading the blind?”

“Says he who resorts to Biblical idioms.”

Lard chuckled and smoke seeped through his nose. “She’s my friend and I’m fiercely loyal, you know that. But you have to admit it, man, she doesn’t even have boobs.”

“Sure, she does. They’re just not as big as yours.”

Lard snort-laughed. “Well played.”

Bones woke up sometime after midnight stressing out all over again about his weigh-in. No way he could have dropped to ninety-nine pounds. Not with all the calories they were forcing down him. It didn’t make sense.

He stared at the ceiling, picturing Lard and Teresa hunched over their plates, shoveling in endless calories. Yet they said they were losing weight too. He wondered how much the scales were off? One pound? Three? Ten? Unibrow must have switched scales before Bones came in yesterday.

A loud clang in the corridor, then one word made it into the room. “
Shit!
”

Bones wondered if it was a patient sneaking around in the hospital, then decided it was probably an exasperated nurse going out for a smoke. He worried himself back to sleep; he’d had a lot of practice at that.

Alice wasn’t at breakfast, which gave him more to worry about. He sat with Lard and Teresa and tried to figure out how to get rid of his corn flakes. (1 cup, 100 calories. Half cup low-fat milk, 60 calories. One bruised banana, 100 calories.)

“There’s something going on with the scales,” Bones said.

Lard sopped up two runny egg yolks (110 calories) with what was left of his whole-wheat toast (128 calories). He stuffed the entire disgusting wad in his mouth. “Let me guess. You lost weight so Chu Man raised your calories?”

“That’s what I thought when I lost a pant size,” Teresa said. “But it isn’t the scales.”

“Waistbands don’t lie,” Lard added.

Bones had stopped listening. He was keeping an eye on Nancy, who was standing watch over the room. She winced, apparently from a pantyhose wound—nail polish patched the run.

Today Mary-Jane’s clip-on braid was blue. “Can I have a warm-up on my tea?”

Bones shoved his banana into his pocket when Nancy picked up the pot of hot water. When she filled Mary-Jane’s cup, he untied his tennis shoe and sat it on his lap.
Two seconds
. That’s all he needed to get rid of the rest of his milk and cereal.

Then, as if things weren’t bad enough, Dr. Chu walked in and looked around like he was about to interrupt himself. “Sexuality Group will be at ten o’clock instead of eleven.” He straightened his smiley face tie and left.

“No need for Bones to attend the sex meeting,” Mary-Jane said.

Elsie smirked. “Anyways, there can’t be much meat on it.”

Lard stood up so fast his chair slammed over backward. “
What’d you say?
”

Once Elsie and Mary-Jane stopped laughing and high-fiving each other, Elsie said, “You heard me.”

Lard looked like he was about to release a cage of flying monkeys. “And you’re nothing but a ruminant, polluting the atmosphere with your methane gas, who doesn’t know that anyways isn’t a real word!”

Spoken like the son of a teacher
, Bones thought, scooting his cereal bowl slowly to the edge of his tray. His shoe waited in place. His socked foot tapped the floor while he waited to make his move. Then a cell phone went off in someone’s pocket. All heads in the room swiveled as Elsie retrieved her phone, unsure if she should answer it or just hand it over.

Suddenly an orange peel flew past Bones’s line of vision, then an empty milk carton. Elsie hollered, “Food fight!”

That gave Bones another idea. Maybe even better than the first one.

No
, he told himself.
Stay focused
.

In the ensuing chaos, he dumped the soggy corn flakes into his shoe.

Bones had stopped breathing, afraid of getting busted or afraid of spilling his shoe, he wasn’t sure which. He tried a neutral expression while lacing it back up. He felt Teresa watching him, as if adding up how many starving kids in China the contents of his shoe could feed.

She started to say something, then hesitated, and shook her head. Bones heard her mutter something after he’d gotten up to leave.

“I got T-A-L-L-C-H-I-E-F on a triple-word score,” Alice said from the couch in the dayroom. The Scrabble board sat next to her on a cushion. Tiles were spread out in the empty box, all facing up. “You probably never heard of Maria Tallchief. She was the first Native American to be a prima ballerina.”

“Cool.” Bones shivered, mostly because his sock was wet. He limped over to check out the board. F-I-R-E-B-I-R-D. C-R-A-C-K-E-R. Alice chose three tiles from the box. “Have you ever been to a ballet?” she asked, adding N-U-T to C-R-A-C-K-E-R.

“I’d like to someday.”

“The classics are the best,” she said. “I’ve been collecting old videos for years.”

Then she smiled triumphantly. “Salt tablets.”

At first he thought she was talking about her next play on the Scrabble board. “I quadrupled the dose to retain water,” she explained.

Then Bones got it. “That’ll give you five pounds of water weight.”

“Just for weigh-in, then I’ll pee it away,” she said. “Chu Man may be smart, but I’m smarter. But don’t try to hide soluble tablets in the tank behind the toilet. Even waterproof bags leak.”

Bones nodded. There was so much she could teach him.

Alice twisted her hair into a Cinnabon on top of her head. “What is it about different body types shrinks don’t understand? It’s as if they want us all to look the same, like we should be pressed from the same mold. Seems a little Third Reich, if you ask me.”