Skinny (10 page)

Rat and I stare up at the chart he’s just finished tacking up on my bedroom wall. It was actually his idea to put the playlist column on the chart. I’ve always said it’d be great if we could hear the soundtrack of our lives playing in the background. He remembered.

“Isn’t that the song the lady from England sang on that reality talent show?” Rat asks. I can see his back muscles working through the thin material of his faded red T-shirt as he writes the words on the chart. When did Rat get muscles?

“What?”

“The song from
Les Misérables
.” He points at the chart, and I notice his hands. My hands have always been the only tiny thing about me. If my hand was in his, my fingers would barely reach his knuckles. But it isn’t. I blink to clear my head. The lack of calories must be affecting more than just my weight.

“Didn’t I hear it on the radio?”

“Unfortunately,” I say. “Many people don’t even know the song comes from
Les Misérables
, one of the most famous and most performed musicals worldwide. It’s the only song that actually made the charts from the musical just because of that woman singing it on
Britain’s Got Talent
.”

“But it’s getting better, right?”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Your mood. Last week we were at the point of no return, going into the depths of the opera house, following the phantom, a vicious murderer. If that was any indication of your mind-set, it couldn’t have been good. This week we’re dreaming a dream. I figure, it’s got to be better.”

I’m surprised he remembers so much about
The Phantom
. I thought he was reading some physics textbook when I was watching it on DVD. Three times.

“
Les Misérables
is set in nineteenth-century revolutionary France,” I say. “ ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ is sung by Fantine who had bright hopes for love and life until reality took over, and her life became worse than she had ever imagined. When you actually listen to the words it’s all about lost hope.”

“Your music choices are depressing,” Rat says.

“It’s my soundtrack,” I say. Yesterday an ad for Burger King came on the TV, and I started to cry. Who cries over a hamburger commercial? I just want to believe someday I can actually eat a hamburger again. I grieve the loss of hamburgers and ice cream and M&M’s. Lost hope. What have I done to myself?

“Losing twenty-seven pounds since the surgery is pretty amazing,” Rat says, clearly still disappointed in my song choices. He only records the weight once a week, even though he and I both know I’m secretly weighing myself every single day. Sometimes more than once a day. Everyday the number on the scale is a little lower than the day before. I try not to hope too much but I feel a little spark growing somewhere deep inside me every time I see that little marker go down another couple of pounds. I know the weight loss will slow down now, but what if it stops entirely? What if I fail at this, too? This is my last chance.

“Why
American Idiot
? It’s not your usual choice for musicals,” Rat asks, after he finishes writing down my song for the week on the chart. He flops down on the bedroom floor beside me and pulls out his laptop to update the results.

“Billie Joe Armstrong is the lead singer for Green Day and he also wrote
American Idiot
. I read on his website that he wrote that song for his father, a jazz musician and truck driver, who died of cancer when he was only ten years old.” I lean back against my headboard and stretch my legs out on the bedspread in front of me.

“But why is it
your
song for this week?” Rat sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the chart.

“I’m hoping by September every thing will be different. School will start. I’ll be thinner. Maybe I’ll be used to this by then,” I say. “Maybe it won’t be so hard.”

Rat nods, but I know he doesn’t understand. Because it
is
hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I knew food is . . . was . . . the center of my world. Now, there is no public or private eating. I can’t eat anywhere anymore, and I don’t know what to do in its place.

Rat shuts his laptop. “If you’re going to be in that musical next year, you’re going to have to get out there and exercise. You saw how they performed
Oklahoma
, right? Even high school actors have to move.”

“Next week . . .” My voice trails off as his eyes meet mine.

“Right. Like that’s going to happen,”
Skinny says sarcastically in my right ear.

I finish writing the song for the week on the chart and try to ignore the words written in the next column under “Exercise.”

“The song is about time passing,” I say to Rat, “and about all the things that can change in a year.”

“You can’t spend all your time waiting,” Rat says. “This is the week we get serious about exercise.”

I feel a little sweaty and lightheaded when I look at that entry “Walk/Run” on the chart. I’m supposed to run? Really? I don’t know what’s bothering me more — that I’m going to be expected to go outside and exercise in front of the whole neighborhood or the fact that I only lost four pounds this week. And that feels crazy, since before the surgery I would have been thrilled to lose four pounds in a week. But now it’s different. I’m getting used to the big numbers and if it takes exercise to get them again, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ve come this far. I’m not going to stop now.

“Let’s go eat some lunch and then we’ll go for a run,” Rat says, like that is the most normal thing in the world. He puts a little smiley face beside the number of pounds I’ve lost — thirty-nine since the surgery — with a bright green Sharpie marker.

“But, first an experiment.” He rubs his hands together and leers like a mad scientist.

“On me?” I ask.

“Not on you,
for
you. Totally different.”

“Okay,” I say, cautiously.

“Really I guess you would call it a demonstration. About the rules.” He bends down to tie his tennis shoe and misses the big grimace on my face.

“I hate all these rules,” I say.

“There’s a reason for the rules.” He stands back up and heads out the door. “You’ll see,” he says over his shoulder.

I look at the perky little smiley face on the chart, and the number beside it, but I don’t feel like smiling about the lunch, the demonstration, or the run. I slowly follow Rat downstairs to the kitchen.

“Come here,” he says, from the sink. “What’s the worst rule to follow while you’re eating? The one you’re determined to ignore.”

I don’t hesitate. “Not drinking anything while I eat,” I say.

“Right.” He has a paper cup in his hand and, while I watch, he pokes a hole in the bottom with an ink pen. “I’m leaving about an inch hole, which is about the size of the outlet out of your stomach,” he says. He pours some water in the cup slowly and it goes right through the hole almost as fast as it went in.

“As I pour faster, it will begin to back up, but as soon as I stop putting in more water, it will empty rapidly.” He demonstrates. “That’s why gastric bypass patients can usually drink without difficulty.”

“That little hole in the bottom of my new little stomach is also why a fizzy Diet Coke doesn’t go down so easily anymore,” I say.

“Exactly.” He beams at me, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Next, let’s take a soft food.” He puts a couple of scoops of leftover mashed potatoes from the fridge in the bottom of the cup. “Notice that the first spoonful stays in the cup, but as you put more in, it forces some out of the outlet. If I put in chopped-up hamburger, steak, or chicken, it will empty very slowly. Shall we try it?”

I can tell he really wants to because Rat really loves a good experiment, but I just say, “No, I believe you.”

He frowns at me, but continues, “If you put in a big piece of bread or a large chunk of meat, it won’t empty at all.”

“Got it,” I say.

“Now, here’s the interesting part.” His eyes start sparkling behind his glasses like it’s Christmas. “If I pour water over the top of these mashed potatoes, what happens?”

I watch as the diluted food drips through the hole at the bottom of the cup.

“The cup empties,” I say.

“And?” he asks, waiting for it.

“So does my stomach,” I say.

“Right!” He shouts it so loud, I jump. “And then you’ll be hungry again and you will want to eat more.”

“What’s going on in here?” Dad stomps his tennis shoes on the back step before he comes in the kitchen door. He’s in his mowing-the-lawn Saturday shorts and T-shirt.

“We were just finishing up an experiment,” I say, grabbing up the paper cup and dumping it into the garbage beside the sink.

Dad pulls open the freezer door, dislodging a picture of Lindsey doing the splits, holding big green pom-poms over her head. Putting it back on display, he tucks it a bit more securely under one of the watermelon-shaped magnets, then surveys the inside of the freezer with a frown.

“You want to stay for lunch?” he asks Rat. “I’m going to heat up Ever’s favorite, spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Sure,” Rat says. “Need any help?”

“Nope. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

We leave him clattering around, pulling out pans from the cabinet. I know my dad’s trying, fixing favorite foods for Saturday lunch and all, but most of the time he looks at me like he’s scared to talk about food or dieting or how I look. Like I’ll instantly run upstairs to cram chocolate cake in my mouth and gain back all the pounds I’ve lost. Like it’s all so fragile and could disappear with just the wrong look or the wrong words.

So I think I’m slowly shrinking, but it’s evidently a big secret. Either that, or I’m not really looking any different at all. I’m not sure.

Charlotte comes in from the backyard carrying a freshly cut bouquet of yellow roses from the yard. Carefully slicing each stem off at the perfect angle, she arranges them symmetrically into a vase, equal spaces apart. Charlotte likes things orderly. Even flowers. The three different bottles of perfume she keeps on the top of her dresser are exactly lined up, even spaces apart, right next to the wooden plaque that reads, God isn’t finished ith me yet. There’s also a pyramid of large pink Velcro rollers on the dresser top, perfectly stacked, that has something to do with her daily hair routine, but I haven’t quite figured that out yet.

After the roses are arranged, Charlotte pulls out the plates and forks to set the table, chattering all the while about, “ isn’t it nice to have company for lunch.” Lindsey gets off the couch and slowly meanders to the table, talking on her phone the whole time. It’s rare that we’re graced with her presence. Charlotte calls upstairs for Briella, but we don’t wait.

“Hang up the phone, please,” Dad says, and Lindsey does but I can see she’s still texting from her lap.

Sitting at a table filled with food is an exercise in torture. Everything looks good. Everything smells delicious. The spaghetti in front of me is in fact my favorite. Big meatballs drenched in marinara sauce. French bread toasted in the oven with butter. I start to feel nervous. It happens every time now when I’m going to need to make a food choice. Choose the right thing and I might actually feel good, satisfied. Make the wrong choice, which usually happens these days, and I’ll be in the bathroom throwing it back up in minutes. I’m supposed to eat the protein first, that’s what the doctor told me, but I want the pasta and the bread. My mouth waters to sink my teeth into the doughy goodness of bread. Big, raw, torn-off pieces of hot comfort.

I put a meatball on my plate, a small piece of bread, and a spoonful of pasta. Before the surgery, this would have been a couple of bites, but now it will be my whole meal. I force myself to take a bite of the meatball first. Tiny. The end of a forkful. I chew like crazy and swallow. It goes down, but I want a drink of water. I reach for the glass and then make myself stop. I remember Rat’s experiment and that is why, when I’m sitting here chewing away at this tiny bite of meatball and wanting water to drink with it so badly you’d think I was staggering across a desert, I don’t pick up the glass in front of me.

One of the rules. Like eat the protein first and don’t eat anything sweet. Strange though, it’s one of the hardest rules to follow. Now I crave water while I’m eating. I guess you don’t miss it until you know you can’t have it. I started out deciding it was a stupid rule and I wasn’t going to follow it. I mean, after all, I had enough to suffer through at every meal, why would drinking make such a difference?