Teenage Waistland (20 page)

I’ve probably read the first few entries a dozen times now, and I can’t decide what’s most upsetting: Marcie and
Char horsing around in their nightgowns all day—Char’s obviously in no hurry to come home—or the lingerie flirty
Hotstuff
chat with Bobby? And the “
we’re
not supposed to be lifting anything.” I scroll back through the previous posts and get a sicker feeling in the pit of my stomach. A pain that has nothing to do with my operation: Char is clearly leading everyone to believe she’s already gotten banded. Sure, she’s being clever by not saying anything outright. But there’s absolutely no doubt about it. Char is lying to Teenage Waistland.

It’s after eight now, and I’m so angry I could bust my stitches. Char’s cell still rings, but she’s not picking up. I check my out-box status again: every text I wrote definitely got sent! I go back to the blog and scroll through the entries. I just can’t believe it.

Char has plans for Bobby?
I bet he wouldn’t be so into her crazy plots and plans if he knew she was lying about her surgery—he seems like someone who may care about honesty. And to top it all off, she’s passing out
advice
:
We
should do this,
we
should do that.

If Ms. Know-It-All won’t speak to me on the phone, maybe she’ll answer on the blog. I make up a username she won’t recognize and log in.

And then
Char-latan
disappears. Again.

I spot Char half a block away. Alone. She’s smiling and waving to me in this pink flowy shirt thing that looks see-through from here and her curls are flying everywhere. I’m outside Starbucks on the corner of Seventy-ninth and Park waiting to hear this great idea of hers—something to do with my stomach and practice starting in a few weeks.

“Marcie bagged out,” she says, standing on her tippy toes to kiss me on the cheek. I’m busy checking out her blue toenails and flip-flops, and like an idiot, I bump her forehead.

“Sorry.”

“No worries, Bobby. We’re not allowed to have Frappuccinos or anything, but how ’bout a water?”

“Yeah. Sure. I got that,” I say, grabbing the door.

“A real gentleman, aren’t you?”

“No doubt.”

She laughs.

“So, what’s your big idea?” I ask.

“You don’t like surprises, do you?”

“Not if the surprise is going to another dildo store,” I say.

“Are you sure? They sell other things too.” Char laughs, and I feel my face burn. And something else. Char hits my arm. “Seriously—my
brainstorm
is a chest protector. I read about it online. People use it to protect their chests after open heart surgery but we can use it as a shield for your stomach. Genius, right?”

“I don’t know. You really think it’ll work?” I say as we get up to the cashier with our waters.

“Of course, Bobby—that’s what makes it a brainstorm.” Char laughs and I pay for both bottles. We’re heading out of Starbucks single file through the lunch crowd piling in, and I see a familiar yellow football jersey up ahead—Massapequa. Massapequa juts his chin at me and I nod back. Professional courtesy. I’m about to turn to Char and tell her that this is one of the guys we’re going to crush at our preseason opener, but I spot the hot little blonde he’s with and beeline to the door, holding it for an old guy, who then has to hold it for Char. She catches up to me on the sidewalk and we start walking.

“So, Bobby,” Char says, “what comes after the chest protector? A suit of armor?”

“I thought you were sure about the chest protector thing.”

“No, silly. I mean, once you start losing weight. I saw that huge football player in Starbucks, and it occurred to me that someone would need to be pretty huge himself to get him out of the way,” Char says. I flex my bicep and hold it out to her, and she squeezes it. “Very impressive,” she laughs. “But seriously? You just finished telling me how being a lineman is so important to you and your dad, and how you absolutely need this year’s best-player plaque for the Konopka
trophy hall in your house and all that other legacy stuff. Why in the world did you get this surgery if all this is so life and death for you? Oh, look—we’re here!”

It’s this surgical pharmacy near the bariatric center we’ve passed a bunch of times before. The place is crammed with boxes of neck braces, bedpans, and humidifiers. There are these weird handicap potty-seat things too, and the place smells like cleaning fluid in a sweaty locker room. And the few customers shuffling around in here are so old, they’re like three-quarters dead.

“Follow me,” Char says. I’m having trouble pushing my way behind her. The aisles are narrow and the shelves are spilling over with sick-people stuff.

“Check out these wheelchairs,” I call to Char, and send a big one rolling right at her.

“Are you crazy?” She crosses her eyes as she jumps out of the way.

“Not any more than you,” I say.

“I’ll give you that,” she says, ducking around the next aisle while I put the wheelchair back.

“Bobby, ready for your sponge bath?” I hear, and it’s Char wearing a shower cap and holding a long stick with a loofah on the end.

“Gimme that,” I say, and grab it. She grabs another and now we’re fencing in the aisle and cracking up.

“Excuse me! Can I help you?” It’s another old guy, but this one is wearing a pharmacy smock.

Char puts the loofah stick back in the bin and says, “Yes, in fact, you can help us. We need a chest wall protector.” Dad would never believe how well this girl can take complete control of a situation
with a plaid shower cap on her head
.

“Down to the end of the last aisle in the back,” Old Man Pharmacist says, all cranky.

Char grabs my hand. “Let’s go,” she says, winging the cap like a Frisbee back into the bin the minute he turns around.

Char finds the chest protectors first. “You see?” she says, waving a box at me. “It’s a hard shell with a thin cushion underneath. All we have to do to make it a stomach protector is turn it sideways and reengineer the straps. Take off your shirt real quick so we can see which of these models would work best.”

“Not here, are you kidding?”

“C’mon. No one’s looking.”

“Yeah, but … Someone might come.”

“Here.” She pulls me to the corner by this door that says Employees Only and peeks in. “Your dressing room, sir,” she says. “Boogeyman’s gone.”

“But—” I say. Char puts her finger in front of her lips and motions me to enter, and I do. She grabs a roll of paper towels from a shelf and jams it so the door stays open and we have a little light. We’re like in this really tight space between the door and a shelving unit, and every time we move, we hear something—plastic or cellophane maybe—crunching underfoot. There’s no air in here and it’s boiling hot.

Char pulls the first chest pad out of the box and says, “
Now
take your shirt off.” I’m panicking about her seeing my fat stomach. And moobies. There’s not even enough room. We’re six inches from each other, and if I lift my arm I’ll asphyxiate her with my sweaty pit. I just stand there frozen. “C’mon. It’s no big deal. It’s only me here,” Char says softly. She begins lifting my jersey and I don’t stop her. When she gets it up around my neck, I just pull the damn thing over my
head and stand there, naked from the waist up, trying not to act like a self-conscious pussy.

“Here—hold the pad over your stomach while I try to work the straps around your waist,” Char says, straining to thread the strap around my back and pull it through with her other hand—her face like two centimeters from my right moob and only a few more than that from my sweaty armpit.

“Let’s just forget this,” I mutter, leaning away from her and reaching for my jersey on the shelf behind her at the same time.

“What?” she says. “Why ‘forget this’? I don’t really understand what you want, Bobby.” She drops the arm holding the chest protector and looks up at me with her big blue eyes. “Do you, Bobby? Do you understand what you want?” She’s so close I can feel her breath. And there’s no place for me to look away. My whole field of vision is her face, so full of concern. And those eyes.

“I don’t know what I want. All I know is what I
don’t
want,” I hear myself say. My chest is heaving and I feel a strange rush of emotion—like something big or important is happening whether I want it to or not.

“Tell me,” she whispers. And that’s all I need.

“Char, I don’t want to be a fat lineman anymore. And I don’t want to run a hardware store. I don’t want to have the same life as my dad and my grandfather. I don’t want the Konopka legacy, I want to make my own life.” I can hardly breathe; I can’t believe I’m saying this stuff, let alone telling it to another person. But it’s like, just as long as I keep looking into her eyes, nothing bad can happen. The concern on Char’s face melts away into a huge smile.

“Of course you want to make your own life, Bobby,” she says softly. “It’s okay. It’s your right. How else could you ever be happy?”

My chest starts heaving even harder as relief floods my body, and I can’t understand it. How can something this simple be a revelation? I’m huddled in a cramped airless stockroom that’s got to be at least a hundred degrees, and I’ve never felt so free in my life. Char’s arms go back around me as she tries again to work the straps, her body pressing up against the pad on my stomach. Her lips brush against my chest, and something else feels simple and obvious too.

“Char?” I whisper. “Forget the straps.”

“Wait, I’m almost there,” she says. I feel the latch click behind me, but I put my arms around her to keep her from pulling away, and when she lifts her face to look at me, I lower mine and kiss her. Char steps back, but only to wrap her arms around my neck and pull me in closer. And then we’re kissing and hugging and laughing—I don’t know how long—when the stockroom door flies open and Old Man Pharmacist starts going berserk.

We’re still laughing when we come crashing out of the pharmacy, me with my jersey on backward, holding the bag with the chest protector Char talked the pharmacist into selling me before he kicked us out, and Char with her hair all wild and messed up. I grab Char’s hand with my free one and pull her into a small alley, and we kiss again, this time a long slow one.