Why Girls Are Weird (7 page)

A Texas summer can be so hot that people want to kill and maim and cry bloody tears. It starts in April and doesn't let up until October, sometimes lasting all the way to Halloween. I had made it to August without a slaughter, but my rage was quickly turning inward. It had been 102 degrees for three days straight and when a heat wave like that hits, Texans stay indoors for as long as possible. Hiding from the heat inside of my apartment forced me to take a hard look at myself. I got angry about how lazy the heat made me. I had spent so much time playing storyteller for the Internet that I had neglected myself. I hated the way I lived, I hated the way I looked, and I hated the way I felt about myself. I was lonely and unhappy in my own skin. I felt like everyone could see I was uncomfortable and tacky. I was wearing shame like stirrup pants.

It was a Saturday morning and I was on my futon, flat on my back, trying hard not to move, when my phone rang. I tried to move only two fingers to answer it. As I brought my arm to my head a bead of sweat rolled from my wrist to my elbow. All I wanted was central air conditioning. Why couldn't the city provide that? Wasn't that the only humane thing to do?

“Hello?” I answered as I leaned my head closer to the fan beside me.

“I need your measurements,” Becca said without even saying hello.

“I can't move,” I moaned, feeling the heat make wavy curves around my body. I looked toward my kitchen and swore I saw a mirage.

“I need to measure you for your dress.” I could hear the impatience in her voice. It was the heat, I reminded myself, and had nothing to do with me. I couldn't imagine having a list of errands to run during this nightmare. I wasn't even getting into my car these days for fear of getting my thighs stuck to the seats and needing skin grafts to stay alive. Dale had told me Becca was pretty testy these days, so I was glad to be a peripheral friend of hers and therefore the last person she called for anything.

“What's the dress look like?”

“Open your door.”

I obeyed. Becca stood with her cell phone in one hand and a measuring tape in the other. Her long brown hair had been pulled back into an official “Don't Fuck Around With the Bride” clippie, and she was smoking with the same hand that held the phone. She squinted toward me.

“Hey, Anna. Can I smoke in your apartment?”

“Are you kidding? Even my cat smokes.”

I stood back to let her in. I couldn't remember the last time we were alone together. Since the breakup, she and I only saw each other when we were with the entire group. I never had much to talk to her about. I knew she worked in a PR firm, but I didn't know what she really did for a living. Like all the other women in my life, she floated on its outskirts as a feminine mystery.

“I'd suck your dick for some air conditioning.” She walked past me into the living room.

“Right back atcha.” The heat also put an end to pretenses. Everyone spoke succinctly, conserving all energy to minimize body heat.

Becca lumbers when she walks. There isn't a nicer way to say it. She stomps back and forth, as if both legs work independently of each other and never get on the same page. It's like they're playing a game with each other to see if each leg can keep up with the other one. I briefly thought of my downstairs neighbor as I watched Becca stomp over to my futon.

I lifted the bowl of ice cubes toward her. She took one and dropped it down the front of her bra. She gave a brief, chilled wiggle and I saw her face relax slightly.

“Thanks,” she said with a sigh. “Lift your arms.”

I tried to find a place to rest my gaze as my arms floated over her head.

“Let your stomach out. Stop sucking it in.” Becca yanked me by the measuring tape. She should have taken more than one ice cube. I thought about dropping one down the back of her pants.

“I'm not sucking it in,” I whined.

“You are too. It's not going to help any of us if you can't fit in the damn dress. Just stand naturally.”

I stopped sucking it in. I hadn't measured myself in years. The double-digit numbers she wrote to describe my waist and hips shocked me. When did a 4 get in there? I shouldn't have anything that starts with the number 4.

“You look taller than you are. Must be your personality.” There was no compliment in her voice.

I didn't have the energy to invent a comeback.

Becca slowly leaned forward, let her hair down, and then twisted it back up into the same shape, only tighter. Her face showed the strain she was under. Her eyes, normally slightly down-turned in a way that made you wonder if she was stoned, were now smaller and squinty. She looked exhausted and miserable.

I wanted to reach out and hug her. I wanted to hold her and tell her to remember why she was getting married. I knew that she had wanted this for a while. About two years ago, Mark told me that Becca had been having nightmares in which her parents were furious with her for not being married. So they had discussed it then and realized they didn't have the money. She never let it on to any of us how disappointed she was that she had to wait, but you could tell. You could see it in the way she looked at married couples and families. She'd get this look like she was comparing, wondering what piece of happiness they had that was still missing in her life.

I didn't hug her. I didn't even move closer to her. Still, she must have known I was contemplating it, because she said, “That's okay.” It came out of nowhere, the air so thick and the words so loud that they just hung there, stuck in the space between us.

“Ian is going to be at the wedding, you know.” She said it with that look on her face, that look I hate. I wanted to wipe it off of her, make her apologize for wincing, for lowering the corners of her mouth like she was holding back the world's best advice.

The sudden energy propelled me forward. I lit a cigarette. “Fine. Of course he is. He's supposed to be there.”

“I'm just saying.”

She was warning me. Telling me to prepare.

Then those stupid words poured out of me: “Is he bringing Susan?”

“Probably. You should bring someone, too.”

There was that tone in her voice. That sad voice used when someone's not dealing with life. That pity voice that says “We're only here for so long before you're just wasting our time.” The tone that told me to suck it up and move on.

After Becca left I went to my kitchen junk drawer, pulled out a measuring tape, and measured out forty-six inches. If my hips were laid out flat, they would be almost four feet long. Holy shit. My hips were almost as tall as I was. How much ass is that? How much fucking ass is that? That's an assload of ass. My refrigerator, minus the freezer, was the size of my ass. My entertainment center, from VCR to television, was the size of my ass. My bathtub was the size of my ass. I continued measuring things around my apartment, moving from room to room with my arms outstretched, the measuring tape pulled taut between my fingers. I was a measurement zombie—eyes bulging and mind swimming as I walked stiff-legged through the heat from one target to another. You could fit three Taylors on my ass. You could store all of my clothes in my ass. My bed? As wide as my ass.

I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen. I tossed my Diet Coke in the recycling bin and poured a tall glass of water. I sat down and wrote at the top of the page: C
HANGE
.

Eight months until the wedding, where people could say “She's really doing so much better. You should have seen her last fall. No, she was a mess. Trust me. Should have seen that ass. We're so proud.”

L
OSE
W
EIGHT
. That belonged right at the top. I added a sub-heading: (N
OT BECAUSE OF ANY MAN
,
BUT BECAUSE IT
'
S HEALTH-IER TO BE THIN AND YOU
'
LL FEEL BETTER ABOUT YOURSELF AND SELF
-
ESTEEM IS GOOD FOR YOU
.) Just in case there was any doubt.

Next on the list: Q
UIT
S
MOKING
.

I crossed it out.

D
RINK MORE WATER
.

Much easier, that one. Cigarettes were part of the diet plan. I wiped my forehead dry as I gave a glance around my apartment.

B
UY NEW FURNITURE
.

It was time to make this place presentable. I had stacks of books I'd read mingling with stacks of books I wanted to read dancing with piles of old bills that scattered the floor. All it would take was a trip to Target and I could contain it all. Just some shelves, a few storage units, and a shoe-holder thing. How hard could that be? Organize. Buy some drapes. Curtains. Didn't nice apartments always have curtains?

G
ET OUT MORE
. I was still learning this “alone” thing, but it was time I went out by myself. I didn't always need to go out with a friend. I didn't always have to have plans. I could see a movie all by myself. Or eat in a restaurant at a table for one. I'd never done either of those things in my life.

N
EW JOB
. I was sick of the librarian gig. I didn't want to work there forever, they didn't pay me as much as I could be making elsewhere, and I didn't know if I could handle the new school year that was quickly approaching without strangling a freshman. I should be a writer. I should be out there making a name for myself. But just where exactly was “out there”? Getting a different job would take away from my Anna K time. I updated and sent e-mails during the day since I did most of my daily duties at the school within the first five minutes. I was really paid to be there in case something happened to the network or some kid tried to look at porn in the computer lab. I was the glorified porn police.

N
EW HAIRCUT
. I'd been tired of my hair, but I was scared to do anything different to it. It hung here, long and boring.

I decided to start Task One immediately.