Diana Spechler - Skinny (P.S.)

SKINNY

A Novel

Diana Spechler

To my Timber Creek kids, and to the grown-ups, too

I put the Special in front of the fat man and a big bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup to the side.

Thank you, he says.

You are very welcome, I sayand a feeling comes over me.

Believe it or not, he says, we have not always eaten like this.

Me, I eat and I eat and I cant gain, I say. Id like to gain, I say.

No, he says. If we had our choice, no. But there is no choice.

Then he picks up his spoon and eats.

from Fat by Raymond Carver

Contents

Part I
Before

After I killed my father, he taught me that honesty is optional. But, of course, Id always known that. This was why I loathed being nakedmy choices were stripped away.

It was the first day of Staff Training, forty-eight hours before I would meet Eden Bellham, and I was naked among strangers. Well, naked enough. We all whispered, I feel so naked ! and giggled, awaiting commiseration, because who wants to be the Most Naked Person, to let her body blab her secrets? We stood in bathing suits and flip-flops. We were goose bumps sheathed in towels. We were vulnerable knees, scars with stories, fading bruises, February flesh. We were yellow-tinged toenails, awkward tattoos, scratched mosquito bites, suspicious moles. We were shamefully unshaven. We were birthmarks meant for lovers. We were eyes stealing glances. We were eyes pretending not to steal glances.

Lewis was calling my name.

We were gathered in the politely dim student lounge, which Lewis called the canteen. I separated from the group that was clustered around a bar with no stools, no bottles, no bartender, and walked to the middle of the lounge, where Lewis stood with the nurse, an obese woman with silver hair who had told us to call her Nurse, whose shiny beige leggings carried her cellulite like tight sacks of oatmeal. Nurse was holding a noose of tape measure around the nutritionists neck.

As I approached, Lewis watched me watch him. The picture of him on the Camp Carolina website, a head and shoulders shot, had depicted a much thinner man. In fact, his face was relatively thinsaggy at the neck, but narrow; clean-shaven; punctuated by wire-rimmed glasses and a gray helmet of hair with a widows peak so perfect, his forehead was shaped like the top of a heart. It was the middle of his body that betrayed him, like the hoop inside a clown suit.

Gray Lachmann. He swept an arm across his body and bowed. Gray from New York City.

Such a sad name, Nurse said, clucking her tongue. She shook her head and her chins flapped. Come here, honey. For an alarming moment, I looked at her outstretched arms and thought that she wanted to hug me, to ease the ache of my lackluster name. But then she let the tape measure unfurl from her hand. Lets see what you add up to.

Nurse wrapped the tape measure around each of my arms, my waist, my hips. She whispered, These leggings give me a wedgie. She scribbled something on a clipboard.

I let my towel fall to the floor, stepped out of my flip-flops, and stood against a wall. My bathing suit was a brown one-piece, as discreet as a loin cloth. I tried to remember more naked moments, but even the night Id lost my virginity, Id been wearing a sweatshirt and also had been spectacularly drunk. No, this was the moment. This was it. No one had ever been more naked than this.

I grew up in New York, Lewis said, aiming his camera at me. I smiled into the flash. In my heart, Ill always be a New Yorker. I envisioned him running to catch a taxi, his balloon belly bouncing, his silver whistle knocking against his chest. I used to eat at Luigis. In the Theater District? Back when I was a binge eater. Lewis chuckled. They have eggplant parm as big as your head. Its worth going. He motioned for me to step on the scale at his feet. Just for the eggplant. It falls over the edges of the plate... How tall are you?

Five four.

I watched him punch numbers into a handheld device attached to the scale by a long wire. Youre hardly fat at all, he diagnosed, and for some reason, I remembered my father stealing fries from my plate, poking them into his mouth, saying, You and your mother with your French fry aversions. Look what you make me do. Then to whoever else was in earshot: And they wonder why Im fat, these women.

Are you going to commit to the diet? Lewis asked.

I knelt to grab my towel. When I stood, I laughed. Im afraid of commitment. My laughter rang false, pinging off the walls like a pinball. I thought of my boyfriend, Mikey, saying, Leave funny to me, Gray.

Are you going to Lewis scrunched his brow, as if trying to remember something hed read. Are you going to surrender to my program ?

I could have answered him honestly: I didnt fancy myself the surrendering kind. I recoiled to think of abandoning control, of being caught under the arms and dragged someplace to rest. But the problem with the truth was that inside it lay another truth, and inside that another truth, like those wooden Russian nesting dolls. So instead I asked, The diet the kids are doing? I pulled my towel tight around my chest, letting my stomach muscles relax just a bit. I said cheerfully, Everyone has to start somewhere.

In the past year, I had grown dependent on platitudes: Thats neither here nor there. Qu ser ser. People always agreed. They sighed and nodded their heads and said, Thats for damn sure. If there was one thing they knew how to spot, it was wisdom.

Thats what I always say. Lewis rubbed his belly sagely. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Mostly, I was not a dishonest person. I had never shoplifted or copied answers on a test. Back in New York, when I felt like breaking plans, I told friends, Im staying in tonight, instead of doing what most people did, which was pretend to have a catastrophic disease. And I had been with Mikey for five years without cheating, ever since I met him outside Big Apple Comedy Club.

I was different then, fifteen pounds lighter, a girl with a father, a girl with a stupid office job. And I was so militantly in love with New York City, I once spent a Sunday on the double-decker tourist bus. Mikey was different then, tooa new jack, fresh out of the box, selling tickets for his own shows in the street.

I noticed him before he noticed me. I was walking aimlessly through the West Village, alone, because I loved Manhattan and its infinite channels. A guy in a red Big Apple Comedy Club T-shirt stood blocking the sidewalk. He was remarkably large, but not large like my father. My father was the fattest person I knew. Id seen fatter peopleon television, and in the Guinness Book of World Records , like the man who could get through a doorway only if he was buttered; and in person, too, but they were usually confined to wheelchairs.

By contrast, my father was active. He was no triathlete, but he cannonballed into swimming pools; and at weddings, he did the twist so low, his knees would crack audibly. When he waltzed my mother around the living room, she vanishedtiny and insignificantagainst his great belly, his sweating round head, his mammoth hands. This guy in the street wasnt fat; he was a relatively healthy-looking giant. And his presence was more assailable than my fathers. He looked overgrowna vegetable that should have been picked and was now too ripe.

You like stand-up comedy? he asked me. It was what he was asking everyone. He sounded distracted. I couldnt possibly have appreciated the weight of his question. Had he asked me something more direct, like, Would you like me to change the course of your life? I would have whacked him with my purse, shouted, No! and run.