Teenage Waistland Read online

  Char turns onto her side so the paramedics can slip the stretcher under her, and then, in a weak voice, she says, “Bobby? Are—” but one of the paramedics gestures for me to keep back while he puts an oxygen mask over her face before she can finish. Lucia completely freaks out all over again.

  “What’s happening to her? Why can’t she breathe?”

  “Oh my God! It’s our bands!” Coco yells, putting her hands on her stomach.

  “What kind of side effect is this? Is it going to happen to all of us?” Tia jumps on the what’s-wrong-with-the-band bandwagon, screaming. All the girls are going nuts.

  “It’s not a side effect of anything but Char starving herself,” East says calmly, but loudly enough that everyone hears.

  “What are you talking about?” Coco says to East. Except for the sound of the paramedics strapping Char in and closing their medic cases, the room goes dead silent.

  “Group—we’ll pick this up next week,” Betsy breaks in. “Don’t worry—Char’ll be fine. I’m going to ride to the hospital with her.” She briskly follows the stretcher and the EMS guys as they head to the door, and I take off with them. If they don’t let me in the ambulance, I’ll run the two blocks to the hospital and probably even beat them there.

  “Char never had the surgery.” East’s words ricochet through the room and pelt me in the gut. Betsy juts her face in East’s direction as she walks out. I jerk to a halt and spin back around to face the circle.

  Everyone’s stunned and sort of in shock and What the hell? Marcie’s ranting, “Are you hallucinating? Char’s surgery was right after yours, East. She was at my house a few days after!”

  East still hasn’t moved from her chair, but her voice is shrill. “What don’t you understand? She never had the surgery! She’s been starving herself so you would all think she had it. But she didn’t.”

  “On the blog—” Coco starts, but East snaps, “She was lying. Lying!” The girls go back to shrieking the same stuff—“Oh my God!” “Can you believe it?”—over and over.

  “So what’s wrong with her? I mean, if it’s not a complication from surgery,” I cut in.

  “She simply fainted, of course. From dehydration or low blood sugar. Or some combination of both,” Geek responds. “If she was starving herself as East indicates, and let’s say her blood sugar level—”

  “Save it, Alex!” Marcie shouts. “I need to make sure I got this straight. Char fainted because she’s starving herself because she wanted to dupe us all into thinking she had the surgery?” Geek Olive looks up at the ceiling like he’s doing the calculations, but East just closes her eyes and nods like she’s exhausted with the whole thing. Marcie goes mute and stands gaping at East. Then she puts her hand over her mouth and staggers out of the room.

  “Why?” Geek Olive asks simply during the brief break in the hysteria. But then it all starts up again.

  “Yeah, why! Why didn’t she have the surgery?” Coco and a few of the other girls peck at East like a bunch of lunatic chickens.

  East crinkles her face in disgust and finally stands up. “What does it matter why?” she yells back at them. “Something in her records. Who cares why?” And then she takes off, slamming the door behind her.

  “No,” Geek Olive says as the room quiets down after East’s dramatic exit. “I’m not asking why Char didn’t have the surgery. I’m asking why she’d lie about it.” But by the time the girls break out into another frenzy, I’m already out the door.

  27

  Ménage à Trois

  Friday, July 31, 2009

  Marcie (−13 lbs)

  Carlo and I are camped in hellish rush-hour traffic on the West Side Highway, sucking in a toxic brew of carbon dioxide, hot humid air laced with its own potpourri of local pollutants, and New Jersey’s usual wretched stink wafting in from across the river. We’ve got the windows wide open, Cuban music blasting on the satellite radio, and Carlo chain-smoking his filterless Camels. I could hang in the back of the limo, where it’s quiet and cool, but I don’t feel like being alone.

  Carlo’s rapping his fingers anxiously on the side of the car. He glances into the rearview mirror and cranes his neck to check his blind spot. “Maybe we should get off at Ninety-ninth Street and take Riverside to the bridge. Mrs. Rescott wants you home as soon as possible. It’s the last night for sitting and shivering, I think she said.”

  I snort. “It’s called ‘sitting shivah,’ Carlo, and it’s how Jews mourn their dead. For a whole week, people come to the house and sit around stuffing their faces, sucking down the Manischewitz and telling stories about the person who died. So for God’s sake, forget Riverside! Shivah ends at sundown, which is not for well over an hour, so there’s no rush. Let’s just relax and enjoy the fresh air.”

  Carlo sighs and wipes the sweat from his forehead with his shirtsleeve, then shakes his head when he notices the grimy residue he left on his white cuff.

  “Forgive me, Miss Marcie, but there’s nothing fresh about this air. And we’re moving about twenty feet per minute. Really, I think there’s been an accident and we should try another route.”

  “Marcie, just Marcie,” I say for the zillionth time. “And please, Carlo, I need this ride to last as long as possible. It’s the first time Abby’s let me out of the house since my grandmother died—a whole week ago now! I even had to beg her to go to group. Which turned out to be a freaking disaster.” I mutter the last part under my breath, but Carlo catches it and shakes his head.

  “Not a nice word for such a nice young lady,” he says, all fatherly-like.

  I turn to study Carlo. Despite his clean shave and carefully combed hair—and that ridiculous chauffeur getup they make him wear—he has a rough and gritty look about him.

  “Tell me, Carlo. Have you ever driven a truck?”

  It’s nearly dark by the time Carlo punches in his code to open the driveway gates, and thankfully, everything looks quiet now—no more cars parked in the driveway, and the main downstairs lights are out. Carlo called the house to let them know about the big traffic jam at the bridge, so I’m not going to catch any crap from Abby, who would otherwise conclude that I blew off Gran’s shivah to go out after group. She’s totally rabid with me these days, as if what turned out to be a fifteen-minute outing with Teenage Waistland last week was the moral freaking equivalent of slipping into Gran’s hospital room and pulling the plug. Add to that the lingering hostility from the Ronny-Liselle sector surrounding the dildo gag, and it’s no exaggeration to say I’m entering enemy territory.

  This place is so large my footsteps on the marble floor freaking echo, even though I’m treading as quietly as possible so as not to rouse the natives. I head straight for the kitchen. I can’t explain it. It’s like I have a kind of SAD—seasonal affective disorder. Sunlight or special full-spectrum lamps solve the problem for others; for me, refrigerator lighting. Ridiculous how soothing it is.

  Tonight, though, I’m going further than merely basking in the glow of Abby’s new Sub-Zero; if there ever was a time for a ménage à trois with Ben & Jerry, it’s now. They’re all I have. My mother hates me, my best friend since fifth grade had her frontal lobe removed when her Lap-Band went in and is now officially brain-dead, and the only person I’ve made a real connection with since I left Boston just turned out to be a lying sociopath. I spend a few moments deciding between Cookie Dough and Butter Pecan, but then a fresh rush of self-pity hits, and I grab both pints. I’m crying so hard, I can’t see a thing—every freaking utensil I grab from the silverware drawer turns out to be a fork.

  “There’s a clean spoon over here, Marcie,” a sickeningly familiar voice behind me says. I put down the ice cream so that I can shove my glasses onto my forehead and wipe my eyes with my sleeve before I turn around. Liselle’s standing by one of the dishwashers in a black tank top and size 0 Seven jeans, and she’s dangling a tablespoon.

  I grab the pints in one hand, walk over, and swipe for her spoon with my other hand. But Liselle pull
s it away and holds it over my head.

  “Marcie. Stop. You really don’t want to do this, do you?” she says. I brush a tear from my face and nod. “C’mon. You’re doing so well. How much now?”

  “Thirteen pounds,” I mumble miserably. A drop in the freaking ocean.

  Liselle rummages in her handbag and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “A much-lower-calorie addiction,” she says. I snort, but it’s a bad move—a ball of snot shoots out of my nose onto my lip. She sighs and hands me a napkin. “Come sit on the porch with me? We should talk.” I stand numbly for a second, then return to the freezer and toss the Butter Pecan back. When I turn around again, Liselle’s already gone. I grab the spoon she left on the counter and make it halfway to the staircase before turning back and trudging through the living room, out to the porch. This is how desperate I am to talk to someone.

  Liselle’s sitting on a wicker chair and she motions me to sit on the one next to her. I do so wordlessly. The first spoonful of ice cream hits my system, and I’m already calmer. Liselle lights her cigarette and inhales deeply.

  “Don’t say anything about this, okay?” she says, waving her cigarette. She flicks her ashes over the porch railing. I detect another smell—something different than cigarettes and perfume—and I realize she’s been drinking. This explains her being nice to me.

  “You shouldn’t drink and drive,” I mutter.

  “What’s the matter with you, Marcie? I haven’t left the house in a week. While you’ve been holed up in your bedroom, I’ve been stuck down here chatting and making nice with all your family friends and relatives. Besides, I wouldn’t ever drink and drive, and you know it—that was a nasty thing to say.”

  Crap. My worst enemy again. Liselle’s mother was killed in a horrible car wreck—the drunken idiot who slammed into her was a retired policeman who walked away with a small bruise and a suspended sentence. I nod miserably. “I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”

  “That’s okay, Marcie. There’s something personal I want to tell you without you throwing it back in my face later.” Man, you are drunk, my worst enemy wants to shout, but I give Liselle the nod/shrug combo and shovel another spoonful of ice cream into my mouth.

  “My mother was six months pregnant when she died—with a girl. She had sorta been hoping for a boy to even things out, but I was ecstatic—I was dying for a baby sister! Even though she was never born, I always felt her loss too. Twelve years later, Abby enters our lives. She’s lovely and warm, but the best part for me is that she comes with a daughter—you.” A small tear winds its way down Liselle’s face and I stupidly offer her the napkin I wiped the snot off my face with. She accepts it anyway.

  “Finally, the little sister I could share things with, teach things to. Except it doesn’t quite work out that way. My new sister turns out to be this snippy, angry, dildo-toting ballbuster who hates me from the moment she lays eyes on me.”

  “That would be me,” I mumble, and hold up my spoon. “Sorry. About the dildo part.”

  Liselle laughs and shakes her head as she pulls out another cigarette. “The dildo part is the least of it, Marcie. And maybe if it were in a different size and color …”

  I almost shoot my wad of ice cream across the porch. “Nooo—if you let me off so easily, I’ll feel even worse about the whole thing,” I laugh.

  “Nooo,” Liselle says, shaking her head again and not laughing. “There’s too much you feel bad about already. I’m trying to take this in the opposite direction.”

  I nod slowly and plow down another scoop of ice cream. “I get it. The beautiful princess takes pity on the poor little fat girl.”

  Liselle sighs. “Stop that, Marcie. I don’t feel sorry for you. You do. The fact is, I envy you in a lot of ways.”

  I snort right into the ice cream container and examine the chocolate chips to make sure that’s what they really are. “Name one, Liselle.”

  “Okay, you’re really funny.”

  I wave it away with my spoon. “You’ve got potential in that department.”

  “All right,” Liselle says. “You’re a lot smarter than I am.”

  I nod—there’s no getting around that. “Yeah, but so what? Being smart isn’t important to you. And when you’re beautiful, you get everything you want without having to be smart.”

  Liselle starts puffing furiously on her cigarette. “That’s my point. When you’re beautiful, you don’t have to develop any skills or talents to get noticed or define yourself, so you only turn out to be what everyone expects you to be. Isn’t that why anyone does anything in life? To be special? To be loved?”

  “That’s dumb, Liselle,” I say. “People do things because they find them interesting, not so somebody will love them. Do you think Jen’s poetry rants about men being nothing more than sperm donors is a personals ad in disguise?”

  “Jen’s exactly what I’m talking about!” Liselle exclaims, like suddenly her stupid notion is going to click and I’ll see the light.

  “Yeah, what about her?” I say.

  “I searched for Jen online, Marcie—just today. There’s not one poetry clip of hers left on YouTube—but I found at least twenty where she’s jumping around in her little tights demonstrating some new exercise routine.”

  “I know she hadn’t done any poetry rants in a while, but I didn’t realize she took them down,” I say slowly. “They were mad funny and got zillions of hits.”

  “Did you know she took down her Lap-Band blog too? In fact, I can’t find one smart Jen anything on the Web—if you only knew her by her Internet footprint, you’d never know she was smart. Or ever fat. She’s still out there trying to attract attention, Marcie. The difference is, now she has a more marketable product to sell,” Liselle says. “I could add that she’s switched her target market from angry feminists to, um, sperm donors, but then I’d sound too much like my dad and I’d have to kill myself.” She laughs.

  I am so furious at Jen all over again, I’m about to explode. “You’re right! That stupid superficial witch. When she was fat and I wasn’t, I didn’t care one bit. I didn’t care that I was like her only real friend—I always brought her wherever I went even though she wasn’t invited. Someone even once told me that hanging with Jen made me look like I was ‘as weird’ as her, but I never even thought about how being with Jen affected how others saw me. But after I go to Mexico with her for her surgery, I have mine in New York, and she cuts out on me for some loser she just met. All that time, she never really cared about me—I was just the only one available. And when she got thin, she stopped needing me anymore! You know, she never even called or texted me. Not once after my surgery.”

  Liselle tosses her cigarette butt into the shrubs. “You amaze me, Marcie. How could you make this all about you? You left your best friend drunk and crying out for help in the middle of a strange city—you’re damn lucky she remembered how to find your grandmother’s apartment building or she could have been hurt! Jen needed you then, Marcie. She needs you now, more than ever! Don’t you see how unhappy she is—how desperate? Where the hell are her parents? A sixteen-year-old girl is allowed to get breast implants and a lip job? Did you know she stole a bottle of my dad’s twelve-year-old scotch when she was here July fourth weekend? Do you even know she’s drinking?”

  My Ben & Jerry’s has melted on top, and I take a swig straight from the container.

  “Okay, Marcie. Let’s forget about how you’ve abandoned poor, sad, love-hungry Jen for the moment and talk about someone else you’ve taken great pleasure in hurting.”

  I make a Bitsylike sweeping motion giving Liselle the floor. “My life runneth over with morons. Who’s up next?”

  “Your gran,” Liselle says gingerly, like she’s afraid—with good reason—that she’s going to set me off again.

  “Oh, you also think I’ve done her wrong? She was on my back all the time telling me I wasn’t good enough. What am I supposed to understand about her that makes that okay?” I nearly shout.

  Lisell
e motions me to keep my voice down and lights up another death stick. “Your grandmother was like from ancient times when the only thing women were supposed to do was get married,” she says. “But she loved you a lot.”

  I shake my head vigorously. “Sure, she’d say how much she loved me. And then, in like the same breath, she’d catalog everything that was wrong with me. If I wasn’t good enough for someone who loved me, what chance did I have with the outside world? That’s why I couldn’t—wouldn’t—deal with her anymore. And I won’t be a phony and sit down here acting like I gave a crap about her dying when I couldn’t stand her alive. I don’t understand why I can’t get anybody to understand this.”

  Liselle takes a last inhale of her cigarette, leans forward, and snuffs it out in my ice cream. There was still a good five-hundred calories left. “What the fu—” I start, but Liselle puts her finger in front of her mouth and moves her chair closer.

  “Marcie, I heard the saddest story in my life tonight at the shivah while you were at group. It was about your grandmother and I think you need to hear it. Especially now, with what’s going on with Jen. But listen—don’t say a word of this to anyone. Your aunt Lucy was sloshed when she told me, but afterward she was terrified that Abby would find out that I knew.”

  “Fine, I won’t rat out the old lady, but nothing you tell me can change how I feel about my grandmother.”

  Liselle smiles. “Let’s make a bet. If this story doesn’t change your mind, I’ll be your slave all summer and drive you wherever you want to go. But if it does, then you’re going to clean up your act and take your crabby self-absorbed head out of your butt.”

  “Not an enticement, Liselle. You drive like a maniac. And I’ll get my license soon anyway.”