Teenage Waistland Read online

  Abby shakes her head, grabs her empty wineglass, and heads inside to the kitchen. “Forget Mexico, Marcie. Money isn’t the issue. I want the best for you. You’ll be under constant supervision of doctors and nutritionists throughout the entire weight loss process. And the support—”

  “Mom! I can’t sit in a support group listening to a bunch of fat losers ramble on about their stupid little lives. Get me another psychologist—I promise I’ll cooperate this time and not spend the session texting with Jen.”

  Abby slams her glass on the marble countertop. “So that’s what you were doing?” she snaps, and storms out. I resist the urge to take her precious crystal wineglass and smash it on the floor. Instead, I just wait to hear her footsteps on the stairs before grabbing a spoon and hitting the freezer.

  God, I hate my mother. Of course she can afford to put me through this ridiculous and expensive clinical trial now that she’s married to Rich Ronny Rescott. The more money Abby can spend on my misery, the more she’ll enjoy the ride. Just the idea of not getting ripped off sends her running for refuge in the Dolce & Gabbana department at the Short Hills Neiman Marcus. They only make clothes for women size 14 and smaller, and Abby fantasizes about me one day fitting into her beloved D&G the same way competent mothers dream of their girls graduating med school! If Abby had stayed married to my dad, I’d have been banded in Mexico before you could say “burrito grande with extra sour cream.” Then again, if my mother hadn’t dumped my father and moved me to this soulless suburban hell so she could be with Rich Ronny, I wouldn’t need my stomach cordoned off in the first place.

  2

  Being Morbid

  Sunday, May 3, 2009

  East, 5′6″, 278 lbs

  Annie Katia Itou is my given name but I go by “East,” a nickname arising from “Far East” and my crazy Polish grandmother, who lived in our sunroom from the time I was a baby until she died six years ago. Grandma’s entire life orbited around her pills and me, her “little China doll”—yet another term of endearment that irritated my Japanese father. Though he’d grimace silently in Grandma’s presence, he always voiced his disdain when she wasn’t around.

  “ ‘Far East’ is an expression used to imply foreignness or exoticness in a derogatory way. Tell her again, write it on her hand if necessary. Annie is not Chinese, and she’s not from the Far East.” One time, Mom tried to gently explain that while her mother might be uninformed, she wasn’t racist. “Uninformed and racist? They’re the same thing!” Dad had said in the loudest voice I’d ever heard him use. “I won’t tolerate racism under my roof.” Then, in an even louder voice, Mom shouted, “The woman is in diapers, for heaven’s sake. How do you expect her to understand anything I explain to her?”

  Luckily, Dad’s moral objections were no match for Grandma’s Alzheimer’s, and “East” stuck. Had Grandma picked up on “Pacific Rim,” the politically correct term for East Asia, she might have nicknamed me Pacific and then the joke in school would be that I swallowed an entire ocean—or that my rear end is as wide as one. You don’t ever get used to being called names like “Beast” or “Feast,” but after a while, you learn to bear it. Maybe I just don’t care about being a reject. That’s why I’m not exactly jumping on my best friend Char’s latest harebrained scheme.

  Char’s had us on a zillion different diets and starvation plans over the past few years. Now she’s absolutely positive that our solution to weight loss is Lap-Band surgery. She was reading about it online when she saw the advertisement for this clinical trial in the city.

  “Totally meant to be,” she texted yesterday, along with the hyperlink. “We are so doing this!” Last night, Char called me with more of her latest research. “Asians have a significantly lower rate of obesity than the general population.”

  “Great. Not only am I an outcast at school,” I said, “I’m an outlier among my people. Thanks for the breaking news.”

  She snorted and probably rolled her amazing blue eyes like she usually does when I exasperate her. Char’s fat like me, except she’s beautiful.

  “You’re so negative! I’m gonna have to smack you,” Char replied. She’s not serious in general, but she’s very serious about this. (For the record, I’m negative about this and negative in general.)

  Char calls me the Black Shroud. “Hey, Your Shroudness,” she’ll call, “wanna go shrouding?” That’s going clothes shopping with me. She teases me that I could start my own fashion line—Grim Reaper for Girls. Char’s always all out there with her big self in her bold colors, and I don’t understand how she does it. If it’s not black and baggy, I don’t feel comfortable.

  Looking back, I’m not sure if I grew into East or out of Annie—I just know I’ll never be an Annie again. “Annie” sounds too happy and optimistic. Not that I’m always miserable. A shroud is made of fabric, not cement. Sometimes I can completely de-focus on my body, like when Char and I delve into our favorite pig-out—Boylan’s black cherry soda and zeppoles from Mario’s. The fried dough and flavored soda tangoing on my tongue spins off a warm, happy all’s right with the world feeling. I exist for this feeling. Or maybe I should say, except for this feeling, I might not feel anything.

  Lap-Band surgery would mean no more zeppoles and no more Mickey D’s fries washed down with a Friendly’s mocha chip Fribble—although there’s only a handful of golden sticks left by the time we reach Friendly’s, three blocks down. No more cookie dough. No Nacho Cheese or Cool Ranch Doritos—we can inhale a party-sized bag of those every day. If we get banded, we’ll probably never have any of that again. Or even if we could, it’ll only take a chip or two to fill up the tiny change purse that’ll be our new stomachs. You can’t cram very much happiness into such a small space. This is what I’m marinating on in this auditorium full of fat kids when Char elbows me.

  “Get moving,” she orders, standing up. “You’re so in outer space.”

  There’s a cute guy wearing a football jersey walking by himself in the direction she’s pushing me. Dr. Weinstein is keeping the parents in the main auditorium and the kids are being broken into groups for Q&A sessions in the smaller conference rooms. Through my ballerina flats—the only ballerina anything that could be linked with me these days—I feel the floorboards vibrate and imagine the building crumbling under the weight—all these fat teens wanting to be part of this trial. Or maybe, just part of something.

  “Oh, great,” I mumble. “I’m already sweating.”

  “Shut. Up. Shroud,” Char says, and pulls me along behind her as she strides toward this smiley nurse holding a clipboard. I groan and shake my elbow from her grip. The nurse says, “Ten,” to Hefty Quarterback, and, “Okay, number eleven,” to Char. Char whips around and yanks me forward.

  “She’s twelve.”

  Twelve is exactly how old I feel when Char speaks for me, which, in fact, she’s been doing since the day I turned twelve. Since the day my mother shoved me, my friends—my entire birthday party including the gifts and loot bags—out the front door with Char’s mom, Crystal, who piled us all into her minivan and took us to Jan’s Ice Cream Parlor. That was the party where I couldn’t speak, much less blow out the candles. The party where Crystal sobbed when they sang “Happy Birthday,” the party where Char whispered, “East, that’s so you,” as I numbly opened my presents. So me? Not that Char meant any harm or could have imagined I’d vomit my ice cream cake all over the table, but that was the moment I realized I had no idea at all who I was. The only thing I knew was that it was my twelfth birthday party, and an hour earlier, I had flung my cardboard party hat at the girl who called it babyish, and ran off to get my Little Miss Briarcliff tiara. I bopped down the drafty stairs to our basement, but never finished looking for the dumb pageant crown. I found my dad—he was supposed to be at work—hanging from a beam instead, his feet dangling above my old wooden rabbit step stool, which lay in pieces on the concrete floor.

  If not for Char, I wouldn’t still be here. On earth, I mean, not just here in Mi
dtown. As I think about this, my annoyance fades. Really, I should kiss her feet for towing me along in her life.

  We came here together, all 568 pounds of us; Char is five feet eight, two inches taller and carrying twelve pounds more. If this were an SAT math question, it might be:

  Together, two obese girls weigh 568 pounds and want to shed 288 of them. If each of the girls wishes to lose the same amount of weight and still maintain the 12-pound difference, what does each girl hope to weigh?

  I’ll just tell you. I’m 278 pounds—144 light-years away from my 134-pound target weight. Char weighs 290 pounds and her “so hot” target weight is 146. That’s as of yesterday, at least, when Char made me come over for a weigh-in on the digital scale Crystal ran out and bought in the midst of their Lap-Band mania. Char insisted we needed to know our exact weight because they’d use it along with our height to calculate our body mass index, and we needed to make sure we have BMIs of 40 or more or else we’d be disqualified. I didn’t see how there could be any doubt that we’d be well over the cutoff. But Crystal made it official by waving the calculator and announcing our winning BMI scores, and Char shrieked and stuck her palm in my face for a high five. Char said my high five was lame, but it was the best I could do. It’s official, all right. I’m not only morbid, I’m morbidly obese.

  Crystal’s not just on board for Char’s latest brainstorm for everlasting happiness, she is, as Char gleefully put it, “scrubbing the deck.” When I muttered that my mom was going to sink this surgery scheme of hers faster than the iceberg sank the Titanic, Char smacked me and said I was awfulizing again. But it’s true. How can I possibly dream my mother will help me get this surgery, when she refuses to leave the house for a carton of milk? All she does is eat, sleep, watch TV, shop online, and knit—obsessively. She doesn’t notice I never wear her sweaters, and I doubt my brother, Julius, likes them either. He’s six years older than me and a junior at Cornell. Less than halfway through his senior year in high school—only two months after my father died—Mom sent him away to prep school in Virginia. It’s true, Julius had begun drinking alcohol—during school, even. But he was an A student before everything happened, and was just in a lot of pain. Instead of helping him through it, though, Mom turned her back on him. Julius suddenly was gone, and I can count on one hand the times I’ve seen him since. He didn’t even come home the first Thanksgiving or Christmas after the funeral, and now it’s two or three days at most during Christmas vacation—if at all. We used to talk on the phone a little, but even that stopped when Julius moved off campus with his fiancée. Now we just text once in a while. But I don’t blame Julius for making a new life without us—Mom’s the one who shipped him off to be somebody else’s problem. I’ve always been terrified that if I gave her the slightest bit of trouble, I’d be sent away too, but maybe that would have been the best thing—it’s me and Mom who got morbidly obese, not Julius.

  Our family of three—fat, almond-skinned Japanese girl with long jet-black hair; even fatter pale and graying blond woman; and lean, dark-haired white boy with big green eyes—would be hard to figure to someone on the outside. Or maybe they’d just think I was adopted.

  Mom probably won’t attend Julius’s graduation next year—or his wedding for that matter. She doesn’t seem able to be out of the house and around other people anymore—for any reason. That’s why I have to be there for him—so he doesn’t feel like he’s completely alone in the world. But Julius has no idea how much more weight I’ve gained since he last saw me—fifty pounds at least. Either Mom hasn’t noticed, or she’s just not saying anything.

  I should be paying attention. That’s the look Char’s flashing me. Her brow is raised and she’s jerking her head in the nurse’s direction as if spacing out alone could nix our chances for getting into the trial. The sides of the chair are digging into my hips and I notice I’m not the only one constantly shifting. Suddenly, Hefty Quarterback’s huge arm goes up.

  “I was wondering—”

  “First, please introduce yourself and tell us your age,” the nurse says.

  “Bobby Konopka, sixteen,” Hefty Quarterback says. He’s got wavy dark brown hair and gentle blue eyes, and I like his deep voice. His Syosset varsity football jersey is emerald green, probably 4XL, and Refrigerator is scrawled in Magic Marker down the right sleeve. A bull among cows. Char raises both her eyebrows at me this time, and I look away so she doesn’t detect the heat racing to my cheeks. “Um, where do you lose weight first, and like, how much, how soon?” His voice is unsteady, like mine when I answer a question in class, even when I’m sure I’m right.

  “It’s different for every person,” she says. She’s elaborating when Bobby looks up and catches me watching him. I yank my head so fast in the other direction that I feel my neck spasm, but in the split second before I gave myself whiplash, I think he smiled at me! I’m staring at a section of the floor now, fighting the impulse to check if there’s any evidence of his smile left or if I imagined it. When the nurse finally finishes talking, a hand shoots up from the side of the room opposite Bobby, and I keep my eyes fixed on it as I slowly raise my head.

  A fat girl with short, frizzy brown hair and tiny tortoise shell glasses stands up. She’s wearing a lime green New York Philharmonic T-shirt over black stretch pants with gray sneakers.

  “Marcie Mandlebaum, sixteen. My question is about the amount of weight you lose with the Lap-Band compared to gastric bypass surgery. I went for a consultation with a bariatric surgeon, and he said that even if I were old enough to get the Lap-Band, he would recommend the gastric bypass because you lose more weight with it.”

  The nurse is delighted.

  “Not so,” she says, clapping her hands. “The Lap-Band has only been used in this country since 2001, when the FDA approved it for adults, so up until recently, we didn’t have enough data to compare it with gastric bypass. The small pouch created with bypass surgery is a permanent physiological alteration that can stretch, so that over time people can regain some or all of their weight back—”

  “Like Randy Jackson on Idol,” someone calls from behind Char and me.

  “He’s one example,” the nurse says. “Weight loss is certainly slower with the Lap-Band, but after two years, overall weight loss is about the same. We believe the Lap-Band is superior to gastric bypass because it’s much less risky, it’s reversible, and it’s adjustable—we can tighten or loosen the band to adjust your food intake.”

  “How long will it take to lose weight with it, though?” another girl cuts in.

  “It’s individual,” the nurse says again. “Teens have faster metabolisms, so you could lose one hundred pounds or more in a year. But you have to eat right, because it’s easy to cheat the band. Liquids go right down, so if you eat ice cream, milk shakes, candy, or anything that melts or starts digesting in your mouth, it’s not happening.”

  One hundred pounds in one year. My mind is shifting back and forth between imagining being thin and forfeiting Fribbles.

  “It’ll be horrible when school starts,” I tell Char on our way home. “I mean, two fat girls in the cafeteria sharing a four-ounce container of plain yogurt. What’s that gonna look like?”

  Char sighs and rolls her eyes. “We barely eat at school anyway, so it’s going to look exactly like what it looks like now—two high school girls on a diet. The only thing different will be all the after-school eating we won’t be doing, like Mario’s. So stop awfulizing, Shroud. The crazy stuff you worry about so never amounts to anything.”

  “I’m trying to imagine our lives without food, that’s all.”

  “East. Imagine your life with a boyfriend. That’s all I’m saying.”

  I don’t tell her I already am. Or that the boyfriend already has a name—Bobby, the Refrigerator. “I guess,” I just mumble, twisting my hair back into a bun. As if any guy could ever like me.

  “I mean, girl, we so could be bopping. Strutting—like, check us out.” She’s shimmying her big melons. “Check us
.” I don’t point out how they could deflate, become tangerine-sized by Christmas. “Happy! East, we could be really happy.”

  It’s then that I realize that this might be what I’m afraid of most.

  3

  Moobies

  Sunday, May 3, 2009

  Bobby, 6′2″, 335 lbs

  I don’t feel like talking. I just want her to get me into this trial thing and not tell her friends.

  “Bobby, sweetheart? Bobby?” It’s normally an eight-minute ride from here, but the GPS shows arrival at home in twelve. Either way, I’ll probably miss the whole first inning.

  “Bobby, slow down!”

  “I’m going fifty-five.”

  “Fifty-eight! Slow down now!”

  Syosset is the next exit. Mom flicks off the radio so we can talk. That’s a lot of talking time.

  “My phone’s buzzing. Bet it’s Dad.”

  “Leave it. You’re driving. So, did you talk to anyone in the Q and A session? What did the other kids seem like?”

  “Fat.”

  “No.” She makes that clicking sound with her tongue. “You know, do they all want to be in the trial?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I spoke with a few of the mothers. Park Avenue Bariatrics has a good reputation. That Dr. Weinstein is one of the top laparoscopic surgeons in the country.”

  I nod. “Can I put the game back on?”

  “This is not a small decision, Bobby.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter.

  “Did you ask about, y’know?” She’s waving her hand across her chest. It’s bad enough having moobies—man boobies—but that they’re anything remotely similar to my mom’s makes me want to crash the car into the guardrail.

  Even with my big pipes, I’m a fat slob. But the worst is the damn breast meat. Me and MT are the only virgins in our crew—eight of us in the group since middle school, five on varsity football together, six done the deed. One, me, not even coming close. The guys have been busting on me. At parties, they’re always hanging with hotties, but they push me toward the fugly girls or the Coke-bottle-glasses type—the ones they think are the charity cases. Zoolow’s pretty big too, and he, like every guy on first-string varsity football, has no problem getting girls. Every guy on varsity except for me.