Teenage Waistland Page 5

  My parents met in a classics seminar at Harvard, and Dad would always go on about how clever and resourceful my mom is. But that was before she dropped thirty pounds and started spending late nights with her editor at Inc. magazine. Then, while I was away in Mexico with Jen, Abby announced that she was going to marry the cover boy of the November issue—Ronny Rescott—and asked my father for a divorce.

  It didn’t occur to me that Abby planned to take me with her. Fuller is one of the country’s best schools, and with my top ranking and assistant editorship at the Review—a huge accomplishment for a ninth grader (though a few jerks suggested Dad pulled strings)—I could have been a shoo-in for Harvard. But Abby said that Tenafly High is one of the best public schools in the entire country and that I could always come back to Boston for college. Even then, I wasn’t too worried. There was no way my father was going to let me go. Except he did.

  I shouldn’t blame the divorce entirely on my mother; the academic life just isn’t in her gene pool, and there’s no fighting DNA. My father hails from a long line of rabbis and scholars; my mother, bulimics and anorexics. I know there was a time in history when food was scarce and being a cow was de rigueur. But as far back as my great-grandmother, whom I knew only from photos, the Lipsky women were cramming themselves into girdles; starving themselves before weddings, bat mitzvahs, and vacations; and disappearing into bathrooms after meals.

  With that sludge clogging her gene pool, Abby’s addiction to diet pills, liposuction, and dudes with cash isn’t much of a shock, but her mother totally takes the cake (and most assuredly pukes it up later). To Gran, being thin, gracious, gorgeous, and perfectly coiffed in order to get a rich man to marry you is the entire meaning of life. That’s it. Women are bait and men are prey, and the concept of growth and self-discovery involves nothing more than identifying the exact shade of shadow that brings out your eyes. The only time this woman probably ever even picked up a book was to put it on her head and practice walking around the room for good posture.

  I was most likely still in utero when Gran began feeding me the program—according to Abby, I was a big kicker from the time she was six months pregnant with me, and I haven’t stopped kicking since. When Gran’s hospitalizations started becoming more frequent last year, I tried one more time to communicate with her—to let her know that my sights in life were set much higher than on landing a man and that she should just accept that.

  Gran was so busy showing wallet photos of herself in younger days to the doctor reviewing her chart that I stood in her hospital room doorway for about ten minutes before she even noticed I was there. But once he squeezed past me, she got all excited and patted the space next to her on the bed. I took the armchair instead—Gran was thin and pale and I was afraid to mess with all the tubes. I nodded dumbly as she carried on about how handsome her doctor was and how she bet he spent more time with her than anybody. When she finally stopped for air, I took a deep breath and began.

  “Gran, what would you say is your greatest accomplishment in life?”

  “Why, all the men who’ve loved me, my darling,” she rasped—without even pausing for thought.

  “But why did so many men love you?” I said calmly, as though this was a perfectly reasonable response.

  “Because Gran is beautiful,” she replied, straight-faced.

  “But Gran, what if I want to be loved for something more than how I look?” Again, not even a pause. Her certainty was maddening.

  “Marcie, imagine you’re having a romantic dinner with a man, and you’re going on about your books and big ideas. He’s going to take one look at your hands and say to himself, ‘If this woman is so smart, why didn’t she get a manicure?’ ” Rage welled up inside me and that was it—I was done with her for good. I got up, mumbled something about seeing what was taking Mom so long at the coffee machine, and sat fuming in the waiting room until Abby was done with their visit. And I’m not visiting her again, no matter how freaked Abby gets about it.

  My weight has gotten so dire that on the rare occasions I’m trapped in the same room with her, Gran is too horrified to even mention it anymore. It’s like standing in an elevator with a hideously scarred burn victim. You smile politely and pretend they’re just like everyone else. But now that she’s laid off me about my weight, she’s doing double time on Abby—even when she knows I’m within earshot. “Darling, you really have to get that poor girl on a diet. I don’t care how brilliant she is. She’s never going to find happiness in her condition.”

  Abby tries to defend me, but only with lame crap like, “Marcie will lose her weight when she’s ready.” How about this, Mom? Marcie’s just fine how she is. Now, thank you and shut up.

  Jen is texting on about how glorious it is to finally be able to cram herself into size 4 jeans when Dr. Glass makes her entrance. Suddenly, I start to panic—this woman is less than half my size, and without a “polite” or “compliant” chromosome in my DNA, I’m going to say something to screw this evaluation up.

  “Marcie Mandlebaum, right?” she says, coming over to me and putting out her hand. I take her tiny hand in my fleshy paw and I’m afraid to squeeze too hard—it seems so fragile.

  “Nice to meet you, Dr. Glass,” I stammer.

  Dr. Glass smiles and moves toward her side of the desk. She’s wearing a close-fitting white skirt, and it occurs to me that it’s not quite Memorial Day yet. An “unspeakable” fashion faux pas like this would provide Gran with enough idiot conversation fodder to last her a year. Clamp it, Marcie.

  “Please call me Betsy,” Dr. Glass says. She sits pertly in her nine-hundred-dollar Herman Miller Aeron Chair (Ronny has one). Wouldn’t that money be better spent on a new couch? I somehow manage to clamp down on this thought too before it comes flying out, but my own worst enemy is hell-bent on sabotaging me.

  “I guess you hear ‘Bitsy’ a lot,” it blurts. I freeze in horror, but, thankfully, Bitsy laughs.

  “I wasn’t always this small, Marcie, so I kind of like it. Feel free.”

  I let out a deep breath and relax. She’s not so bad. Maybe I can get through this without blowing it after all.

  6

  Taking out the Queen

  Tuesday, June 2, 2009

  Bobby

  “Betsy Glass. Nice to meet you, Bobby.” She holds out her hand but my palm is disgustingly sweaty, so I shake just her fingertips. They feel cool even though her office is boiling.

  “Hi,” I say, fumbling toward the oversized chair by the open window, but she says, “Right there is good,” and directs me to the couch opposite her desk. She’d better not want me to lie on it.

  She sits down behind her desk and picks up this stapled packet, holding it level with her boobs.

  “Nice handwriting,” she says. “Did you fill this out?”

  “My mom did. They’re completely my answers, though.”

  “That’s fine.”

  “We just went over them together.”

  Betsy smiles. “Bobby, that’s fine. Tell me about—” She looks up from the paperwork and catches me staring. My eyes fly over to this football in a plastic display case on a shelf behind her, and she raises an eyebrow and swivels around.

  “Oh. That’s my son’s from high school. They won the sectionals in 2006 and he was MVP.”

  “Nice. What position?” I say as coolly as possible, but my balls are sweating and I’m already worried I’ve nuked my chances to get into this trial.

  “Running back.”

  He’s probably lean and mean like Craighead.

  “He’s at Michigan State now.”

  Probably getting laid all the time. I cross my arms over myself.

  “I’m thinking about applying early decision to Notre Dame,” I mumble. Football is my best shot at a great school. Last year, a Notre Dame scout handed me his card in the locker room. Dad was pumped.

  “What position do you play?” She’s facing me again, so I start examining the mesh patterns on the bottom of my jersey.r />
  “Offensive lineman—right guard.”

  Betsy frowns. “So your job is …” She stops and waits for me to finish her sentence.

  “I create holes for the running play and protect the quarter back from tackles so he can make the pass,” I explain.

  “Right. My son’s tried for years to get me to understand the game.” Betsy smiles. “I think about the quarterback as like the king in chess. The other players can’t let anyone get to him.”

  “Yeah, sort of.”

  “So, as the lineman, you’re sort of like the queen.”

  “Ye—no.” I say, but it comes out like a growl. The queen is the only piece in chess with boobs. I clear my throat. “I mean, I guess the pawns set the offensive line, but it’s not too much like chess.”

  “Okay, the analogy doesn’t fit.” She smiles again. But I’m thinking that queen part does fit actually, which is what really sucks my king-sized ass.

  Betsy purses her lips and scrunches her eyebrows a little, the same way Mom does when she’s trying to get at something. “The offensive line requires major contact. Don’t you have to be a certain size to block?”

  “Um, not necessarily.” Sweat’s beading up on my forehead and I wipe it away with my sleeve. I stink. The papers on her desk are flapping around from the breeze. How the hell am I so hot?

  “No?” Her face crinkles more. “My understanding is that size is the most important attribute for an offensive lineman.”

  “Size is important, yeah. But strength also. And height and arm length.”

  Betsy stares at me for a few moments, her lips still in a tight line. Then she takes a deep breath.

  “Bobby, if getting this surgery meant you would no longer have the bulk to play for a Division One school, like Notre Dame, would you still want it?”

  “Definitely,” I say way too quickly. “Yeah. I mean, I know it’ll be tough, but I’m also sure I can build enough muscle to stay big and strong.” Big in the right places.

  Betsy sighs. “I’m not sure you’re thinking about this realistically.”

  I shift to make myself more comfortable. “I get it. I do. Really.”

  She picks my questionnaire up off her desk again, still shaking her head. “Bobby, high school football is one thing, but college is another. When a lineman slips below three hundred pounds, he’s usually not allowed to play. If you have this surgery, by the time you go to college next year, you’ll be closer to two hundred pounds than three hundred. I need to know you understand that this surgery will put any college football career you’re thinking about in jeopardy. At least as a lineman.”

  “Yeah,” I mutter, nodding down at my filthy fingernails. My dad and I have the same ink-black freckle below the nail of the forefinger on our right hand.

  “Bobby?” I look back up at her. “That means having this surgery is likely to affect the colleges you’ll be accepted to, and that will affect other things down the road. Your decision will ripple throughout your life, present and future.”

  I nod and keep eye contact this time. I don’t know what to say to convince her.

  Betsy shakes her head again. “Bobby, I need to hear you say it. I need to hear that you understand what I’m saying, and I need to hear that you mean it. Is this surgery important enough to you that you’re willing to give up football and everything it means to your future?”

  Rivers of sweat feel like they’re pouring out of my forehead, but I don’t even try to wipe them away. “Yes! I want it—this surgery. And if—and yes, I’m willing to give up football and everything it means in order to get it,” I practically shout. And the certainty I hear in my own voice is so startling, I almost believe it.

  Betsy stares at me hard, but I keep my eyes stuck on hers like my life depends on it. “Okay,” she finally says, looking down to rustle through her papers. “Let’s bring in your parents—okay, just your mom is here—and talk about the lifestyle changes this surgery requires.”

  7

  Under Cover

  Saturday, June 6, 2009

  East

  “Mom. Mooom.” I’m knocking on her door for the third time this morning, listening for sounds of movement while I finish getting ready. “We should try to leave by two-thirty, the latest,” I say. I’m careful. If I open her door, if I rattle her cage, I’ll blow this. But our appointment with Dr. Glass is at three-thirty and it takes a good forty-five minutes to drive into the city and find parking. I have to get her up now or we won’t make it. “I’m wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. You could wear that maroon terry zip-up,” I call in again. Nothing. “You know, the one Julius sent you at Christmas?” Nothing still. I head back down the hall, then stop and raise my voice a bit. “I’m making us an early lunch, okay?”

  When I reach the kitchen, I hear shuffling overhead. She’s finally moving. I purposely didn’t mention that Char and Crystal have the appointment before ours. Mom can’t bear anyone seeing her like this, and the possibility of running into her ex–best friend is sure to keep her burrowed under the covers for life. I’m scanning the refrigerator shelves, looking for something to ease Mom’s stress, when I hear her bedroom door open.

  “East?” she moans, as if my name takes too much energy to say. I slam the fridge and race upstairs. Her door is open, but she’s back in bed and her room looks like a tornado churned through her closet and flung everything out.

  “But—but you promised.…”

  Mom rolls onto her side with a moan and pulls the blankets up so I can’t see her face. “Please. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Not today.”

  I pick up this fraying, stretched-out gray sweater thing. “Here. Put this on. You’ll look good in this,” I try. But she doesn’t even lower the blanket to look.

  “I’m so sorry, East. Please just reschedule. I’ll do it another day, I promise. I feel too awful to get out of bed.” She’s whimpering into her pillow and I just stand there unable to feel my limbs. Finally, I manage to back out of the room and close the door behind me before I burst into tears. I’m an idiot to think anything could ever change, that anything good could ever really happen. What’s the point of even trying?

  Five seconds later, I’m curled in a ball beneath my covers, sobbing. My arm has just enough life in it to fish around my night table for some Reese’s Pieces—and to send my alarm clock crashing to the floor. I sit up. Sunshine is streaming in through my lace curtains and here I am in bed just like my mother. I fling myself out of the bed and pick up the clock—it’s noon! I spin around to grab my phone and speed-dial Char’s home line.

  “Char!” I blurt into the phone. “Thank God I caught you.”

  “It’s okay. It’ll all be okay. You so need to de-Shroud,” Char is saying as my fingers twirl the hair in my ponytail into knots in the Park Avenue Bariatrics waiting room.

  “I’m going to vomit.”

  “Stop. It’s three-twenty-five already. Betsy and my mom will be finished any minute. You have to get your act together. Get back into that psyched-up state. C’mon.” I nod glumly and dig through my bag for a comb and another Jujube bear.

  “She shouldn’t have blown you off. You’re so right. But—”

  “Shhh,” I say. “Everyone can hear you.”

  Char lowers her voice. “Look. She promised to stay awake and wait for your call. You told her about her allergies, right?”

  I freeze.

  “Quick, call her now,” Char whispers loudly enough for the receptionist on the other side of the glass partition to hear, and then we’re huddled over my phone listening to it ring and go to the answering machine.

  “Mom!” I plead. “Please get up. Dr. Glass and I will be calling soon. You have allergies, okay? That’s why you’re not here. Allergies. Please remember. And please pick up when we call.”

  There’s a worried expression on Char’s face when I snap my phone shut, but she stows it away quickly. “This can still work, East. It really can. Just stay cool. Your mom has allergies, that’s it. Nothing terrible. J
ust play it the way we planned.”

  I shake my head. “Even if Dr. Glass will do the interview by phone, my mother’ll be zoned out. How can she convince anyone I have a supportive family environment?” Supportive family environment. Just that phrase has my eyes filling up again.

  Char leans over and rubs my arm. “The interview isn’t a big deal. Betsy talks about the postsurgery eating and exercise program and asks some general questions. That’s it. Your mom can so handle it. And if she sounds zoned, you’ll tell Betsy it’s the allergy medication. We need to get this right. Right?”

  We. Char and me. That’s the only we I can count on. “Right,” I whisper as the receptionist calls out my name. I take a deep breath. “Right,” I say again as I stand up. Even though my knees feel like they’ll buckle.

  Crystal squeezes my shoulder as we pass each other in the narrow hallway to Dr. Glass’s office, but her smile is tight and her eyes a little glassy, and any panic that Char managed to soothe in the waiting room is back.

  “How are you, East?” Dr. Glass says warmly as she opens her door.

  “Great. Very well,” I chirp, but immediately recognize how fake my cheerfulness sounds. My vocal cords just can’t hit those “la-la happy” keys the way Char’s can.

  “Your mom?” Dr. Glass says, glancing down the empty hallway as I step into her office.

  “Um, actually, she’s not coming. She tried to—she really wanted to—she, uh, she just felt too awful.” I push myself to move toward the two chairs set up in front of her desk even though Dr. Glass is still standing by the open door. Stick to the plan.