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Authors: Suzanne Supplee

BOOK: Artichoke's Heart
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Fantasy not working. Rewind. No gastric bypass. Miraculously, I’m just a thinner, more disciplined, better-controlled Rosemary Goode. My once-lumpy body is now smooth. There’s me panting on a treadmill (my barn ass is not jiggling repulsively). There’s me holding up an old pair of fat jeans, like that Jared Fogle guy. There’s me slow-dancing with Kyle Cox.
chapter ten
The Velveteen Rabbit
Mother had a late appointment (she almost always does), so Miss Bertha drove me home from work. On the way, I asked her to stop off at Reynolds’s Drugstore again. “Buying another get-well card?” she guessed. I nodded, although this was a lie. It hadn’t even crossed my mind to buy a second get-well card.
“I’ll just be a minute,” I said.
“Take your time, sweetie. Nobody’s waitin’ for me at home but Jem and Scout.” She winked. Miss Bertha had recently purchased a pair of birds,
finches
to be precise.
The same blonde stood smacking her gum behind the counter. “Hidy,” she said and smiled at me.
“Hi,” I replied, glancing around for the Pounds-Away display. As it turned out, it’d been replaced with Valentine’s gifts—boxes of chocolate, stuffed teddy bears, fake long-stemmed red roses, heart-shaped trinkets.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked.
“Oh, um . . . I’m just looking,” I replied, and headed toward the back of the store. Finally, I found it, although the sale was clearly over—$8.99 for a six-pack and no buy-two-get-the-third-free special either. I debated—$8.99 was way more than I made in an hour at Heavenly Hair. The last thing I needed was to blow my money on diet products I might not even use.
“Them thangs really work,” the blonde said. She had followed me and stood smacking her gum at the end of the aisle.
“Really?” I asked.
“Oh, hell yeah. Why, after I had my third kid, I like to never took that weight off. Seemed like it was just stuck right to me, you know?” I nodded. I did know. “Anyways, them thangs worked like a charm. Well, that and chain smoking, but I don’t recommend you start
that
. I got to chew this nicotine gum now, too,” she said, showing me the wad on her tongue. “It’s always one thang or nuther, ain’t it?” I nodded again.
Carrying a six-pack of Pounds-Away, I followed Darlene (according to her name tag) to the cash register. “Thank you, Darlene,” I said, and smiled at her. “If this works, I’ll be back.”
“You do that, hon, but my name’s not Darlene. I forgot my name tag, so I just put this’n here on. It’s more personal somehow even if it ain’t the right name. Anyways, Darlene quit ’bout a year ago, which wasn’t no great loss, if you ask me. I’m Charmaine. Charmaine Chumley.”
“I’m Rosemary Goode,” I replied.
“You any relation to Rose Warren Goode?” she asked.
“I’m her daughter.”
“Oh, your mama’s real nice. She comes in here sometimes. You have a good night now, hear. Let me know how this stuff works out.”
The Spring Hill town clock clanged noisily, and the tiniest spits of rain-snow trickled down from the dark sky. I felt it then, a remote wave of hope, no more substantial than those snow-flakes, which were sure to melt the second they hit the sidewalk. Faint as the feeling was, I was grateful for it. I knew it came from Charmaine Chumley. It’s amazing how much better you feel when anyone, even a random stranger in a drugstore, shows you the slightest degree of kindness.
That night, instead of devouring the roast that had been cooking in Mother’s crock-pot all day, I drank a Pounds-Away shake. Not an easy thing when the whole cozy house smells like meat and vegetables. But somehow I managed it, then retreated to my room again. By nine o’clock, I was ready to gnaw the varnish off my bedpost. Instead, I took a bath and briefly considered Charmaine’s chain-smoking tactic, but I decided one cancer patient in the family was more than enough.
Finally, with my stomach raging and grumbling, I climbed in between the sheets and distracted myself with Kyle Cox fantasies. Around midnight, I woke up again. Hunger churned in my belly, and dread held my brain hostage. Mother was just coming in from the shop. I could hear her rattling around in the kitchen. I wondered if she’d notice that I hadn’t eaten anything. More than likely she’d stayed at the salon extra late to make up for all the work she would miss tomorrow (today, actually). Her first chemo treatment was in ten hours.
Mother says she’s tired, but otherwise fine.
“Fine,”
she says with her happy face firmly fixed. Mother shrugs off four hours of chemo like it was a bikini wax. If you ask me, toxic chemicals coursing through your veins and a lymph system filled with cancer is not
fine
. If I had cancer everyone around me would know how miserable I felt. I don’t think I’d be the type to hold it all inside.
I just spent two hours online researching Hodgkin’s disease instead of doing my homework. There’s almost too much information on the topic. Hodgkin’s is a kind of cancer called a “lymphoma,” and it’s “uncommon.” According to one website, “it accounts for less than one percent of all cancers.” Mother’s of ripe Hodgkin’s age—the fifteen-to-forty category. One site I found said that a diagnosis of Hodgkin’s is “preferable” to being diagnosed with other types of cancer. I say not being diagnosed with cancer at all is preferable!
The scariest part is where Hodgkin’s goes. It’s cancer of the lymph system, and the lymph system is all over the body—the neck, the chest, armpits, liver, spleen, groin. Mother’s Hodgkin’s is mostly in her chest, which explains the nagging cough she’s had forever.
I have to stop thinking about this for a while. Too much and I’ll go crazy.
Today in the cafeteria, Misty Winters sat down beside me. “What’s it really like?” she asked.
“What’s
what
really like?” I replied, trying to hide my overloaded lunch tray. After Pounds-Away for dinner last night, and Pounds-Away for breakfast this morning, I had to have real food, lots of it.
Before Misty could explain, Tara Waters walked up. “Are we sitting with
her
?” she asked, obviously disgusted at the thought.
“No, Tara
Tard
! Just give me a minute,” Misty snapped. “Artichoke, I’m doing a story on adolescent obesity for the school paper. I need a subject. Now what’s it like? Give me a good sound bite.”
Before I could open my mouth, Kay-Kay Reese plopped down in the chair right beside me. “You work at Heavenly Hair,” said Kay-Kay cheerfully. “I just love that salon. Don’t y’all love it, too? You’re so lucky to work there.” The girl rambled on as if we were all best friends. I glanced at the tiny bluebird pin on her sweater. All the fledglings wore them. Obviously, being one of the newest members, Kay-Kay was not yet in tune with the Bluebirds’ customary hatred of fat girls.
“I don’t know how Artichoke works anyplace carrying all that extra poundage around. In case you haven’t noticed, Kay-Kay, this is not a social call. I just need an authentic source for my fat-kid article. We’re not actually sitting here!”
“Oh,” said Kay-Kay. She blinked her blue eyes at me, then stared down at her tray, as if fruit salad, yogurt, and bagel chips were suddenly mesmerizing.
Misty pulled a notepad out of her fake Kate Spade bag and cocked her head to one side like a parrot. “Okay, shoot,” she ordered. “I still have to eat lunch.”
“Misty, I have an idea for you,” I said, easing my way to the edge of the chair so I could make a fast break for the cafeteria hinterland. “Why don’t you do a story on vacuous girls with a propensity for dark roots? That way, you can be your
own
authentic source.” I snatched up my tray and squeezed through the too-tight space. As I swish-swished away, I heard Kay-Kay Reese laugh and say, “Guess she told you, Misty.”
Big mistake, Kay-Kay,
I thought to myself. Instead of chiding Misty, Kay-Kay should’ve cracked a fat girl joke loud enough for me to overhear. Even
I
knew that was standard Bluebird protocol. At the rate she was going, Kay-Kay Reese wouldn’t stay a Bluebird for long.
The week seemed to drag by, and I had absolutely nothing to look forward to. Instead of frozen waffles dripping in melted butter and hot syrup or powdered, sugary donuts or multiple Pop-Tarts with frosting, I drank a Pounds-Away for breakfast. At lunch, there were no school cafeteria french fries dripping in grease and smothered with ketchup, no pizza coated in sauce and stringy cheese, no sloppy joes or ice-cream sandwiches. Just a single can of misery! I dragged my weak-with-hunger self from one class to another, so starved I couldn’t even manage a Kyle Cox fantasy.
This changed in the first five minutes of study hall, however.
There’s nothing like another person’s misery to take your mind off your own, and Kyle Cox was clearly suffering. He blew his nose repeatedly and hacked like someone in a tuberculosis ward. In his giant hand was one ratty, overused tissue, nothing more than a clump of wet lint. Quickly, I grabbed a pack of fresh tissues from the bottom of my backpack and scanned the path between my chair and Kyle’s. As far as I could tell, there were no too-tight spaces, Bluebirds, or Nucleolus Boys.
All clear,
I thought.
I stood. I glanced over at Mr. Lawrence, but his head was stuck in some giant history book. I tugged at my shirt to make sure it was covering the fat and not stuck in between any rolls. It’s a five-second walk from my chair to Kyle’s, but I felt as though I were about to swim the English Channel, attempt the Iditarod, climb Mount Kilimanjaro.
Slowly, I walked over. “Here. Take these,” I whispered, extending my trembling hand.
Kyle glanced up at me. His brown eyes were red-rimmed and tired, his nose was chafed and specked with bits from the tissue. He took the package and looked at me gratefully, which was when he said IT. Actually, he whispered IT, hoarsely.
“Thanks, Rosemary.”
Safely back in my orange plastic chair and watching Ronnie Derryberry’s REM-stage eyelids flutter, I replayed the scene over and over.
Thanks, Rosemary. Thanks, Rosemary. Thanks, Rosemary.
Kyle Cox had said my name. He actually
knew
my name.
At the salon, I was still reeling from my Kyle Cox miracle. I got right to work—no afternoon snack, no fantasies of crock-pot chicken (our usual dinner on Thursday nights), just cleaning and folding towels, and chitchatting happily with Richard and Miss Bertha and Mildred and Mother. As pathetic as it sounds, I felt a little like that velveteen rabbit right after he discovered he was real.
Miracle number two happened around four-thirty when a disheveled-looking walk-in banged through the front door. I heard Miss Bertha say, “Oh, we’ll make time for you, don’t worry.” Miss Bertha is a big believer in walk-ins. She says walk-ins become loyal clients if you’re polite to them and somehow squeeze them in that first time. Richard vehemently disagrees. He says accepting walk-ins is a sign you’re a low-rent salon. Thankfully, Richard’s not the boss, or Mother and I would probably starve. Of course, for me, that’d be a good thing. But I digress. Richard was smack in the middle of a blue hair repair, so Mother took this particular client.
“Welcome to Heavenly Hair,” said Mother. “I’m Rose Warren Goode. What are we doing today?”
The woman sighed as she looked at herself in the large mirror. “Oh, I don’t really care,” she said. “Just do something. If you can,” she added. She wasn’t what you’d call fat, just stocky, built like a tree stump or a barrel. She was also middle-aged and “poorly styled,” as Richard would say. Her clothes weren’t awful, at least not awful for old lady clothes, but they were wrinkled, as if plucked from the hamper instead of the closet.
“You want to leave everything up to me?” Mother asked, her face stretching into a smile. Mother loves it when clients leave everything up to her.
“Do whatever you want, just not too fussy,” said the woman, pointing her finger at Mother. “I have three kids and a fourth one they call a husband. I don’t have time for too much girly stuff.”
Mother went to work. The color was a light honey brown with a few highlights mixed in the front. The cut was like something off Style Network—a classic but slightly modernized bob with a few wispy bangs. “Now don’t style your bob under,” Mother shouted as she blow-dried. “Flip it out this way, so it looks more stylish. It’s easier to turn it out than under, and it makes all the difference in how the cut looks.”
“Sure thing,” the woman agreed. Her face was brighter, and I could tell she liked what Mother had done. Without getting in Mother’s way, I swept hair out from underneath the chair.
“I wouldn’t go more than six weeks on the color,” Mother went on. “If you touch up those highlights they’ll last a lot longer. You’ll need a trim by then, too, if you want to keep the style.”
“Oh, I’ll keep it up,” said the woman. “That was my New Year’s resolution, to look better, to take better care of
myself
.”
“I know I’ve seen you over at the Piggly Wiggly,” said Mother. “I apologize for not knowing your name.”
“Oh, honey, I wouldn’t
expect
you to know my name. Of course, everybody in town knows yours. Why, every person I asked said the same thing. ‘Go see Rose Warren Goode over at Heavenly Hair. She’ll fix you right up.’ ” Mother smiled, although people were
always
saying things like that about Mother. “I’m Roberta Cox,” said the woman. Right away, my ears perked up at the last name. “Husband’s Fred. He owns the lumberyard out on the Nashville Highway.”
“Oh, of course,” said Mother. “When I did some work on my house, that’s where I bought the lumber. A very fair place,” said Mother. “You have boys, don’t you?”

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