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Authors: Suzanne Supplee

BOOK: Artichoke's Heart
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chapter nineteen
Fatty
Kyle was not in study hall—
again
—but at least I got to see him in the crowded hallway for one fleeting, albeit wonderful, moment. It was early in the day, just after homeroom announcements, and I was headed to English. “Rosie! Hey, Rosie! Wait up!” he called. I turned to see Enormous Strapping Jock Boy headed straight toward me. I sucked in my stomach and tried to stand up straight. “Hey,” he said when we were face to chest (Kyle’s so large he even makes me feel small).
“Hey,” I replied.
“So there’s, like, a game tonight in Murfreesboro, and the pep bus is only five dollars. I think there’s still room if you wanna come.”
Why can’t the Raiders just lose? Pep bus equals sharing close quarters with Bluebirds and NBs—no place to run, nowhere to hide. No way,
I thought. “Well, I would love to come, but Mr. Sparks has one of his infamous ruin-your-GPA tests tomorrow. I
have
to study tonight,” I replied.
Kyle shrugged. “It was worth a try.” I struggled to think of something encouraging to say. Certainly, I didn’t want Kyle to think I didn’t like him. Just then, a noisy group of Bluebird fledglings rounded the corner. They squealed and cackled and shoved one another playfully. Kay-Kay wasn’t among them, I noticed. Kyle rolled his eyes.
“What was that for?” I asked.
“What was what for? Oh, I wasn’t rolling my eyes at
you
!” he said, clearly alarmed.
“I know. You were rolling them at those Bluebirds.”
Kyle shifted his weight uneasily. “Sorry. You’re not about to become one, are you?” he asked, knitting his thick brows together. I shook my head. “Good, ’cause they . . .” He stopped himself.
“’Cause they
what
?” I asked, blinking up at him.
"’Cause they scare me.” He laughed, but I was pretty sure he was serious.
For the first time, I looked at Kyle,
really
looked at him, and he gazed back at me. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, they scare me, too. Probably a lot more than they do you. Thanks for the pep bus offer. Sorry I can’t go,” I said.
After this self-esteem-enhancing exchange, I was practically gliding down the hallway—until the freight train hit.
A pack of NBs were shoving each other. The tallest one slammed into me so hard my teeth rattled. Did jerk NB say “Excuse me”? No. He looked me square in the face and snarled, “Why don’t you go on a diet, fatty?
Anger shot right through me, and before I could stop myself, I stuck my clogged foot in front of him. He was too busy flipping his shaggy, in-his-face hair (and being amused by his cruel remark) to notice the obstruction, and he fell flat—a major face plant to the cold, hard floor. Books scattered, and pages of his notebook fluttered off down the hallway. His buddies roared with laughter. I slipped into the crowd and ran toward Mrs. Edinburgh’s room.
For the rest of the morning, no matter how hard I fought against it, pre-pig-out symptoms plagued me. Even in biology, where we were forced to watch Mr. Donahue dissect a rat, I struggled with wacko food fantasies. Just tell me this: How can a girl, even a fat one, think about food while watching a rather unattractive, slightly-on-the-greasy-side biology teacher stick pins in the skin of a giant dead rat? Recently, I’d been wandering the hallways in between fifth and sixth periods (I know where Mrs. Edinburgh keeps the spare pass), but Mr. Lawrence caught me and threatened a month-long stint in detention if I didn’t go to the cafeteria like everybody else.
There was only one way to avoid overeating at lunch—sit close to the Bluebirds. Obviously, this kind of radical measure is social suicide for me, but at least I knew there was no way I’d succumb to temptation with the Bluebirds close by.
All the way to the cafeteria, I sharpened my tongue, prepared myself for the harassment that would surely come. I’d already taken down an NB, after all. Certainly I could handle a few overly perfumed, hair-tossing mean girls. As if headed to my own execution, I made my way up the narrow aisle, squeezed through the too-tight space, and sat down. It was several seconds before I remembered to breathe. I stared at my tray, which could’ve easily belonged to Kay-Kay: small salad, yogurt, and a box of raisins (there was no way I’d drink a Pounds-Away in public). I cracked open my water bottle and glanced over at the Bluebirds, but they didn’t even notice me. Not a single one of them realized I was even there, a close-range target, a sitting-duck fat girl.
They were too busy shunning Kay-Kay Reese to notice me. Shunning Kay-Kay Reese! I was shocked, yet all along I’d predicted it for numerous reasons:
1. Kay-Kay Reese is too glamorous for the Bluebirds.
2. Kay-Kay Reese isn’t mean enough to be a Bluebird. After all, she speaks to me.
3. Kay-Kay Reese doesn’t maintain the proper level of respect for Misty Winters. This is likely the
real
reason she’s being shunned. Misty has a way of eliminating any serious competition.
I took small, slow bites of yogurt and watched the teenage drama unfold. Kay-Kay stood next to her usual chair, which was occupied by a rather plain-looking and unsuspecting freshman. “What’s going on?” I heard Kay-Kay say. “How come y’all didn’t save my seat?” Clattering silverware, banging trays, cold silence. “Hell-
ooo
,” Kay-Kay tried again. “What
is
the matter?” Kay-Kay laughed, but I could see she was getting nervous. Her voice was tight. Twice her empty plastic cup clattered to the floor. Twice I picked it up and handed it back to her. The Bluebirds refused to look at her. Quietly, like robots, they ate their low-fat lunches and sipped their Diet Cokes. It seemed Kay-Kay’d gone invisible.
I thought of Julius Caesar at the senate, about to be stabbed to death by his so-called friends. Only that morning in Mrs. Edinburgh’s class I’d read Caesar’s stunned words:
Et tu, Brute?
Across the narrow aisle, I sent telepathic warnings to Kay-Kay:
Don’t grovel, just give them the giant, defiant screw-you
.
Casually find another table. Act like you don’t care.
Message received. The next thing I knew, Kay-Kay Reese was halfheartedly munching a bright green salad (no dressing) in the chair right across from me.
Every once in a while, just to enhance Kay-Kay’s torture, the Bluebirds pressed their brassy, dark-rooted heads together and looked straight at her while they whispered back and forth. I made an effort not to stare at my unlikely lunch partner, but with her tragic blue eyes and anguished berry-colored lips, it was difficult not to.
When the bell rang, Kay-Kay and I waited for the dreaded flock to leave. We walked toward study hall together, although I knew Kay-Kay’s class was in the opposite direction. “Thanks for letting me sit with you, Rosie,” said Kay-Kay when we reached the library. I’d never seen her look so
un
perky.
“No problem,” I replied.
“Would you mind if I ate with you tomorrow, too?” she asked. “Maybe at a different table? Far away from them?”
“Not at all,” I said, “just as long as you don’t talk so much.” Kay-Kay hadn’t said a word the whole lunch period. She forced a polite smile at my lame joke and headed off down the long empty hallway. Alone.
chapter twenty
My Lucky Day
Mother and I had a huge fight this morning just before she left for Heavenly Hair. You’d think an argument about tuna casserole would be pretty lame, one of those silly fights you take too seriously in the beginning, but end up laughing about later, but no.
At five forty-five, according to my clock radio, Mother pounded up the stairs. “Rosemary Goode, did you eat that casserole or throw it away?” She stood over me, hands on her thin hips, lips tight and angry. She hadn’t covered her head yet, so I wasn’t quite sure who she was when I first woke up. With her pale skin and even paler scalp, my once-pretty mother resembled an alien.
“Huh?” I asked, squinting against the light.
“That casserole was for Willy Ray McCutchin and his boys. Peri goes to the rehab center today, and I made it thinking it would save them some time and money. Do you ever think about anybody besides yourself? And please don’t tell me you threw out my good Pyrex dish just to hide your tracks!”
“Mother, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I groaned, and covered my head with a pillow. Mother snatched the pillow off my face and glowered. It hit me then what was different about her—her eyelashes and eyebrows were gone now, too.
When did this happen? How did I not notice?
Mother stormed across my room and snatched up the window shade. Angrily, she plucked damp laundry off the treadmill. “And the next pair of panties I see drip-dryin’ on this $700 machine . . . well, they’re just going straight to the trash!” I wondered who had sneaked into our house in the middle of the night and replaced my real mother with this raving lunatic.
“Mother, what
is
your problem? I didn’t eat any tuna casserole! I’ve lost weight, not that anyone around here has noticed!”
“And what exactly is going on with that anyway? One minute you’re eating everything in sight, the next you’re pitching perfectly good food in the garbage can! They don’t give pot roast away at the Piggly Wiggly, Rosemary Goode! I have to buy it. And another thing while I’m gettin’ this stuff off my chest. You are to be nice to your Aunt Mary, hear? I’m not kidding. I’m sick of your constant bickering with her.”
“
My
bickering with
her
?” I asked, incredulous. “What about—?”
“Hush! I mean it! Your aunt has done a lot for you over the years. She’s done a lot for
me
. You are to treat her with respect, do you
understand
?” I was fully awake now and angry. It was Saturday. I didn’t have to be at work until ten. And I hadn’t eaten any stupid casserole
or
thrown it away! Mother turned to go downstairs.
“I didn’t eat your damn casserole,” I mumbled under my breath.
“I heard that!” Mother whirled around. “Rosie, surely, to the good Lord in heaven, if I can fight cancer cells you can fight fat ones!”
“Well, if I could take chemo to fight my fat cells, I would! And another thing, I can’t stand Aunt Mary!”
“You take that back!” The blue veins in Mother’s neck were bulging now.
“No!” I slung the covers off my bed, stormed into the bathroom, and slammed the door.
“Fat cells are a whole lot easier to cure than cancer cells!” Mother shouted. “Self-restraint is the only drug you need!”
“That’s not what the Internet says!” I flushed the toilet and turned on the shower to drown Mother out. Finally, she gave up and went downstairs.
While I took a shower, I thought about what Mrs. Wallace would say about our fight. “Why were you and your mother
really
angry with one another? Was your argument about Willy Ray McCutchin’s casserole, or was it about something else?” I knew it was probably about something else, but I couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was.
Mother and I didn’t talk the rest of the day, which wasn’t all that difficult. The salon was like Grand Central Station—people coming and going and talking and laughing. Mildred had added on a bunch of manicures without telling Miss Bertha first, so she was double-booked. Mother had to pitch in and help Mildred with the manicures, which meant Richard had to take over Hilda May Brunson’s highlights. Richard doesn’t
do
nails.
Because of the ongoing well water problem, Mrs. Brunson decided to go with red highlights this time instead of blond ones (red doesn’t show the green cast the way blond does), but she and Richard couldn’t agree on the shade. “You’ll look brassy as hell with light copper!” said Richard.
“Well, medium copper makes me look sallow,” Mrs. Brunson argued back.
On days when the salon is buzzing like a hive, I am the official mess-picker-upper. I clear away soiled towels and toss them into the wash, empty trash cans, and sweep up hair. When the wash cycle is complete, the towels go into the dryer, then they’re folded, and the whole thing starts all over again.
By the end of the day, I was nothing but a giant fur ball. Hair was stuck to my skin, my clothes, my shoes, everything, even my lips! I was fantasizing about a shower and my trusty sweatpants when the bells jangled on the front door again.
“Oh, good God! Don’t these morons ever call first?” Richard hissed under his breath.
I glanced toward the door. “Oh, my God,” I whispered. “That’s
her
.”
“Who?” Richard asked too loudly.
“Shhh!
She’s the Bluebird, the mean one I was telling you about.”
Richard’s jaw dropped. “Well,
I’m
not touching her! Honey, she’s got some serious disulfide-bond issues, the little slut! What
does
she condition her hair with? Battery acid? Gasoline?”
“I’m going to the basement,” I whispered.
“You will not! It’s your shop, not hers!”
"Come get me when she’s gone,” I said, and slipped down the creaky stairs.
I felt like I’d been in the musty basement for hours. More than likely, Misty was long gone; Richard was probably just paying me back for being such a coward. He hates it when I don’t stand up to my tormentors. Usually, I have to remind him that when it came to dealing with his own tormentors, he quit school.
Finally, I trudged up the stairs again. It had been a very long day, after all, and I just wanted to go home. I opened the door and came around the corner. To my horror, Misty was
still there
, although her hair did look better, unfortunately. It shone in the recessed light just above Miss Bertha’s head, no brassy roots, no damaged cuticles. Mother had given her highlights, a deep-conditioning treatment—and a trim, no doubt. Misty shifted her weight from one trendy-shoed foot to the other while Miss Bertha totaled her bill. I hid behind the magazine rack and kept very,
very
still.
“Wait! I think I’ve changed my mind,” I heard Misty say. “I need a wax real quick, too.”
“Oh, I’m afraid there’s no one to do a wax this time a day,” said Miss Bertha. Mother darted out of the back room suddenly. She was fumbling through her purse instead of looking where she was going and crashed right into me. A pile of
Soap Opera Digest
s flew off the rack and smacked the floor.
Misty turned around and saw me standing there. I cringed. I waited. I glanced around for Richard, but he’d already gone for the day. His station had been cleared, and his Madonna key ring was missing from the hook. Misty’s cold snake eyes rested on me, but her expression never changed. It was as if she’d seen nothing, just the blank wall behind me. I don’t know why, but having Misty Winters ignore me made me angrier than if she’d insulted me.
“Well, she did my hair. Can’t
she
do the wax, too?” Misty asked, nodding toward Mother.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Mother. “Normally, I would, but I’m in a rush today. I have a casserole to make.”
“A casserole?” said Misty, irritation seeping into the fake-nice tone of her voice.
Oh, dear God, Mother! Please, whatever you do, don’t tell Misty Winters you think I ate your casserole!
Mother shot me a look, and I nearly choked on the air I’d inhaled. “It’s a long story,” said Mother. “Come back Tuesday, and I’ll even give you a discount. ”
“I don’t
need
a discount. I need a wax!”
“I’ll do it,” I interrupted, just to prevent any further casserole talk. Misty looked startled by my offer. “Really, it’s no trouble at all. I’d be happy to do it.” I gave Misty one of her very own, you-better -watch-out, fake Bluebird smiles.
“Oh, just never mind!” she said. In a flash, she paid her bill and flew out the door.
“Lord, that girl is something,” said Miss Bertha. “You know her?”
“Not really,” I lied.
“Well, I’m off to Piggly Wiggly,” said Mother. “That tuna casserole isn’t gonna make itself, and I wanna get it to Willy Ray before suppertime. Can you take Rosie home?” Mother asked this question as if I weren’t standing two feet away from her (and as if Miss Bertha didn’t take me home every day anyway).
“Gladly,” Miss Bertha replied.
“Rosie, I don’t know what you’ve been doing in that basement, but every trash can is overflowing, and dirty towels are everywhere. And you can change out the Barbicide again while you’re waiting for the towels to dry. At
every
station,” she added on her way out the door.
Angrily, I hauled the trash out back and hurled it into the big Dumpster. Under normal circumstances, Mother wouldn’t have made me change the Barbicide twice in one day. I knew she was just trying to get back at me for the casserole. I was beginning to think maybe I
had
eaten the damn thing, like in my sleep or something. Maybe my body was so deprived of real food, it was staging a covert rebellion. For a second I considered telling Mother about the Pounds-Away. At least then she wouldn’t waste her money, but I decided against it. She would never understand my inability to eat sensible portions of regular food. I didn’t even understand it myself.
I went back inside just in time to see Mr. McCutchin and his two little boys file through the front door. They were a morbid trio, beaten down like characters straight out of
The Grapes of Wrath
. Slump-shouldered and flat-eyed, they stood at the reception desk, their mouths pulled downward as if stitched that way. Mrs. McCutchin’s health was taking a toll on everyone, it seemed. Mr. McCutchin was clutching his wife’s familiar Tupperware container, the one she used especially for cakes. “I wuz lookin’ for Rose Warren. She here?” he asked.
“I’m ’fraid she’s gone for the day, Willy Ray. I think she was coming to see you later,” said Miss Bertha, confused.
Mr. McCutchin’s frown lines deepened to furrows. “Well, I come to thank her for that tuna casserole. It wuz mighty good of her to make it, bein’ so sick and all.” He held up the cake container. “We brung angel food cake. I cain’t bake like Peri. Me and my boys picked this’n up at Pig’s. Seemed like a good choice, considerin’ what a angel Rose Warren’s been to my wife.”
“You mean you already got the casserole?” asked Miss Bertha.
“Aw, yeah. Her sister brung it to us las’ night. It was kindly late when she come. It ’uz mighty good, though.”
Aunt Mary took the casserole! Once again Mother sides with her instead of me! The same old story over and—
In the middle of my mental tuna tangent, I noticed the McCutchin boys,
really
noticed them.
The youngest one, a dark-haired, heavy-set child of no more than five or six, put a hand on his father’s coat sleeve and held it there awkwardly. The older boy dug his toe into the floor. Their normally close-cropped hair had grown shaggy, and I could tell it hadn’t been combed all day. Their usually clean, starched clothes were mismatched and wrinkled, their pant legs streaked with mud, their noses crusty. Mrs. McCutchin would’ve had another heart attack if she’d seen them out in public that way.
Here I was thinking about revenge and vindication over such trivial matters, and these boys were standing right smack in front of me, two crushing reminders that sometimes sick mothers don’t get well. All at once, my throat squeezed up so tight I felt like I was having an allergic reaction.
After they’d gone, I headed for the snack machine. For the price of one,
two
Snickers bars hit the metal tray.
It must be my
lucky day,
I thought glumly. Guiltily, I polished off the first candy bar and stuffed the second into my pocket for later. A setback, I told myself. That’s all this is.
It was nearly seven o’clock by the time Miss Bertha dropped me off. It would’ve been even later, except Miss Bertha insisted on taking all the dirty towels home. “I’m not spending what’s left of my Saturday night doing laundry at Heavenly Hair when I’ve got a perfectly good washing machine at home,” she said.
The house had that quiet, empty feeling, although Mother’s car was in the driveway, so I knew she was home. On the kitchen island was a brand-new Pyrex dish with a freshly made tuna casserole inside. It was still warm and covered in aluminum foil with a note attached.
Gone to bed. Heard about the mix-up. Sorry for accusing you.
Mother
My Saturday night was all planned out suddenly—a warm shower, a heaping plate of dinner, another Snickers bar, and angel food cake. The perfect ending to a stressful day. Besides, I was out of Pounds-Away anyhow. What my body needed was real food.

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