Biggie (7 page)

Chapter 11

One Hundred Ounces Of Mountain Dew

While Laser never told Mom that I was sneaking junk food, he did convince her to send me to Dr. Pence. There's nothing worse than being fat in a doctor's office. When people walk into a waiting room, they scan the room and wonder what each person has. It's human nature. In most cases, no one knows. But when someone sees a fat ass sitting there squeezed like a sardine into a chair built for someone half his size, it's pretty easy to figure out why he's there—because he's fat.

As I sit there, I watch people look at me and lift some pity smiles. They feel bad for me like it's horrible being fat. I hate those pity smiles. I want to scream, “Don't feel bad for me. I'm a hell of a lot smarter than you.”

“Henry Abbott,” a nurse shouts out.

“C'mon,” Mom says with a rub of my thigh.

The last time I went to this doctor, I weighed 275 pounds. It was February 16, and I told Mom the weight gain was due to Valentine's Day chocolates.

I know the first thing the nurse's going to do is have me step onto a scale, which will likely put me on the wrong side of three hundred. I try to wear baggy clothes, sweatshirts and sweatpants, and stay out of sight, so Mom won't know, that despite her best efforts, I've put on weight. She's not stupid, but I'm sure she believes I've put on five or ten pounds. I doubt she realizes that I've crossed three hundred pounds. The doctor says she should weigh me every couple of weeks, but Mom doesn't. I think it's because when she sees the numbers 270, 280, 290 pop up, she'll start to cry or be embarrassed. Instead she makes me low-calorie meals and hopes the granola, fruit, and baked chicken work wonders.

There's little I can do now. I'm three steps from the scale and all the baggy T-shirts in the world aren't going to help me now.

I step on the scale. It immediately flashes 319 pounds, then drops to 313 before settling at 317, a new record. Wow, I really thought missing out on a week of Molly's and walking a few miles would lower my weight, maybe to even less than 300.

Mom smiles at me as we walk to the exam room to wait for Dr. Pence. Her smile is the same pity smile the old ladies and little girls shared with me in the waiting room.

Dr. Pence is a jackass, know-it-all old man who treats me like a cancer patient. He loves to tell me that if I don't stop eating junk food, I'll die. I would believe him except for the fact that dozens of people come in and buy shit from me every night in the convenience store. All we sell is crap food: potato chips, Twinkies, pop, beer, beef jerky, and greasier food than a fast-food joint. Sure, I eat fried food at Molly's and drink Mountain Dew like water, but so does everyone else in Finch. I wonder if Killer, who loves Dew as much as I do, gets the you're-going-to-die speech.

In the past few years, I have figured out a way to keep from being made fun of at school. All I have to do is keep quiet and to myself. The plan works. Everyone leaves me alone, except for Dr. Pence. He's the only person who talks about my weight, who tells me I'm too big. No matter how hard I try, I can't keep him from mocking me. And he does it in front of my mother. Is he doing his job? Maybe. But that doesn't make me feel any less worthless when I'm in his office. When he knocks on the door, I just want to scream:
Leave me alone!

Dr. Pence smiles as he sits. I'm not falling for it. I know I'm going to get some typical jackass lecture from him.

“How do you feel, Henry?” he asks.

“Fine. I've been working out, so it's good,” I mumble like an idiot.

“You're working out. I'm happy to hear that.”

I hate this so much. I want to walk out so bad, but I'm trapped. He's going to ruin my day. I know it. He's going to make my mom cry. I just know it.

“Henry, your high blood pressure has gotten worse, and I assume when we get your blood work back, that your cholesterol will also have gotten worse. You're now six-foot-three and a half inches tall and you weigh three hundred seventeen pounds.”

He leans back into his chair and presses down on the edge of the table with the tips of his fingers. I stare at them and try to ignore what he's saying.

“What worries me and your family is that when your mom brought you in here in February, we put you on a diet—remember?”

I say nothing. I just sit there with a blank look on my face. He can look in my eyes, but he's not going to see me sweat.

“Answer him,” Mom commands.

With jumbled and practically unrecognizable words, I mumble, “I remember.”

“Now your mom says that you've been on this diet for eight months, but I don't see any indication of a person on a diet. What I see here is a person addicted to eating—or a person trying to commit suicide with food.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a tear roll down Mom's cheek.

I knew it
, I think to myself.
I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. He made her cry.
My mom's crying, which makes me want to cry. I fight it. I can't cry in front of Dr. Pence.

“We're going to run tests next week to see if you have adult-onset diabetes,” Pence continues. “I'm scared to death that the results will come back positive. I'm worried that you're doing damage to your heart and especially to your kidneys. Are you thirsty a lot?”

I stay quiet and continue the staring contest. He wouldn't have asked if he didn't already know the answer.

“Henry?” Mom waits for an answer.

I look at my hands. I twist my wrists and stare at my palms as if the veins and vessels will tell me if I have diabetes. Of course I do. Of course I have it. I'm fat. And no doctor, not even Dr. Pence, would use that word around me if he wasn't 100 percent sure.

“Are you thirsty a lot?” Mom asks again.

“I only drink liquids when I'm tired or need to stay awake,” I answer with little thought. I'm on autopilot right now.

“Do you drink water or coffee?” Dr. Pence asks.

“Water,” I say.

“Kari, could you leave us alone for a second?”

“No, I want to hear this,” Mom says through a hand now pressed against her face.

“Okay. Henry, when we met last time, you told me that your favorite beverage was Mountain Dew and I told you that you needed to drink healthier liquids. Are you still drinking Mountain Dew or other sugar-based sodas?”

“Sometimes,” I say.

Dr. Pence gets up and walks to the front of his oak desk. With his shoulders curled and his hands clasped, he stares right into my eyes. “Henry, I need you to be honest. This isn't a game. Do you drink pop in the morning, during school? Do you drink pop at lunch, for dinner, before you go to bed, or whenever you body craves it? Do you drink sugary pops?”

“Most days, I drink five twenty-ounce Mountain Dews.”

“That's one hundred ounces of pop,” he says to Mom as if she couldn't calculate the answer herself.

I look at Mom, but she looks away, crying. I hate this man. I hate everything about him. He's an asshole. Fuck him and his dumb questions. He should have forced Mom to leave the room before this inquisition.

“But I haven't had a Mountain Dew in days.” I try to save the situation and stop the crying. “All I drink is water and juice. I'm in training.”

Dr. Pence gets a box of tissues for Mom. “Henry, come in Monday for the test. You will need to fast for six hours before. Kari, if the results come back positive, we'll have to meet again and talk about treatment.”

Mom blows her nose and nods.

“Henry, I truly hope the results come back negative and this training you're talking about works,” he says. “I'm going to tell you what I tell every one of my obese young patients.”

“What's that?”

“The last thing I want to do is attend your funeral.”

Chapter 12

Stipulations

It's weird when someone discusses your death. Sitting at the convenience store, all I can think about is diabetes.

Although I don't feel sick, I decide to not eat any junk food and I'm only drinking bottled water. There is nothing to get you off the Dew like hearing your gray-haired doctor say he will be going to
your
funeral.

As I start to feel completely depressed at my unraveling life, a bright light walks into the store: Annabelle. She skipped school today, so this is the first time I've seen her since she accepted my follow request at three in the morning. So even though I've known her since I was five and have been in love with her since I was twelve, this is the first time we've officially been friends.

She grabs her Lo-Carb Monster drink and picks up a Kit Kat. I guess she's going to buy it. My boss would hate that I'm bummed she doesn't steal anymore. It was our thing. She drops the junk food on the counter.

“Three twenty-five,” I say, breaking my routine of not saying the total out loud. She pulls out a five and I count out her change. I should say something. We're online friends now. I should ask her about her day, her clothes, working at Molly's, something. She takes the dollar bill and three quarters and puts them in her small purse, black with a red flower, cuter than the massive tub-sized one she carries sometimes. Time's running out. I need to say something. What are friends if they don't talk to one another? I don't know, but they aren't friends.
Biggie, say something
.

“I was surprised you were up.” That's what my head came up with. I'm an academic genius, and what my wonderful and well-disciplined brain told my lips to say is
I was surprised you were up
. Wow! I hope she walks out the door.

“What?” She turns and looks at me confused. Annabelle must have come in here a hundred times and never heard a word of small talk, so I don't blame her for wondering what the hell is going on today.

“You accepted my follow request at three in the morning,” I say. “I guess I thought you would be asleep.”

She leans back against the glass, placing enough pressure to open the door a sliver. “I wasn't feeling well and couldn't sleep. That's why I wasn't in school.”

“Well, thanks for approving me,” I say.

Just when I think she's going to walk out and head off to work, she steps forward.

Stand up straight and look her in the eye. She wants to talk. We've practiced this.

“Does your house really have an indoor baseball field?” she asks.

Oh. She wants to chat about Mom's house. I release a breath of both relief and disappointment. “Well, it's really just a baseball diamond under a tall roof. You only have to hit the ball one hundred twenty feet to reach the wall.”

“Wow, that's cool,” she says. “Can I get a tour?”

“What?”

“My aunt is teaching me all about the family business and she wants me to write some practice listings and you live in the most interesting house in town.”

“It's not that interesting,” I say.

“Whatever, it must be the only house in Iowa with its own indoor baseball field.”

“I guess.”

“I would love to see your house, get a tour,” she says, still waiting for an answer.

I'm in the middle of the best conversation I've ever had. Not only am I talking to her, but she wants to hang out. What do I do? Do I quit while I'm ahead and invite her over for a tour or do I push it? Should I see if she'll agree to something else? Heck, I might have adult-onset diabetes at age seventeen, so I'm due for some good luck. Maybe, but I chicken out and say, “Sure, come over anytime.”

“Cool. Thanks, Biggie.”

She heads for the door and I close my eyes, open my mouth, press the heels of my hands to the counter, clear my head, and speak. “How about Friday and we get some food first?”

I'm not going to lie. Annabelle's face turns pale and her freckles disappear. I wait and wonder if she's going to yell “Gross.” Time ticks away, while Annabelle stares at my wide-open mouth and eyes. My hands clasp together, expanding veins and arteries to the point where they almost break through my skin.

“I'm not going on a date with you,” she says, something I figured out a few seconds back. “I just wanted to see the indoor baseball field.”

“No, no, no,” I say. “I just have a gift certificate for two to McKellen's and I don't want to be a loser and take my mom. That's all. Not a date. I won't tell anyone, I swear. I saw you with Mike. Remember?”

I'm relying on my email surveillance. I know she loves McKellen's but getting caught with me would be a disaster to her reputation.

She stands there, one hand holding open the glass door. “Well, Mike's a cheating asshole,” she says, “so I'm not with him. But just because we broke up doesn't mean I'm going out with you. I don't even know you that well.”

I nod violently. The excitement of her breakup with Mike only makes my blood race faster through my diabetes-filled body.

“Pick me up from Molly's at five on Saturday,” she says.

“What?” I say, “So you'll go to McKellen's?”

“It's not a date,” she says. “I just like the popovers. Don't tell anyone about this, you got it?”

“I don't talk,” I remind her.

“And I swear if you tweet that we're going out or that you're my boyfriend, I'll never talk to you again.”

Chapter 13

Small-Town Hicks

I have spent the last four years getting ready for this night. I must have read a hundred Annabelle emails and written twenty pages of notes and time lines in my green binder. I know some people would call me a stalker or a voyeur, but without that information, I have no shot with a girl like Annabelle.

Yesterday, before I mentioned the certificates, she gave me a look that screamed, “You're a weirdo,” but by releasing a little bit of the intel I have gathered over the years, I'm two minutes from picking her up for a date. Okay, she doesn't think it's a date, but I put together an online survey with some of my Reddit buddies and forty-five of the sixty-seven people I explained the situation to say it's a date. So, I say it's a date.

As I park at Molly's in my newly washed Chevy Silverado, I hope that Annabelle changes after work. I'm sure she looks cute in the navy-and-tan work outfit, but I would love her to put on something tight and short. I want to see her legs and cleavage. She has amazing legs that I can't wait to touch.

She bolts out of the side employee door, wearing a bulky red Iowa State T-shirt and jeans. Better than the uniform, but nothing like Mike got.

Annabelle opens the door and climbs in the cab. “Nice truck,” she says. “My uncle has a truck like this.”

“Thanks,” I say. I don't say
I bought it to impress girls
, but I did after reading last year about her love of Silverado trucks.

If I can be honest, I have never been to McKellen's and there are no gift certificates. I meant to buy some online but kept forgetting. Hopefully Annabelle will forget that too.

Before today, I had no idea how to get there. Thank you, Google Maps. As we hit the interstate, I turn up Def Leppard's “Let's Get Rocked.”

“I dig this song,” I say. In reality the song is all right, but not as good as Leppard's early stuff. But I know that Annabelle loves the song. Her cousin just saw Def Leppard in Germany, and they were talking about when they used to do a dance number to it as kids. “Sometimes I feel like I'm the only kid at Finch that loves eighties stuff.”

Annabelle gives me a weird look. She tilts her head like a confused dog. “How would you know?” she asks. “You never ask what anyone likes.”

The freshly trimmed hair on my head starts to itch, my fingers tingle, and my lips dry.

“I hear things, see things,” I say. “When you're not talking all the time, all your senses are heightened, kind of like a blind person hears and smells really well.”

I peek at myself in the rearview mirror. I look clean-cut with just the right amount of chaos.

I sneak a glance at her. Annabelle doesn't seem interested in talking about music or even my lack of chitchat at Finch. She's gazing out the window as we pass combines harvesting October corn. After only ten minutes, Annabelle's bored.

The restaurant is dark, which bums me out because I can barely see Annabelle's green eyes. For some reason, elevator music plays overhead. The table has a small lit candle and a white tablecloth. The waitress brings us a basket of bread and butter. I'm not a big fan of bread and butter, which keeps me from embarrassing myself in front of Annabelle. I can be a messy eater when I'm hungry, and right now I'm starving after a day of skipped meals. I know a person can't lose twenty pounds by not eating one breakfast and one lunch, but I figure a day of fasting can't hurt.

Neither of us says anything, which is nice. I know it's weird to be on a date, especially a dinner date, where no one talks, but I feel comfortable in silence. If only I could do something about the clang of dishes and glasses or the small talk from surrounding tables about traffic, cold bread, and lack of water. Those noises start to bug me and I notice Annabelle holding in a yawn. I need to do something out of the ordinary and shake things up.

“So,” I say, “do you come here often?”

Do you come here often?
That's out of the ordinary. Am I in a singles bar? What's wrong with me? I'm super intelligent and I've planned for this night for years. Why can't I just be cool?

“Used to,” she answers. “My family used to come here a lot when I was younger, but then my two older brothers went to college, so we stopped coming. I guess my parents think it's too nice of a place for just the three of us to go.”

“How many brothers do you have?”

“Just the two older ones,” she says. “I'm the baby.”

“I'm the oldest,” I say. “My mom had me when she was in high school.”

“Yeah, I know the story,” she says.

“What story?”

“Are you kidding me?” she asks. “It's not every year that the star volleyball player and the star quarterback have a kid together. My mom still talks about how your mom got pregnant and cost the volleyball team a chance at a state title.”

“I'm sure my mom's sorry,” I say.

“Oh, it's not that big of deal,” she backpedals. “Just letting you know that”—she searches for the words to finish the sentence—“I know some stuff about you.”

“I like your pictures on Twitter,” I change the subject. “They're fun.”

I expect her to say thank you or that's nice of you, but instead, she asks, “Who are your friends?”

I sit there silently. Is she going to make fun of me right here in the middle of this steakhouse for not having friends? I should've just kept my mouth shut. This date is turning into a Monday morning at Finch High School.

“We go to a really small school,” she continues, “and everyone has a friend or two or three or ten. I mean, when you go to a school this small, it's hard not to have a bunch of friends. But I used to think you didn't have any, which is fine, if that's what you want. If you want to live like a hermit or something, that's your God-given right, I guess.”

I'm not a hermit. A hermit by definition is some old guy with a gray beard living in the mountains. I just don't like talking in school. Those are two completely different things.

“But,” she continues, “then you asked me to follow you on Twitter and I looked at your feed and you have like four hundred followers—twice as many as I do. So apparently, you like people, just none of us.”

Does she think I don't want friends? I'm not some weirdo. I don't hate people or live in a shack on some mountain. I just don't say a lot or care for the jocks who go to our school.

She stops and stares and waits. The ball's in my court. How do I respond to her accusations? Do I just tell her I'm not a hermit? Do I tell her that I like people online a lot more than the people I go to school with? I don't know. So, for lack of a better option, I go with the truth.

“Kids at our school are mean,” I say. “It's seems like every time someone opens his mouth, someone else rips on him. Everyone just makes fun of everyone else all the time. If you say the wrong word or stutter or slip or make a weird noise, someone is always there to make fun of you or laugh at you. I don't put myself out there. I don't say anything. And then I don't get made fun of or laughed at. Those people on Twitter, they just wanna talk. They want someone to listen to them. And they don't make fun of me. They're not mean.”

Calm comes over my body. Saying all that out loud feels very therapeutic and cleansing. The words didn't sound dumb out loud. It all made sense.

“Do you think I'm mean?” she asks. “I like to joke around, but I don't think I'm mean. I don't think most people at school are mean.”

I know Annabelle's a nice person, but not from how she acts at school. She's a big smart-ass at Finch, just like everyone else. I know the real Annabelle. She's so nice to her cousin in her emails and she always has nice things to say about people when she writes about them, but I can't bring up the emails for obvious reasons. “You seem nice,” I say. “You've always been nice to me.”

“Well, I just think you shouldn't judge people,” she says. “You shouldn't think you're better than us.”

“I don't think I'm better than everyone,” I say honestly.

“You so do. You've always thought you're too good for us,” she says. “You look down on us. You're the smartest kid in school, living in the biggest house in the county, and we're all just a bunch of small-town hicks.”

“I don't think that at all,” I say. “I just sit in the back of the room. How does that make me stuck up?”

“I'm not saying it's true, but you never talk to anyone,” she says. “You ignore everyone like you hate them. When I come into the store, you never say hi or anything. Would it kill you to just once say, ‘Hi, Anna.' What am I supposed to think? I've wanted to ask you to give me a tour for months and months, but every time I try to talk to you, you just give me a mean look, just like you do to everybody.”

Thankfully the waitress brings our food, which forces Annabelle to stop berating me. Although my eyes are closed and my neck is stiff, I can feel the eyes from surrounding tables looking at us.

“Forget I brought it up,” she says. “Let's just eat.”

Maybe it's the lack of food in my stomach, but this rib eye tastes like candy. I shove small squares of medium-well meat into my mouth like jelly beans. Once the steak disappears, I scoop up garlic mashed potatoes. My tongue struggles to keep up with the constant flipping of warm potatoes into my mouth.

The steakhouse doesn't have Mountain Dew, so instead I slurp down Mello Yello in the time it takes Annabelle to eat one forkful of her chicken salad. Chewing vegetables, she looks at me like I'm a bear at the zoo that just ripped apart and swallowed a fish. I can tell she's dying to say something about the way I engulfed the twenty-dollar dinner, so I speak first. “I'm joining the baseball team.”

She swallows a crouton covered with French dressing. “About time.”

“What?” I ask.

“I mean, Biggie, you live at a baseball field. You really should play baseball, right?”

“Yeah, I probably should.”