Butter (14 page)

“Really?” Jeanie's eyes sparkled, and she smiled at me. “You should go for it.”

How transparent. Just two weeks ago, Jeanie would have probably retched at the thought of anyone hooking up with a 423-pounder. Or at the very least, she would have massacred me in the gossip mill and made me the laughingstock of school for even dreaming I had a shot with a thin, pretty thing like Anna.

But her disdainful sneers had disappeared the moment she realized I was Scottsdale High's hot new item. Everyone was
curious about the suicidal Sasquatch, and she had an inside line. Now she was all warmth and smiles and encouraging words.

“I don't have a thing for Anna,” I said automatically.

“It's okay, I won't tell her,” Jeanie rushed to assure me.

Liar.

“But Butter, we have to save her from the Internet stalker.” Her faux concern was laughable.

“That is a little creepy,” Trent agreed.

“Creepy and
so
1990s,” Jeanie said. “Seriously, what kind of freak show won't even send a picture?”

“Well, it's really none of our business,” I said.

Jeanie blinked at me. “So?”

Trent laughed and threw an arm around Jeanie's waist. “C'mon, schemer. Plot your evil intervention later. We're gonna be late for class.” He dismissed the group with a wave, and Parker and I headed off in the opposite direction.

“Butter, you may think you're too big to get with Anna, but you've gotta be better than what ever kind of troll she's been talking to on the Internet.”

Um … thanks?

“Parker, I'm really not that interested, especially if she has a boyfriend.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “Give up then. I'm just saying—if a guy your size landed Anna McGinn, you'd be a legend.”

Really, Parker's brand of flattery and encouragement was starting to grate on my nerves.

“Let's just drop it,” I said.

Parker veered off into a classroom. “Okay. Later.”

I spent all of first period fidgeting. Anna had barely turned around to say hi, and just before class, I saw her check her phone for a text message.

Is it from Jeanie? Can she not wait until lunch to spill the news to Anna that I have some big gooey crush on her?

Lunch. By then Anna would know, and any hope I had of getting to know her in person would be gone.

The thought made me irritable all throughout algebra and chemistry. By the time I was headed down the hall to the cafeteria, I was shaking with anger and nerves. I just knew Jeanie was already sitting down to lunch with Anna trying to convince her that “two tons of fun” was better than “Internet psycho perv.” I could have punched a wall.

“Hey! Watch where you're going!” I barked at a freshman who had darted out of a classroom right into my path.

“Why don't you watch where
you're
go—Oh, sorry,” she said when she caught sight of who she was talking to. It was the girl from the soda machine. “I didn't mean to—I mean, well, I wasn't paying attention.”

“Forget it.” I waved my hand, disgusted. This was exactly the kind of person Trent had been protecting me from—people who looked at me and saw only death and poundage. If my new friends felt nothing but thrill over my impending doom, I would still take that over pity any day.

The girl shrank before me and backed up a step. Behind her, four boys huddled together, watching.

“Can I help you?” I snarled.

They shook their heads in unison. I noticed they were all
carrying cases, each one a different shape than the next. I could imagine the instruments inside. The cases melted away before my X-ray vision, and I saw a shiny tuba, a clarinet, a flute … and a saxophone. Something ached in my chest. I hadn't played my own sax in days.

“What are you staring at then?” I asked, bearing down on them.

“Nothing,” one of the boys whimpered.

Another was more bold. “A liar.”

I got right in his face. “What did you call me?”

“
Was
it a lie?” The girl's voice was so soft, I almost didn't hear her.

“It wasn't a lie,” I said. “It was a—a joke.”

“Right, a prank.” It sounded like she should roll her eyes, but she kept them fixed on mine.

I blinked and looked away, in case she could read the truth there.

“Yeah, a prank. And you fell for it.” I rolled my own eyes, to show her how it was done.

“So what's with the password?” she challenged.

“If you don't have it, then I guess you don't know.”

I heard one of the guys mutter “dick” under his breath. I wheeled on them.

“Don't you have something to do?” I pointed to their cases. “Go blow your instruments. Or go blow each other. I don't care. Just get out of my way.”

“Butter!”

Aw, crap.
I recognized that voice.

The boys scampered away as I turned to face the Professor. He was leaning in the very doorway the little freshman girl had popped out of. I waited for him to lay into me, to tell me I was uncouth and ineloquent and—if we hadn't been in school—an asshole. Instead, he just eyeballed me in a bizarre staring contest. I probably would have lost if I hadn't been so intent on reading his expression. Was that anger in his eyes? Concern? Confusion?

The Professor dropped his gaze first, looking down to greet a line of sophomores filing into the band room. Then he reached out to pull the door shut. At the very last moment, he held the door ajar just enough for me to see his expression clearly.

“I expect a lot more from you.”

“Prof—”

He shut the door, and the rush of air that escaped from the band room felt like air being pushed out of
me,
as my overblown ego finally deflated.

The encounter with the Professor and the fact that Jeanie apparently had
not
mentioned my crush to Anna helped tame the tiger inside me, and by the time I was in my car pulling away from school, I felt more ashamed than angry.

My hands shook a little on the steering wheel. I couldn't tell if the shaking was from nerves or too many missed meals, but just in case it was the latter, I dug a candy bar out of the glove compartment and boosted my blood sugar with a few bites. The shakes subsided but not the shame.

My emotions were all out of whack. Life was happening so fast now, I barely had time to process how I felt about anything; I just reacted. And there was no time to repent, because I was rushing toward a deadline I was no longer sure I wanted to reach. So I tried my damnedest to just live in the moment and
enjoy how my life was evolving, but every time I did, I wound up tripping all over myself.
Like today, with those band kids
.

I don't even remember how I got from school to the doctor's office. Suddenly I was just there, parked outside the glass door with Doc Bean's nameplate on it.

Mom was waiting for me in the lobby.

“I checked you in,” she said. I heard tension in her voice. Leftovers from breakfast.

“Sorry I'm late.”

“With your friends?”

It was such a Mom move to question me now when I couldn't escape. I wondered if she'd been looking forward to this appointment just to play that card. If so, her poker face revealed nothing.

“Because new friends are wonderful, honey,” she went on when I didn't answer. “But—”

“Yeah,” I interrupted. “The Professor says it's good to have people.”

I felt bad dropping the Professor's name when he was pissed at me, but I hoped it would keep Mom from pushing.

It didn't.

“As long as they're good influences like—like your friend Tucker.” Mom spun her eyes around the lobby as if expecting Tucker to show up like last time.

“You mean other fat kids.”

I expected Mom to deny it, but her eyes hit the floor as she said, “Well, it doesn't hurt to be around people who can relate—”

“Mom.” My voice was a warning.

“I'd just like to meet your new friends. That's all.” Mom waved away the moment with her hands and smiled. “My little social butterfly.”

I opened my mouth to tell her I didn't really want to be called any kind of butterfly, but the quiet nurse cut me off.

“Are we ready?” she asked.

I nodded, and Mom began to hum.

Unlike the last appointment, this time we didn't skip the scale. I kicked off my shoes and stepped up to the special machine with the high weight limit. I knew the drill. The nurse went through the motions, checking my chart for my weight and placing the sliders at their starting points: one at four hundred pounds, one at twenty. The final slider would determine just how far above 423 I'd climbed.

But something was wrong; the last piece wasn't moving. It was resting far to one side.

“Oh, this looks like good news,” the nurse said.

Then she lifted the slider stuck on twenty pounds and moved it down to ten. Still no movement. She dropped it down to zero. Finally, the scale began to tip. She slid the smallest slider back and forth slowly until it was perfectly balanced.

409 pounds.

I goggled. The scale had to be broken! My last weigh-in had only been a month ago, and I still hadn't gotten around to doing any exercise. I couldn't possibly have lost fourteen pounds!

“Four-oh-nine,” the nurse confirmed. “Congratulations. Right this way.”

Mom and I followed the nurse to a treatment room, both in a bit of a daze. I was ecstatic—I couldn't remember the last time
I had
lost
weight—but I was also disappointed. I would have thought fourteen pounds of weight loss would be noticeable, but I looked the same; my clothes fit the same. It was good news, I guess, but it was also an awful reminder of just how much weight I would have to lose to get anywhere close to normal.

Fourteen pounds gone and not a belt notch to show for it. If that doesn't define lost cause, I don't know what does.

Mom and I were in the room for a matter of seconds before Doc Bean burst in shouting.

“Fourteen pounds, my friend! Fourteen pounds!” He gripped my shoulders in his hands. “You are disappearing before my eyes!”

I smiled in spite of my dreary mood. “Aw shucks, Doc. It's just a little excess weight.”

“Not a little. Not a little
at all
. It is something to celebrate! Tell me everything. Are you exercising? Are you dieting? Where did all that excess go?”

“He's not eating,” my mom interrupted quietly from her usual spot by the door.

Doc Bean's jolly mood waned a little. “Not eating?” He frowned. “Not eating at all?”

“Of course I'm eating,” I said. I shot my mother a look. “I'm just not overdoing it. I've been real busy … at school.”

“At school, hmm?” The doc's eyes shone with mischief. “Busy at school … with a
lady
?”

I blushed.

The doc clapped his hands and hopped around in a funny dance. “There's a lady!” he sang. “There's a laaady!” He tried to pull my mom into the routine, but after one spin, she stepped back and politely pretended to be dizzy.

“Who is this lady?” the doc asked, finally holding still and settling into his stool.

My mom looked at me expectantly.

“There's no lady,” I muttered.

The doc winked at me as he lifted his stethoscope to listen to my heart. “Okay. Do not tell Bean about her, but what a very lucky lady she is!”

I looked at Mom. “There's no lady.”

Her lips twitched, but I couldn't tell if she was fighting off a smile or a frown.

She addressed the doc. “I'm not sure what the distraction is, but his eating habits have certainly changed. He's not getting enough breakfast.”

Bean grew serious. “Breakfast is the most important meal,” he said to me. “You may eat only toast or cereal if you wish, but do have carbs for breakfast, yes?”

“Yes,” I promised.

“Good.”

He continued the checkup and pronounced me stable.

“Do not ruin your progress with a big Christmas dinner,” he said.

“I won't.”

“Listen to your mother, and eat your breakfast.”

“I will.”

“Plan something special for your lady for Christmas.”

I laughed.

“There's one other thing,” my mom said. “Dr. Bandyopadhyay, have you heard of BI? It's this institution in Chicago—”

“
No way!
” I exploded.

My mom was stunned into silence.

“Calm down, friend.” Doc Bean put a hand on my chest. “Protect the ticker, always. A school in Chicago is not worth raising your blood pressure.” He spun his stool to face my mom. “I am familiar with the Barker Institute, of course.”

“Is it something—Would it be an option, maybe …?” She struggled to recover from my outburst.

“I'm not going to Chicago,” I seethed.

“I didn't know you'd even heard of it,” she said.

“Everyone at FitFab has heard of it. It's a fat-camp legend—and not in a good way.”

“Oh! Okay. Well, I had no idea. Someone at your father's work has a daughter who attends BI. He says she loves it, so I just thought maybe the doctor had some literature …”

“I have many friends at BI,” Doc Bean said. “I will have some information mailed to you.”

Mom nodded. “Thank you.” Then to me, “I was just curious, baby. If you aren't interested, you aren't interested.”

“I'm
not
interested.”

“Okay.”

So that was why she couldn't look me in the eyes in the lobby—why she wasn't hot on me having friends. She didn't want me getting too attached to anyone here, so she'd feel less guilty when she shipped me off. Not that I'd be around long enough for that to happen.

I shivered. Damn Mom for making me really consider that. It was so much easier to go through the motions, to keep
moving forward with the plan and reaping the rewards at school without actually worrying about the end game.