Read Conversations With the Fat Girl Online
Authors: Liza Palmer
weekend was about a resurrection. This weekend was about Olivia and me
making things right. This was supposed to be my show. How is this
happening? I'm writing my food down now. I'm working out and I'm up to
forty-five minutes on the StairMaster. I'm a size smaller! I'm a fucking
size smaller!
"It is a big hat, Kate," Olivia says into her glass.
"What the fuck did you just say? What the fuck did you just say!" Kate
lunges at Olivia. I see a security man appear from behind a silvery
pillar over by the bar. He is talking into a mouthpiece and coming our way
"Kate. Please, let's just go," I plead, pulling my sister away and
waving the security man down. He backs off and takes his place behind
the silvery pillar. I don't make eye contact with anyone. And no one
makes eye contact with me. I grab our purses, and we leave the table.
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"See you at the wedding," Gwen taunts.
"Like hell! You won't see me near that fucking wedding! Fuck you,
Olivia!" Kate is crawling over my shoulder now and screaming Fitch you
at the top of her little lungs. I stand a good foot taller than her in
these heels and I can barely keep her down. I am numb. Kate's curses
resonate in my head just long enough to swirl once. Then the emptiness
and quiet come again, broken only by Olivia's words, It is a big hat,
Kate. It is a big hat, Kate. I'm a size smaller. I'm a size smaller.
I tuck Kate tightly in bed and escape to the bathroom where she can't
hear me. I close the door behind me and sit on the edge of the bathtub
with my head in my hands and cry. I haven't cried this hard in years. I
keep replaying the night over and over in my head and wonder how
everything got so turned around. When did Olivia become one of those
people in the hot tub at Owen Lynch's house?
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Dirty Little Secrets
I wake to the sound of my cell phone chirping. I pat the nightstand to
find my glasses. The red digital numbers of the hotel clock come into
focus. It is three thirty-seven in the morning. I flip the covers back
and go into the bathroom.
"Hello?" I whisper.
"Maggie?" It's Olivia doing her best impression of a stage whisper.
"Yeah?" Who else would it be?
"It's Olivia."
"Yeah, I've got that. What do you want?" I'm standing on a cold tile
floor in my pajamas with my drunk sister snoring in the other room. Last
I heard, Olivia was siding with Gwen.
"Are you mad?" Olivia asks.
"What are you calling for?"
"Can you meet me downstairs? Just you?" she asks. "Why?"
"Please? I've got your birthday present, Mags. And can you ... just let
me explain." I can hear the bustling casino behind her.
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"Where are you?"
"I'm downstairs. In the casino. Can you meet me in the conservatory?"
"Where's Gwen?'
"She's upstairs in the room. It's just going to be just you and me.
Please?" Olivia's cell phone is cutting in and out.
"Give me five minutes." I beep my cell phone off.
I don't want our friendship to be over. I don't want to have to go out
and find a new best friend. I don't want to be alone in the world
without Olivia. I'm not sure I know who I am without her.
I remember once when I was waiting at an intersection for a light to
change. I looked over at the couple in the car next to me. She was
leaning on his shoulder. He stroked her hair. At first I reacted the way
any single person would-I hated them and wanted them to stop. But then I
really took them in. That moment, that little moment, is why people stay
together. It could never be retold. It could never be described. But it
was that deep intimacy that gave the couple the ability to share that
moment together. No one would ever know about it except the two of them.
And when the going got rough, it would be that moment they recalled as
the reason why they were together. With friends, it's the same thing.
Sitting in a movie theater unable to hold back the giggles. Driving
silently listening to a CD. Already having a diet soda ordered for you
as you arrive late to a lunch date. It's the little things. Those little
moments that solidify caring for another person.
I head back out into the dark hotel room. What if Kate wakes up while
I'm gone? She'll be worried sick. I'll just have to hurry. I scrounge
around on the floor for a sweatshirt and socks. I slip on my shoes and
locate my purse by the glow of the bathroom's night-light. The room key
is nestled in my wallet. I close the door quietly behind me.
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It's not until the elevator ride down that I realize what I'm doing.
Kate fought for me tonight. Olivia didn't. It was Olivia who allowed
someone she calls a friend to insult me. It was Olivia who let me leave
the bar and didn't come after me. It's Olivia who is calling me two
hours later after everyone's asleep like a dirty little secret that can
only be walked around in the dark of the night.
I see Olivia sitting on the stairs in the conservatory. She is holding a
small gold package tightly in her right hand. The conservatory is lit up
like daytime. It seems unnaturally bright for such a bleak meeting.
"Hi." Olivia stands as I approach.
"Hi," I say, not sitting.
"Can you sit for a second?" Olivia asks.
I sit and cross my legs.
"I'm sorry about tonight," Olivia continues.
"So am I," I say. I'm sorry I stayed. I'm sorry I dragged my sister out
here. I'm sorry I didn't yell at Gwen myself. And I'm sorry you are
nowhere near the person you used to be.
"You have nothing to be sorry for. It was between Kate and Gwen." Olivia
turns her body, and her knee is now touching mine.
"Kate had nothing to do with tonight and you know it." I twist my body
so my knees are now facing forward.
"She had a little bit to do with it." A vision of Kate screaming Fuck
you at the top of her lungs comes to mind.
"Why did you call? Was it to blame Kate for the way Gwen acted tonight?"
"No, I wanted to give you this." Olivia hands me the little gold
package. I take it indifferently
"Thanks."
"Can you please open it?" Olivia's eyes are beginning to well up.
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"Why? So you can buy me off? Thanks for the present. It would have been
a much better gift not to be run out of your wedding shower like that.
So whatever is in this box is secondary," I say, dying to know what's in
the fucking box.
"Okay . . . I just want you to know that I ... I was just so drunk. I
didn't stand up for you. I should have."
I stare straight ahead and bring my arms back across my chest.
"Please. Will you just . . . can you look at me? Something?" I turn my
head and look at Olivia. I see a tired, overly made-up girl who in this
freakish light looks haggard and overextended.
"Please just tell me you believe me? That you know I would never let
anyone treat you like that? I know Gwen didn't mean anything by it,"
Olivia continues. I was almost there, until she brought up Gwen.
"Gwen means everything she says," I say
"But she didn't mean what you think she meant. She adores you. All she
talks about is how great you are and how amazing you've been through
this whole wedding thing. She even said that she thought you had lost a
little weight. Isn't that cool? We . . . we were just drunk, and the bar
was crowded. Please, tell me you believe me." Olivia takes my hand. As a
practice, Olivia is not touchy-feely.
"I don't know." I want to believe her.
"Just tell me everything is okay Mags. Please . . . please .. . please
tell me my best friend is still going to be my maid of honor. Please?"
Olivia begins to cry
"Don't cry. Just . . . Kate and I are going to leave first thing in the
morning. I just need time to think about all of this."
"That's fine. That's fine. Just please . . . please promise me. You've
got to promise me that you're going to be there for the wedding. You've
got to promise me, Maggie. Tonight was so stu-
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pid. All I want is for my best friend to walk down the aisle ahead of
me. Just like we always talked about, remember? And we'll be at that
head table, just like we talked about. You can't walk away now. I need
you." Olivia is practically sobbing. I have never seen her cry like
this. I find myself just staring at her, taking it in.
"I need to think about it." I'm weakening. I can feel it.
"Did you ever want to know why that night on the bridge was the last
straw? The night before I made the decision to get the surgery?" Olivia
is almost kneeling in front of me.
"Yes." I have always wondered that.
"I just . . . I was always the fat one, you know?" Olivia begins. "That
night it was just too much. Once again I was being called out and I
couldn't take it anymore. And there you were smiling and . . . I guess I
just wanted what you had. You know, that confidence." Olivia looks up.
"Confidence? I don't get how we could be friends for so long and you
could be so wrong about who I am," I whimper. "What?" Olivia wipes her
tears away
"I've done my absolute best to be invisible-not confident," I sob.
"You call it being invisible. Everyone else calls it confidence. Trust
me." Olivia wipes her nose with the sleeve of her cashmere sweater.
"Well, either way it's no way to live." I hear myself. It is no way to live.
Olivia takes the gold package out of my hands and tears the paper off.
She opens the small velvet box and creaks the top open. Once again, she
wipes her nose as she pulls the beautiful necklace from the box. It's a
gold chain with the diamond- encrusted letters M&O dangling wistfully.
Olivia undoes the clasp. "Please. Mommy let me go all out. Half
birthday-half maid of honor. It was ridiculously expensive and I should
really be
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moderately embarrassed, but I just wanted to do something extra special
for you." I turn my body around as Olivia flips the chain around my
neck. She smells of smoke from the casino.
"Thank you. You shouldn't have." I look down on the necklace. It is
stunning.
"What are you thinking?" Olivia and I have been saying that for fifteen
years. Whenever the other was silent for more than two seconds, we would
bombard her with the what are you thinking question. The answers have
included everything from needing an eyebrow wax to deciding whether or
not to attend a master's program.
"I'm going back up to the room. Kate might wake up." I stand up and look
down on her.
"Promise you'll still be my maid of honor?" Olivia stays seated. I am
speechless. I never knew any of what she just said. I never knew Olivia
saw me that way. Maybe this weekend is a resurrection.
"I promise," I say.
I turn and walk out of the conservatory with a lump in my throat, tears
welling up in my eyes and shivers running up and down my spine. I can't
tell Kate. She'll kill me. Right now I just want to get back to bed and
go home first thing in the morning. My birthday. Another birthday that
will go down in the books as the shittiest day ever. I take the necklace
off in the bathroom and put it back in its box. I place it deep in the
recesses of my suitcase.
Kate rants the entire way home about what bitches Olivia and Gwen are.
She replays the night a thousand times, each time from a different
camera angle and every time with a new weapon. In one version, she
throws a drink at Gwen. In another, she shoves my cowboy hat right in
her face, yelling, "It is
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a big hat, it is a big hat." In the last and most memorable, she bests
Gwen and Olivia in a catfight and then calls the security guard. He
throws a bloodied Gwen and Olivia out of the bar as the victorious Kate
is lifted up on the cheering patrons' shoulders. But in every account,
Kate keeps the ending exactly the same. "Like hell! I wouldn't go near
that damn wedding! Fuck you, Olivia!" And every time the story ends,
Kate looks over to me and smiles like I'm not going, either. How can I
tell her about my talk with Olivia in the conservatory now? How do you