The others, the adults, they look and they just see other things. They picture me sitting at home, a pizza box open in front of me and me eating with the lazy mania of a zombie in a horror movie. They see my chomping jaws and glazed eyes, dipping crusts in ranch dressing, how only one slice lives to make it to the safe haven of the freezer—me eating so much that for the next hour every burp will send a chunk of half-chewed dough back into my mouth, so I have to swallow it again.
Maybe they wonder about my shower, about how I have to lift the three folds of my belly and point the handheld nozzle to try to clean out the gunk that forms there. They wonder how I wash my back, if I own something like the rag on a stick in that Simpsons joke.
They imagine the underwear hidden beneath my clothes, both wispy and huge, a negligee knapsack. Maybe they think of the way the panties must smell when I peel them off at the end of the day, like a swamp or a beer left open.
All these things are true.
All these things are true, so when Benny puts his tray across from mine at the Galleria food court, I don’t believe him for a second. But he is so pretty, really, like Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise. Later on I’ll learn that he’s from Springfield, down in the opposite corner of the state, same as Brad. And once he’ll even try to tell me that they’re cousins. Yeah, right, I’m sure Brad Pitt just has dozens of relatives who work for the St. Louis mob. What kind of cousin, I ask, like your mother’s brother or what? And he says, No, I mean cousin cousin, like that means something.
But all that comes later. When Benny sits across from me I’m sitting in a corner of the food court with my fried rice and egg rolls, thinking about the store. I want to be a salesgirl. Mr. Nesbitt laughed when I told him, and said he didn’t know what he’d do without me working the computers. The salesgirls—like Amanda, who sits in the middle of the food court eating a salad—don’t know half what I do about carats and cuts and clarity, but they look like the kind of woman you want to drape in diamonds. And now I’m replaying the conversation in my head, the way Mr. Nesbitt won’t look at me while he laughs at the idea. And then there’s Benny staring straight into my eyes and asking if this seat is taken.
So he sits across from me talking and smiling, and I’m trying not to stare at him. The napkin I put over my General Tso’s chicken is turning orange from the grease it’s drinking, and there’s still my crab Rangoon under that napkin. As soon as this gorgeous dip gets up and leaves I’m going to dip it in the General Tso sauce and suck out the cream cheese. But he doesn’t leave, and after one lame joke he tells he actually winks at me. I wonder if the girls at Nesbitt’s maybe hired this guy or something.
I mean, I’ve met chubby chasers, and this guy isn’t one. Guys like that like to say something about my size right away, to try and make me feel comfortable. Oh God, like how they like a woman with some meat on her bones. Great image, right, like maybe they’re planning on cooking me up later.
Most amazing, he’s not looking around the room while we talk. Most men, when they end up in a conversation with me in a bar or something, they’re always looking around. Maybe they’re looking for better options, but mostly, I think, it’s because they’re afraid someone might see them. A friend told me this joke once, I guess it’s a joke men tell to each other:
Why’s a fat girl like a moped?
They’re a lot of fun to ride, but you wouldn’t want your friends to see you on one.
Benny looks right in my eyes. His eyes are clear blue, and I don’t see myself reflected in them at all.
He asks if I want to go see a movie after work. I never told him that I worked at the mall. I could have been shopping. This is something I don’t think about until later. At the time I can hardly think at all. But later on, it will come back to me and make perfect sense.
Back at the store, Amanda corners me. Her skin is the color of Arizona dirt, and it’s stretched so tight you can see three sides of her collarbones. She asks me who I was talking to. Just some guy. Pretty cute, she says back, the way you’d say it to a niece who has not yet admitted to liking boys. Whatever, I say, just like your niece would.
After work, I stop at Lion’s Choice and pick up a few roast beef sandwiches and eat them while I drive, barely chewing at all. He’s taking me to dinner, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to the restaurant hungry. He’s not really going to show up, I tell myself as I drive and swallow. There’s no way. Maybe he’s just into fat chicks, I tell myself. But that doesn’t feel right. To a guy like that, a fat chick is like Renee Zellweger clocking in at 130 pounds for that stupid movie.
Maybe he’s hogging, I think, and the roast beef lumps in my throat. I read one time about guys who will all set out to pick up the fattest thing they can find, and they all show up someplace and the guy with the biggest girl wins. Wins what, I don’t know. Respect? I can see in my head a table full of women like me, all of us knowing what was going on and not a one of us doing a thing about it while the men get drunk and laugh at us. And for the hundredth time I cancel the date in my head and then remind myself that I don’t even have this guy’s number. So one way or another, my fate, at least for the night, is sealed.
It takes me about three hours to get dressed, an hour of that in the shower, getting everything, shaving my legs, even that patch down by my ankle. I have to hold my breath to reach it. I’m lucky I don’t break my neck. Choosing a dress takes longer. Lane Bryant of course. Black, of course. Black’s slimming, you know, so I only look big as a townhouse. I put my makeup on using a mirror and trying not to actually look at myself, which of course is hard. Then I eat a pint of Cherry Garcia standing over the sink thinking he’s not going to come and if he does then that might be even worse and that there’s something wrong, there must be something wrong but even if there is I don’t care because at least that kind of wrong will be something new.
When the doorbell rings, I just about bite through the spoon.
We eat Italian on the Hill, and I get fettuccini with white sauce and laugh at his jokes, which aren’t very funny. He tells me he works in contracting, and I ask him what that means, and he fumbles a bit. So we drink more, and I let myself get drunker than I should on a date, because if I don’t I’m going to jump out of my skin. Which wouldn’t be so bad.
After the dinner, after I refuse to have dessert, just say no, when he asks me if I want to go to his place, I say yes. I breathe in deep, trying to see if my nervous sweat has kicked up any of the smell, but I don’t smell anything. And the way Benny smokes, I’d be surprised if he can smell anything at all. So we go to his place in the Central West End and it’s done up in that way that looks tasteful but just means that you bought everything at the same store. And I’m looking around and he puts a hand on my shoulders and it’s like someone set my insides on puree.
When we make love, he wants to leave the lights on, but I will not let him. He almost glows in the dark.
Lying in bed, the light through his window throws my silhouette against the wall, hiding Benny’s completely. He doesn’t try to put his arm around me, thank God. He sits up against his headboard and smokes and talks. He lets the name Frank Priest slip, and anybody who reads the paper knows he’s like the biggest mob boss in town, and another part of Benny becomes clear. Then he asks me what I do. I tell him I run a computer system at a store in the mall. He asks what kind of store and I tell him, jewelry, and he says, oh, really?
Two nights later he takes me to a bar, and anorexic bitches look at me with hateful eyes like maybe I’m holding Benny hostage. Benny gets up at one point to get us refills and some guy with gelled hair and an upturned collar comes by my table, the muscles in his face slack and his eyes shot. He’s trying to talk to me but he’s laughing too hard to do it. At another table behind him his friends are tamping down their giggles like children in church.
The guy never gets his line out. Maybe it was about being a moped, I’ll never know. Benny comes