13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

For one thing, he got lucky a hell of a lot more when she was fat. Now she’s either too hungry or angry or distracted for sex. Or she says she still feels “like a stranger in my own body.” When she first told him this, he said it was ridiculous. But actually he understands what she means. He feels shy and awkward when he hugs the half of her that’s left, when his hands graze the now pronounced bones in her back and shoulders. And she is just as uncomfortable being naked, obsessed with what she calls “the evidence.” Embarrassed about her shrunken

They look at Beth, Elizabeth, whatever the hell her name is now, at her long black hair and her smooth, fair skin and how what’s left of her flesh is packaged so daintily into a neat, hot little dress and tell him this. But what Tom sees is the ­stooped-­over way she carries herself like her thinness was a punch in the gut, the air of heaviness around her that will never leave

Tom had been looking forward to this meal of meat and corn on the cob and chips and mayonnaisey salads all week. But now that it’s all piled before him beautifully on a paper plate, he can’t eat. Instead he feels his blood pressure rise, his fork grip become tighter as he hears his wife say, No, No, No, but thanks, to nearly every dish offered. He relaxes a little when at last she accepts some garden salad to accompany her plate of jicama sticks and a bunless veggie patty. When she begins to stab lamely at the lettuce, he decides he’s not going to let her ruin this for him any longer and tears into his ribs violently but without pleasure

Even though he grew up in the state where they invented this concoction, it grossed him out slightly, watching her greedily whip the red and white gloops together with a matchstick fry until they formed an obscene bloody pink. He even made a face once at the sight. She saw the face and cried. Didn’t eat anything but her draconian fare in front of him for months afterward.

father has always felt that being fat was a choice. When I was in college I would sometimes meet him for lunch or coffee, and he would stare at my extra flesh like it was some weird piece of clothing I was wearing just to annoy him. Like my fat was an elaborate turban or Mel’s zombie tiara or some anarchy flag that, in my impetuous youth, I was choosing to hold up and wave in his face. Not really part of me, just something I was doing to rebel, prove him wrong.

Mel says she shouldn’t get it anyway. She should, you know, be good. “Like you.” She gives me a half smile.

I tell her I’m honestly not that good. Really, I’­m—

“You are,” she says. “I wish I had your discipline.”

It’s fine. Later on I’m going to be really fucking beautiful. I’m going to grow into that nose and develop an eating disorder. I’ll be hungry and angry all my life but I’ll also have a hell of a time.

I haven’t really grown into my nose yet or discovered the arts of starving myself and tweezing

It’s fine. Later on I’m going to be really fucking beautiful. I’m going to grow into that nose and develop an eating disorder. I’ll be hungry and angry all my life but I’ll also have a hell of a time.