Reasons to eat / I've just got to lose weight. And as soon as I do that...
	by Ann Hood You know that celery has negative calories but they never have celery at these Friday night parties. They have potato chips and nacho cheese chips sitting in Tupperware bowls, all greasy and gross. These parties are always in people's refinished basements, all dark and moldy, with bad paneling and beer signs on the walls and indoor-outdoor carpeting and old beanbag chairs thrown around. You have to duck your head when you come down the stairs. You have to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. Right away they all run up to you in their Esprit jeans and Benetton sweaters. They call you Penny even though your name is Penelope because Penny is a better name for someone your age. In school, when a new teacher calls you Penelope, everyone laughs. They don't know that you are really a Penelope, that you're not a Penny at all. They are hugging you and smiling at you like they didn't just see you five hours ago in algebra. They're saying Penny, I love your sweater, did you get it at The Limited and all the while what they're really thinking is Did she get fat? Did she gain weight? Why is she wearing clothes so loose and baggy? You touch your hipbones. You press them hard. They feel sharp and jagged as glass but still you think about how at lunch you took a bite of Heather's 3 Musketeers because everyone was staring at you and you knew they were wondering if you would. You run your fingers over your sweater, your rib cage, straining to see in the dark basement, to see who's there, who's looking at you, and all the while you strum your ribs like guitar strings. Heather's breath smells like nacho cheese and she leans close to you and she says, There's beer in the garbage can in the corner. Beer is more fattening than al most anything but you smile and say Good and let her steer you through the crowd toward the beer, all those red and gold and white cans resting on ice, and all the other kids are eating and eating, big handfuls of junk, their mouths opening wide to make room for more. You take a beer and pop it open and pretend to sip, to swallow, to enjoy the taste, and you tell Heather that you like her hair pulled back like that. You admire her fake Indian earrings, her choice of perfume. It's Charlie she tells you, leaning closer so you can get a better whiff. You tell her again how good she smells, and you pretend to drink again, one hand clutching the beer can, the other one pushing hard into your hipbone. You smile at people even though you know you don't belong here and you think, over and over, My name is Penelope. My name is Penelope. My name is Penelope. At home, when you watch television, you floss your teeth. Your mother brings out oatmeal cookies and glasses of milk. She says Penny, this food is good for you. Oatmeal and raisins and milk. You just keep flossing and watching the made-for TV movie with Lindsay Wagner playing a woman on death row. Sometimes you floss so much your gums bleed, so you have to do it slow and gentle. It's skim milk, your mother says hopefully. She exchanges a worried look with your father who puts down the newspaper and makes a big show of eating the cookies. It's embarrassing. These are great, he says, chewing in an exaggerated way. Your little brother is eating them too, like a pig, popping whole ones into his mouth and spilling crumbs on the fake Oriental. You wonder if people in prison really wear as much eye makeup as Lindsay Wagner. You wonder why they would. You wrap the dental floss around your fingers like a kid playing cat's cradle and pull it through the teeth way in the back of your mouth. Your mother is saying What did you eat today, Penny? Did you eat that apple I put in your book bag and you nod and say yes, you ate it at lunch. You threw it away in case they go and look through your book bag after all. Your father sighs. An apple, he says. Well, that's something anyway. You watch as Lindsay Wagner talks through glass on a telephone to a man who starred on a TV show when you were little. If you would eat even one cookie, your mother says, I would be so happy. We all would be happy. Not me, your brother says, smiling under his milk mustache. You push the floss through your front teeth. You used to use mint-flavored until you thought maybe that flavoring had calories in it. Your mother is holding a lumpy cookie out to you and telling you how much she loves you and how happy she would be if you would just eat this one thing. So you take it from her and take the tiniest bite you can. Your mother and father watch you until you take another bite. You smile at them and say it's good, and they smile at you and then look at each other, then go back to watching the TV movie while you slowly break the cookie into pieces and shove the pieces between the cushions on the couch. When there is no cookie left, you take a fresh piece of dental floss and start over again, careful not to miss one spot, one crumb that may be in your mouth, somewhere. Froot Loops, Matt Robinson tells you, and he circles your wrist with his thumb and forefinger. Your arms are as small as Froot Loops, he says. Under the cafeteria table Heather presses her knee against yours. Neither of you can believe it-Matt Robinson has come over to your table and is talking like he really knows you when really, for two months now, you have been watching him, seeing what he does, how he lives his life. You've seen him at his locker and sitting on the windowsill at the end of the hall with the other jocks while you go to English, and once you even thought that he smiled at you when you walked by. But you did not smile back. You just walked faster and looked at the scuffed-up floor because you couldn't believe that Matt Robinson would smile at you. You are not special enough or pretty enough. You have thunder thighs. You have a thick waist. Even today when the school nurse took you out of homeroom and brought you to her office and made you look in the mirror at yourself and said, Tell me the truth, Penny, is this a girl who needs to lose weight? Even then you saw those thighs, that bulging waist of yours, but you lied and shook your head no. She said, Tell me what you see when you look in this mirror, and you shrugged and forced a fake laugh as if to say This is so silly. And she wrote stuff down and looked at you sternly and said, Let's not let this get out of hand, okay? And you said, Of course not and acted all puzzled like you didn't understand. But now here is Matt Robinson sitting next to you, with his hand on your wrist, and you think, If you were really really fat, he would not be here. He would be talking to someone else. You try to relax even though this is the moment you have been dreaming of forever. You smile at him and pretend your lips are not sticking to your teeth. He says, So what do you do for fun? And you tell him that you run. Penny would die if she didn't run every day, Heather says, and Matt looks all impressed. Marathons and stuff? he says and you say yes. You say, I can run and run for miles and he nods like he understands this. Do you eat pizza? he says. His eyes are the color of a bruise, all blue-black and lined with dark dark lashes, and they make your heart speed up, to flutter, like you've run real far. Pizza, you say, and Heather kicks you again under the table and you start to nod and smile and say too much about how you really love pizza. Good, Matt says. Then you'll go out with me Saturday night to the Pizza Man? And you say sure and then he is gone and Heather is saying My God, Matt Robinson, I can't believe it and you think as you watch him saunter like a cowboy in an old movie right out of the cafeteria that you can eat the pizza. You think, So what? You think, How fat can I be if he asked me out? You think maybe your life is changing or something and you measure your own wrist the way he did, circling it with your thumb and forefinger. You know that pepperoni, that processed meats, are pure fat. That's a fact. And just one slice of pizza with pepperoni alone has three hundred thirty calories. But still you let Matt order a pepperoni pizza at the Pizza Man on Saturday night. You have to. He knows everybody there, and they are all jocks and their cheerleader girlfriends. Suddenly, there is nothing you want more than to belong to this crowd. You know that they whisper about you in school, that they look at you with big scared eyes, like you have a disease they could catch, like you have cancer or the plague or something. Sometimes they push against the walls rather than touch you or even get dose when you pass them in school. But right now you don't care about any of that. You don't care that when they saw you coming they nudged each other and stepped back just a little, away from you, that they lowered their earth-tone eye-shadowed eyes. You still want to join them, to be like them. To be able to pop your gum and toss your hair, to know how to do a sp!it and a cartwheel. To fit in, here. You spent hours getting ready for this date. Your mother was all smiles as she watched you try on clothes, as you tried to find something that didn't make you look fat and disgusting, and she kept saying how good you looked until finally you made her leave the room. When you and Matt walked in here, it seemed like everybody got all quiet. One of the cheerleaders, Jessica, came over to you and said You are so tiny Penny! What size do you wear anyway? and it seemed like everybody was waiting for your answer, all the girls with their soft perms and hair ornaments and lipstick, all waiting to hear, but you just shrugged and tried to laugh and Jessica said, No, really, is it like a size one or something? and behind her someone laughed then and you wished you were invisible or not even there or somebody else altogether. And now Matt has slid this huge round greasy pizza with puddles of cheese and oil on top right in front of you. And he says, They are out of Diet Coke but here's a Coke Classic, and he puts this cup in front of you and you try not to think about anything. Not sugar or fat or the way your stomach already feels like it's growing, expanding, right here at the Pizza Man. Matt is looking at you like he's waiting for something. He keeps talking to you about things like baseball and football and the Stanley H. Kaplan SAT course but you can't answer because you are trying so hard not to think about calories. You know you have to eat it and really, you want to eat it because you are not, cannot, be fat or you wouldn't be here right now with him, but you say something, just to talk, just to put off that first bite, that first sip of Coke Classic. You say, Have you noticed there are no old people in here at all? And Matt stops chewing and looks surprised and says, Yeah, I guess so, and you say I don't know what made me notice that all of a sudden and he just says Uh-huh. What you want is for him to like you. Ifs what you've wanted for a long time and now is your chance. You think, What's interesting? What will make me special, different , The One? You say What about Roe V. Wade and before he can answer you say I'm only kidding, and his eyes catch Mark Kennedy's eyes at the next table and you are starting to feel really stupid. Then because you feel like every person is watching you, and because you are not fat really, and because you are with Matt Robinson on a date and for reasons you don't even understand, you pick up a piece of slippery pizza and you eat it, bite after bite without even stopping and then you take large sips of the Coke and you eat another piece of pizza and another after that and Matt is watching you, his bruise-colored eyes wide now and the pizza has no taste at all, it is like a cardboard box, like nothing, really. There is grease on your chin when you finish and your hands are trembling and your stomach feels full and weird but you have done it. You feel triumphant. Matt looks away from you and says, You have some sauce on your cheek and you think of the book you just read for English, The Red Badge Courage, and you smile and touch your cheek lightly. He says, Wow, you must have really been hungry. Matt doesn't talk much mare, but you don't even really care because you are normal. You eat pizza and you drink regular soda and when Jessica comes over to the table you talk to her about your term paper. She is jealous that you're with Matt and she keeps talking to him about things you don't know about, like the bus rules for away games and if Tech will win the state championship again but you don't care because you are the one with Matt. You are the one walking out the door with him while they start calling Hey Matt! Later at the reservoir! and when he shrugs and waves at all of them, you are the one who is with him. On the ride home he doesn't say much, he just keeps changing the radio station but you talk enough for both of you. Suddenly, you have so much to say and you say it all. Everything. You open up to him. You tell him about your nightmares, how they keep you awake, how sometimes they continue even after hours of staying awake to avoid them. You tell him how you are worried about college and endometriosis and cancer. He keeps nodding and you ask him if he's ever afraid of war and he keeps changing the radio station. You think maybe you have met someone finally who understands. When you get home he says, I'll call you tomorrow, and he kisses you swiftly somewhere near your ear as he turns to leave and you run in the house fast, you fly in. You think that maybe everything is different somehow. You think that maybe you even have a boyfriend. You imagine yourself in a burnt-orange semiformal dress, dancing with Matt Robinson at homecoming. You are happy in this fantasy. You are thin. You've heard that camels go for seven days without any food at all and you think you can do it too. You decide to try it when two weeks go by and Matt never calls and avoids your eyes in school and you see him standing with Jessica by her locker talking in a hushed, confidential way. You waited all that Sunday by the phone, right next to it and it didn't even ring even once. You picked it up to be sure it was not out of order. You called Heather and asked her to call you right back to make sure you could get incoming calls and when she called you right back you hung up fast. You said you had to keep the line clear. You went to bed thinking of all the reasons he didn't call. Good reasons. Accidents, illnesses, family crises. You wore loose clothes to school. You made sure you ate in public places so everyone would know how normal you were. Then you saw him with Jessica and she had on these tight Esprit jeans and her waist was small and her thighs were small and you knew you were so fat that you had to take control of yourself. You had to get it down. So you ran more than usual, all the while thinking about how stupid you are, for going with Matt in the first place. For eating that pizza. You run and you run, trying to take control again. You avoid looking at yourself, touching yourself. You are afraid of how fat you really are. You run and think of all the reasons not to eat. AIgebra and SATs and deciding what to wear. Saying the wrong things or the right things, but too late. Your mother's old pictures of herself as prom queen and your father's promotion and the way they look at your report card, your friends, the books you read. The way they say Mmmmmhmmm when you need to talk to them. And what about Pol Pot? Where is he? Will he slaughter more Cambodians? And then there are all those oil spills. And what about the way we treated the Indians? The Japanese-Americans during World War II? And then there was the way your mother cried when John Lennon died. And then there are all those pictures that come in the mail of tortured rabbits and cats and monkeys in cages and you can't do anything about any of it. You know that glucose is sugar and sugar is the worse possible thing. But that's what they gave you in the hospital, through an IV needle in the top of your hand. Everyone talked to you in quiet, hushed voices that you tried not to hear. You only went up to six days without anything at all to eat. You guess that camels don't have parents or school nurses, or anyone watching over them at all. On that sixth day an incredible thing happened. While you were running you felt like the top of your head actually lifted off your body. You felt it. If you hadn't fallen, who knows what would have happened. Your mother and the doctors told you that you blacked out, but you know better. Something incredible happened. And you made it happen. You keep reliving it, the way your body felt, finally almost clean and pure. You bet Gandhi felt that way too. But now you' re back at home, so fat you refuse to put on any clothes except your old fake-silk robe tied real loose. Your mother makes you special meals from a list the doctor gave her. Spaghetti and liver and turkey and fried hamburgers and baked potatoes. Honey, she says, hovering over you like a vulture, the table full of all this food that you poke at with your fork and knife, Honey, why did you do that? You could have died. You could have starved yourself to death. You shrug. Your shoulders feel like a football player's, all big like Refrigerator Perry's. You won't do that again, will you? your mother says and you say No, I'm sorry, of course not. That's what she wants to hear. You wait until she leaves the room, then you push the hamburger down the garbage disposal. You hide the potato deep in the trash. There's a bruise on your hand where that IV went in and you touch it lightly. When you were little, a long time ago, at restaurants you used to open the sugar packets and eat all the sugar in them. Until your mother made you stop. But now your mother wants you to know she's on your side, that she's your pal, so she tells you how your Aunt Susan didn't eat for three days before her wedding day so she'd look skinny. She's smiling at you like the two of you are sharing a big secret so you smile back and say Wow and then you say you want to go to your room and try to catch up on the schoolwork you missed and she is beaming at you and saying That's my girl. You sit on your bed and pretend to read To Kill a Mockingbird but what you are really doing is petting your old unicorn stuffed animals and trying not to think about food or your Aunt Susan or your life or anything. You sit there and remember how you used to love these unicorns, how you thought they were almost magic and how every birthday or Christmas you got another one until they covered your entire bed. And then they stopped seeming so special all of a sudden. You don't go downstairs when your father comes home because you don't want to smile at him all fake and phony so you keep sitting there and listen to the door shut and the first thing he says is How'd she do today? and your mother starts to gush Great! Great! Great! and your father says I brought her some raspberry ripple and you feel sick just hearing those words raspberry ripple but downstairs your mom is practically jumping up and down saying Raspberry ripple! That's her favorite! even though really you haven't liked it since you were a little kid. They keep on talking about you like your room isn't right above their heads, like you're not even here at all. Your mother is saying She ate everything, she ate every bite, in a voice that sounds like she just won the Super Bowl or something and your father is saying Right, right, and they're both acting all excited about a dumb hamburger and baked potato. Your father says It was probably just a phase and he is even laughing a little, chuckling. Better this than dyeing her hair blue he says. Better this than joining a cult like those kids we saw on 60 Minutes and your mother says Now that was awful and you can just see her shaking her head, feeling bad for the parents of those kids, thanking her lucky stars for you. Then all of a sudden the whole house is quiet, all eerie and silent and you even get on the floor and press your ear to the baby-blue wall-to-wall to try to hear what is going on down there in the kitchen and it's your father who finally says something. He says They told us she'd be tricky, and you realize they found the baked potato that you put in the trash and you start to press one of those stupid unicorns close to you, to hug it really hard, and your mother is saying, She ate the hamburger though. She's saying, She wants to do what's right, she's a good girl. She's saying, I'm sure her stomach has shrunk. But your father isn't saying anything at all. You know that iceberg lettuce has practically no calories. So you sit alone in your bedroom with a whole head of lettuce and slowly tear a leaf  from it. You take the smallest bite you can. You chew that bite for a long time. From outside the door your mother says, Penny? Penny, what are you doing in there? You swallow. You tear off another leaf. Eating, you tell her. I'm eating. Source: Seventeen Magazine