13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl
Read 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl Online
Authors: Mona Awad
PENGUIN BOOKS
13 WAYS OF LOOKING AT A FAT GIRL
MONA AWAD
received her MFA in fiction from Brown University. Her work has appeared in
McSweeney's
,
The Walrus
,
Joyland
,
Post Road
,
St. Petersburg Review
, and elsewhere. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in creative writing and English literature at the University of Denver.
PENGUIN BOOKS
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street
New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2016 by Mona Awad
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Portions of this book first appeared as the following short stories: “Your Biggest Fan” in
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
; “I Want Too Much” in
Joyland
; “When We Went Against the Universe” and “Beyond the Sea” in
The Walrus
; “The von Furstenberg and I” in
Two Serious Ladies
; and “The Girl I Hate” in
Post Road
.
eBook ISBN 978-0-698-40893-7
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Awad, Mona.
13 ways of looking at a fat girl / Mona Awad.
pages cm
ISBN 978-0-14-312848-9
I. Title. II. Title: Thirteen ways of looking at a fat girl.
PS3601.W35A62 2015
813'.6âdc23
2015011712
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design: Ploy Siripant
Hand-lettering: Joel Holland
Version_1
for Rex
There was always that shadowy twin, thin when I was fat, fat when I was thin, myself in silvery negative, with dark teeth and shining white pupils glowing in the black sunlight of that other world
.
âMargaret Atwood
W
e went against the universe at the McDonald's on the corner of Wolfedale and Mavis. On a sunny afternoon. Mel and I hate sunny afternoons. Especially here in Misery Saga, which is what you're allowed to call Mississauga if you live there. In Misery Saga, there is nothing to do with sunny afternoons but all the things we have already done a thousand times. We've lain on our backs in the grass, listening to the same Discman, one earphone each, watching the same clouds pass. We've walked in the woodlot pretending to pretend that it is Wonderland, even though when you stand in the heart of it, you can still hear cars going by. We've eaten dry cupcakes at that dessert place down the road where all the other kids go. We don't like other kids but we go anyway, just for the bustle. We've sat behind the bleachers sharing Blizzards from Dairy Queen, the wind making our Catholic school kilts flap against our stubbly knees. Our favorite was the one with the pulverized brownies
and nuts and chocolate sauce, but they don't make it anymore for some reason. So we're at the McDonald's on the corner eating McFlurries, which everyone knows aren't as good as Blizzards, even when you tell them to mix more things in.
We're bored out of our minds as usual, having exhausted every topic of conversation. There is only so much Mel and I can say about the girls we hate or the bands and books and boys we love on a scale of one to ten. There is only so much we can play of The Human Race Game, which is when we eliminate the whole human race and only put back in the people we can stand and only if we both agree. There is only so much we can talk about how we'd give it up and what we'd be wearing and with which boy and what he'd be wearing and what album might be playing in the background. We've established, for the second time today, that for Mel it would be a red velvet dress, the drummer from London After Midnight, Renaissance wear, and
Violator
. For me: a purple velvet dress, Vince Merino, a vintage suit, and
Let Love In
, but it changes.
So we decide to do the Fate Papers. The Fate Papers is Mel's name for when you tear off two small bits of paper and write
No
on one piece and
Yes
on the other. You shake the two balled-up pieces in your hands while you close your eyes and ask the universe your question. You can ask aloud or in your mind. Mel and I both prefer in your mind but sometimes, if it is an urgent matter, like now, we ask aloud. The first paper that drops is the answer. Now we are asking if Mel should call Eric to see if he likes the CD she made him of her favorite Lee Hazlewood songs. The Fate Papers already said
No
, but we're doing two out of three because that can't be right even though the Fate Papers
are never wrong. Next, we are going to ask if I should try talking to Vince Merino again after yesterday's fiasco attempt.
The Fate Papers say
No
to Mel again, then
No
to me.
The universe is against us, which makes sense. So we get another McFlurry and talk about how fat we are for a while. But it doesn't matter how long we talk about it or how many times Mel assures me she's a fucking whale beneath her clothes; I know I'm fatter. Not by a little either. Mel has an ass, I'll give her that, but that's all I'll give her.
If I win the fat argument then Mel will say, so what I'm way prettier than she is, but I think face-wise we're about the same. I haven't really grown into my nose yet or discovered the arts of starving myself and tweezing. So I'll be honest with you. In this story, I don't look that good, except for maybe my skin, which Mel claims she would kill for. Also my tits. Mel says they're huge and she assures me it's a good thing. Maybe even too much of a good thing, she says. It's Mel who got me using the word
tits
. I have trouble calling them anything even in my thoughts. They embarrass me and all the words for them embarrass me, but I'm trying, for Mel's sake, to name my assets. Even with my skin and tits, though, it's still Mel who looks better. She's got psoriasis and a mustache she has to bleach and still. It's definitely Mel who has any hope in hell with any of the boys we like. Which is I guess why she claims the men at the next table were looking at her first.
I hadn't even noticed them. I was busy eating my Oreo McFlurry, hunting for the larger pieces of Oreo that sometimes get trapped at the bottom, which I hate. It's Mel who points the men out, saying three o'clock to me without moving her lips or making much noise. I turn and see three businessmen sitting in the
booth next to us, eating Big Macs. I assume they are businessmen because they are wearing business suits, but they could just as easily be suit salesmen or bank tellers. At any rate, they are men, their hands full of veins and hairs, each pair of hands gripping a bit-into Big Mac.
Mel says they are totally checking her out. I look at them again and none of them seem to be looking at us. They don't even seem to be looking at each other. They're looking at their burgers or into space.
“No,” Mel says. They were looking at her tits. Mel is exceedingly proud of her tits. What she loves most is the mole on the top of her left breast. She wears Wonderbras and low-cut tops to show it off.
“I want a boob guy,” she always tells me. “I wouldn't want a butt guy because I hate my butt.”
“Yeah,” I say in sympathy.
“
I
hate it,” she clarifies. “But
boys
love it. They always give me compliments. Still, I wouldn't want a butt guy. He'd always want to do it from behind.”
“Yeah,” I say in sympathy again. We both agree we'd never want a leg guy.
The reason the men are looking, according to Mel, is because she's been giving off sex vibes all day. I never know what she means by this. My best guess is something between an animal scent and a cosmic force. Mel always says it has to do with the universe. What happens is the universe feels her sex vibes and transmits them to like-minded men and women. She says these particular men can feel her sex vibes. That's why they're looking. She's giving off enough of them for both of us. Which is why
they're looking at me too. They're totally checking us both out, she says. They checked her out first, of course. But now they're checking us both out.
I say, “Really?”
And she says, “Totally. Doesn't that make you horny?”
I hate the word
horny
. It makes me think of sweat and snorting and wiry hairs.
“I guess,” I say. Though it really, really doesn't. The men aren't really attractive. I mean, they're fine, I guess. But they have these little blinky businessmen eyes and one of them even has gray hair. They look like they are around my father's age. I hardly see my father since he left, but I know he has a lot of girlfriends. Mainly women he works with at the hotel where he's a manager. I find traces of them on my infrequent visits to his apartmentâfeathery, complicated lingerie between his balled-up black socks, a box of tampons under the sink. And then in with his cologne bottles shaped like male torsos, I'll find a perfume that smells sickly sweet. One time one of them left a message on the machine saying she missed his body oh so much. I can't even imagine missing my father's body, and not just because he is my father. No, none of this is making me especially horny. But I say it sort of is because I know if I don't play along Mel will be angry and a pain to hang out with.
“Wouldn't it be fun,” she says, “if we went up to them and propositioned them?”
“To do what?” I say.
“To, like, I don't know,” she sighs. “Let us suck them off. For money. I'd say we're each worth at least fifty bucks. Maybe even a hundred.”
Mel's a bit of a slut. But you can't ever call her that. She hates
the word
slut
and gets pissed if anybody around her uses it. She got super pissed at our friend Katherine once, this girl at our school who wants to be a nun, because Katherine says slut about people she doesn't like and she says it, according to Mel, with a mouth full of hate. I tell Mel, What does she expect from a girl who only wants to be touched by the hand of God? Mel says it doesn't matter and really hates Katherine even though we're all friends.
Mel had to change schools, even, because they kept calling her a slut. Mostly behind her back, but sometimes even to her face, like in an eighties movie. Something about a boy she really liked who already had a girlfriend but the boy found out Mel liked him and started to like her back without breaking up with his girlfriend. So when Mel found out the boy liked her back, she gave him a blow job in the woodlot. But then his girlfriend found out about it and got everyone in the school to start calling Mel a slut whenever she walked by. I guess the boy must have felt guilty about the blow job and decided to tell his girlfriend. Or he was proud of it and just couldn't stop himself. Whatever it was, Mel couldn't take it and had to change schools. That's how I met her and we started getting bored together.
People call Mel a slut at our school too. Because of what she wears on days when we don't wear our uniforms, but also because of what she wears on regular days, which is nylon thigh highs instead of the itchy wool tights we're supposed to wear. And she rolls her kilt all the way up so you can see where the thigh highs end. My mother thinks this is why people call Mel a slut. But I don't think so. Not to sound like an old woman, but you should see girls these days. Some girls roll their kilts all the way up to their crotches. I wear mine down to my knees, but sometimes I'll roll it
up just a little on the way to school. But then it always rolls back down by itself. 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.
For minutes now, Mel has been seriously calculating how much we might be worth to these businessmen. She has decided that our youth and the fact that we're both virginsâin her case, only technicallyâmakes us way more expensive than she initially thought.
“At least three hundred dollars,” she finally says. “What do you think?”
“At the very, very least,” I say, playing along. I try to use a voice that tells her I'm just playing along.
I look at the men more closely. Two are fine. But one of them is rather flabby and pale with little worm husk lips and a look of hunger in his eyes that his Big Mac is not filling. His whole face reminds me of the word
horny
. I know if it comes down to it, this is the one I'll get stuck with.
“But where are we going to go with these guys?” I ask.
“I'll bet one of them's got a big, black car,” Mel says. “Big enough for all of us.”
Mel looks out the Windex-streaked window into the parking lot. I look with her.
There are no cars like that in the parking lot.
“There's more parking in back,” she says. “You go ask them.”
“You go,” I say. “It's your idea.”
She looks at me and takes a deep breath and says, “Okay,” and gets up and I say, “Wait.”
“What?”
“Let's go to the bathroom first.”
When we get up to go to the bathroom, Mel saunters over to the three men and says hey in what she thinks is her sexiest voice. To me, though, the only difference between it and her normal voice is that it sounds louder. In this voice, she asks them if they happen to know the time.
All three of these men are wearing wristwatches but only one of themâthe fat, pale, horny oneâconsults his. The other two exchange a glance and keep eating.
“It's about five thirty,” he says, looking up at us. And I notice that when he does, his little businessman eyes do this little dip from our faces to our chests. It's the littlest dip you can imagine. But it's all Mel can talk about when we get to the bathroom.
“Could you beee
lieeeeve
that guy? I mean, he was slobbering
all
ohhh
ver us.”
And I say, “Totally, I know. He totally was.”
And she says, “Oh my god, Lizzie, we
have
to do this.”
And I agree. We have to.
Today was Dress Down Day, which means that though we came from school, we're not wearing our uniforms. This Dress Down Day had a theme. Normally Mel and I steer clear of the themes because of how lame they usually are, but this one was The Sixties, which we guessed was cool enough. Everybody dressed up like a hippie, including me, but Mel did a cooler thing. She found this minidress with a whacked-out red and white pattern at Value Village for, like, seven bucks. So she's wearing that and her lips are covered with a silvery frost, which she is now reapplying in the mirror. Her eyelids are lined thickly on top with black liquid
liner. All day she got compliments from everyone, even though we know no one except Katherine. Girls we both hate kept coming up to Mel and saying things like, Love your dress. And then Mel said, Thanks, and when the girl was out of earshot Mel finished with, Bitch. And we both laughed.
I finish putting on my lipstick and I watch Mel apply a fresh coat of eyeliner to one closed eye, and I say, “But we can't have sex with them.”
Mel waves the coat of eyeliner dry with a hand.
“Oh my god,” she says, “of course not. Are you crazy?”
I heave a sigh of relief. “Okay, good,” I say.
“We're just going to suck them off in their car,” she says. “It'll make their
whole
lives.”
“All right,” I say, and run my tongue over my teeth.
 â¢Â â¢Â â¢Â
I pray the businessmen won't be there when we get back, but they're there. And one of them, our friend the time teller, even smiles a not unwelcoming smile. Mel takes a step toward their table; they all look up. Then just as she takes a breath and starts to open her mouth, I grab her hand and pull her back.