Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) (13 page)

Bumblingbee: TJ! WAKE UP. WAKE UP. IM ME.

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Bumblingbee:TJ I HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE. RIGHT NOW. IM ME.

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Bumblingbee: TJ????!!! PLEASE. WAKE UP!

22

CHECK YOURSELF

THE ONLY PERSON who could've possibly made me feel better after the Hollywood scene in MontClaire Hall was TJ, so I trudged to the computer lab. All he had to do was admit that he'd signed the postcard intentionally—that whatever it was between us, whatever happened that night, had meant something. That I meant something. Of course if he happened to show up, kill Hollywood, and fashion me a pair of earrings from her eyeballs, I wouldn't exactly complain about it.

Hollywood could bring you down alright. Just look at me, shaking all over like a proper wuss in the computer lab, pinching myself to keep from crying. It felt as if she'd thrust apart the hemispheres of my brain and seen straight through me. Well, eff her. She was wrong. I knew if TJ heard the humiliation in my voice, the hurt, he'd come get me. He L-O-V-E-D me. I was almost sure of it.

As for those Utopian punks who didn't have the decency to walk me to the door, screw them. I had violent images of steamrolling them inside MontClaire Hall. Kung fu-ing through the window like a scene from
The Matrix
. But I couldn't face them, not after what just happened. Instead I sat in the computer lab with the cardboard boxes of recycled paper and the hum of printers, where the whiteboard hung a little off- center, and willed the tears not to fall. But—and you knew this was coming—gravity is a bitch.

I cried in front of my computer, wanting desperately to send my draft messages to Fake Forgiveness HeadQuarters, USA. I wanted a response, compensation, a refund. I wanted someone to admit that the fault lie within the diet's fine print, not within the mailroom and the calories I had consumed there. I alternated drafting scathing e-mails to the diet racketeers and desperately IMing TJ for so long my fingers cramped. I must have refreshed my inbox five hundred times, waiting for a reply, yet when an e-mail finally dinged in, it wasn't from either of them.

From:
[email protected]

To: Bethany Stern

on behalf of

Subject: Gift

Dear Bethany,

Hi, Bumble. I was wondering if you received your birthday present. I don't know if your mother gave it to you because I mailed it several weeks ago and still haven't heard. Sorry it was so late. I've been busy finishing up at the library and Penny and I are overwhelmed with the boys too.

What are your plans for the summer? I thought maybe you and Jackie could come over and swim one day. Penny and I got one of those giant pools from Costco. The boys are terrified to go in it, so it's just sitting out there, populated by mosquitoes and frogs.

I could pick you both up one Saturday. Or maybe Jackie could drive you over? It's been a long time since I've seen you. I assume you are still in the same house?

If you got your gift, I hope you like it. It's neat because I can make recommendations from my e-reader straight to yours. Anyway, I recommended that new diet book. Have you heard about it? The forgiveness one? I'm on it now. So far I've forgiven Penny for her cooking. Ha ha ha! (sorry lol lol lol)

Let me know about swimming, ok? And please let me know about the e-reader. Hope to hear from you soon. PS Click on the recommendation below and it should take you to the website

~Dad.

From:
[email protected])
thought you might like:

The Forgiveness Diet: Discovering Rapid Weight Loss through Mercy

Written by Michael Osbourne, PhD

Ratings: 4,898

Please visit readerresources.com to view this recommendation. 40,000 titles are ready for download and thousands more are added every day.

Just when I thought the day couldn't get any worse. Now my own father recommended The Forgiveness Diet. Ridiculous. My mom always told me he wasn't too bright, but really. Was this the best he had? Just seeing the word “Forgiveness”: the insinuating F, the gullible G, well, it brought the tears down even harder. Faced with those unanswered IMs and that heartless, blinking cursor, I started typing, the letters springing under my fingertips faster than they'd ever sprung. If Richard Goodman wanted to know if I got his little gift, then fine. He'd asked for it.

From: Bethany Stern

To:
[email protected]

Subject: RE: Gift

Dear Dick aka my father:

As a matter of fact, I DID get your gift. Thanks for the e-reader. It's exactly what I wanted. Not really. I steal books from the school library every chance I get—especially the inappropriate ones, the ones the PTA is always banning for SEXUAL content. I rip out the metal strip and shove them in my backpack. Then I hide them under my bed (next to the Rolos, chocolate gems, and butterscotch krimpets) until l8 @ nite when I read them & think of TJ.

So YES. DAD. I GOT YOUR BIRTHDAY PRESENT. Except my birthday is APRIL 16th and, forgot to mention, I'm 16. Not 17. Stick that date in your e-reader & then SHOVE IT UP UR ASS. Mom was right: you really are clueless. No wonder u flunked outta optometry school. How STRESSFUL life must be 4 u now @ a LIBRARY!

Looks like u'll have the pool to urself this summer given that I'm @ FAT CAMP! Love it here, btw. Starving couldn't b better. My stomach enjoys resting against my spine. I so heart mean bitches like Hollywood who call me a whale and throw phones at my face. This is the stuff of summer, right?

Jackie won't be able to make it either b/c she's ‘finding herself' (scrumping her bf) while I stay here and starve. Besides, she's no longer speaking to me, asshat, I mean, DAD b/c I wrote down: I forgive Jackie for killing Doug's baby, JUST LIKE THAT F%^
^*
ng DIET BOOK TOLD ME TO DO. Did I mention that Doug (baby's daddy) was in the passenger seat?

The diet? Flippin genius. Check this out: I lost 10 lbs the minute after I 4gave Doug for bringing Jackie down. Dropped another 15 lbs, pop, when I 4gave my english teacher for telling me I could be frickin famous author if I ONLY LEARNED HOW TO SPELL. A whopping 8 lbs gone after I 4gave TJ for THE INCIDENT last year another 12 lbs when I 4gave u for basically
^*
scratches my head
^*
fu
^**
ing me over w/ur Chuck E Cheese salad bars and diet books and annual emails and for the trainwreck of my life that basically started when u derailed. so yes I tried ur diet and no it didn't work. Im still fat. Still fat. Still fat. Next year DEAR DAD. On my b-day. Get me a puppy.

~Bee

23

AUTORECOVERY

“NOT THAT IT'S any of my business, but are you OK?”

That was the girl sitting near me. Her long blond hair was pulled up on top of her head like a soufflé. It looked a bit greasy, like it might require a shampoo. She addressed me sideways while www.shroomerytips.com blinked on the computer screen in front of her. When she finally turned around, I noticed she had pierced dimples. “I mean, your lip is bleeding for one thing, and you seem really upset.”

When I waved my hand as if to say
oh, this is nothing
, she looked doubtful. “Are you sure you don't need help? You've been crying and cursing in front of your computer for at least an hour.”

My lip still felt numb from its collision with a certain lavender cell phone. I'm sure a ginormous bruise blossomed on my cheek. This girl probably thought I had escaped from a mental institution. Yet when she took hold of my wrist and turned me toward her, just that tiny gesture followed by the words, “It's OK, you can tell me,” well, I lost it. I sighed and flung my head down on the keyboard. I didn't want to look at her face when I said the following into the springy-lettered darkness:

“I hate Hollywood. I hate Utopia, and I hate my life.” The girl released my arm and a series of bracelets jangled on her wrist. My chin hit the space bar. “I gained a pound.” I pulled the keyboard from under my head, and rested my cheek on the cool desk. “I gained a pound at fat camp.”

Finally I faced her. Her chair was swiveled toward mine. “By the way,” I said, “my own dad recommended I try The Forgiveness Diet for my seventeenth birthday.” My eyes fell toward her dress, a sky-blue hippie ensemble. “He forgot I was only sixteen.”

She closed the windows on her computer and offered me her undivided attention. “I'm Olive,” she said, dimples sparkling. “I'm a summer school student retaking Macroeconomics.”

“I'm Bethany. I'm here for Utopia.” I pointed in MontClaire Hall's general direction because the computer lab had no windows. “The fat camp.”

Olive's big blue eyes widened. “Did someone punch you in the mouth there?”

“You could say that.”

“But why?”

I didn't want to end the conversation because maybe this girl had some divine insight into my current situation, but my eyes wandered back to my computer where they greeted this ever-so curious icon.

What was going on here? I hadn't sent any e-mail. I had merely drafted an e-mail. I checked my drafts folder, only when I did, there had to be some kind of mistake. Where a (10) blinked innocently a minute ago now there was a (0). OK? Where exactly was the NOT OK button? I checked my sent folder and yes, there they were. Every one of the my increasingly vicious, curse-ridden messages to The Forgiveness Diet in addition—in addition!— to the one e-mail the computer did the extraordinary favor of sending to my dad.

Yes.

“I didn't know C.U.P. had a camp here,” Olive continued beside me. “Wait. Why are you turning white? Do you feel alright?” She looked at my computer. “What happened? Can you hear me?” She snapped her fingers in front of my face. “Did you lose something? Did your computer freeze?”

My mouth dried out as if it'd been vacuumed and sealed. I imagined hurtling through the twilight of cyberspace, chasing a winged envelope, screaming, “Come back here!” Almost every single thing—think about it—almost every single thing in the universe is reversible except an e-mail. An e-mail! The one thing that can never, ever be unsent.

“These computers get freaky,” Olive said and bumped the keyboard with her fist. “There. I unfroze it.” She waited for me to thank her. When that didn't happen, she checked out the wall clock. “Crap,” she said, wheeling back to her computer and logging off. “I was totally supposed to meet someone fifteen minutes ago. Look, I hate to do this.” She pulled out a little pad of paper from her Guatemalan bag. “Here's my e-mail and my phone number if you need anything. I'm twenty and will tell you that sixteen is pure hell, but it will get better.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Don't let people treat you badly. It sounds stupid, but it's true. If they did that to your lip, don't go back there. ” Her hand squeezed my shoulder. “Oh, and I don't know if you lost something on your computer, but you can get it back. There's an autorecovery on these machines. Just ask the lab attendant. No worries.”