Camp Utopia & the Forgiveness Diet (9781940192567) (32 page)

Liliana's coma had scared me to the core, but looking around at the faces gathered in MontClaire Hall, it hadn't affected everyone in the same way.

“Go ahead,” urged Miss Marcia. “Maybe you should explain why you came back to camp.”

I knew this conversation was unavoidable. “I wanted a new ending,” I told the campers now. I did not falter when I'd said it and, for the campers in back who weren't paying attention, I said it again. “I wanted my ending.” My volume rivaled Miss Marcia's. “Not the one you wanted,” I said to Houston with the blue streak in her hair. “Or the one you thought I should have,” I said to Hollywood. “I didn't want Liliana's ending either,” I said, directing my strong words to Miss Marcia, “but mine.” My eyes fell on each one of them. “I don't even know I'll be without this one thing everyone sees, the only thing I ever see, but,” I said, and I could see Hollywood nodding her head, “I can't wait to find out.”

“What about the scale?” whined Houston. “How will we know if we've made progress?”

“There are other ways to measure your worth,” I shot back.

Tampa Bay crossed his arms. “You came back for an ending?” I could tell he was angry that I hadn't brought Tabitha with me. “A new ending?” He said the words doubtfully.

“Yes,” I spat. “I wasn't aware it determined whether or not you got your butt out of bed in the morning for a walk.”

And then I dropped it and hoped to holy hell that they got it because I didn't feel like saying it again.
Please
, I thought, watching them smack their gum and tap their fingers,
please get it
.
Please get that as much as dieting and power walking sucks, sometimes being fat sucks too.
Didn't they know what it felt like to have a perfect stranger offer advice just because they happened to notice your dress size?
You'd be so pretty if … You'd be perfect if
… And the diets! What we're willing to try—throwing up, spitting out, tossing secrets in a fishbowl. All of us banking on the unlikely possibility that we could wake up, unzip our old skin, and find something shiny and beautiful inside. Something no one ever expected.

“I totally get it,” said Hollywood. Maybe the other campers who yawned and chewed their fingernails didn't, but Hollywood definitely got it. Scanning the other twenty or so blank stares, I experienced profound sympathy for every high school teacher in America.

“So do we have to power walk or not?” That was posited from Atlanta and her energetic hair.

“Yes,” I said. “You need to walk.”

I didn't have time to dwell on the groans that followed because just then, MontClaire Hall's front door beeped and clicked. When it swung open, Liliana Delgado stood behind it. There she stood beside Gabe, pale and limp in her
Mornings Suck
nightshirt and leggings. A barcoded hospital bracelet circled her wrist.

“I'm really dead,” she said. “Funny how hell looks just like Utopia, no?”

She offered some version of a smile. Her voice was scratchy; her skin washed out. “I'm sorry, Liliana,” I blurted in front of everyone. I guessed I should've gone with “hello” first, but I wanted to get the apology out and over with. When she saw me, her mouth fell open.

“Baltimore?
¿Qué estás haciendo
?”

I'm sure I looked like I was about to deliver a PowerPoint presentation standing up in front of everyone like that. “I wasn't sure you'd come back,” I said.

She flashed a blue-braces smile and spread her fingers into the Vulcan salute. “I'll live long and prosper so long as I follow these guidelines.” In front of me, Liliana fanned about a thousand pamphlets across the sofa table.
Living With Type I Diabetes
.
Cooking With Diabetes.
Eating Out With Diabetes.
You and Your Diabetes.
Learning to Control Diabetes.”

The other campers inferred that our meeting was adjourned and made their way out of the common room. That left me, Liliana, and Gabe, and about twenty tons of awkward.

Of course Gabe had the look of a trapped animal. He observed the ceiling, his checkered Vans, anywhere but me. We waited for the clumsy moment to pass. It didn't.

“What're you doing here anyway?” Liliana asked, collapsing on the sofa. Tape gathered in the crooks of her elbows. “Where's Cambridge?”

I looked to Gabe for support, sympathy. I don't know why I looked to Gabe, but once I did I regretted it. It was as if knives flew out of his gaze and pinned me to the wall.

“Actually, Liliana, I'm kind of the captain now.”

“Impossible.”

“It's true. I think Cambridge went back to Boston. I wanted to stay and well, I'm sorry. I wanted to stay with you. Make an effort. ”

A weird noise came from Gabe.

His sister glared at him. “
'Mano
, it's not her fault.”

“Yes it is,” he said. “She bought the chocolate.”

“Well, I ate it.”

“
Todo lo que
,” said Gabe, rolling his eyes. “I'm out.” And then he left, shutting the door a little too hard.

After her brother left, Liliana stated the obvious. “He's a bit of a grudge holder.” She tapped me with her elbow. “He'll get over it. In no time, he'll be all butterflies and ocean mist just like a douche commercial,
verdad
?”

“What about you?” I asked. “Are you a grudge holder? Would you ever forgive someone who accidentally put you in a coma?”

Liliana pretended to consider it. She rubbed her chin. “I know you didn't do it on purpose,” she said. “It's part of this disease. I can't eat whatever I want. I don't know why that's so hard for me to get.” She propped her feet on the coffee table. “I think I need to take care of myself instead of waiting for my brother to do it for me. It's time for me to face the facts about my pancreas.”

“I know the feeling,” I replied. My pancreas might be OK, but I had my own facts to face.

“What about Cambridge? She didn't return with you?”

“No.”

Liliana tilted her head. “Surprising.”

I'm glad I wasn't the only person who thought so.

“Anyway,” Liliana said. She stood up a little wobbly. “I can't speak for
'mano
, but I can forgive you. I mean I do forgive you.
¡Te perdono, bruja!
”

Back upstairs I watched Liliana bedazzle shorts like old times. She looked paler, weaker, and thinner, but her blue braces still sparkled like sapphires whenever she cursed at the machine, which had taken to firing stones where she hadn't intended them. I tried talking to her about a medical plan, but she wasn't having it. She only wanted to discuss who wore what at the Teen Choice Awards and how if you're gonna wear eye makeup then you sure as shit better learn how to apply it correctly. When I dug out the box from Amazon
under my bed and handed it to her, she jumped back a little.

“This is not chocolate,” I assured her.

“You didn't need to get me anything,” she said, unwrapping the box.

I'd wanted to get her a gift though. A real one. I cashed out my PayPal and ordered her a gently used super-deluxe PS Singer 3500 sewing machine, which Liliana now separated from a swarm of Styrofoam peanuts. When she realized what it was, that little smartass got emotional. Liliana centered it on her desk. “This beats chocolate,” she said, her eyes glazed with tears. “
Gracias.”

“Cry all you want, but I'm still getting you out of bed for power walking tomorrow.”

“Good luck with that.”

From:
[email protected]

To: Bethany Stern

Subject: forgive me

Dear Ms. Stern,

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you … I regret that your efforts with THE FORGIVENESS DIET have not been met with success. I personally read all fifty-three of your e-mails. I was particularly fond of the one wherein you expressly wished for me to contract pubic lice. The one in which you threatened to shove me in a potato sack alongside two hundred copies of my book and cast me off a bridge was also particularly moving.

While everyone who has ever written me wants a response, you were the only one who really demanded one. I suppose that's why I'm sending you this now.

I'm fairly certain you never purchased my book because most of the hate mail comes from people who threw secrets in a bucket and waited for the magic. If you'd read the book, you'd know that the bucket is only a fraction of it.

Eight years ago I woke up and did something I'd never done before. I walked to breakfast. It was less than a block away and, at well over three hundred pounds, I wasn't sure I'd make it. I did. I decided then and there that if I wanted to eat breakfast the next day, I needed to walk there again. It was my new rule. It was always breakfast, you see, because the day was still young. By afternoon we've already settled into ourselves, accepted our limitations. But in the morning, you can be anybody. You can be the guy who walks to breakfast.

I began by picking restaurants close by. Then they got further away. First five blocks. Then two miles. Then five. At first I walked. Then I ran. I lost two hundred pounds. It took four years.

You, like the millions of people who write me every day, want to know my secret. The problem is there is no secret, Bethany. That has been the hardest part for people to accept. After losing so much weight, I am consistently surprised not by how my life has changed, but by how much it hasn't.

My forgiveness journey began less conspicuously. I never intended to forgive anyone, it just happened that way. I just started forgiving damn near everybody: the panting jogger training for a marathon I'd see every morning, the cigarette-smoking teenager walking the dog, the guys who yelled “Fattie!” out the window of their parents' car, the girls who threw trash at me, the waitresses who eyed my pancakes disdainfully. And the stretch marks—oh the stretch marks, all silvery and purple. You can't have growth without them, you know. Anyway, I forgave them all. What a thing of beauty, this life. What a thing of beauty you are too. If only you could see it.

My commercial was a stroke of marketing genius that promised something it could not deliver. I never questioned its ethicality. I never questioned the money that poured down the greedy throat of my bank account either. For that, among many other transgressions, I hope you will forgive me. We all make mistakes, Bethany. Even me. Even you.

In short, if you would like to lose weight, I suggest you walk to breakfast. Likewise, if people have not always treated you fairly, I suggest you forgive them. The bucket (and the book) is purely optional.

Sincerely,

Michael Osbourne, Author,
The Forgiveness Diet

60

STROKE

THE NEXT MORNING I gave the omelet chef twenty bucks. I posted a note in MontClaire's dining hall
: If you want to eat go to the boathouse.
That was more than a mile away! That'd get the campers' apathetic butts walking! Thirty minutes later, every single camper queued, paper plate extended, waiting for their omelet. Thank you, Mr. Osbourne of Forgiveness Diet fame. Problem solved.

If speed walking toward a Western omelet was the only exercise required of us, things might have been grand. Only our counselor must've spent the night pondering things too, because while we were eating, she slid a boat from the boathouse. Then, securing a bathing cap over her blazing red hair, she stripped down to her bathing suit. A man resembling a Greek god climbed in the boat beside her. Watching them, everyone's plastic forks paused.

Marcia's toes curled around the boat's edge, and she screamed,“If you want to get back to campus, you'll need to row there. We have too many factions on our team. You need to remember we're united. Today I'm instituting a sport that will unify you. It's called
crew.
'' Her voice seriously shook the birds out of trees. “And Courtney here will teach you how to do it.”

I did not like the sound of this. The last “crew” I participated in involved squeezing into that pencil-thin boat with my dad. Miss Marcia joined hands with Courtney, who teeter-tottered on his own vessel. In a sexy British accent, Courtney informed us, “From here forward, if you want breakfast, you need to walk here. If you want to get back to campus in time for lunch, you'll need to row there. This bloody boat will be the best thing that ever happened to you.” And I guess because they were standing by Lake Pacifica, Miss Marcia in her bikini, Courtney's six-pack abdomen firm and steady—not to mention that the walk back to MontClaire Hall was super long—we believed them.

There were five boats of campers, though our boat only had four crew members. The first lesson Courtney imparted was that five was better than four. A four-person crew meant we'd have to work harder. If a camper didn't show up for crew, they would not get to eat breakfast. What Courtney deemed worse than skipping the most important meal of the day was that your team or
crew
lost an oarsman. That meant they lost drag, which you'd assume was a good thing because heavy people create a lot of drag. However, fat people were strong. A crew would overlook drag because strength eclipsed it—at least on canoes, which were to be called shells or sculls. Courtney explained all this in his please-stop-fantasizing-about-me voice. He was perfect looking, almost as if he were chiseled from rock. Believe it or not, I found learning about the sport of crew easy. It wasn't like field hockey or softball with a ton of rules to keep track of. According to our fearless leader, in rowing you had a coxswain (Miss Marcia), who told you when to stroke. The oars acted as a lever to propel you across the water. To steer, you either held the oars forward or backward on one side (starboard) or the other (port). The object was to get to your destination faster than the other rowers, or, in our case, faster than the day before. Courtney's accent made it all seem very civilized. He invoked physics and mathematical words about fulcrums and angles, which I sure wished I'd listened to by the time we tried to execute them.