Dietland (34 page)

She curled on her side, closing her eyes. I collected my laptop and moved quietly toward the door, eager to get away from her. I wanted time to sort out everything she'd said. As I crept past the daybed, her hand reached out and grasped my leg, her fingers warm on the inside of my thigh. “You know, I've always thought you were lovely,” she said, fading into sleep.

 

• • •

JULIA SLEPT IN MY ROOM ALL NIGHT
. I opted for a guest room. When I went downstairs in the morning, she had already gone, though I didn't know which version of her had walked out the door. While cooking breakfast, I could think of nothing but my conversation with her. She'd seemed truly afraid of something.

As the Calliope women arrived in the kitchen to fill their plates with scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, I longed to tell them about Julia's visit, but everything we'd discussed was, in Julia's words, top secret. Sharing secrets with Julia made me feel distanced from everyone else.

I was glad when breakfast was over and the kitchen cleared out, but the morning wasn't peaceful. Huck was having a tantrum, his wailing filling the house from top to bottom. At the kitchen table, I plugged the silver hard drive into my laptop and peeked at the files it contained, but there were thousands of them. It was impossible to concentrate, given the noise, so I addressed envelopes and stuffed them instead. Girls across the country would soon open their mailboxes to copies of
Fuckability Theory
and
Adventures in Dietland.

Huck's crying did not abate and when the police knocked on the door, announcing a bomb threat, I was grateful for an excuse to go outside. I filled two shopping bags with the puffy brown envelopes, then grabbed my satchel and joined the others in the evacuation. We were cordoned off on the usual benches at the end of the block, but since it was the middle of the day rather than the middle of the night, the ice cream shop was open. We bought cones and passed them around. Huck's face became a pastiche of vanilla ice cream and snot, but at least he was finally quiet. We licked our cones and watched the bomb squad do their work.

The beleaguered staff of the Bessie Cantor Foundation for Peace and Understanding stood in a circle nearby, trying to avoid the accusing stares of some of the neighbors. The owner of an Italian restaurant on our block was particularly incensed. It was the middle of the lunch rush when the evacuation order came, and so businessmen and women were sitting on the curb, plates balanced on their knees, trying to shovel penne and spaghetti into their mouths without spilling anything on their tailored white shirts.

Stopped at the light, a taxi driver shouted: “What'd Jennifer do now?”

“This ain't nothing to do with her,” a cop shouted back.

Though it was only our block of Thirteenth Street and the one directly behind us on Twelfth that were closed, the chaos spread into the surrounding areas. The traffic on Sixth Avenue backed up, pedestrians and drivers stopped and gawked. It was New York street theater: the potential for disaster, which no one wanted to miss.

“The idea of a bomb threat is nonsensical, isn't it?” I crunched the last of my cone.

“What do you mean, hon?” Verena was wearing jeans and a T-shirt bearing the name of the Baptist Shakes, an all-girl punk rock band from Georgia.

“If the
big one
ever comes, do you think they're going to warn anyone in advance? Why would they want to blow up an empty building?”

“They're just lunatics,” Marlowe said. “Making threats is the aim. The police take it seriously because they have to.”

“But aren't you afraid that one day the house next door might actually blow up?” The women of Calliope House had lived with the bomb threats for so long that they seemed to forget there was the possibility of a real explosion, one that was likely to kill us all.

I stood up and paced in front of the bench. No one seemed interested in addressing my question, so I didn't pursue it. I supposed that the threat was better left at the back of the mind, where it could be ignored. Living at Calliope House was a choice that each of us had made, and we knew the risks. No one was forcing us to stay there.

“Speaking of lunatics, why did Julia stay over last night?” Marlowe asked. She and the others looked at me. I wasn't prepared with an excuse.

“She . . . wanted to ask for advice about her book, the Austen exposé. She's writing a chapter about Kitty.” The lie came easily, but I hated telling it. I didn't want to be on Julia's side.

“Did she say anything about Leeta?” Marlowe asked. “I planned to talk to her, but had to leave early yesterday. I'd like to interview Julia for
The Jennifer Effect.
”

“I asked her about Leeta, but she clams up as soon as her name is mentioned.”

A
New York Daily
truck rumbled past us, the message on its side enticing us to “Read the
New York Daily
for the latest on Jennifer.”

“Did you hear what happened this morning?” Marlowe said at the sight of the truck. Every morning there was something new, and I was glad to move on from the topic of Julia. Marlowe explained that video game companies had been warned to stop producing games that featured women as sex objects and victims of violence.

“Aww, what are all the kiddies gonna play now?” Rubí said. “Half the fun of childhood is learning how to splatter a prostitute's brain with a baseball bat.”

Sana read from an article on her phone: “In the wake of the threat, several gaming companies have seen their stock fall.”

Marlowe shook her head, marveling, and handed Huck to Verena while she scribbled some notes. Verena held the sticky baby out in front of her.

“This morning I read about a bunch of teenage girls in Texas who've been traveling around to strip clubs,” Rubí said. “The girls hang out in the parking lot and when the men go inside, they slash their tires and break their windows. The police chief in one of the towns said that his force didn't have the
manpower
to deal with an uptick in female offenders.”

Sana leaned over and whispered in my ear: “He's talking about women like you.” I elbowed her away, not wanting the others to hear what she was saying. Sana was the only one who knew about my recent activities.

More NYPD trucks arrived, so I knew we weren't going to be allowed back home anytime soon. I was being deprived of lunch and growing hungry and cranky, the ice cream cone not keeping my hunger at bay. I picked up my shopping bags. The long strap of my satchel crossed my chest, weighing on my shoulder because of the brick I still carried with me. “I'm off,” I said. “I have errands to run.” I'd been so busy sending books and emailing Kitty's readers that it had been several days since I'd spent an afternoon roaming the streets, but that's what I needed to do. Julia's visit had left me with excess adrenaline. I loved Calliope House, but I needed to get away for a few hours, to escape being enclosed.

“What kind of errands?” Sana asked, suspicious.

“Mailing books,” I said, giving the shopping bags a jiggle.

“And what else?”

“Maybe I'll do some shopping.”

“You mean you're actually going to
pay
for something?” She said it in a playful tone, but there was bite to it. Marlowe, Verena, and Rubí looked up at me, confused, but I slinked into the crowd.

I mailed the packages of books from the post office first so I wouldn't have to carry them around all day. The woman behind the counter stamped the envelopes, the name of a girl printed on each one. I wondered if Leeta was planning to write to them too, and if so what she would say, but email was probably tricky when you're on the run from the police.

After the post office, I ate a late lunch. My body was no longer accustomed to waiting for food, and I finished my cheeseburger in four big bites, then ordered another. Outside the restaurant window, I could see V— S— across the street, with the enormous poster of the lilac negligee woman, only this time she was wearing a pink bustier and stockings, her bare ladyparts shielded by the squeeze and tilt of her thighs. Bonerville. They could have put the poster over the doorway and the woman could have spread her legs, welcoming all of Manhattan inside.

I stared at her while finishing my second cheeseburger, then left the restaurant, feeling the heat of the animal protein on my breath, tasting it on my lips. Standing before V— S—, I really wanted to steal that pink bustier. I was feeling jittery with energy that I needed to burn off somehow, and I felt like doing something reckless. I liked writing to Kitty's girls, but I missed the high that came from action. I walked back and forth on the sidewalk, considering my options. The cover of the
New York Daily
—with the faces of Leeta, Missy, and Soledad—popped up around me on the side of a truck, on a newsstand, in the hands of passersby, a swarm of black-and-white insects that I wanted to bat away so I could see clearly, so I could breathe.

I decided I couldn't return to the scene of my original crime, so I settled on a cosmetics store a half block away, a three-story extravaganza of face paint. Inside, I discovered a store that looked like a spaceship, with domed ceilings and bright lights and what seemed like an alien female staff, their hair wrapped tight in buns, giving them instant facelifts. It was like being in the Beauty Closet again, only Julia and Leeta were missing. I waited for an opportunity to slip something into my satchel, anticipating the rush that came with it, but there was a security guard watching me, as if she had a sixth sense. Pretending to be interested in a display of blushers, I picked up a compact of pink powder. I had always associated blushing with shame and embarrassment.

“Something to brighten you up?” A female voice pierced the drone of the spaceship. The saleswoman, wearing a white smock, was plump, a standout among her colleagues. Still being watched, I decided to buy something rather than steal. It would be an act of solidarity with the plump woman.

“What's the opposite of brightening up?” I asked. I caught sight of a display of eyeliners in shades of black. Leeta black. “I'll take the darkest one of those.” I asked the woman to apply it for me right there in the store. She directed me to a stool, where I sat as she circled my eyes, but when I looked in the handheld mirror she had given me, the circles weren't thick enough. “More,” I said. She circled my eyes again, adding another layer, but it wasn't enough. “More.”

“Are you sure?”

“My goal isn't to look fuckable. The look I want is
Don't fuck with me.
”

She laughed nervously, unsure if I was crazy. “I've never been asked for that before.”

When she finished ringing my eyes, I asked to see dark lip-glosses. I picked through the small pots until I found something that appealed: Darkest Plum. I paid for my items, then applied the gloss with my pinkie, covering the taste of meat that had lingered on my lips. The saleswoman held up the mirror again and I admired my transformation. “I think it's important that makeup reflects the true inner self,” I said, repeating a line I had once read in
Daisy Chain.

On the bus heading back to my neighborhood, more people than usual stared at me. I decided I would wear the eye makeup every day.

I was close to home, but stopped at a bakery to buy a treat for the road. As I made my way over the crosswalk at Seventh Avenue, munching a cherry turnover, I passed a bike messenger who was stopped at the light, checking his phone. He began singing
“Big Girls Don't Cry” and then laughed, a deep-throated cackle. I glanced over my shoulder. When he saw me looking, he sang his own version:

“
Big girls eat pie.”

I turned around and walked back toward him, stuffing the end of the turnover into my mouth. “Do you think you're funny?” A bit of pastry flew from between my lips.

“Miss Piggy,” he said, cackling again, clearly disgusted by me, the exile from Bonerville. If there'd been a trapdoor beneath me, he would have opened it and sent me into oblivion. As far as he was concerned, if I didn't make his man parts happy, I had no reason to exist.

“Move it, lard-ass,” he said. I didn't move, but stood so close to him that the tip of his front tire was wedged between my knees. I sucked a bit of cherry off my thumb. His little song had been intended as a drive-by, a shot fired into the anonymous fat girl as she crossed the street. It was intended to wound, but I wasn't wounded. It was the intention that infuriated me.

The man was wearing metallic sunglasses and a helmet, which covered his head and face in a kind of armor. Only his mouth and chin were visible, and the skin I could see was sweaty and rough with stubble. I imagined kissing him, the stubble ripping my skin, streaking me with blood.

“I asked you a question,” I said. “Do you think you're funny?”

The light turned green and I felt the whoosh of traffic around me, but I didn't budge. “Get the fuck out of my way,” he said, but I wasn't going to get the fuck out of his way. He could have easily ridden around me, but he wasn't the type to back down when challenged, even if he had a schedule to keep. I squeezed my free hand into a fist, a wave of heat filling me from top to bottom, red moving up a thermometer.

“You wanna fight, big girl?” There was that cackle again. In that moment I hated him more than I had ever hated anyone. I reached my right hand into the satchel resting on my hip, the strap crossing my chest, and felt the brick inside.

“A fight is exactly what I want.” This sentence escaped my mouth as if someone else had programmed me to say it. Something had overtaken me, but I liked it. I grasped the brick hidden inside my satchel, moving my fingers over its dusty surface. The man's face was covered in armor, but I could aim at his mouth.