Faded Denim: Color Me Trapped (17 page)

“Oh, good. Well, I’m calling to ask you for a huge favor, Emily.”

“What’s that?” Pastor Ray wants a favor from me? What’s wrong with this picture?

“I’m in charge of another camp during the last two weeks of August, and one of my worship leaders just bailed on me, and I remembered how great you were at filling in this past June. I just wondered if you might possibly be available to join the worship team.”

“You want me to be a worship leader?”

“Yeah, it should be lots easier than being a cabin counselor, Emily. I know you had a rough time in June. This might actually feel like a vacation, since all you would do is help to lead singing before meals and then at campfire. The pay’s not much, but — ”

“It sounds great,” I tell him.

“I was hoping you’d think so. I mean, we might’ve been okay with just three musicians, but God really put you on my heart. I just get this deep sense that God wants you there for those two weeks. I think he can really use you, Emily.”

“But I do have my job at the bookstore.”

“I’m sure that Ronda would let you go,” he says quickly. Of course, Ronda goes to our church too—for all I know she and Pastor Ray could be in cahoots. Although I doubt it. “Especially if she realized that you were leaving to help out at camp. Maybe I could even talk to her for you.”

“No . . .” The last thing I need is for Ronda to open her big mouth to Pastor Ray right now. “No, it’s okay, I can talk to her. And at least I can give her a week’s notice.” Of course, I don’t tell him how I was just imagining quitting on her today with no notice.

“That’d be great, Emily.” Then he fills me in on some details, which go in one ear and out the other, and I promise to get back to him after I speak to Ronda.

Do I feel like a hypocrite when I hang up? Well, duh. I mean pretty much everything I’ve been doing lately seems a bit questionable, if not downright dishonest. But I remind myself of how Pastor Ray said that God had put me on his heart and how he believed God wanted me at this camp. And, okay, who am I to argue with God?

“What did Pastor Ray want?” Mom asks as I return the phone to the cradle in the kitchen downstairs.

I tell her about camp, hoping this will provide a good distraction for her—something to take her mind off of my so-called “eating disorder.”

“Oh, that would be nice,” she says as she washes a head of lettuce. “You’re so good with your guitar and singing, Emily. I’ve often wondered why you don’t do more with it.”

“Really?” I study her. “Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I suppose I just assumed that you knew how good you were.”

“It doesn’t hurt to hear that from others.”

She turns and smiles at me. “You’re right, Emily. I should’ve told you that a long time ago.” Then she frowns, and I can tell she’s thinking about my weight again. “But do you think you’ll be okay at camp?”

“Why not?”

“You won’t keep
dieting
, will you? Because you’ll need your strength. Can you at least promise me that you’ll eat while you’re there?”

I glance away. I may be a hypocrite, but I hate lying to my mother.

“Emily?”

“I’ll do my best, Mom.”

Now she comes over, and I can tell she wants to hug me. And I don’t fight it. I have to admit there is something very comforting about her softness, just enveloping me like that.

But then she steps back and just shakes her head. “You are too thin, Emily. If you don’t stop this dieting, or whatever you want to call it, you’ll be nothing but skin and bones.”

I force a laugh. “I don’t think so, Mom.”

“I mean it, Emily. You need to take care of yourself. You’re just wasting away.”

“I don’t see how you can say that,” I tell her. “I wear a size 9 and Leah is about three sizes smaller. Do you think she’s wasting away?”

She considers this. “Maybe so. Maybe the two of you are both anorexic.”

“Oh, Mom.” I roll my eyes.

Now she holds a carrot out for me. “Well, you can at least eat this, can’t you?”

I take the carrot from her and take a bite. “Feel better now?” I say with my mouth full.

“Not much.”

“Whatever,” I say as I turn away with the carrot still in my hand. “I’m taking a walk.” But as soon as I’m out of sight of the house, I ditch the carrot. I’m not stupid. I know that carrots are full of sugar. And I remember that lunch Leah forced me to eat today and all those calories I have to burn off before sunset. And I walk faster than ever.

As it turns out, Ronda has no problem with my quitting before summer ends. She almost seems relieved.

“You’re a good worker,” she tells me on my last day. She’s asked me to come back to her office to pick up my check. “But I’d be lying to say that I’m not worried about you, Emily.”

“Thanks.” I say as I stick the envelope into my purse. I don’t want to do anything to encourage this conversation.

“I know that you have an eating disorder.”

I look toward the door, wondering how rude it would be to just make a run for it. Take the money and run.

“And I suspect that you’re anorexic.”

Now I look directly at her, still not answering, but hoping that my stare will somehow threaten her—like how dare she attack me about my weight when she has a weight problem herself?

“I know what you think, Emily. You’re probably thinking,
Why should this fat woman have an opinion about me or my body?
”

I kind of shrug, like yeah.

“Well, let me tell you a little story. Believe it or not, I used to be a lot like you. I was a little overweight as a teen, and I decided to do something about it. I tried a bunch of diets, and finally, in desperation, I just quit eating. And, like you, I became anorexic. I remember the thrill of not eating, of losing weight, and the powerful way I felt when I exercised to excess.”

I’m sure I look pretty skeptical now. Like, yeah, you bet.

“I kept it up for a couple of years too. I finally got so sick that my parents intervened and made me get help. And it took a long time, but finally I got over it.” She kind of laughs now. “Obviously, I got over it really well.”

“And?” I let out a sigh of exasperation.

“And I completely ruined my metabolism, Emily. Two years of starving myself taught my body how to survive on practically nothing. And now I can diet until the cows come home and not lose an ounce. I swear if I were ever in a starvation camp, I’d be the last one standing.”

For some reason this gets my attention. Still, I don’t respond.

“But there might still be hope for you, Emily. How long have you been doing this anyway?”

I consider this. “About three months, I guess.”

“Tell me something,” she says, pausing for a moment, probably to just draw me in. “Does it make you happy?”

I consider this. Happy? I can’t remember the last time I was really happy, but I know it would’ve been before I began this whole diet thing. Still, I just shrug.

“I didn’t think so. I mean, we think being thin will make us happy, but it never does.”

“Neither does being fat.”

“Maybe not. But at least it doesn’t kill you. I mean, if you don’t let your weight get out of control. Not like anorexia. It always gets out of control. You think you’re in control, Emily, but you’re not. You have to get control over the anorexia. If you don’t get control over it, it’s going to control you—maybe forever. Sure, you might be able to stay skinny. I have a friend who’s done that. But you should see her. She’s forty, never been married, never had kids. She’s nothing but skin and bones and has lots and lots of serious health issues. Even her hair is falling out. But she is still ruled by anorexia—it dominates every single choice she makes. She literally has no life. Really, I can take you to see her if you don’t believe me. Or you could end up like me, fighting a metabolism that could put a snail to shame. Take your pick. But that’s the long-term prognosis for anorexics—if they survive. Some don’t.”

Despite my attempts to shut out her comments, they’re getting to me. What she’s saying actually makes some sense. “But what do I do?” I ask her. “How do I stop this when I still want to be thin? When I still want to lose more weight?”

“First of all, you need to realize and admit that it’s wrong. And you need to accept the fact that you’ve fallen into the trap.”

“Trap?”

“Of believing you still need to lose weight. Because, trust me, you could never lose enough. Once you start seeing yourself like this, it’s like looking in one of those fun-house mirrors where the image is all stretched out and distorted. You see fat no matter what you weigh. It never ends. So you have to accept that your thinking, as far as weight is concerned, has become skewed.”

“How do you get unskewed?”

She kind of laughs. “Well, there are treatments, of course. And I can give you some names.” She grabs a notepad from her desk and
starts to write while she talks. “You might also want to check out some of these websites. It’s a good way to get information without actually walking in for an appointment. Something they didn’t have back when I was your age.”

I nod like I might do that, although I doubt that I will.

“But I have to say,” she continues, handing me her quickly scrawled list, “the thing that helped me the most was God. I honestly could not have escaped my anorexia without him. I just wish I would’ve done it a lot sooner. Like after only three months.” She holds her hands out. “Then maybe I wouldn’t look like this.”

Her hint doesn’t escape me, but I still feel hopeless.

“I decided to give my eating habits to God. I told him that my body wasn’t mine, but his, and that I wanted him to help me make wise choices. It didn’t happen overnight, and like I said, my parents did a pretty dramatic intervention thing with me. But it wasn’t until I actually made the choice—inviting God to help me—that things actually began to change.” She finally stops talking and just looks at me.

“Thanks,” I tell her, unsure as to whether her words will change anything for me or not. But I do get what she’s saying. I really do.

“Sorry to butt in like that. But when you’ve been there, done that . . . well, it’s hard to just stand by and watch someone else make the same mistakes.”

“Yeah. I can understand that.”

“I’ll be praying for you, Emily.”

“Thanks.”

“Have a good time at camp.” She gets a big grin now. “I hear you’re hot stuff on the guitar.”

I kind of shrug. “I’m okay, I guess.” Of course, I don’t tell her I’ve been practicing like mad all week long. I’d neglected playing
as much as I used to, using that time to exercise more. It’s like you have to choose. But all this week, I’ve been practicing like my life depended on it. Not that I can explain this yet, but I have a sense that maybe it does.

As I walk home, I think about what Ronda just told me. Part of me thinks she’s telling the truth, but another part of me says she’s just jealous and that she wishes she weren’t so fat. Consequently, she wants to mess with my mind so that I’ll end up like her. And while I can see that the first part makes more sense, is more believable, and probably right, the other part has such a strong pull that by the time I get home, I’m just not sure anymore.

A
S
I’
M PACKING FOR CAMP ON
S
UNDAY NIGHT
, I
CAN’T HELP BUT NOTICE THE
difference between the clothes I’m taking this time compared to what I took only two months ago. I hold up my faithful old Gap shorts that used to be too tight and actually consider taking them with me, but then I remember how Leah said they look pathetic, and I have to admit they do kind of hang on me now. But it’s still sort of fun to see them all loose and baggy. Kind of amazing, really.

I stand before my full-length mirror, carefully checking out these surprisingly roomy shorts as I try to decide whether or not they can survive two more weeks of hard wear. But I have to admit that Leah is probably right. Besides being too big, the faded denim has worn pretty thin, and these shorts really do look a little worse for wear. And that’s when I notice my own pale image in the mirror. I can’t help but think, like my shorts, I’m looking a little faded and worse for wear. Or maybe I’m just tired. I remember how Pastor Ray said these next two weeks of camp will feel almost like a vacation—I just hope he’s right.