Fat Cat (2 page)

When I opened my eyes again, there was the woman's butt. And the rest of the woman. And for some reason, it occurred to me in that moment that she was actually kind of cool in her prehistoric way--strong, determined-looking, ready to haul off and hurl that rock while the guys just shouted and looked concerned.

And she was thin. Not emaciated, fashion-model thin, but that good muscular thin like you see on women athletes. She looked like she could run and hunt and fight just as well as the men--maybe even better.

And that's when I realized: I wanted to be her.

Not her in the sense that I wish I had to fight saber-toothed hyenas just to get a decent meal, but her in looks. I want--and I know this sounds incredibly shallow, but science requires the truth--I wouldn't mind for once in my life seeing what it's like to actually look ... good. Or at least better than I do right now. Maybe even pretty, if that's possible.

It's not that I'm hideous, but I'm also not stupid. I know how people see me. I might spend an hour every day straightening my hair and getting my makeup just right and picking out clothes that camouflage at least some of my rolls, but the truth is I'm still fat and everyone knows it. When I wake up in the morning it's like I'm wearing this giant fat suit, and if only I could find the zipper I could step out of it and finally go start living my real life.

And that was my
eureka
.

Because seeing the hominin woman, just out there in all her glory, naked boobs and butt and stomach and everything, and noticing how lean and fit and strong she looked made me realize something.

When anthropologists or forensic paleontologists find a skeleton,
they bring it back to the lab and build a clay model over it to see what the person might have looked like. They have to decide how much muscle and flesh to give the person to make it look like a real body, but here's the thing: they never
ever
make the person fat.

Because obviously each person's skeleton is made to hold a specific amount of weight, right? A small skeleton gets a little bit of weight, a big one gets a lot more.

And that made me think about what some scientist would do with my bones if she found them thousands of years from now. She'd build a body that looked normal for my skeleton, and she'd think that's what I looked like. But she'd be wrong. Because she wouldn't have factored in all the pizza and ice cream and chocolate and everything else I've been using as materials over the years to sculpt this particular version of me.

That's when I knew what I should do. I knew if I made this my project, I'd really have to take it seriously. I couldn't back out. I couldn't cheat. This would be for a grade and for the science fair, so I'd have to do it for real. Once I committed to it--once I wrote my idea on a piece of paper this afternoon and turned it in alongside everyone else's research topics--I'd have no choice but to take it all the way.

Mr. Fizer said he wants big ideas. He wants us to be creative and to really push ourselves. He wants us to throw ourselves into our projects, mind and body and soul.

Well, you can't get more committed than this.

"I'm going to do it," I told Amanda. "I'm going to become prehistoric."

3

"S
o ... what exactly does that mean?"
Amanda asked.

"No more candy, for one thing," I said, polishing off my Butterfinger. I stuffed the M&M's in my backpack for later. "No modern food of any kind--only natural foods they could have found back then, like nuts, berries--"

"You're only going to eat nuts and berries for seven months?" Amanda said. "Are you insane?"

"I'm sure they had other things," I said. "There was that dead deer."

Amanda made a face. "Awesome."

"And probably vegetables and a bunch of really healthy stuff."

"So what you're telling me," Amanda said, "is you're going on another diet."

"No! It's not that at all. I mean ... not entirely. This is going to be an actual science experiment. On myself. It's not just the food--I'm going to give up everything modern. Computer, telephone, car, TV--"

"And this is supposed to prove what?" Amanda broke in. "Other than that you're crazy?"

"That we've screwed ourselves up," I said. "That somewhere along the way all of our modern advances have gone too far and we've let ourselves get lazy and soft."

"Excuse me," Amanda said, "but I happen to think my iPod is a brilliant piece of evolution."

"No, but look at our bodies." By which I really meant look at mine. "We have all these modern problems like obesity and diabetes and cancer and heart disease--"

"That's because nobody used to live long enough to get those," Amanda pointed out. "They were all getting chomped by wild beasts."

"Yeah, but I think if we just went back to living a simpler life, we'd all be a lot better off."

"I'm sorry," Amanda said, "but I think it's my job to tell you that you've finally gone too far."

But I just smiled. Because the more we talked about it, the more radical it sounded, and that's exactly what I need. Nothing ordinary is going to impress Mr. Fizer or the science fair judges--especially not with Matt in the game. I really need to bring it.

"Besides," Amanda said, starting up her ancient yellow Mazda, "you can't just give up everything. Some of our advances are actually pretty important."

"Like what?" I said.

"Like running water, hello? Electricity? Soap? Are you just going to sit in the dark at night and rub yourself with dirt? And do you get to sleep in a bed anymore or do you have to sleep on the floor? Is carpeting allowed?"

"This is good," I said, fishing for my notebook as Amanda pulled out of the parking lot. "I need to make a list. Keep going." I had
approximately forty-seven hours until my next class with Mr. Fizer. We were supposed to use that time to do as much preliminary research as possible before turning in our formal research proposals. I had a lot of work to do.

"Okay," Amanda said, getting into it now. "You said no car--but they had the wheel back then, right? Can't you improvise? Maybe you could ride your bike."

"Right, and let Mr. Fizer catch me? 'I wasn't aware
Homo erectus
had the bicycle, Miss Locke.' Forget it--I'm going to have to walk everywhere."

"Everywhere?" Amanda said. "What if it's dark out? Or it's like twenty miles away and it's raining and lightning outside? You can't put yourself in danger."

"Okay, good point. Maybe I need to make a few safety exceptions."

"Yeah, like your cell phone," she said. "I can see not talking on it in general, but you have to have it for emergencies, right?"

"Right," I said, jotting that down. "Hold on." The ideas were really flowing now. The whole thing was a lot more complicated than I thought--issues of safety, practicality, unavoidable conveniences like showers--

"So when does all this insanity begin?" Amanda asked. "This eating of leaves and berries and such?"

"I don't know, Wednesday night. Maybe Thursday."
Soap, shampoo, toothpaste
--"I want to make sure Mr. Fizer approves my proposal first."

"Great," Amanda said, "because Jordan and I were just talking about you last class."

She said it in a really cheery, innocent voice, and normally that would have been a clue if I weren't so distracted. I knew she and
Jordan had Creative Writing together while I was in Mr. Fizer's, so I didn't really think anything of it.

"So ... what are you doing tomorrow night?" Amanda asked.

Cell phone, darkness, weather
--"Working my face off on this project. Why?"
Refrigeration, soft bed, clothing, shoes--

"I was just thinking you could take a break," she said. "You know, like for an hour or so. Maybe for dinner."

Finally some innate sense of self-preservation kicked in and I noticed what was happening. Amanda's voice was about half an octave higher than normal--always a bad sign. The fact is my best friend is a really terrible liar. I put down my pen and gave her my full attention.

"Okay, what's going on?"

"Nothing," she said, a little too innocently. She squinted at the traffic ahead of her as if it were suddenly the most important thing in the world. "It's just that tomorrow's Jordan's and my anniversary."

We'd only talked about it a dozen times in the past few days--she knew very well that I knew. "Yeah ... and?"

"And so we're going out to dinner tomorrow night, and we thought you might want to come along."

"Um, don't you think that would be a little weird?" I said. "Jordan would probably rather be alone with you on your anniversary. Just guessing."

"Actually, it was Jordan's idea." Amanda glanced at me nervously. "Really. He likes you."

"Yeah, I like him, too, but I still say you two should be alone."

She made the left turn. "Oh, we will be--we're ditching you right after dinner. We just thought ..."

Amanda glanced at me again and saw I wasn't buying it. She
sighed and gave it up. "Okay, fine. Look, here's the thing. Jordan has this friend--"

"No. Stop right there."

Instead she just talked faster. "He said he's a really nice guy--he's on the swim team with him--and Jordan thinks the two of you will really hit it off--"

"No," I said. "No, no, no."

"Come on, Cat! Just this once?"

Amanda has this delusion that guys might actually like me--that somebody out there is seriously wishing he knew some fat girl he could date. But rather than get into that debate again, I went with the easier excuse. "Have you not been listening? I have tons of work to do. This proposal is huge--it has to be perfect."

"It will be! Come on, Kitty Cat, it's just for an hour or two--"

"I can't," I said. "This whole semester is going to be a nightmare if I don't stay on top of it. I've got Fizer's, AP Calc, AP Chemistry--"

"I know," Amanda said, "but that's why I worry about you. When are you ever going to have time to do anything but go to school, go to your job, and do homework?"

"I'm very organized."

"Yes, I think I know that," she said, "but there's this other matter you seem to keep forgetting about--it's called a social life." "I don't care about that."

"That's what worries me," she said. "Don't you know how happy I am with Jordan?"

"Yes, and I'm very happy for you. He's a great guy."

"There are other great guys," she said, pulling up to the side of the hospital. "I'm sorry, but I have this fear that someday you're going to wake up a dried-out, bitter old hag with plenty of science awards
but no personal life whatsoever. And you'll sit there at night and sob about how you've wasted your life."

"Thank you," I said. "That's a really horrible story."

"Good. I'm calling it 'She Didn't Listen to Her Friend.'"

I thanked Amanda for the ride and got out. But she wasn't through with me yet. As I walked up the steps she rolled down the window and called out, "Will you at least think about it?"

"No."

"But how will our babies grow up next to each other if you don't ever go out on a date? Cat?"

I waved to her over my shoulder and escaped.

Amanda has this fantasy that we'll both go to the same college, we'll both meet our husbands there ("Jordan can apply for the position if he wants to," Amanda told me, "I'm not ruling him out"), and then we'll move to the same city, both have fabulous jobs--me as either a research scientist or a doctor if I decide to go that route, her as either a poet/novelist or an English professor--and we'll have at least two children apiece, and we'll all live happily ever after next door to each other, our kids playing together, our husbands taking turns barbecuing while Amanda and I sneak off to the kitchen to bake fabulous desserts and talk all night.

There are definitely parts of that I like. It's fun to sit back and listen to Amanda spinning her tales about what our lives might be like in the future. I kind of like the person she imagines me to be. Except when the story involves me being a dried-up old hag.

So I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world that she--and now Jordan, apparently--wants to find someone for me. But even if I wanted that, which I don't, they're both ignoring an obvious fact: there has never been a single guy who has ever liked me. I mean,
there have been guys who have been nice to me--friend guys--but never, ever one who thought of me romantically.

Maybe Amanda and Jordan have gotten so used to me, they just don't see me the way other people do anymore. I guess I should take that as a compliment. But I think it also doesn't occur to them that it's just easier for me not to ever go down that road and end up disappointed. Or worse, really hurt.

Only one heartbreak per customer, thank you.

4

B
efore I headed down to the basement
, I stopped by the hospital cafeteria and picked us up a few things. Everyone likes a little after-school treat.

My mother's eyebrows lifted as I came in carrying my load. I told her the same thing I'd told Amanda: "You'll understand in a minute."

But just then the phone rang and my mother had to take it, and her co-worker Nancy was already on another call, so I just handed them each a bag of Doritos and a few Rolos and settled down to my own snack and work.

My mom is one of the pharmacists who work for the Poison Control Center--the people you call when you find out the kid you're babysitting just ate some dog food, or you're wondering if that rash might be because you sprayed self-tanning lotion on top of your acne cream, that sort of thing. They'll also tell you what to do if you've been bitten by a rattlesnake, stung by a scorpion, attacked by killer bees--apparently there are a lot of disasters out there. It's good to
know you can call someone and scream, "Help! My face looks like a beach ball!" and a voice will calmly tell you what to do.

Right then Nancy was calmly telling someone to immediately go to the hospital. My mom was calmly telling someone that no, despite what the caller had read on a website, rinsing her hair with grapefruit juice would not make it grow faster. Proving my mother's point that I should never automatically believe what I read on the Internet.