Part 2 (2/2)
”Me, too,” Carrie added. She hung up the phone.
Carrie jumped off the bed, her usual efficient self, but suddenly a feeling of loneliness and sadness. .h.i.t her in such a wave that she had to sit back down again. Get a grip, Carrie, she coun- seled herself, commanding her legs to carry her to the showers.
As the steaming water ran over her body, Carrie thought about how much she missed her two best friends. But she also thought about how much they didn't know about her life. They simply had no concept of the intensity of the life she was leading now. It was a far cry from the, seemingly carefree existence they'd enjoyed as au pairs the summer before.
To all outward appearances, Carrie's freshman year at Yale was a complete success. Privately, she felt like a juggler, wondering how much longer she could keep this many plates in the air at once. Her long-distance romance with Billy seemed to intensify with each separation, just as seeing Josh almost every day on campus was creating new and stronger bonds. And jealousy was creeping in from all sides of the triangle.
While Carrie's dream of becoming a photojour- nalist was moving along on schedule, the burden of success was beginning to weigh on her. Win- ning a statewide high school photography contest at the end of her senior year had started opening doors, and her summer on Sunset Island had taken her to new heights in her chosen field. Her backstage pictures of the local band Flirting with Danger had been picked up by Hard Rock News.
And the Templetons, who had hired her as an au pair, had turned out to be the family of legendary rock idol Graham Perry. Respect for Carrie's talents had led Graham to request her as his photographer for an interview in Rock On.
Now her coveted position as freshman photog- rapher for the renowned Yale Daily News was making her name known around New Haven as a talent on the rise. Clifton Hughes, the newspaper editor, had even sent her to New York on two occasions to cover theater productions involving recent Yale alumni. The trips had been grueling and had required a couple of all-nighters in the study room to keep up with her coursework, but Hughes had been highly laudatory of the resulting photos.
Carrie turned her face into the spray of the shower and let the water pulse over her head. In spite of studying at least as hard as anyone in her dorm, she was not altogether pleased with her academic performance. Though her first-term grades had been excellent, they had fallen short of the straight-A average she'd been able to maintain in high school.
”My heart jus' bleeds for ya, girl,” her friend Mona had quipped on the day grades were posted.
”What'd you expect, a cakewalk? This here's Yale, babe.”
Mona lived in the room across the hall from Carrie's. She was a National Merit Scholar from Atlanta, a freshman representative on the Minority Council, and handled a part-time job in an off- campus clothing boutique as well. Mona was, in her own words, ”bi-dialectal,” and could whip into a metropolitan black dialect at the drop of a hat.
”Here you are, a published photographer,”
Mona had said, ”with not one, but two studly dudes fallin' at your feet. You're smart, you come from a good family, you have rich, excitin' friends to go to exclusive islands with-your life is the pits, girl!”
”In other words, I should get over it,” Carrie had said ruefully.
”You don't learn to chill out, you gonna grow up to be a stereotypical uptight white woman,”
Mona had told her with a twinkle in her eye.
In some part of her mind Carrie knew that even though Mona was teasing her, she was serious, too. It's just that everything seems so ...
overwhelming sometimes! she thought.
She shut off the shower and returned to her room.
”Oh my G.o.d, I'm a moose,” she murmured as she caught sight of herself in the mirror on the wall. She pulled her well-worn terry-cloth bath- robe tight around her, but then took it off and climbed back into bed for a few minutes to contemplate the situation. She could hear Mona's voice in her head, telling her she was nowhere close to being fat. Unfortunately, I know the truth, Carrie silently answered the voice. She had gained over fifteen pounds since she'd started college.
She pulled the covers up over her head.
It was all so terrible, so scary, so out of control!
The form-fitting wardrobe she had finally gotten up the nerve to wear had moved to the rear of her closet, and she was back to wearing loose, baggy clothing.
The cause for the weight gain was no mystery to her: her days were so hectic that she often missed scheduled meals in the dining hall. In- stead, she found herself buying junk food, meals and snacks that could be eaten quickly over textbooks or outside the darkroom. Whether she needed to calm down or power up her energies, eating seemed to work.
She was aware that food was becoming a crutch. Just last night, she'd managed to eat an entire medium pizza by herself in the confines of the study room. In spite of how much work she accomplished, she'd gone to bed feeling totally out of control. For Carrie, who was used to being totally in control, the feeling was terrifying.
To make matters worse, she had financial anxieties. The answering machine for the phone in her room had been a necessary extravagance for her newspaper work, but she couldn't really justify the expense of meals outside her meal contract. She felt trapped in a vicious cycle: stress led to eating wrong and eating more, which led to spending money; worry about money only led to more stress. It's not Sunset Island!
Carrie thought ruefully to herself.
Carrie's family, although fairly well off, was struggling to meet the costs of Yale tuition and living expenses. Carrie's parents had agreed to pay for her first two years at Yale, in hopes that Carrie could qualify for partial help from schol- ars.h.i.+ps or student loans to finish her degree. In addition, she was expected to meet half her monthly expenses, which should have been nom- inal, considering room and board were included in the deal with her parents.
Any combination of high grades, continued work with the school paper, and outside freelance photography could keep her at Yale without depleting the family college fund, which Carrie's four siblings would eventually need as well. But at this point there were so many factors and so many unknowns that Carrie sometimes felt she was in the first mile of a marathon, and already feeling winded.
A light knock on the door pulled her from the tangle of her thoughts.
”Hope n.o.body's poutin' in there, 'cause Santa Claus is right outside the door,” came the melo- dious voice of Mona.
Pulling on her robe, Carrie opened the door to see Mona holding a clothes hanger swathed in the trademark print dust cover of Fables, the bou- tique where she worked.
”And don't you go gettin' all soggy on me-I still owe you for the pics you took of my family while they were here. I've been watchin' this since the day you tried it on, and when they slashed the price, I pounced.”
Carrie knew immediately what was inside the garment bag, and was flushed with grat.i.tude at Mona's thoughtfulness. Slipping the garment from its wrapping, she held up the raspberry-colored silk jacket that was cut full in the shoulders, narrowing at the hips. Carrie had been eyeing it since the early spring fas.h.i.+ons had arrived at Fables.
Thigh-length, with scalloped side vents, the jacket was beautiful and feminine and would add tremendous versatility to Carrie's wardrobe. She could wear it with jeans, or she could wear it over a skirt for something dressier. Now she found herself wondering if the cut was full enough to hide what Mona called her ”curves” and what she thought of as her ”bulges.”
Holding up the jacket for inspection in the mirror, Carrie had to admit the color flattered her chestnut hair and brown eyes.
”It'll look great with just about everything you own,” Mona said. ”Unless, of course, you were planning to spend the semester in that bathrobe.”
”Yeow!” exclaimed Carrie, remembering the time.
”See you 'round the camp-i,” laughed Mona, making for the door.
Carrie stopped her with a gentle touch on the arm. ”Thanks, Mona. I really mean it, you're a doll.”
”Yeah, yeah, and a real Georgia peach, too,”
sang Mona, but she grinned broadly and blew Carrie a little kiss before disappearing into her room.
Hurriedly Carrie hung the new jacket in her closet and pulled on her oversized gray cabled sweater with her black stirrup pants and black boots. Drab, she thought, trying to picture herself looking bright and slender in the raspberry- colored jacket. I wish I could peel off about ten pounds before this vacation.
In less than two weeks, she'd be seeing Billy.
In fact, Emma and Sam would be here a week from Friday! They always teased her about her weight worries. Emma, pert and pet.i.te, actually liked small portions of healthy foods and had never had a weight problem in her life. And Sam, who ate like a horse without seeming to gain an ounce, could probably carry an extra fifteen pounds without it showing on her long frame. It occurred to her, too, that neither of her friends could relate to her financial concerns. In Sam's eyes she was well off, and Emma simply couldn't fathom money problems.
Maybe if I don't eat anything at all for the next week, I can save some money and lose weight, too, she thought as she left her room. Even as she had the thought she knew the plan was ridicu- lous. For one thing, she knew herself. As soon as she got really hungry all self-control would fly out the window.
”Hi, Carrie,” a girl called from across the hall.
Carrie smiled at Sarah Lovett as she walked by her. Sarah was in her biology lab, and she was enviably thin. Even Josh had admitted that he found Sarah very attractive. Sure, Carrie thought, she weighs maybe ninety pounds.
And then Carrie remembered something that had happened only a few days earlier.
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