Part 7 (1/2)

I felt it. I saw it. I still like to hear Cara say it. Somehow it makes it even more real. I shrug.

”Deny it all you want, people were going nuts, Dell. Melissa kept asking me if I knew you could sing like that. I swear I saw Mrs. Salvatore wipe away a tear. Don't even act like you don't know you made it. Puh-leeze.” She takes a bite of her salad. ”You owe me.”

”Oh, okay. Right. So I owe you for sneaking behind my back and signing me up for something I didn't want to do in the first place?” I'm just messing with her. I'm glad Cara pushed me. I wouldn't have auditioned unless she did what she did.

Cara grins and pelts my shoulder with a cherry tomato. ”You b.i.t.c.h.”

I stick my tongue out at her and go back to eating. My eyes wander from my tray to Cara's. My salad is covered with ranch. There's no green showing at all. It's all white. My lettuce is drowning in dressing, but it still has to be fewer calories and less fat than my typical double cheeseburger, large cheese fries, and large soda. Maybe I'll just starve myself. I must have enough body fat to keep me alive for at least a year.

”When do you want to go shopping?” she asks. ”Since you don't have softball practice anymore, we could go right after school.”

Shopping is awful.

I haven't shopped for clothes with Cara since I gained the last forty pounds. And the last time we did, it was a catastrophe. That was when I found out that the clothes in regular shops no longer fit me. The stores we usually went to only went up to size sixteen. I tried stuffing myself into size-sixteen jeans for at least five minutes. After I'd accidentally busted the zipper and was hiding the pants in the rack, Cara popped out of her dressing room, asking if her jeans (size six) made her b.u.t.t look big. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.

I tasted blood for ten minutes straight.

I swallowed the bitter iron taste in my mouth and admitted that nothing fit me. Cara tried to help by suggesting we see if Large and Lovely had anything cute. Large and Lovely is the shop we used to walk by, giggle, and call the ”Fat Lady Store.” I faked stomach cramps and went home. Now I avoid clothing stores whenever we hit the mall and put my full concentration on the food court.

”I don't know. What would I do with Meggie?”

”Isn't Meggie at day care?” Cara asks.

My stomach bottoms out. I can't go dress shopping with her. I have to get out of this. ”Yeah, but I can't be late picking her up. We'd only have, like, twenty minutes to shop by the time we got to the mall. My mom gets charged two bucks for every minute I'm late. It'll be a ha.s.sle.”

”Dell!” Cara hits the table with her closed fist. ”This is important!”

”Relax.”

”You're not going onstage in a T-s.h.i.+rt and jeans. Seriously,” she says.

”I know. G.o.d, you are a pain in my a.s.s. I'll figure it out.”

Figure what out? the voice in my head antagonizes. You're not going shopping. You're dropping out of the show. You have no nice clothes that fit you. Your mother works two jobs and spends any leftover money on diapers and pills. Your father's extra coin goes directly to the one and only Donna Dumba.s.s. You have no money. You are enormous. But you'll figure it out.

Right.

Letting Go of the Rope.

IF LUNCH IS MY FAVORITE SUBJECT, YOU'D FULLY expect that phys ed would be the fat girl's nemesis. It is, but it's not because I'm unathletic (I could probably out-athletic 80 percent of the guys in my cla.s.s); it's the changing for gym and getting undressed part that makes me want to throw on an invisibility cloak. Taryn and Sydney are in my gym cla.s.s, and so is my former teammate Amy. And having anyonea”especially those threea”see me without my clothes on isn't going to happen.

I've developed a system for the days I have gym. I wear my gym shorts all day, then I dart to the locker room like a lunatic so I can throw on my T-s.h.i.+rt before everyone else arrives, then wait on the bleachers for all of the slow/skinny people.

Darting anywhere is difficult, so I'm sitting and panting when Coach Lein walks into the gym with a bundle of rope over his shoulder. ”A little help, Turner.”

Together we unwind the rope and lay it in a straight line. He tells me we're doing tug-of-war today. I nod and sit back down as relief floods my brain. Despite my athleticism, I hate when cla.s.s involves running of any kind. I'm sure the reason is glaringly obvious.

Kids trickle into the gym. Sydney and Taryn strut across the gym floor. They're like salt and pepper shakersa”one with bright blond hair, the other with jet-black. Both have rolled up their shorts so much that if they bent over, we'd all get an a.s.s show. Taryn is petting her hair while Sydney arranges her T-s.h.i.+rt so a bit of her stomach shows. They stand off to the side and ignore everyone but each other.

Coach Lein blows his whistle. He announces the plan for the cla.s.s and picks Amy and some guy with the hairiest arms and legs on the planet to choose tug-of-war teams. Ape-man chooses Taryn and Sydney right out of the gate. He probably has a b.o.n.e.r for both of them. Amy chooses one of the football players and one of the flip-cup guys from the baseball team. She's going for strength.

They go back and forth, choosing their teams, and I look around. There are only three of us left. I want that cloak right now.

”I've gotta grab the stopwatch from my office,” Coach Lein says. He jogs off.

”I want Dell,” Amy announces.

Taryn and Sydney snort. ”Cows are strong,” Taryn says loudly.

”I want to win, beauty queen!” Amy yells back.

Amy waves me over. For a split second I fear my feet won't get me therea”the embarra.s.sment seems to have temporarily frozen me. But when I drop my gaze to the floor, my body moves.

Coach Lein returns and starts shouting commands. Amy puts me at the end of our rope. I figured she would. I'm bigger than the football guy. Coach goes through the rules, then yells, ”Go!”

I barely grip the rope because I don't care about winning or getting a good grade in this exercise. I get jerked forward a bit. The football guy is right in front of me. He looks over his shoulder and barks, ”Do something!” Oh, I want to do something, all right. How about my foot slips and kicks you in the nuts?

The gym fills with voices bellowing, ”Pull!” Then Taryn's voice cuts through. ”Moooooo! Moooooo!”

I let go of the rope.

My team stumbles forward, everyone tripping into one another while the other team falls back on their b.u.t.ts. Apparently I was doing more pulling than I'd thought.

Sydney lands on top of Taryn, and they laugh like hyenas. Amy is in my face, asking me why I let go. The football dude is shaking his head.

I let my shoulders answer for me, and I look away.

a a a.

The next morning there is a hand-drawn picture of a cow taped to my locker. BEWARE OF THE RAPIST BOVINE is neatly bubble-lettered underneath. I rip it off, crumple it up, and look around for who did it. Everyone seems to be minding their own business. How many people have already seen this? My mouth goes dry.

On my way to homeroom, I regroup in a bathroom stall. I un-crinkle the page and stare at it. The cow is so fat. The lettering is girly. I shake my head, hoping it will erase the image like an Etch A Sketch. I feel light-headed when I get still.

I'll bet Sydney wrote it. She's the only one who suspects that anything happened.

Unless.

Unless Sydney told everyone. What if everyone knows that I had s.e.x with Taryn's boyfriend? What if Taryn knows? I lean my forehead against the stall. I can feel blood draining to my feet, see tiny white stars twinkling in my line of vision.

Don't faint, Adele. You'll get stuck in some effed-up angle and they'll have to use the Jaws of Life to get you out of the stall.

Somebody is trying to make me squirm. But I didn't rape him. What the h.e.l.l does this stupid drawing even mean?

I crush the paper into a ball again. I have to get to homeroom or I'll get a detention. A detention means I can't pick up Meggie. And that means a p.i.s.sed-off mother.