The Fat Girl Read Online Free Page A

years of love between Norma and me. And there would have been. If it hadn’t been for the fat girl.

four
    Her name was Ellen De Luca. But I never thought of her with a name until the day I made her cry.
    “She’s gross,” I told Norma. “She was in the cafeteria yesterday, sitting at the next table. She wolfed down two cheeseburgers and then must have eaten about six candy bars. She threw the wrappers under the table too, so she’s a litterbug as well as a disgusting slob.”
    Norma made a face. “Will you get off it?” she said. “You go on and on about her.”
    “Because she’s a real pain. She watches me all the time.”
    “But Jeff, you’re watching her too.”
    She was right. I was watching her. Not only in the ceramics class, but everywhere else too. I’d see her waddling along in the hall, the loose flesh on her arms jiggling as she walked. I always looked away, avoiding her eyes. I never said hello. Most people looked away when they saw her, the way you do when anybody deformed is in sight. She generally kept her eyes down too and walked by herself. Sometimes a kid would talk to her in that loud, hearty voice you keep for the handicapped to show them that it doesn’t make any difference to you.
    But it does.
    “I don’t understand how she ever could have allowed herself to get that way. I mean, she must be about seventeen, and she looks like an old woman.”
    Norma was stuffing paper into a pair of Adidas. We were going to a Halloween costume party at Roger Torres’ house, and she was wearing my clothes. She had on my T-shirt with a picture of Burt Reynolds that said BURT REYNOLDS IS ONLY A 10. I’M A 15. It flopped all over her, and so did my jeans. But nothing could ever stop her from looking beautiful.
    She managed to fit her feet into my Adidas, tied the laces, stood up, and giggled when she looked at me.
    I wanted to go to the party wearing her clothes, but since all she ever wore were jeans and old shirts, we both decided it wouldn’t be funny. So here I was, wriggling around in an old pink tutu of Carmen’s and wearing a lot of lipstick and makeup.
    “You better keep away from Castro Street,” she said. “You really do look bee-yoo-ti-ful.”
    We twined our arms around each other and stood in front of the mirror, inspecting ourselves. The funny thing was—I did look beautiful. Tall and big as I am, and wearing the ridiculous tutu, I looked good enough to almost turn myself on.
    “You know something?” Norma said.
    “What?”
    “We’re lucky.”
    I knew what she meant, but I asked “Why?” anyway.
    “Because we never have to worry about looking good. So many things you have to worry about in life, but that’s one thing we’ll never have to worry about.”
    “You can never tell,” I said, watching in the mirror as I bent down to kiss the top of Norma’s head. “Maybe I’ll get bald and have hair sprouting out of my nose, and maybe you’ll lose your teeth and get fat like the fat girl.”
    “Poor thing,” said Norma.
    “The slob!” I said.
    Lots of the kids from the ceramics class were at the party, but not the fat girl.
    “How come you didn’t invite the fat girl?” I asked Roger.
    “I didn’t know you had a thing for her,” he said. Roger was a short, dark, very muscular guy. He was planning to become a ceramic designer and work on developing new glazes. He and Dolores Kabotie had been going around together for a long time, and both of them were dressed up as figures from a Grecian urn. Dolores was dressed in a long, white dress, but Roger was only wearing a skimpy pair of shorts.
    “He’s always got to be showing off his rippling muscles,” I muttered to Norma. Roger took weight lifting classes and was proud of his bod.
    “Actually, the men wear a lot less than that on the Grecian urns.”
    “Too bad the women don’t,” I said. “It’s not fair that Dolores has to be all covered up.”
    “Well, she is a little thick in the thigh, and her bust is kind