Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It (7 page)

It’s a cliché to say I was in love, but I truly thought I was. Until three months later when Vince dumped me on my birthday for a girl in Georgia who was technically his third or fourth cousin. I can’t be sure if those crazy kids ever made it, but if they did, you can bet there’s a handful of gorgeous curly-haired inbred children running around somewhere with two different-colored eyes and an anus coming out of their foreheads.

Outside of Vince, which I think we can all agree was a major bullet dodged, the remainder of my time as an underclassman was spent being a secret girlfriend. Secret girlfriends were not the
same as pretend girlfriends. We weren’t made-up girls you never see because we lived in Canada or only proved our existence through naked pictures shared in AOL chat rooms. Secret girlfriends were girls who had legitimate relationships with boys, even though nobody else was around to verify it was actually happening. The males in my school, who so often never gave me a passing sexual thought, soon realized that with soft stomachs and thick thighs come large boobs. Suddenly I was spending a lot of time with boys who were too ashamed to be seen with me in public, either because of what I looked like, or the fact that they already had other more attractive nonsecret girlfriends who were often busy every weekend at track meets or volleyball games. They’d pick me up on Friday nights and we’d drive to empty parking lots or back to their homes if their parents were gone. We’d start out watching movies on the couch, but would always end up making out for a few hours before they’d realized how late it had gotten, usher me back to the car, and drive me back home stone-faced and stoic. Now that the sexual urge had been filled, all that was left for them was regret. If there was one constant in this part of my life, it was that they never kissed me goodbye, not once.

And yet, it wasn’t until the light of day, or at least by the light of the fluorescent bulbs that lined the aging school hallways from 8
A.M
. and 2:20
P.M
., as those same boys who breathed my name into my neck as they fumbled with the hooks of my bra walked past me not meeting my eyes, that I remembered these weren’t real relationships.

I know, I know, it’s really easy for me to look back at this from my self-esteem high horse and cringe. But this was a different time. Clinton was president. We were still eating gluten. The 9/11 attacks hadn’t happened yet. I didn’t know I was doing a disservice to chubby girls everywhere; I was more focused on the fact that when I was making out with a boy in a car in the woods I felt like
a girl for the very first time. Being heavy
and
wanted was a completely new concept; it never dawned on me that I had a say in all this, or that I had the right to be picky about who I allowed access to my body. I was just thankful someone, anyone, had wanted it.

And they could have it, as much of it as they’d like, except for sex. It might sound arbitrary considering, but sex was something I held tight to. Not for religious reasons, or even fear, though being terrified of your first time was completely normal, but more out of self-preservation and control. I may not have been able to change the way I looked, or my station in life at that moment, but I could control who got my virginity. I would give it away when it felt right, and so far, being left standing in my driveway as upperclassman boys pulled away popping gum in their mouths and covering my scent with Calvin Klein’s Obsession before they met up with their real girlfriends didn’t feel right.

My journals in high school read like the playbook of a plus-size Donna Martin from
90210
. Like Donna, I was not only saving myself, but was self-conscious about my nose and had two different-sized breasts.

NOVEMBER 1996

I gave Grant a blowjob in his car after school, again. Yes, that Grant. The Grant who took me on one date before leaving me at the restaurant while I was in the bathroom, and his friend Tom had to drive me home. I have no idea what my problem is, he barely acknowledges me in school or at play practice. I swear to God he looks like he fell out of the show Felicity with his puka shell necklaces, layers of sweaters and flannel shirts, and worn looking Dr. Martens. It’s like he walks around to a perpetual soundtrack of Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You.” I saw him talking to Emily at her locker, which makes absolutely no sense, because Emily is incredibly boring and has a haircut like Frasier, but
when we talked on the phone last night he promised he doesn’t even like Emily, his mom wanted him to date her, but he totally isn’t going to. He also asked me to come over this weekend when his parents are gone to watch movies and said to be sure to wear a skirt. He probably wants me to dress up for when he asks me to Homecoming.

Grant didn’t ask me to homecoming, and he only wanted me to wear a skirt because it was the nineties and those button-fly jeans were a complete pain in the ass.

FEBRUARY 1997

There are perks to living across the street from a senior boy. Like when he and his friends show up to your house drunk on a weekend night and ask if you have any beer. One of the guys, Beau, who is totally Grant’s best friend by the way, yes that Grant who left me at a Big Boy restaurant and took boring Emily to Homecoming, is beyond hot. Beau is dating a senior girl named Sarah, but he said I was much prettier and that Sarah was too busy with sports to mess around on the weekends. I have spent the last two months’ worth of Saturdays with Beau, and he can’t wait until track is over so he can break up with Sarah. He’s not doing it yet because she’s going to state and he totally doesn’t want to break her concentration because that wouldn’t be fair to her, plus he really likes hanging out with her dad. The other day Beau and I were making out in my parents’ barn, and he stuck his finger so far up inside me, I started bleeding. He wasn’t even grossed out. Beau is so much sweeter than Grant.

Beau never broke up with Sarah; in fact, he married her.

FEBRUARY 1997

Big news, a local celebrity was in my house tonight! Pete was all over the local paper for bowling that perfect game, and after being
my partner in art class for the screen printing project, he finally asked to come over and hang out. We kissed on my bed, and then he showed me his thumb, which was disgusting. Apparently if you spend a few years sticking your thumbs into bowling balls, they turn into deformed lightbulbs covered in calluses and dandruff. He asked me if I wanted to watch him bowl in a tournament the next weekend. Obviously, I said yes. Then about an hour after Pete left he three-way called me with a girl named Julia who said she worked at the bowling alley and was dating him. She called me a fat whore and a nasty pig, and then made Pete tell me that he loved only her and then they hung up on me. I have no idea why she was so angry at me; I wasn’t cheating on my girlfriend. Every time my mom asks me when Pete is coming back over, I feel like a bigger idiot. I’m not introducing anyone to her again.

And then Pete failed out of high school and went to jail. I feel like way less of an idiot now.

APRIL 1997

Tonight at Show Choir practice John cornered me in the Choir room and asked me if I’d be interested in 69’ing. I didn’t even know what that was; he had to draw it out for me on a paper plate. I told him I would think about it, leaning over someone while my stomach hangs down isn’t exactly a flattering position for me. Also, John has been giving me really weird vibes. I mean, he is a great soccer player and has an amazing body, but when we hang out he makes me give him a hand job by standing behind him, and then he asked me to bulk up my legs and shoulders because he said girls were sexier that way.

John ended up joining the navy after high school and now he lives in Chicago with his husband, Brett, who probably doesn’t have to stand behind him while giving hand jobs. I’m on their Christmas card list.

I officially lost my virginity at seventeen to a boy named Andy in the back of his car to the Tears for Fears song “Shout.” I say officially because I used to ride horses and I was really aggressive with tampons so whatever was left of my hymen was probably like crossing the finish line second behind the guy who already broke the ribbon. It wasn’t even his idea, it was mine. I knew I had wanted to give it to him, it had finally felt right.

Andy and I had both attended the yearly trip to Mexico our Spanish Club took, and after a night of discotheques and cheap sugary liquor, I asked him in the hallway of our hotel if he wanted to have sex with me. He said no.

“No?” I repeated, stunned and dizzy leaning against the damp wallpaper.

“No, not like this,” he explained.

I never asked him why; the last thing I wanted to be was the girl who had to beg a boy to sleep with her. So I let it go for the rest of the trip and instead focused on underage drinking and catchy Will Smith songs. Honestly, I have no idea why my parents thought it was a good idea to let me go on a vastly underchaperoned trip to Cancún. Children, if you are reading this, you are never going to Mexico.

I’m not entirely sure what Mexico lacked in ambience, but there I was three months later, same Andy, different country. We were parked in a wooded area behind my parents’ house, having sex in the passenger-side seat of his dented Honda hatchback. It was awkward and sloppy and lasted about five minutes. When we were finished tears began to gather in the corners of my eyes, not out of
pain or regret, but of relief. I looked up at him breathing heavily above me, holding himself up by the strength of his arms on either side of my seat.

I’d gone to Victoria’s Secret the day before and told the clerk I was buying lingerie for my slutty older sister’s bachelorette party. I explained that we were roughly the same size, but she was insecure about her nipples being too large, so nothing see-through. I left with a black baby doll chemise and some crotchless matching panties that I’d hidden beneath the loose jeans and a Charlotte Hornets Starter jacket that now sat bunched on the floor of the car.

“What’s wrong?” he asked alarmed. He had been growing out a mustache and it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever seen.

“I feel like a girl right now,” I admitted, laughing up at the gray felt ceiling of the car.

“I hope so,” Andy answered. “Because I definitely saw at least one pussy down there.” I cringed at the word, but forgave him.

We both found our places back in our seats and re-dressed in silence. He put his car in reverse and drove me back down the bumpy dirt road to my house. I had sex with a boy who would go on to take me to prom, introduce me to his parents, and never leave me at a restaurant when I wasn’t looking. So many of my skinny, gorgeous friends have absolutely horrible stories about losing their virginity, and aside from an unfortunate eighties song about the Cold War, my first time was perfect.

As I reached for the handle on the car door to get out, Andy put his hand on my arm stopping me, leaned forward, and kissed me goodbye for the very first time.

I CAN’T REALLY
talk about anything else before first talking about Andy Gibbons. I’m going to be mentioning him a lot going forward, and it’s rude not to introduce someone properly. Like those people who tell you stories about their family by saying, “Oh, did I mention Mom was in the hospital?” And I respond like “What!? I thought Mom was in her living room watching
Deadliest Catch
!” Because we actually don’t have the same mom, and it’s weird to assume we do, because we look nothing alike and we just met. It’s called a possessive determiner and it helps me not freak out about my mom being in the hospital.

I met Andy Gibbons,
my
Andy Gibbons, on his birthday. While we attended the same school and had a few mutual friends, I had absolutely no idea who Andy was, and at that point was really only hanging out with boys who were gay or ashamed to be seen with me.

On April 5, Andy turned sixteen, passed his driver’s test, loaded
up three of his friends into the black 1988 Honda hatchback he inherited from his older brother, and spent the celebratory afternoon driving around and listening to rap music. I met him three hours later when he knocked on my front door and asked to use my phone. (It’s weird to think we didn’t have cell phones back then. We just left the house untethered, assuming we’d eventually show back up in one piece. Now I can’t even sit at a red light and not check my iPhone. The one time I left home without it, I tried to use the pay phone at the gas station, but when I picked it up, the part you spoke into had been removed and the hole stuffed with used condoms. The fact that there were multiple condoms in there confused me; I wasn’t sure if someone was having regular sex into the speaker hole, or if it was the work of a really horny squirrel.)

Andy needed to use my telephone because he had been in an accident in front of my house, and while physically okay, he needed to call his mother. I gave him our cordless phone and went to the kitchen to get him a glass of water since it seemed like the polite thing to do for someone who had just been in a car accident. I was relieved my parents were both at work that day so I could corral all the dogs into their bedroom at the back of the house, muffling their barking and whining at the door. When he later recounted this series of events to his buddies, I didn’t want him referring to me as the weird girl who had a hundred dogs in her house.

Andy looked terribly young. Tall and thin with thick messy black hair covering his pale blue eyes, and acne along his jaw. He wore a basketball jersey as a shirt, a gold Nike swoosh necklace, and his baggy jeans appeared to be ironed. I sat down next to him on the cement of our front porch and listened as he explained to his mom on the phone that a car had tried to pass him as he was turning, and T-boned him into my front yard. His voice was shaky, but he assured her he was fine and that he’d need a ride home.

He hung up and we sat together stiffly.

“Hi, I’m Brittany,” I said, extending my hand to his.

“I know who you are,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “We’re in the same class.”

Andy clenched his jaw and looked straight ahead as the tow truck driver raised his car onto the platform. I had nothing in common with him, and frankly, I wanted him to leave. It was rare I got the house to myself, and I was dying to get back to Eric Nies and MTV’s
The Real World
.

A short while later, a silver sedan pulled into our long wooded driveway. Andy stood up, thanked me for the water and letting him use my phone, got into his mom’s car, and left. Just like that. And that, children, is how I met your father.

The next morning I awoke to the sound of dogs barking, a collective hounding that occurred whenever anyone dared to ring our doorbell or knock. I spent a large portion of my time in that house trying to beat visitors to the front door in hopes of heading off the barking and visitors giving looks of animal hoarding concerns. After a few minutes had passed my dad gently rapped on my bedroom door, stuck his head in, and said, “Uh, there’s an Andy Gibbons here to see you?” My puzzled expression matched his, and I hurriedly grabbed the bra from my floor and strapped it on underneath my plaid pajama shirt.

I found Andy sitting calmly with my mother in the living room, on our brown floral couch, buried underneath a cocker spaniel and two Great Danes.

“Hi, um, Andy, right?” I stammered. There was a stranger in my living room with my mother. “Did you forget something or do you need a statement for the police or something?”

“Nah, I actually came over to see if you wanted to go to breakfast?” he asked, pushing the panting dogs from his lap as he stood up.

“I am still in my pajamas.” Because holy shit, I was still in my
pajamas, and not even cute ones. An oversize plaid nightshirt from the women’s section of Sears that had two large vertical holes in the chest that, I assumed, were for scratching your boobs through; only later would I realize it was a nursing nightgown.

“That’s fine, I was just going to go to the McDonald’s drive-through and drive around town while we ate.”

“I don’t know, I usually don’t eat in front of people and I don’t know anything about you aside from the fact that you are a terrible driver.”

My mother, clearly just excited there was a straight nonrelative boy in the house, pushed me off into my room to change. I once saw this woman show up to a funeral in Crocs and a Looney Tunes shirt, and suddenly she was Mrs. Bennet prettying me up for Mr. Darcy. I threw on a hoodie and a pair of cutoff jean shorts and climbed into the silver Nissan his mother had been driving a day earlier.

“Nice car,” I offered, running my hand along the soft leather and fancy buttons.

“Thanks.” He smiled. “Mine’s in the shop.”

We drove around quietly sipping orange juices and listening to the lyrical stylings of Dr. Dre. Every so often he would point to the house of a friend or ask me a question about my life.

“So did your mom just find all those dogs?”

“No, she breeds them, so we have that many on purpose,” I answered, looking out the window.

We drove along the old railroad track and down country roads past fields and grazing livestock.

“Do you watch many movies?” I asked, hoping to have some noise drown out whatever was happening through the speakers.

“No. I am busy with basketball and golf, and I play lots of video games.”

“Wow, that sounds awesome.” I sighed, bored out of my mind.
“Hey did your parents make you take me out to breakfast as a thank-you or something, because this really isn’t necessary.”

“No.” He laughed. “I asked you to breakfast because you make me nervous and I can’t stop thinking about yesterday with your hair piled all up on your head in that messy bun thing. I just keep sitting there on your porch wanting to kiss you.”

“Well, that’s unfortunate.” My faced burned and I felt an actual shift inside my body, as if room were suddenly being made to accommodate all the feelings that were bouncing around in my stomach between the Egg McMuffin and hash browns. “I don’t kiss boys who listen to rap music.”

And that was actually true. My mom’s best friends were her partners in the dog show circuit, Jon and Casey. Casey did the grooming, Jon did the showing, and my mom turned our attached garage into a working kennel. I loved tagging along with her to their home in southern Michigan, because while she and Jon, a hairy Greek man who reminded me of a character from
Taxi,
talked business, I got to hang out with Casey. Casey was in his forties with a receding hairline and thin mustache. He wore kimonos around the house, offered me hand-rolled cigarettes, and had a giant white cockatoo that cursed in French and drank scotch from a lowball glass. He also gave the absolute best life advice, and loved gossiping with me about the mean girls in my school, which was exciting, because usually fat girls don’t get their gay best friends until they try to turn them straight in college.

“Between you and me,” he’d whisper, leaning in, shaking the ice around in his glass as we sat cross-legged on the long white leather couches of his living room, “Andrea sounds like a giant cunt, and if I were you, I’d tell her that right to her face.”

“Oh sweetie, you don’t want to be homeschooled,” he’d coo to me as I’d cry on the phone at ten o’clock on a school night. “Homeschooling is for trolls and people who start churches with only
their family as members; you have so much potential and great eyebrows.”

“Chubby girls have great boobs. Have your mom buy you a bra with an underwire instead of this elastic undershirt crap from the k.d. lang collection,” he’d quip before storming out of the mall dressing room full of ill-fitting homecoming dresses.

And it was from Casey that I received perhaps some of the greatest relationship rules ever.

         
1    Never date a boy who listens to rap music and makes you call him by his white rapper name.

         
2    If the first kiss is bad, the second will be way worse.

         
3    A good night cream is more important than air.

         
4    Nothing saves a Keanu Reeves movie except a well-timed hand job.

         
5    Hickeys are for truck drivers with jealous wives.

         
6    If a boy tells you he is gay, believe him, believe him, believe him.

At the red light at Main Street and Cherry, I broke rule number one. And a few months later, rule number four, but to be fair,
A Walk in the Clouds
was a really lame movie.

I was Andy’s first real girlfriend, so bringing me home to meet his parents was a big deal. He lived in a pretty brick home on a wooded street uptown. Not that Swanton was a metropolis, but there was marked difference between the people who lived in town with lawn service and access to city water, and we country folk who got our water from underground wells and mowed our lawns with actual tractors. Dressing for this experience was
hard, as his family was decidedly fancier than my own. His father worked in IT and his mother in real estate. I hadn’t seen her since the day she’d picked him up from my house after the accident, but she drove a new car and had a vanity license plate, two things I equated with very rich people.

I had saved my babysitting money to buy a cute men’s red plaid windbreaker from the Gap, and was going through a phase where I wore it with everything, no matter the weather. If it was hot, I pulled it over my head with shorts and brown leather sandals. If it was cold, I wore it with jeans and platform shoes. I rationalized this by thinking I looked thinner hiding my midsection and arms beneath an oversize men’s jacket, and so I showed up to his front door in a pair of khaki shorts, leather clogs, and my signature plaid windbreaker.

“You must be Brittany.” His mother greeted me with a smile. She was tall with whitish blond hair cut into a perfectly smooth bob. She stepped aside opening the glass door so I could walk in.

“It’s so nice to finally meet you.” I beamed with my friendliest grin, accepting her pale thin hand in a handshake.

“Andy’s just in the living room. Here, let me take your jacket and you can go on in,” she said, her arms outstretched for my coat.

“Oh, that’s okay,” I said, deflecting her offer. “It’s chilly and I’ll keep it on awhile longer.”

“Are you sure? It’s at least eighty degrees and we’re eating outside,” she pressed.

“I’m sure, I . . .” I paused, thinking of a plausible reason to be wearing a large canvas coat in the middle of summer. “I’m not wearing anything underneath it,” I answered.

She stared at me puzzled, tilting her head to one side the way dogs do when they hear a new noise. I walked past her, mortified, to find Andy smiling on the couch, suddenly worried at my red face and rapid breathing.

“Is everything okay?” he whispered as I sat down beside him on the long white sofa.

“Super okay,” I lied. “I’m so happy to be here.”

We had dinner on the sunporch, ignoring the formal dining room table that was perpetually set with full china and stemware. His parents asked me about school and what classes I enjoyed. I talked about the musicals I had performed in and the part-time job I held busing tables at the local Mexican cantina. Beads of sweat ran down my back as Andy and his father talked about golf and the latest electronics. I smiled and followed along, every so often playing with the hair I’d spent an hour straightening that was now frizzy and wet underneath. It wasn’t that his parents weren’t welcoming; it was more that the welcome felt temporary. I was okay as a girlfriend, for now. But as they talked about upcoming trips they were taking and Andy going off to college the next year, it became clear that beyond this moment, there would be no room for me.

Andy walked me to the white Ford Taurus I’d borrowed from my mom, and kissed me as I leaned against the driver’s-side door.

“So, are you really naked under this jacket?” he asked, slowly pulling up the bottom hem.

“No.” I swatted at his hand. “I didn’t know what to say. I’m so embarrassed. I can’t believe she told you.” I buried my face in his shoulder.