Fat Girl Walking: Sex, Food, Love, and Being Comfortable in Your Skin…Every Inch of It (9 page)

“Oh my God.” I hit the button on speakerphone and jumped up from the chair.

“Who is Mr. Big, Miss Buckenmeyer?” he asked. His voice was low and paced, and when he spoke it felt like velvet fabric slowly slipping between my fingers. Suddenly my hands went numb and my heart started beating against the inside of my rib cage. I couldn’t tell if I was having an actual panic attack or my body was just shutting down out of fear. I don’t actually have the “flight” part of the fight-or-flight reflex. Come to think of it, I don’t even have the fight part. I have whatever emergency reflex causes my knees to stop working and my bladder to release. I just fold down like those tiny wooden Push Puppet toys and pee.

“Mr. Big was—
is
a lobbyist.” I answered. Why couldn’t I feel my lips? Was my mouth even working correctly? Was saliva just sliding out the corners?

He stood stone-faced, taking up the doorway with his immense shoulders. Even if I had the ability to activate my “flight” sense, it would have been useless. He didn’t speak or even flinch. He just looked at me calmly, as I fidgeted with the pencil skirt I’d half unzipped after eating the chicken club out of the snack room vending machine, and looked down to realize I’d left my shoes kicked off under his desk.

I covered my face with my hands in defeat. Fucking Carrie Bradshaw. “He’s not a lobbyist. I am so sorry, sir. I thought everyone had gone for the day, and it’s so hot in my cubicle, fuck I am so sorry for using your desk. And for saying ‘fuck’ in Congress.”

“It’s not a church, Miss Buckenmeyer; you can use curse words
here when they are appropriate.” He spoke. I was going to shit myself. So this is what had happened in my cubicle. It all made sense now.

He walked toward me, busting through the invisible doors of my personal humiliation bubble, so close I could see the small silver hairs of his mustache vibrate against his smooth black skin as he exhaled.

“Oh my God, are you going to make me have sex with you now?” I whispered. I was chubby and perky and owned a beret; this is what happened to girls like me.

“Absolutely not,” he answered.

“Is it because I am white?” I asked meekly.

He stared at me, neither smiling nor outraged for what felt like five solid minutes of absolute awkward silence. Then his face relaxed, and I saw the hint of a smirk spread to the corners of his mouth.

“I enjoy you, Brittany.”

“I’m sorry?” I stuttered. If I threw up in that second, it would just slide down my face. I had no feeling from the eyebrows down.

“I enjoy you,” he repeated, chuckling under his breath. “Tomorrow afternoon come to session with me and then we can have lunch with some of my committee colleagues.”

“God, Representative, that would be amazing, thank you,” I exclaimed, slowly regaining feeling in my limbs and select portions of my neck and cheeks. “I’d love to learn more about what you do to see if this whole thing is a fit for me.”

“You’d make a horrible politician.” He laughed. “You’re a terrible liar and you almost cried twice. Grab your shoes.”

He was right, I’d make a terrible politician. Running for office took a certain level of self-confidence and poise I simply didn’t have. Plus once the Internet became a thing, I watched porn all the time and I’m pretty sure there’s a set of naked pictures of me inside
an Arby’s bathroom floating around somewhere. It’s crazy hard to keep that kind of thing a secret when you are running for office.

I learned to appreciate each of these internships for exactly what Jemma said they were, career blind dates. I showed up on time, learned a few lessons, got a free dinner, did an awkward bro-hug at the front door, and then never called back for a second date. And you know what, that’s fine. You can’t force a relationship to happen any more than you can force someone to elect you to office or be excited about hot dogs at McDonald’s.

At the end of ten weeks, I lightly knocked on Jemma’s door, handed her the supervisor survey the Representative had kindly completed, and walked out at peace having no idea what I would be when I grew up, which ended up being pretty okay because I had plenty of things to keep me occupied, like having mental breakdowns and failing at lesbianism. We all have our journeys.

A MONTH BEFORE
I left for Ohio State, my grandmother was diagnosed with various forms of cancer. It started in her lungs and then bounced around like a Ping-Pong ball in her body, finally culminating in the diagnosis of terminal. I can’t say it was entirely surprising; she had smoked her whole life, and you couldn’t sit on a couch in her living room without reaching under the cushion to find a hidden pack of Kool Menthol 100s.

Everything moved really quickly from that point. Hospice moved in, and her bedroom was transformed into a medically enabled den of comfort; oxygen machines, beeping monitors, tiny cups full of pills on her bedside table, and a large-screen television on the center of her antique dresser. None of this was meant to keep her alive, but rather present and accessible for the rest of us.

Bedridden, her small and bony frame soon took up only half of the familiar indentation worn into her mattress. I’d spend my afternoons curled up next to her under a down comforter reading aloud
from gossip magazines, fashioning her silk headscarf like she was in an Erykah Badu video, and lying uncomfortably quiet beside her as she willed me random belongings from her room and shared with me all the knowledge she wouldn’t get a chance to tell me later.

“All my jewelry and furs are yours,” she’d whisper alongside the low hum of the oxygen from the tube in her nose. I cringed thinking of the matted rabbit fur pimp coats in her closet. It’s like she had no idea that you couldn’t wear that stuff in public unless you were Courtney Love.

“I like Andy, but you should really date a Filipino before you settle down; they make amazing lovers,” she’d muse.

“You are going to fail at a lot of things, so when you do, do it on such a grand scale that half the room gives you a standing ovation, and the other half gives you the middle finger.”

My grandmother was the most beautiful woman on earth. She had pale skin, auburn hair, and long, thin legs and fingers. She knew I didn’t want to go to college. But she also knew that following Andy was my best chance of not ending up like my parents: married young, broke and struggling. My grandma and grandpa lived in a matching ranch next door, separated only by a creek and some trees. When my parents were fighting or working late, I walked across the deep creek between our two houses and showed up on her front doorstep, black mud up to my knees, and spent the night.

My mom would tell me her parents were often too busy for her when she was growing up, but I found them to be a much-needed constant in my life. (I think that’s a pretty normal grandparent thing, as I can now attest, my parents are way better at grandparenting than they were at parenting.) I’d nestle into one of the plaid couches in her living room, and she’d hum old Irish songs in the kitchen and peel the skin from apples in one long, unbroken
strand. My brother always ate the apples; I always ate the skin. Then we’d watch old Judy Garland movies and drink tall glasses of orange juice like diabetes wasn’t even a thing.

My grandmother had an amazing gift to make you feel like the most interesting girl in the room, and it disarmed you from feeling insecure, so you’d end up talking about yourself for hours, which felt good when you lived in a life where no one else asked. Even when she was dying, frail and thin, leaning against me as she slipped on her shoes to go to another appointment, she’d ask me what made me happy that day and kiss me on my shoulder.

“Thank you for helping me stand,” she said squeezing my arm. I was thick and strong, and had spent eighteen years perfecting the art of supporting others; listening to my mom when she ached or bandaging my father when he bled. Helping her stand was the easiest thing I could do.

A week after my grandma died, I packed the back of my parents’ car with suitcases of clothes, my favorite pillow, and a box of mangy fur coats. We’d both left home at the exact same time; she went to heaven, and I went to Columbus.

Even though I had no idea what I was going to be when I grew up, the random English and art classes I was taking were going surprisingly well for me. Because of that, I was a fixture on the dean’s list. I was also holding down a part-time job at the Gap in a nearby mall, and I was living in a two-bedroom apartment twenty minutes off campus with Andy and a pug named Lucy. We had knockoff Pottery Barn furniture, a guest room, I shopped at Whole Foods, and we had couples friends and dinner parties with wineglasses made of actual glass. We even drove nice cars, Andy the silver Nissan Altima from our first breakfast together gifted
to him by his parents, and me a new VW Beetle, a car leased for me by my grandfather after the 1988 Oldsmobile I’d been driving caught fire in a mall parking lot. It was all very adult for twenty-one years old, and I loved it. I had created a simulator of the grown-up life I had always wanted. Clean, calm, comfortable, and sane.

In the summer before our fourth year of college, Andy, increasingly unhappy with his academic program at Ohio State, made the tough decision to return home and attend a local college to finish his degree. Due to the lease on our apartment and the fact that I wasn’t actually failing anything, it was decided I would stay behind for the year. Andy promised to come back down to stay every weekend, but I was still very upset. We had built a life together, a couples life. We had couples friends and game nights; how could he leave that if he loved me?

“We aren’t breaking up,” he assured me in the parking lot of our apartment complex. “It’s just one year.” He kissed my tear-soaked face, pressed a gift-wrapped box into my arms, climbed into his car packed with suitcases and laundry baskets, and drove away waving.

I walked back into our now-empty apartment, Lucy snorting and wagging her curled tail expectantly at me on the couch, and felt very alone for the very first time since I started college. Sure, I was looking forward to the freedom of meeting girlfriends at dance clubs and having slumber parties with chick flicks and fizzy wine, but the truth was, I didn’t know how to be alone anymore. I didn’t even like ordering pizza over the phone by myself. That was an Andy job. How was I supposed to get pizza to my house now? Dependence had become addicting. I’d never had it before, relying mostly on myself for survival, but when it was suddenly stripped away it was terrifying. I had moved away from my family and gone to college and leased an apartment
with
Andy. My life had become a team sport, and I wasn’t strong enough to continue doing these things by myself.

I unwrapped the small box Andy had left in my arms, and found a blank-paged spiral-bound journal with a flowing river on the front cover, which would have been soothing if I wasn’t terrified of all bodies of water. I mean seriously, you can’t see how deep they are. Entire boats and sea creatures swim below you and you just are supposed to act like that’s
not
happening? Inscribed on the inside cover of the journal was a note from Andy.

Since your current journal is almost full, I thought I’d gift you with this one to chronicle your final year of school, and your very first year living solo. I can’t wait to read it, and I miss you already.

Love Andy

Little did he know this journal would go on to read less like an adorable coming of age story and more like
Tyler Durden, the Early Years.

At first, living alone was exactly how I imagined it in all my Carrie Bradshaw fantasies, but it quickly became lonely and isolating. Andy’s attempts to visit went from every weekend to every four to six weeks because of his class load and work commitments. It was becoming difficult to talk my friends into making the trek so far from campus to visit, and many of them didn’t even have cars. Instead they’d beg me to come to weekend-long keggers in their crumbling apartments located just steps from campus. I’d want to go and have fun, but the emotions swirling in my head every minute of every day had been making me so increasingly tired, and maneuvering my car through the overcrowded streets and around burning mattresses and strangers having drunk sex next to dumpsters pushed my anxiety to its limits. I was angry, frustrated, and spent hours crying into my phone each night, begging Andy to come home, and with each excuse, no matter how valid, I evolved from being angry at being alone, to being scared to be alone.

I couldn’t tell if I had just outgrown all of that youthful nonsense, or if the exhaustion, worry, and heaviness inside my brain were signs of something else, something hereditary and unavoidable and waiting inside me like a time bomb. I stopped seeing my friends, and I sent their calls straight to voice mail until one day, they simply stopped calling.

AUGUST 19, 2003

I got halfway to class today and I turned around at the stoplight. I couldn’t remember if I’d triple-checked the door lock or unknowingly bumped the stove knobs with my backpack and turned on the gas. When I got into my parking lot, I also realized I may very well have left my curling iron plugged in. Thankfully I walked in to find Lucy lying in her bed unharmed and licking her crotch, and all the electronics were unplugged. But for good measure, before I leave the house each day, I’ve decided to stick my finger inside each socket hole and count them to double-check they are empty. There are 90 holes and I was only zapped 12 times. On the plus side, if I am ever worried I didn’t unplug anything, I can just look down at my red, throbbing, electrocuted finger. Living alone is mentally exhausting; I never realized how much work Andy had to do to keep us alive each day.

Admittedly, sticking my finger into a socket sounds a little fucked-up. But the truth is pain is a tool I often use to offset my anxiety. I had my very first panic attack my junior year of high school. It came from out of nowhere. I was sitting on the couch having dinner next to my mom when suddenly it was as if I’d forgotten how to swallow. My heart sped up, my chest throbbed, and my breathing was erratic. Terrified, my mother threw me into the car and drove me to the emergency room, worried I was having a heart attack or allergic reaction. An EKG confirmed I was not, in fact, dying, but instead was having an anxiety attack. It was the
most real sense of finality I’d ever experienced. Have you ever tried to put a sports bra on after getting out of the shower, and that split second where you’re stuck with your arms up in the air and you think you’re going to die? That is what my first panic attack felt like, and it lasted twenty minutes. I later was diagnosed with GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and put on various types of medication. I have since spent a large portion of each day passing off my suffocating worry and doom as an adorable case of social awkwardness.

I envision my mind as a plot of grass full of sheep, surrounded by a perimeter of electric fence. If I’m not constantly vigilant and aware of my thoughts, the electric fence shuts off, the sheep jump out, and my panic gets away from me. The chance for an attack is especially bad just before bed or when I’m distracted and lost in thought in the car, causing me to slap myself in the face as hard as I can, or bite the inside of my upper arm. If I can feel the pain, then I am still alive and can begin to focus on rounding up the sheep again. See? This makes perfect sense in my head.

August 20, 2003

Executive decision . . . I am not going to class today. I tried, even drove to the damn off-campus parking lot and got on the shuttle to head to Campbell Hall, but when it stopped there, my body refused to let me get off. I rode that shuttle around the loop three fucking times. I think the other students must have thought I was in training to be a bus driver or something, which is hysterical because I can barely drive normal-sized cars. I think I need a mental health day, I can’t conjugate Italian 104 verbs with a headache, anyways.

AUGUST 21, 2003

I’m having trouble getting out of my car. It takes me almost half an hour to get to the campus parking lot, but once I get there, I just
sit in my car and listen to O.A.R. really loud and watch the fat of my thighs spread out across the lava-hot leather seats. I don’t understand why class has to be so long. What if something happens to Lucy or someone breaks into my apartment and then hides and waits for me to come home? At night I hear such horrible sounds, like someone is trying to break in or attack me. If I get out of my car and go to class, it’s like I am okay with those horrible things happening. But, if I stay in my car, it will be fine, so I have to just stay here in my car. Just for today.

You are probably wondering what the hell is happening right now. If you’ve never had or known someone with anxiety, most of this looks pretty irrational. Like “Hey creep-face, stop biting yourself and go to the classes you are paying eleventy billion dollars to attend.” I’d have loved to. The issue is that as a person with anxiety, I have the inside track on the fact that we’re all doomed, and carrying this knowledge around every second of every day is debilitating. I can’t offer you evidence or logic; I just know these potential horrible events to be true. It’s like living every day as Ben Affleck in
Armageddon
.

AUGUST 30, 2003

I called off work today, but Gail, my boss, told me I had already been written off the schedule because I hadn’t shown up for my shift in over two weeks. I am somewhat concerned about how I am going to pay rent, but more pissed at Gail. I was the only one who bought her a baby gift last year when she had twins, and she doesn’t think that maybe she should call to check on me for two whole weeks? What if I was dead in my apartment? What the fuck, Gail?

I called Andy to tell him I had been fired, and he sounded annoyed, which only made me angrier; it was as if me calling him
with my problems was bringing him down. He’d left me here and I was paying rent by myself. The two-bedroom apartment we once shared was now too big and overwhelmed my senses with noises and shadows. I didn’t mention to him that I had stopped going to classes and instead spent my time sitting in the off-campus parking lot giving myself third-degree thigh burns. He promised he’d be down next month for fall break and we’d reassess the situation, but to hold tight until then. I waited until he’d hung up the phone to add, “I’ll see you then, unless someone murders me first.”