Fat Angie (3 page)

In spite of the pockets of kids zeroing in on him, Jake sat across from her.

“You just got docked five superstar social points for sitting here,” Fat Angie said.

He picked a French fry off her tray. “You don’t really like people much anymore, huh? Your sister wouldn’t dig that.”

Fat Angie and Jake Fetch did have one other thing in common.

She stopped writing as he fished for another fry. His eyes cut to her notebook. She closed it with a definite protectiveness and repositioned herself in her seat.

“Angie, I just — look, your sister . . .” and before the stellar handsome Jake Fetch could get out another word, the energy of the cafeteria sparked wildfire.

Over his shoulder the sea of noise and bodies seemed to part. Stepping away from the cashier at the food line was . . .
her.
The new girl from gym class. Her hair pulled to the side just enough to reveal that curvy, unbelievably intriguing purple heart tattoo. Fat Angie, helpless in the tractor beam of the girl’s strut, lost all sense of time — space — ability not to stare.

Jake turned in his chair. A fry hung limply from his lips like a snapped cigarette.

The scene was set.

Tables buzzed. Crossing in front of the long-legged beauty, guys cocked their heads for a detailed image for later recollection. Fat Angie pulled at her jeans, uncomfortably camel-toeing her crotch, while the new girl’s eyes locked on Fat Angie’s as they had in gym. The bombshell smiled and a voice screamed from the depths of the teen:
Smile back!

As she fought a host of self-loathing thoughts, Fat Angie’s crooked lip twitched ever so slightly before forming a dimple in her rosy right cheek. All seemed unspeakably speakable in the mind of Fat Angie. She had reacted beyond the “fat ass, ugly bitch, mad cow” comments. She had smiled!

With an uncertain future but a seemingly happy ending in the midst, all was cut short between the new girl and Fat Angie. The new girl was intercepted. Stacy Ann, also in a red plaid skirt but cut exactly within the William Anders High–regulated dress code, sprung into gossip-girl mode with a coven of three forming a V behind her.

Fat Angie’s smile vanished and her head dropped, forming the double chin her mother loathed so much that she had refused to frame Angie’s class picture.

“I can’t believe you wore that
HORNETS’ NEST
T-shirt,” her mother had said, eyeing the photograph. “It makes you look so wide.”

Fat Angie kept the 2.5 x 3.5 photograph in her butterfly-adorned Velcro wallet right behind a picture of her sister on graduation night. The whole family, together on the football field. Her sister in the middle, beaming beside a thinner but nevertheless fat Angie.

Jake whipped back around to Fat Angie. “Who’s the bomb?”

And right then, a voice said, “You’re in my gym class.”

Angie lifted her sad eyes, and then they beamed. Jake looked back and forth between the girls as if taking note of the event.

“I’m Jake,” he said to the new girl. “And the temporarily mute girl is Angie.”

“Hey, Angie,” said the girl. “Can I?”

“Can you what?” said Fat Angie.

“Well, the chair is empty,” said the girl, holding up a lunch box depicting the Last Supper. Jesus’s arms were unusually buff.

What they refer to in the theater as a
beat
occurred.

Jake nudged the chair leg back with his foot.

“Chivalry. Thanks,” said the mystery girl.

“No worries,” Jake said.

It suddenly occurred to Fat Angie that the new girl with the soon-to-be-famous intense purple tattoo might have invited herself to meet Jake. The rapid happy-sad-happy-sad confused Fat Angie.

“I miss her a lot,”
Fat Angie had said to the therapist.
“I feel like I’m the only one who still notices she’s not here.”

The therapist had made a note:
Sees herself as a loner.

The new girl popped the heart-shaped latches on her lunch box plastered with 80s hair band stickers on the bottom.

“So . . . you’re new,” said Jake.

“In a recycled-high-school-transfer way,” said the new girl.

Fat Angie laughed. A half-snort-wedged-into-a-laugh kind of laugh.

“So, where you from?” asked Jake.

“You write for the
Daily Planet
or something?” asked the new girl.

The mood went from light to heavy in a single question. Jake fell into a false smile and stamped the end of his index finger against the table. Fat Angie tugged at her jeans.

“Well, I gotta cut out,” said Jake. “See you in seventh.”

This stumped Fat Angie, as she and Jake never saw each other in seventh period.

“So,” the girl said, “the inevitable awkward not-knowing-a-person moment.”

Beat.

“I’m KC.” She extended her hand. “KC Romance.”

Thrown for a moment, Fat Angie realized this was not an attempt to be eccentric. It sent the oddest warmness into her tummy.

“Angie.”

“Yeah, your friend said. So . . . Jake, is it? Jockhead or ultra-even?” asked KC.

Angie stumbled through translating the hip KC slang of
ultra-even.

“Sorry,” KC said. “The Midwest Adjust hasn’t kicked into my shop talk. I meant, jock or cool?”

“Um, athlete but ultra, I guess,” said Fat Angie, nervously sketching. “He’s sort of a shape-shifter. Can fit anywhere. We live on the same block and —”

“Do I detect a little interest?” KC asked.

“It’s. No. He and my sister — they, um —”

“Completely tragic,” KC said, offering a swig of her low-fat organic milk. “Crushing on your sister’s boyfriend. I, of course, have no siblings to end up in such a dilemma. Unless you count my dad’s new wife and her two guppy-yuppie heathens, which I don’t. Parents. Di-vorced.”

“Mine too. Guess we’re kinda in common,” said Angie, immediately realizing how utterly geeked-out that sounded. “I mean we have something . . . in common.”

While Angie was prone to nervous, incoherent jabber, that particular moment was set apart from any other. It was a nails-scratching-on-a-chalkboard, winning-first-place-in-a-relay concoction of nervousness.

KC unwrapped a hearty sandwich worthy of a TV commercial. Cheese. Roast beef, turkey, pastrami. Leafy lettuce, luscious tomato, and the smell of expensive mustard. Fat Angie salivated.

“I know it’s a beast. Esther always makes me a ginormous sandwich for every first-day new-school move. Mover’s guilt, I guess.”

“So. About Stacy Ann,” said Fat Angie.

Stacy Ann stared from six tables away. Classic kung fu films would portray this moment with a zoom-in by the camera. Fat Angie had watched such cinematic techniques with Wang before he’d become obsessed with his crime-driven alter ego.

“I’m not so into the rah-rah, in case you didn’t figure from the getup,” said KC. “Besides, there’s been a Stacy Ann at every school I’ve been to. Too into chick lit and cruising the mall, maxing out Mommy’s credit cards on name-brand purses and overpriced clothing made in sweat factories. What about you?”

“I hate sweat factories.”

KC smiled. “I mean, what do you do? For fun? When you’re not reforming developing countries’ labor laws?”

Fat Angie kicked into the CBS-required five-second delay before asking, “Fun?”

Fat Angie had not considered the notion of fun for some time. She spent most afternoons alone in her bedroom surfing the Internet on the divorce-guilt computer from her dad. Researching the war in Iraq, tickets to Baghdad, and the application process for a passport. All the while, the Weather Channel on mute in the background on the thirteen-inch television she’d bought at a garage sale for fourteen dollars. The screen flickered between channel changes. Occasionally, she propped herself against a pile of overpriced pillows and watched the obligatory pregnant weather woman block part of Texas or California with her profoundly robust tummy. This was the closest she came to fun, but in no way was it worthy of sharing with others.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean it to be a showstopper,” said KC, returning to her meal.

“No, I just . . . I’m not really the person who’s in the know. You know? What I mean is . . . I don’t really fun much. But a lot of kids fun — I mean, have fun. Everybody pretty much hangs out at The Backstory. Lattes and open mics. Live band stuff. Mostly garage . . . bands. They have great German appetizer specials on Friday nights and Skewer Saturdays.”

“Cool,” said KC. “Sort of the Bronze without vampires and demons.”

Fat Angie did not follow the trajectory of KC’s comment.

“BTVS?”
KC said. “
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
? One of the best shows ever.
Entertainment Weekly
’s top 100. A classic but definitely not dated.”

“Oh. I’m into the classics too,” said Fat Angie, crossing her arms awkwardly over her chest.
“Growing Pains, 7
^th
Heaven . . .”

KC nodded but showed no signs of genuine interest.
Be ultra-even,
Angie thought, but her concentration splintered. Algebra . . . images of Japan’s tsunami . . . the theme song to
Growing Pains
all whipped wildly in her head. Then there was a sound. Laughter. Angie and her sister laughing. Angie remembered —

“Freaks and Geeks,”
she blurted out.

“
Freaks and Geeks
is massive fierce!” KC nearly spit out her food. “Cutie James Franco. He’s James Dean in the making. Hopefully without the tragic ending. Love
Freaks.
”

“Yeah?”

“Absolute ultra, no doubt. The others are way dead. Not that that’s bad. My mom owns a season of
Melrose Place,
I think, and I can’t wrong her for a guilty pleasure,” said KC. “People need them, you know. But classic old school is still cool. You know, paving the way and all. Like no Lynda Carter
Wonder Woman,
no
Buffy.
And
Wonder Woman
is mid-70s ultra retro.”

“Yeah,
Wonder Woman,
” said Fat Angie. “The lasso where you have to tell the truth.”

“I know, totally beast,” said KC.

“And — and the invisible jet,” Fat Angie continued.

Blank. Fat Angie drew an unfathomable big blank. She shifted her leg under her, only her jeans were so tight they pinched at the creases of her knee. This was, in fact, an uncomfortable position but one she had committed to. To move again would suggest that she were nervous.

“So,” KC said, “when you wanna go?”

“Go?” said Fat Angie.

“To The Backstory,” said KC. “Sounds sweet. Foaming coffee and skewer adventure.”

“I’m . . . I don’t drink. Caffeine. Acid reflux,” said Fat Angie.

“Yikes!” said KC. “Me too. But I’m sure they’ve got water. The nonbubbly kind. Or we could do something else.”

Doing something with KC threw Fat Angie for what one might refer to as a loop.

“Why?” asked Fat Angie.

KC paused midbite, a clear indication she did not follow.

“You’re new here,” said Fat Angie. “There’s lots of people . . . in the school. And I’m not really what you’d call in the cool. Not that I don’t want friends. I mean . . . It’s just . . . I —”

“Listen,” said KC, “I saw what Stacy Ann did in gym class. It was beast the way you took her on. Most girls wouldn’t take on a Stacy Ann.”

“You saw?” said Fat Angie.

“Yeah.” KC bit the inside of her full lower lip. “I saw.”

Fat Angie had never studied a mouth so closely. She wondered —

“You OK?” said KC.

“Stacy Ann had it coming,” said Fat Angie.

KC nodded her head. “So about The Backstory. What do you think? Could be kinda
fun.
Even if you’re not all fun-zees.”

The Backstory was not simply a teen retreat beneath dim lights with trendy IKEA furniture and a shallow stage. It was the place where Fat Angie’s sister had spilled the so-called beans of enlisting in the armed forces. Fried Freudian Mozzarella balls had congealed between the sisters then. All the while, Fat Angie had slumped in her chair and contemplated the universe on a stick, also fried. Deep, deep-fried. She had wanted to vomit. She had —

“Can I? Think, I mean,” said Fat Angie. “Not that I don’t wanna. I just . . .”

“Sure. Thinking’s good,” said KC. “Question. You gonna finish your fries? Kinda like to stick them in the middle of the sandwich.”

Fat Angie slid over her tray, and KC Romance ate, like Fat Angie wanted to; savoring the taste of each tantalizing bite. Mixing homemade chocolate chip cookies with the main course, a no-no in Fat Angie’s world.

“You gotta try one of these,” KC said, holding a cookie out to Angie. “It’s massive ultra.”

Fat Angie lifted her arm, the sweaty armpit unsticking. The two girls held the cookie in midair. Then laughed.

Fat Angie noticed a stringy scar on the inside of KC’s arm.

KC released the cookie. “So, this panda goes into a bar . . .”

Fat Angie smiled. “Yeah.”

For a moment, Angie forgot that she was fat. She forgot about Wang’s criminal behavior and shady mood with her and her couldn’t-be-bothered mother detesting her. A model kind of beauty beneath the bad-girl garb with eyes that matched her last name, KC Romance was not seated at the “rah-rah” crowd table. There she was, defying the gravity of the social chain of Stacy Ann Sloan and the rest of William Anders High, sitting across from Fat Angie.

Then the lunch bell rang.