It’s not so easy being Rosemary Goode and tipping the scales at almost two hundred pounds— especially when your mother runs the most successful (and gossipiest!) beauty shop in town. After a spectacularly disastrous Christmas break when the scale reaches an all-time high—Rosemary realizes that things need to change. (A certain basketball player, Kyle Cox, might have something to do with it.) So begins a powerful year of transformation and a journey toward self-discovery that surprisingly has little to do with the physical, and more to do with an honest look at how Rosemary feels about herself.
chapter one
The Resemblance
Mother spent $700 on a treadmill “from Santa” that I will never
use. I won’t walk three blocks when I actually want
to get somewhere, much less run three miles on a strip of black rubber only to end up where I
started out in the first place. Aunt Mary gave me two stupid diet
books and three tickets for the upcoming conference at Columbia
State called “Healing the Fat Girl Within” (I’m sensing a theme
here). Normally, I’m not a materialistic sort of person, but let’s
just say this was one disappointing Christmas.
At least Miss Bertha gave me something thoughtful, a complete
collection of Emily Dickinson poems (so far my favorite is I’m
Nobody!), and Grandma Georgia sent money.
Still, all I really needed was to be stricken with some mysterious thyroid condition, a really good one that would cause me to
wake up and weigh 120 pounds. Instead of experiencing a newsworthy miracle, however, I spent the holiday in sweat pants, with Mother and Aunt Mary nagging me to please change clothes. I refused, citing the whole comfort and joy argument. The truth was I had outgrown even my fat clothes. It was either sweatpants or
nothing.
Once I’d wolfed down enough turkey and dressing and pumpkin pie to choke a horse, I loosened the string in the waistband and
plopped down at the computer. Consumed by overeater’s guilt, I
browsed the Internet and gazed zombie-eyed at the countless and
mostly expensive ways a person might lose weight (how pathetic to
be thinking about this on Christmas night). According to a doctor on one website, “losing weight can be even harder than treating cancer.” This uplifting little tidbit was enough to catapult me
straight back to the kitchen for two more cups of eggnog—right
before bed. When I woke up the next morning, I didn’t even have
to step on the scale. Still snuggled beneath my bedcovers, I could
feel those new pounds clinging to my thighs like koala bears on a
eucalyptus tree. The day after Christmas should get its very own
italicized title on the calendar: December 26—the Most Depressing
Day of the Year. With Christmas officially over, I knew there was
nothing left to anticipate but the endless gloom of winter, nothing to look forward to except devouring the secret lovers stashed
under my bed—Mr. Hershey, Mr. Reese’s, and Mr. M&M. I’m
convinced Mother must have secret powers because just as I was
about to rip open the bag, the phone rang.
“What are you doing, Rosie?” she asked accusingly. “Have
you used your treadmill yet? There’s a new box of Special K in
the pantry. They have that weight loss plan, you know.”
“Mmm, almost as yummy as packaging peanuts,” I replied.
“I’m just calling because we need you at the shop today after
all, Rosie,” said Mother, ignoring my sarcasm. “I want you to
take down the Christmas tree. It’s a fire hazard. All dried out and
messy needles everywhere.” Translation: Mother couldn’t take
the thought of me eating and watching talk shows all afternoon, so
she’s dragging me into work. “Miss Bertha’ll be over to pick you
up in a few, okay?” She said it like it was a question, as if I actually
had a choice in the matter.
“Okay,” I said, annoyed. It’s not even New Year’s Eve, and
I already have to rip down the last semblance of festivity and
celebration—and hope. If it were up to me, I’d leave the tree up
all year, but Mother had to shove the manicure station into the
closet just to make room for it, and with so many parties right
around the corner for New Year’s, clients are clawing (ha-ha) for
manicures. Mother isn’t about to swap good business sense for
sentimentality. At least there’s time for half an Oprah
rerun and a few “diet” Reese’s cups (they’re bite-sized instead of regular).
Several hundred calories later, Miss Bertha picked me up, and
since the salon is only a mile or two from my house, we arrived
within minutes. Mother was giving Hilda May Brunson blond
highlights, and four old ladies from the Hopewell Baptist Church,
a.k.a. the Quilters, were sitting under hair driers, clucking like noisy
hens. I was humming “Blue Christmas” (the Elvis version) softly to
myself and carefully taking ornaments off the sad, dried-out little
tree. Everything was thumping along at the barely tolerable level
when I heard Miss Bertha say, “Oh, Lordy, here she comes.”
I looked up, and filling Heavenly Hair’s entire plate glass win
a stack of paper plates wrapped in pink-tinted cellophane, her
sausage-sized knuckle rapping the glass for someone to help her
with the door. I had no other choice; I was forced to let her in.
“Hey, there, Rosemary, I got you some delicious treats today,
darlin’!” Snort, snort. Big Hee Haw laugh. “You’ll have to wait
till Richard shaves my neck real quick, though. You got time to
shave my neck, don’t you, Richard?” Richard nodded politely,
although I knew for a fact he hated shaving necks, especially Mrs.
McCutchin’s. “Reckon you can wait that long to get your hands
on my goodies, Rosemary?” Snort, snort.
Suddenly, I realized Mrs. McCutchin was actually waiting for
my reply. “Oh . . . um . . . sure,” I mumbled. The Quilters gaped.
Hilda May Brunson pursed her thin, judgmental lips together.
When you’re normal-sized, no one cares what you eat; when
you’re fat, it’s everybody’s business.
It took Richard several minutes to shear Mrs. McCutchin like
a sheep, and by the time he finished, the Quilters and Hilda May
Brunson were standing by the front counter.
“Rosemary!” Mrs. McCutchin called. “Can you help me get
some-a this scratchy hair off my back? I won’t let Richard put
his manly hands up my blouse!” Snort, snort. Cackle. (Richard
does not have manly hands. In fact, nothing much about him is
manly.)
Richard mouthed a Thank you, God at the ceiling and rolled his
eyes. “Okay,” I said, and prayed that the Quilters and Hilda May
Brunson would leave before Mrs. McCutchin made another giant
fuss over the sweets. Slowly, I brushed the stubby black hairs off
her barn-sized back.
“Hurry, sugar pie! Willy Ray and me and the boys is gonna try
to make it to Catfish Campus before the rush,” Mrs. McCutchin
scolded, and then, with everybody listening, she said IT: “Rosemary,
I swear you look more like me ever day. Why, I b’lieve they
got you and my little Willy Ray, Jr., mixed up at that hospital.
Honey, you are built just exactly like I was at your age.”
Heat ran up my face like a scared cat up a tree. The numbers
of my morning weigh-in flashed through my brain: 1-9-0. Mrs.
McCutchin wasn’t a pound under 300.
The next thing I knew, Mrs. McCutchin was trying to pry
herself out of the chair. Richard took one side, and I took the
other. Somehow, even without the Jaws of Life, we managed to
free her and stand her on her feet again. Mrs. McCutchin eyed
the heap of treat-covered plates stacked on the worn linoleum and
heaved her body forward to grab them. Her polyester skirt hiked
up, revealing knee-highs with varicose-veiny fat bulging over. Her
pendulous bosom swung in front of her face. Joints crunched. Her
cheeks turned a dangerous shade of high-blood-pressure red, and
layers of forehead and face and chin and neck pulled toward the
ground. For a second, I wondered if Mrs. Periwinkle McCutchin
might just turn inside out.
When she was miraculously upright again, the tight little salon
expanded with relief. Mrs. McCutchin turned toward me and
held up the pile of goodies. I shifted my eyes away from her and
caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror (the whole salon is
nothing but mirrors, unfortunately). It was then that I saw exactly
what Mrs. McCutchin was talking about—the resemblance. It
wasn’t her imagination. It was real.
“I brought tea cakes and blondies and sand tarts just for you,
Rosemary!” she went on. “You don’t even have to share. And the
Piggly Wiggly had pink cellophane. Ain’t that the cutest thang!”
She grinned proudly and tried to hand me the festive little plates.
All eyes were on me. Every single person in the salon was waiting
for my response. In private, I have absolutely no willpower,
but in public I wasn’t about to fail. “I don’t want those things,” I
said, my voice small and childish. And cold.
“Pardon?” asked Mrs. McCutchin.
“I said I don’t want them!” Before Mrs. McCutchin could
reply or cry, I raced off to the back room and left her standing
there, humiliated. It was like shunning Little Debbie or slapping
Sara Lee.
According to one of the books Aunt Mary gave me, a person
has to be willing to eat differently even if it hurts people’s feelings
or causes conflict. I guess today I did both, although I was so
upset about wounding a woman who has been nothing but nice to
me my whole entire life, I came home and ate four chocolate bars
and two bags of cheese curls.
Not only am I fat, I’m stupid, too.
A sweet confection of southern charm and gentle humor. -VOYA
