Sugar, p.1
Sugar,
p.1
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Deirdre Riordan Hall
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Skyscape, New York
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Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Skyscape are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477829387
ISBN-10: 1477829385
Book design by M.S. Corley
LCCN: 2014956656
To all those who’ve stepped out of their own shadow. For those who haven’t, the sunshine awaits you.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
“Move it. Outta the way, Sugar,” my brother Skunk shouts as his orange soda sloshes out of the plastic Big Gulp cup. I’m not quick enough to avoid him as I plod through the living room carrying the laundry basket.
He plows into me. He could have waited or gone around me, but Skunk prefers to bulldoze. The duct-taped basket careens toward the tall bookshelf that holds Mama’s porcelain-doll collection. It teeters. I imagine the dolls crashing to the floor and ghastly shards of broken, frozen smiles leering at me. Thankfully, the shelf rights itself. Only wet laundry spills onto the carpet, along with whatever’s left of my dignity. I catch myself on the back of the couch. Dropping to my hands and knees, I pick up the sopping clothes.
He plops back into his divot on the sofa and resumes his video game. “Damn. You’re always in the way,” he mutters as shrapnel flies across the screen.
“Sorry,” I say softly, more to myself than to him.
I lean against the doorframe, heavy with the truth. I am always in the way. I’ve known this for as long as I can remember. I’m the fat Puerto Rican–Polish girl who doesn’t feel like she belongs in her skin, or anywhere else for that matter. I’ve always been too much and yet not enough.
A chocolate craving pulls at odd parts of my body—the slight web of skin between my fingers, the spot under my tongue, the place above my knees but below my thighs—tugging me toward the kitchen. It distracts me from the laundry and everything else I should be doing. I leave the basket in the living room.
I measure and mix, carefully following the directions on the back of the red box. I spoon the batter into my mouth and then, what’s left of it, into the pan. After I set the timer for the double-chocolate cupcakes, I run to bring Mama her lunch. She asks for the saltshaker, a soda, and new batteries for the remote control. Finally, I carry the laundry basket through the living room—avoiding Skunk this time.
I struggle to slide the back door along its dirt-encrusted track, forcing it wide open. I step into the promise of sunshine. I hang the clothes on the line to dry. Today is Saturday, laundry day. After finishing the first row, I catch my breath.
I’m so out of shape. I scold myself. I wasn’t always this way. No, that’s not true. I haven’t always had to do the laundry—that’s the only difference. I’m a fat girl in a fat family—minus a dad. A dim outline takes shape in my mind, like a slim silhouette against the bright sun, empty and dark, lacking details. Fat Henry—my other brother, actually the skinniest of all of us, though not skinny at all—says we disgraced Dad when he couldn’t fit in the church pew with us because we took up so much room. Maybe he left us because there was too much of us, or he was deported or sent to jail for doing something horrid. He’s gone, and why? I’ll never know.
I lean on the paint-flecked metal pole that supports the laundry lines. Sweat drips off my forehead and into my eyes. Nonetheless, I welcome the light, feeling it penetrating my skin, right into that place where the real me lives. My friend Brittany says I’m a skinny girl trapped inside a fat girl’s body. All I know is I’m ginormous and everyone else in town knows it, too. I take another deep breath and dig into my pocket. There, I find a fun-size candy bar—chocolate filled with caramel. I stuff it into my mouth, ready for relief.
It’s no secret that I love sweets. But every time I put something sugary in my mouth, I also taste a wad of guilt and embarrassment. I know that each bite of empty calories brings me one step closer to diabesity—a double-whammy affliction of type-2 diabetes and extreme obesity—which threatens Mama’s life, but I can’t stop.
The chocolate is smooth and creamy on my tongue. As it melts in my mouth, it relieves the chatter in my mind. Instead, milky-cocoa sweetness splashes through my veins like a dam bursting and saturating parched land. I feel adored and caressed by the confection. But, as quick as a snap, I’m shunted back to the present. The wrapper, crumpled in my sweaty fingers, reminds me that no one and nothing wants me here. I finish the laundry.
I guiltily think about Mama in her bed, unable to get around. But I shouldn’t complain, not even to myself, about how all of the chores have fallen on my shoulders: laundry, cleaning, cooking, and shopping. With school starting in another week, I worry about how I’m going to keep up. Looking after Mama is a task requiring a general and an army. Skunk is no help. In fact, the last time I washed the floor, he stomped inside with muddy boots, then left a mess in the kitchen after he cooked a half dozen hot dogs, not leaving any for me.
I gaze out to the field bordered by the woods behind the house. Dirt bikes buzz in the distance. Skunk is sure to peel himself off the couch any minute and join them on the trails; riding is just about the only thing that gets him away from the TV screen.
“Sugar!” Mama hollers from inside, tossing me out of my moment of relative peace. I snatch up the laundry basket and trudge back into the house.
Skunk’s glazed-over zombielike eyes don’t veer from the animated gunfight as his fingers rapidly work the video game controller. The sounds of explosions mask the passing dirt bikes.
“Get me a refill,” he says.
“Get it yourself. Why didn’t you go see what Mama wanted?” I ask, this time out of his range of fire. Sweat prickles me with annoyance.
He picks up a ceramic figurine of an elephant off the coffee table and chucks it at me.
I fumble and fail to catch it. The trunk cracks off when it hits the floor. I bend over, the waistband of my jeans cutting into the flesh of my belly as I pick it up.
“Look what you did,” I say.
“Look what you did, fatty,” he says, without taking his eyes from the game.
“Takes one to know one,” I mutter as I go down the hall. I know it’s juvenile, but he’s such a jerk. I try not to bicker with him, try to hold my tongue and all that, but sometimes—sometimes I could roar at him. I wish he’d go outside with the rest of the idiots on their dirt bikes and quads, chasing each other through the woods, and leave me alone.
I take the cupcakes out of the oven to cool. The pillowy tops invite a bite. I don’t care that I burn my tongue. I get another hit of chocolate ecstasy. Then Mama calls again.
Piles of junk line the wall in the hallway. I turn to one side near the door to Mama’s room in order to get in.
“You called?” I ask, licking a crumb from my lip.
“I dropped the remote control,” Mama says, pointing one enormous arm anxiously toward the floor.
The TV is on a commercial, but it’s two in the afternoon and she has her favorite shows that she must see. She hasn’t missed a season in years, never mind the repeats.
“It’s OK,” I say, assuring her. “Are you comfortable?” I bend over to pick up the remote. Mama’s heavy breathing hisses in my ear. Again, the button of my jeans digs into my waist painfully. I pass her the remote.
“Turn up the AC. And I need that pillow there behind my back,” she orders. I do as asked, stumbling over a pile of clothes, a plastic crate filled with papers, and a fan with a missing blade.
“Can I get you anything else?” I ask.
A cough catches in her throat. The soap’s theme song comes on just as her hacking dies down. She’s had a cough all summer, but insists it’s nothing and says she doesn’t need to go to the doctor. At this point, I’m not sure how I’d get her there. I don’t think she’d be able to get into the old Honda Accord I’ve been driving to the grocery store and am hoping to use to get to school. Last year, I took the bus and endured having marshmallows thrown at my head as the kids in the back offered to feed me, shouting, “Come on, Sugar, we know you like sweets” and “Catch one in your mouth,” like I was some kind of sideshow attraction.
I also worry what the doctor would say. Last I knew, Mama weighed over five hundred pounds, but that w
We know she needs to lose weight, but unlike all those contestants on The Biggest Loser, Mama doesn’t have a team of people to help her shed the pounds.
Mama takes a drag off her cigarette and her breath knocks in her chest. I count almost a minute before she stops coughing. Worry chews its way inside me.
“Are there any chips left? I could go for some with that dip you got,” she says.
“I’ll check. Chances are, Skunk ate it,” I mutter.
I riffle through the pantry and fridge. Miraculously, there’s still a bag of chips, and I find the dip, hidden behind a jar of pickles and sour cream. I dunk my finger in for a lick and then bring it to Mama.
Back in the kitchen, the cupcakes on the counter catch my eye. Mama and I each have our favorites—hers salty, mine sweet. But I’m lucky; I’m not stuck in bed like Mama.
A few minutes later, the sure-footed steps of the mailman cross the front porch. The creaky little flap on the top of the mailbox opens and shuts. I wait to open the door, not wanting to make small talk or to have to answer questions about how Mama’s doing. Mr. Sheridan and Mama went to school together, and he always asks after her, but what am I supposed to say? He is active and fit—if he were my age, he’d probably be one of the kids who make fun of me. But Mama wasn’t fat like me when she was my age, which she’s always quick to point out. Anyway, I can’t imagine anyone picking on Mama; she’d tear them up before the words had the chance to slap her in the face.
I glance at a family-photo collage my grandmother made, hanging crookedly in a dusty brown frame. After she died a few years ago, we moved here, where Mama grew up. In the black-and-white photo, I can tell the house looked groomed and neat back then. Maybe it’s living under all our weight that’s distressed it.
I see Mama in the past, smiling along with the rest of the cheerleaders on her squad. She wore a short white-and-green skirt, with the word Blazers written across her chest in gold, very nearly the same uniform the girls wear now. I guess I don’t really care, but fitting into a skirt would be a treat. I know I’ll never be one of them.
When Mama got pregnant with Fat Henry, she gained seventy pounds and never lost it. With Skunk, she doubled it, and with me, she lost track. She says I was the most difficult birth, and she named me Mercy because she prayed the good Lord would have mercy on her and get the damned baby out—fast. I guess there were complications and the doctor asked if she wanted a hysterectomy. She said, “Take it all! What good has it done me?” She didn’t want any more babies, or even the ones she already had, and she never lost the baby weight. Now I’m just known as Sugar.
I gather the mail. A breeze passes through the silvery-green leaves in the birch in the front yard. It cools my arms. I skim through several bills. On the bottom, two envelopes bear my name. Auto-labeled on the first is To the Parents of Mercy Bella Legowski-Gracia. The return address is the superintendent’s office of my school district, so I imagine it has something to do with the beginning of junior year.
Bella. The English translation is beautiful, perfect. It doesn’t describe me at all. It was my father’s donation, aside from my second last name, Gracia. I’m not pretty like the now-famous human-turned-vampire character, and I’m about as perfect as the broken elephant in the living room. Nope, Bella is a popular name for dogs this year, which better describes me. I shuffle the envelopes to bring the other one with my name to the top, continuing to let the breeze ruffle my long dark hair.
“Hey, Sugar!” someone shouts from the road.
I look up.
Brandon Thorne rides by on his bike with the seat cocked back. He wears his black baseball hat high on his head. His baggy shorts nearly catch in the chain each time he pedals downward.
Before I can escape from what I know is coming, he hoots for the whole neighborhood to hear, “Want some sausage?”
I slam the door. On the wall, near Mama’s photos, a yellowing picture of my grandfather mocks me. He used to own a deli in town and became renowned for his specialty sausages. Only the letters L and I from the deli sign are visible. Among celebrity scandals, insta-media, and nine million other distractions, the kids in this town have retained this infinitesimal piece of information. My sausage-filled family history is coupled with sexual innuendos, and they can’t resist teasing me, the fat girl, the granddaughter of the sausage guy. Of course, my brothers don’t do anything about it. Although they’re both big like me, they don’t endure the routine taunts, the shoves, or the humiliation. Half the time, they’re the ones dishing it out.
I lean against the door, safely inside. I look at the second envelope, pink, with my name—this time handwritten—on it. It reads Sugar Legowski-Gracia in a familiar bubbly script. A cupcake sticker seals the back flap. Before I open it, I march into the kitchen and pop a couple of the double-chocolate cupcakes into my mouth. I snap off a pudding cup from the pack in the fridge. I peel away the top. After three spoonfuls, I scrape the bottom of the plastic cup. I go for another and another. Before I realize it, I’ve eaten the entire six-pack of Boston cream pie–flavored pudding. Across the room, my cell phone vibrates.
I have one friend. Sorta. Brittany’s name scrolls across the screen with a text and the words: OMG. I was invited . . .
I can’t read the rest unless I press the button on the bottom of my phone. I ignore it, not wanting to talk to anyone at the moment. I frost the cupcakes, taking a few careful, but generous, licks off the knife. My tongue still stings from the burn earlier. My mouth itches from the sweet pudding and frosting. I root around in a cabinet and pull out an unopened package of cheese curls. I’d hidden them behind a pitcher and some bowls. I like sweets, but if I eat too much, I often need something savory to counteract the racing and rushing in my skin. I put one extruded puff into my mouth after another until my fingertips are orange and I’m thirsty from the salt.
Guilt creeps in as I survey the kitchen. Empty plastic cups and a cellophane bag with a hand-sized wrinkle from where I clutched it litter the counter. The discarded wrappers and empty cylinder of frosting stand like ruins. Regret submerges me like sludge.
I press my palms to the side of my head, wanting out—out of this body, this town, away, away, away. But there’s no escape.
My brother appears to have finally vacated the couch. I grab my phone and the mail then plop myself down. I tear open the pink envelope. Inside is a card with brightly colored stripes and contrasting polka dots with the words You’re Invited to Hillary’s Sweet Seventeen in the center. On the back are details about the party, including the date, in two weeks exactly; the theme, candy; and that guests should bring bathing suits.
I reach for my phone, desperately craving another pudding cup despite the disgusting jiggle my belly gives when I move. Or breathe. Or exist. I tilt my head back on the couch cushion, wondering if it’s possible Hillary is just being nice—which, in the last five years I’ve never known her to be—or if her parents made her invite the entire junior class. If that’s the case, her guest list probably includes the entire senior class, too, since Hillary’s boyfriend, Will Archibald, captain of the football team, is a senior this year. It’s bad enough I have to endure taunts from the entire student population at school in another week. It doesn’t appeal to me. Not really.
Once upon a time, Hillary and I were best friends. We played together, long ago, before the idea of cool girls, tight shirts, and lip gloss entered our lives—or, rather, her life. When she realized I was a fat girl and that wasn’t going to change, and, worse, that having fat friends is unacceptable in certain circles, she drifted away. I didn’t understand it at the time, but when the elementary schools in the region dumped us into the middle school, my status became as clear as the river that runs right outside our house. Which is to say, not very clear at all. For some reason, my size made me unwanted, a nuisance, and, specifically, about as desirable as accidentally touching a wad of chewed gum on the underside of a desk.
