Skin and Bones Read online

  Food isn’t the issue, they all droned on. It’s about seeking perfection in an imperfect world and the need to be in control of one’s destiny.

  “And be careful what you say around here. The walls have ears.” Lard swung his stubby legs to the floor and grabbed a journal off his desk. “Come on, it’s time to meet the rest of the tribe.”

  3

  The dayroom was about as inviting as a mausoleum. It had a basic worn couch, mismatched chairs, shelves with ancient board games, tattered paperbacks, plastic chess pieces. Folding chairs were arranged in a haphazard circle.

  Bones stood by a window staring at the street below. A metro bus gusted by on the street, followed by a blur of cyclists. An ambulance turned into the emergency entrance, reminding him that the program took up only one wing of the ten-story building. Typical type hospital activities went on everywhere else.

  “Everyone gets a journal,” Lard said, choosing a folding chair. “It’s a ritual.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Look at me,” Lard said. He leaned across the room and thrust his face at Bones. “What do you see?” Bones saw brown eyes behind glasses that were so uncool they were actually cool and a face that held the secrets of being pockmarked. The usual result of excessive amounts of sugar and fat.

  “There are basically two kinds of people in here,” Lard said. “Losers with eating disorders, and me. I like to eat. Food tastes good. It’s what keeps me alive. But I don’t overdo it anymore. Since you’re one type and I’m another—we should probably make a pact right here and now.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t mess with my shit and I won’t mess with your shit.”

  It made sense. “Cool shit.”

  “We’re gonna get along just fine.”

  A girl in flannel pj’s and bunny slippers waddled in. Her face was the color of hot cocoa with more milk than chocolate. Her hair and eyes, espresso beans. Her pierced eyebrow looked like it was bleeding.

  “Hey, Teresa,” Lard said. “You doing okay?”

  PJ Girl plunked down so hard her chair skidded. “Some days are the pits,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Some are the shits.”

  Bones tried not to stare but her belly was enormous. It overflowed around her waist to her back, making her look like she had an extra butt.

  A second girl came in, pudgier than the first, with bleached hair and purple bangs. She’d razored off the sleeves of her sweatshirt. She sat down next to PJ Girl—er, Teresa—and nudged her with a box of tissues.

  To Bones’s right, another fat girl. To his left, a fatter girl. No way he’d survive six weeks of this.

  “Welcome to the club, man,” Lard muttered.

  As the chairs filled up Bones realized little cliques had cemented long before he’d checked in—the shy and the loudmouths. He and Lard were the only guys. One, two, three…six females including a woman who looked to be in her early thirties. She wore a long strand of pearls and a sheer blouse with pleated slacks.

  Bones figured she was a counselor. “She looks normal enough.”

  Lard opened his journal, jotted down something, and passed it to Bones. Eve’s a pediatric nurse.

  Dr. Chu appeared, clipboard in hand. He reminded Bones of the principal at his high school. They both had gray ponytails and trimmed soul patches. Dandruff sprinkled their dark shirts.

  Dr. Chu stood behind Teresa, who was sniveling into a tissue. His hand rested lightly on her shoulder. “Don’t be afraid to comfort someone in pain.” His gaze moved from one downcast head to the next. “That’s what we’re all about in here. Helping each other through difficult times.”

  Dr. Chu had squeezed Bones’s shoulder the same way during his orientation. He was like all the other therapists Bones had met over the years. Smug know-it-alls who didn’t try to hide their smugness or know-it-all-ness.

  “Does anyone have something to say to begin?” he asked.

  Eve spoke up first. “Dinner last night was two ounces of boneless, skinless chicken breast. Doesn’t anyone care about the pain of those chickens? Or the fuel squandered by the global production of chicken feed?”

  Bones did a double take. Guess she wasn’t a nurse working in the hospital, but a nurse in the program, as in a patient. “High-tech turnips…” she was saying. “Are we supposed to eat this stuff or is it going to eat us?”

  Lard snorted under his breath. “Gotta love a woman with attitude.”

  “I insist on my right to substitute tofu for meat,” Eve said.

  Smart, Bones thought. Tofu is less than a third of the calories of the same amount of skinless chicken breast.

  “I’ll take it up with our nutritionist,” Dr. Chu said, lost in the work of being a therapist. “I’d like everyone to welcome Jack Plumb.”

  “Hi, Jack,” the room echoed.

  Dr. Chu smiled with his mouth closed. “Everyone else, please introduce yourself.”

  “Elsie,” said the girl with the bleached hair and razored sweatshirt. “Anyways, I entered the program as a chronic bulimic, but I haven’t purged since I’ve been here.”

  “Bullshit,” Lard muttered.

  Eve introduced herself. “My medical records say I’m anorexic, but as you can see that’s a misdiagnosis.” She smiled, fingering her pearls. “People are just jealous of my figure.”

  Lard blushed.

  God, Lard liked her.

  Dr. Chu reached into his briefcase and pulled out a journal like Lard’s. He handed it to Bones. “Every patient gets a journal.”

  “Thanks,” Bones said.

  “Anyone else have something they’d like to discuss?” Dr. Chu asked.

  Bones counted imaginary red M&M’s through a painfully long silence. The nurse gathered her pearls in one hand. She clearly considered herself better than the others. Her knowing smile said it all. The girl with purple bangs unraveled a thread from her sweatshirt. Lard stared out the window, as if calculating an escape.

  Suddenly the girl in pj’s burst into tears.

  “Maybe it’s time to talk about it, Teresa,” Dr. said, without losing eye contact with the rest of the room.

  Everyone held a collective breath waiting to see what would happen next.

  “I-I-I can’t…my mom…” Teresa sobbed into a tissue. “She’d kill me if she knew I said anything.”

  “It isn’t healthy to keep things bottled up,” Dr. Chu said. “You have to let it out.”

  “I just…don’t think I can.”

  “Okay, Teresa. Whenever you’re ready.” Then Dr. Chu announced that today’s session was ending early and handed out a writing assignment. “Go back to your room, lie on your bed, and close your eyes,” he said. “Picture an achievement in your life that made you feel proud and write about it.”

  4

  Lard collapsed his folding chair and leaned it against the wall. Bones did the same and they headed back to their room. “Sounds like Eve lives here full-time,” Bones said. “That doesn’t inspire much confidence in the program.”

  “There’s no magic pill for what we have,” Lard said. “Especially if you don’t admit there’s a problem.”

  Bones found this type of amateur therapy annoying.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen and see what Gumbo’s up to. Maybe he’ll have a job for you that doesn’t involve food. Last year I composted scraps, even started a vegetable garden on the roof.”

  “The hospital roof?”

  “Chu Man doesn’t know about it.” Lard shrugged his burly shoulders. “I’d never be in one of those programs with locked doors and alarms. A guy can’t go outside to fart if he has to.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Come on, I’ll show you around the roof.”

  “Think I’ll take a nap.” Bones really just wanted to be alone for a while. The emotional dump in group therapy had worn him out. “Maybe work on my assignment.”

  “Okay, suit yourself.”

  Bones laid down on his bed and closed his eyes. He
remembered the day his sister became editor of her school paper; the day his dad got a bonus for selling the most insurance policies; the day his mom hit the $10,000 mark for donations she’d raised for the food bank.

  He opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, thinking about the A he’d gotten on his mid-term paper and his parents whisking him and his sister off to a restaurant downtown. He’d slumped beneath a crystal chandelier, picking at his chicken piccata, pierced by guilt because he’d copied his essay from Time magazine and didn’t have the balls to fess up.

  The next morning Bones woke up in a room too quiet for the amount of light pouring in through the window. He glanced at the clock on his desk: 6:45 a.m. Lard was noticeably absent, probably in the kitchen prepping breakfast.

  Bones kicked off the starched sheets. He’d been awake most of the night worrying about his menus. Why hadn’t they shown up yet? He laced his Converse, little one-pound weights on his feet, and ticked off ten minutes of jumping jacks. That burned seventy-five calories. Not enough. Never enough. He went for another ten minutes. He struggled to catch his breath. Flashes of cold hit him. He shivered. His nose ran. Bones needed a scale bad, real bad. There was only one fix—sneaking into the examination room where the scales were kept. He remembered it being next door to the laundry room.

  That’s it! He’d act like he needed to do laundry. He studied Lard’s dirty clothes heaped in the corner, sure Lard wouldn’t mind if he washed them.

  First he had to shower and change.

  Someone knocked on the door even though it wasn’t closed. “Anyone home?”

  Nancy, the nurse.

  “Yeah?” Bones hugged the wall by the closet, not wanting her to see him all sweaty like this. She’d know he’d been exercising.

  “Are you decent?” she asked.

  “I was about to hop in the shower.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” she said, chuckling at her joke. “Just kidding. I’ll slip your menus under the door.”

  “Thanks.” Bones picked them up, staring at lunch. His throat closed up and his heart worked at recalibrating itself as he read the number of calories listed on the menu. Two-hundred-and-fifty: one-quarter-turkey sandwich on whole wheat bread with crust (125 calories), one-half medium apple with skin (40 calories), mixed green salad (40 calories) with one-tablespoon of balsamic vinaigrette (45 calories).

  He knew his calories as well as he knew his ABCs. Counting calories usually quieted his brain. But not today. Two-hundred-and-fifty calories were more than he’d consume all day at home. He’d have to jog three miles to burn it off—or find a way to exercise for half an hour by (1) swimming, (2) rock climbing, (3) or ice-skating. Not very likely in this place!

  Bones showered and put on his XL sweats, because baggy made him look bulky, and maybe that would be enough to keep Dr. Chu from piling on more calories. He buffed his buzzed head. He’d first shaved it in middle school after reading about a mathematician who’d figured Rapunzel’s fourteen-inch locks weighed fourteen ounces.

  He’d once shaved his body too, even his eyebrows, which his friends said made him look like a hundred-year-old baby. He gave it up because the outgrowth drove him nuts.

  Bones folded the menus and shoved them into his journal.

  He had to find Dr. Chu.

  Bones found his office down a long hall past the dayroom. He knocked and waited. Knocked again, waited some more.

  Where’s the friggin’ doctor?

  Cell phones and laptops weren’t allowed in the program. Except for letters and occasional family therapy nights, any contact with the outside world was highly discouraged, according to the thick paperwork the hospital had had him and his parents sign.

  Bones should have at least tried to smuggle his cell phone in so he could text his mom and tell her he was being poisoned or tortured or something. She’d realize the program was a mistake and come and take him home. He knew she would.

  Where is he?

  Bones didn’t know he’d fallen asleep, sitting on the floor, until he heard Lard’s voice. “You missed breakfast, man,” he said. “You are so screwed.”

  5

  Bones stared across a cluttered desk at a silent Dr. Chu who’d formed a steeple with his fingers while waiting to hear the reason for Bones’s visit.

  “Can I call my mom?” he asked, sliding lower in the fake leather chair.

  Dr. Chu didn’t answer. It was like he’d manipulated the second hand on his clock so it wouldn’t move. Even the miniature ivy on his desk was dying under the strain of stopped time.

  Finally Dr. Chu picked up the phone and dialed. “Nancy, please bring Mr. Plumb’s breakfast to my office. He’ll be dining with me this morning.”

  “But I’ve always been able to call home.” Bones hated the desperate sound of his voice. “Anytime, any place.”

  “Sorry, Jack,” he said. “Not from this place.”

  There was only one way to make it through this. “Can I…? I mean, is it okay…? Do you have…rubber gloves?”

  Dr. Chu frowned over a drawer, pulling out checkers, jacks, cards, and a pair of latex gloves. “You may think I don’t understand, but I do. Just give yourself time. It’ll get easier.”

  Bones took the gloves, rolling them onto his fingers, exhausted all over again from the strain of the program. At least the calories from the impending feast wouldn’t be absorbed through his fingers and stomach.

  Nancy walked in holding the same type of cafeteria tray used at his high school. “Here you go, Jack.” She smiled at him and left.

  Bones stared at a cheap melamine plate with an omelet, fruit bowl, and dry toast.

  “Is something wrong?” Dr. Chu asked.

  I have the stomach flu, sore throat, tooth abscess, migraine, allergy to gluten…I never eat breakfast on Wednesdays or in closed rooms or during a lunar eclipse, especially in July or when I’m out of deodorant…

  “I’m just not hungry.”

  “Take your time.”

  Bones cut the omelet in half, turned it, cut it in half again, and then once more. He couldn’t breathe, dying the slow death of a bug on a fly strip. Fifty-three minutes and seventy-two bites later nothing was left on the plate except years of scratches.

  Back in his room, Bones paced from the window to the door and back. He counted thirty twelve-by-twelve linoleum tiles, slapping the windowsill before turning around, petrified that fifteen minutes of speed walking wouldn’t burn off breakfast.

  Lard looked up from a celebrity chef cookbook. “You’re driving me nuts!”

  Bones hit the deck. First sit-ups, then he rolled over for push-ups. The tip of his nose grazed the towel he’d thrown on the floor. He blinked salt from his eyes, then felt a heavy weight on his butt, knocking the air out of him. “Get your skinny ass up,” Lard said, releasing his boot. “I need a smoke.”

  Bones rolled out from under the boot. He had a really, really bad feeling about this. But he gathered up his sweaty self and draped the towel over his shoulder.

  Lard pushed two cookbooks at him. “If anyone asks, you’re helping me in the kitchen. Follow me.”

  “Okay.”

  Lard and Bones slowed at the dayroom when they saw Eve sitting on the couch sipping from a two-liter bottle of Crystal Light (5 calories per serving).

  Where’d she get that?

  Morning light filtered in, turning her wavy hair bronze. Her blouse was unbuttoned enough to show off the frilly lace of her bra. She’d kicked off her shoes, revealing perfect toes with cranberry polish.

  Normally Bones didn’t notice feet, but Eve was unbelievably hot for someone his aunt’s age. An experienced older woman, he thought. When he felt himself harden under a thick blend of cotton and polyester he mentally did the times tables backward. Unfortunately it only worked part of the time.

  Eve caught him staring. “How’s your second day going?”

  “You can call me Boner,” he said like an idiot. “I mean Bones.”

  Lard snorted.


  Eve smiled knowingly.

  Bones tagged along behind Lard through the dayroom and down a corridor to a service elevator, trying to will his erection down.

  “Nothing’s going on until lunch,” Lard said when the elevator opened. “So don’t look so guilty.”

  Bones shrugged and followed him into the elevator.

  6

  The doors opened onto what looked like a storage area crammed with paint cans and rolls of carpet. Lard led the way to a fire door. Stenciled letters warned restricted area. no exit: alarm.

  Lard bulldozed right through it. They emerged onto a portion of the roof about the size of a basketball court. A chain-link fence protected the perimeter, but the smoggy air smelled like freedom. “Come on.”

  They walked around a jumble of junk—antennas, air compressors, satellites—and rounded a corner to a smaller area with raised vegetable beds.

  “I’ll never buy food shot up with hormones when I own a restaurant,” Lard said. “Chicken nuggets sound healthy enough, but they have more than three dozen ingredients—not a lot of chicken in a nugget.”

  Bones put on his gloves in case he’d have to touch something with calories, like dirt. “Can we talk about something else?”

  “That’s the wrong attitude, man. Don’t you want to get over this shit?”

  “Not at this particular moment, since it’s almost lunch and my jaw still hurts from breakfast.”

  Lard shook his head. “I’m glad I don’t live inside your skin.”

  “It’d be a little crowded.” Bones was thinking this buddy thing was overrated. He gripped Celebrity Chefs in one hand, Rachael Ray in the other, and launched into bicep curls.

  Lard probed the dirt with his fingers. “Peppers could use a drink,” he said. “Get the watering can. Over there by the faucet.”

  Bones filled the two-gallon can and carried it back, pumping it up and down like a dumbbell. Lard squinted under his shag of hair. “One sick fuck.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “Some more than others, and some of us are just regular guys who wanna get laid.” Lard dug at the base of a tomato plant. He unearthed a ziplock sandwich bag, kissed it, dirt and all, and dragged two chairs into the shade. “Have a seat.”