Skin and Bones Page 5

  “Don’t even think about it, man.”

  “What?”

  Lard grabbed his lunchbox. “Meeting in five minutes.”

  Bones and Lard strolled in late but not by much. Bones wondered which one of the girls would harass them about it. Thankfully they all seemed to be in their own self-absorbed orbits. Elsie looked like a solid block of granite in a skirt that was too short and too tight. There was tight but this was ridiculously tight.

  The dayroom smelled like clothes left in a washing machine too long. Bones sat in a clammy sweat, worrying like he always did before a group meeting. “Anyone have a needle and thread?” he asked. “I have a hole in my pocket.”

  “Use the stapler,” Sarah said from the couch.

  “Crazy glue.” Nicole this time.

  Dr. Chu came in wearing his death and annihilation expression. His gaze rolled over the room to make sure no one was missing. Today’s shirt had what looked like a mustard stain. “Can someone name a component that plays a part in eating disorders?”

  Bones thought about warped reflections in storefront windows and car hoods.

  “Personal weirdness,” Nicole muttered under her breath.

  “Sometimes I don’t feel like I’m good enough?” Teresa said it like a question.

  Dr. Chu opened his notebook. “Inadequate?” he asked her.

  “Yeah, especially around people I don’t know. I guess that’s the same as low self-esteem.”

  Dr. Chu acted like he’d never heard it before. “What are some of the interpersonal factors that contribute to these issues?”

  “Loneliness,” Elsie said predictably. “Anyways, I’m not lonely.”

  Bones wanted to shout, What about love, death, myths, religion, school, and deviant websites because life itself is what screws people up?

  The discussion droned on and on until Dr. Chu gave them an assignment. “I want you to write twenty-five sentences that begin I’m grateful for…” As if that wasn’t bad enough he said they had to stand in front of a mirror and smile at themselves for a full minute. Like, they’re supposed to be extra proud for having all their teeth?

  After the meeting Lard and Bones zombie-walked down the hall to their room, where Lard hunkered at his desk eating Cheese Doodles from the bag that had been hanging outside the window. “These don’t have as much polyunsaturated fat as most junk food,” he said, squinting at the label. “In case you ever feel the urge to indulge.”

  Bones tried to ignore the fumes. “How’d you sneak those in here anyway?”

  Lard crushed the empty bag and slam-dunked the wastebasket. “I could tell you but I’d have to kill you.”

  “Yoo-hoo?” Nancy peeked in, holding up a spool of thread. “Do you still need a needle and thread?”

  “Yeah, thanks,” Bones said. “Do I have to sign for it or anything?”

  Nancy set the spool on his desk. “Just return it when you’re done.”

  Bones waited for her to leave before pulling a stolen hospital gown from his pillowcase. One size fits none. He ripped out the hem then went to the bathroom for the plastic bag he’d hidden in the tank behind the toilet. Inside were the two butter knives he’d stolen from the dining room, ready for their new purpose.

  Bones sat on his bed, threading the needle. He positioned each knife over the ripped hem.

  “I don’t get it,” Lard said. “Don’t you wanna know how much you weigh?”

  “Yeah, just not how much I’ve gained. And what’s up with the old-school scales?”

  “The hospital is too cheap to go digital.”

  When Bones first got to EDU all he could think about were the scales. But after gorging himself three times a day for six days straight, the thought of a weigh-in terrified him.

  “I want Dr. Chu to think I put on more weight than I have,” he said.

  “You don’t eat enough to keep a gnat’s fart alive,” Lard told him. “I don’t know where you get the energy to exercise like you do.”

  Bones folded the hem over a knife and sewed it in place.

  “If Dr. Chu thinks I’m gaining weight he won’t tack on any more calories. Right?”

  Lard shrugged his beefy shoulders. “I know you don’t believe me, man, but if you balance the calories you take in with those you burn off you won’t gain weight. Like I said—”

  “It’s science.” They said in unison and cracked up.

  Then Bones rolled up the gown, shoved it in his pillowcase, and obsessed about a late night bed search.

  Bones was alone in the dining room, arranging tables and chairs so everyone could have at least a small view out the pathetic window. From somewhere down the hall an old song blared from a radio, “We’ve only just begun…”

  And there she was again, Alice, wheeling herself into the room. She’d tied a sheer skirt over her leotard. Her nipples pressed against the tight material. The IV line was gone.

  “This place isn’t exactly no-boys-allowed,” she said, cracking her gum. Sugarless gum kept gastric juices flowing when the stomach had nothing to digest. “There’s Lard, of course. You’re his roommate, right?”

  “Yeah.” He tried not to stare, thinking how little she wore—just three thin garments—and how easily he could slip a finger under the strap of her leotard. He’d thought about sex before, plenty of times, but until now he’d never fully understood the concept of making love.

  “You’re the first male anorexic I’ve seen in here.” Alice maneuvered her wheelchair around tables and chairs, moving so close Bones could smell Bubblicious.

  “This stupid chair doesn’t mean anything,” she said. “A hospital rule so my parents can’t sue, since I was in ICU for ventricular tachycardia.”

  Bones wasn’t sure what that meant. “Sounds serious.”

  “My heart races sometimes. No biggie. I was only in there three days this time, doesn’t that prove it?” she said, smiling up at him. “Do you want to hear my theory?”

  He nodded.

  “There are two types of parents. Those who will do anything for their kids and those who will pay someone else to do anything for them. My parents are the second type—real control freaks, believe me—just like the Chu Man.”

  Bones laughed. “Dr. Dictator.”

  “He’s a narcissist egomaniac,” she said, fragile as an eggshell. “He gets off on having people depend on him.”

  Bones had to agree.

  “He only wishes he had my discipline. And you should see the staff fridge. Non-dairy creamer, fat-free yogurt, diet sodas, rice cakes. I’ve seen Bruno make craft projects with fruit roll-ups.”

  “Really?”

  “Have you always been so gullible?”

  “Only on Tuesdays. And right before dinner.”

  Alice laughed, her delicate shoulders rising and falling. “The longer Chu Man keeps us dependent on him, the longer we end up staying here and the more money he makes.”

  Bones hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “If you don’t cooperate you’re transferred to a higher care facility,” she said. “Which is no fun, believe me, with even more rules and a higher number of staff-to-patient ratio.”

  “You’ve been in a program like that?” he asked.

  “You can’t get away with smoking in those places,” she said, ignoring his question and cracking her gum. “Has Lard taken you to the roof?”

  Bones was about to answer when Nicole and Sarah barged into the room, breaking the spell with their idiotic chatter. They commandeered a table like it was their last supper. Even Alice seemed annoyed by the interruption.

  “I hope they get liver and onions for dinner,” she said.

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  The arms of Alice’s wheelchair fit snuggly under the card table, giving her a view beyond the parking structure. Bones sat across from her thinking how beautiful she was in her quietness, as if she knew something the rest of the universe didn’t.

  Elsie eyed Alice in the wheelchair and strolled over to introduce herself. “Anyways
, food isn’t the issue.”

  Alice just smiled.

  Teresa stopped by next. “I had a breakthrough this week,” she said, trying to sound encouraging.

  Alice smiled again.

  When she smiled like that her teeth were as dazzling as her tiny diamond earrings. She was anorexia nervosa in the purest form. Bones was impressed and inspired—knowing it was possible to go through the program without giving in completely to the radical beliefs of the EDU. Simply put, Alice hadn’t let them brainwash her.

  Nancy broke the spell. “Alice! I was afraid I’d never see you again.”

  “You know better than that,” Alice said.

  “Actually I was hoping I’d never see you again.” Nancy took Alice’s wrist in her hand, checking her pulse. “I’ve been doing some research into”—she paused, glancing at the others—“into cases like yours.”

  “Don’t I always bounce back? Stronger than ever?” Alice said. “Come on, admit it. You know I do.”

  Nancy wore the expression of an overprotective parent. She jotted Alice’s blood pressure onto a spiral pad. “We’ll talk later,” she said. “Right now, I have to help with the dinner trays.”

  “I didn’t know you’d been here before,” Teresa said. “Bet I sounded like a real know-it-all.”

  “Not at all,” Alice said emphatically.

  Bones slipped on his gloves, hoping Alice wouldn’t think he was some psycho-serial-strangler and immediately realized that he’d never be able to feel her skin through his gloves.

  He played lamely with the pepper shaker as Nancy set down Teresa’s tray then watched, astounded, while Teresa dumped an entire packet of grated Parmesan cheese over her angel hair pasta (200 calories or 38 minutes on a stationary bike). The pasta was already loaded with diced tomatoes, zucchini, and onions (50 calories or one and a half miles speed-walking).

  Alice had to look away.

  “Parmesan is only twenty-two calories per tablespoon,” Teresa said, as if she knew what they were thinking. “I burn that much watching TV.”

  Then Nancy set down Alice’s tray. “Gumbo cooked your vegetables the way you like them,” she said. “Steamed, no oil.”

  “Thanks.” Alice plucked a white envelope from her tray.

  “What’s this?”

  “A note from Lard.”

  Alice used her knife to slit the flap. “Welcome back!” she said, reading. “Now go home. Love, Lard.” She looked up beaming. “God, I love that guy!”

  Bones tasted the word love, a combination of Tabasco and Splenda. Fiery and sweet. He held it in his mouth, forbidden calories.

  Alice’s dinner consisted of one-half cup medium-grain white rice (120 calories), four spears of asparagus (20 calories), and a pat of butter (40 calories). Bones watched as she used her index finger to smear the butter on an asparagus spear. Then she sucked her middle finger, pretending to remove the excess butter. The buttered finger scratched an ankle, and the calories disappeared into a leg warmer.

  “Tricky,” he said under his breath.

  She smiled conspiratorially. “Just good technique.”

  Nancy set down Bones’s tray next.

  Alice studied his pat of butter like a logic puzzle that needed solving. “Ask Nancy for a cup of hot water and a chicken bullion cube,” she whispered to him. “Tell her your carrots don’t have any flavor.”

  Bones did what she said; Nancy obliged.

  Alice told Bones to stir the cube into the hot water until it dissolved. “Now pour it over your butter and carrots,” she said. “Only eat the carrots.”

  “But—?”

  “Trust me.”

  He choked down the disgusting orange roots (27 calories).

  “It’s okay to leave the bullion on your plate,” Alice said. “Because it wasn’t on your menu.”

  Bones figured it out. He’d get away with leaving the melted butter too.

  Later that evening, Bones and Lard were in Alice’s room helping her put up a poster. Bones looked around trying not to look like he was looking around. He’d never been in a girl’s room before (except his sister’s). It looked bigger than his and Lard’s because there was only one bed.

  Newspaper clippings cluttered her bulletin board: auditions with ballet companies in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York. Ballet shoes were lined up on her dresser—their ribbons hanging over the edge. A poster with a guy in white tights was unrolled on her bed.

  “Nureyev,” she said, noticing him noticing. “In his famous role as Romeo.”

  Lard knelt on the bed holding the poster flat against the wall. One hand was on the guy’s package. “Is it straight?” Lard asked.

  “Are you?” Alice deadpanned.

  “Eat me,” he said.

  They busted up.

  Bones pressed tape over the poster’s corners. “How do dancers stand on their toes anyway?”

  When Alice took a shoe from her dresser her skirt did that sexy flutter thing. “The toes aren’t made of wood like most people think,” she said. “It’s layers of cardboard and glue, like papier-mâché. Here, feel it.”

  Bones took her shoe, breathing in the savory smell of her sweat.

  “Did you bring me anything?” Lard asked.

  “Hidden inside my yoga mat,” she said. “With my smokes.”

  “Anybody home?” It was Nancy.

  “Just us psychos,” Alice called back.

  Nancy came in only mildly surprised to see Bones and Lard. “No guys allowed in your room after 8 p.m.,” she told them. “There I said it, just for the record. So where’s your wheelchair?”

  “Fuck the chair,” Alice said.

  Nancy suppressed a smile.

  Bones woke to a beefy fist shaking him. His bedspread was pulled up tight around his neck and he was clutching his pillow to his chest. Microfiber armor. He didn’t know what time it was, but a drab light streamed in through the curtains.

  “Wake up, man,” Lard said. “It’s time to get weighed.”

  “Huh?”

  Lard chuckled. “No, man, I said weighed.”

  Bones propped himself on an elbow, glancing at the clock. Seven forty-three. Weigh-in was scheduled for eight. He’d slept in sweats, like always, and smelled like the inside of a neglected gym locker.

  “Should I change in here?” he asked. “Or the laundry room?”

  “In there.” Lard threw his bedspread haphazardly over his bed. “Don’t worry, it’ll be over in a flash.”

  Bones rushed through his bathroom routine. His pee smelled like cat piss. He flushed. He used his towel to clear a swath in the foggy mirror. And there he was, all bloat and jowls.

  Lard’s voice came through the open door. “Don’t sweat it, man.”

  “People only say that when there’s something serious to worry about,” Bones shot back.

  “Just trying to help.”

  Bones rummaged through his closet for clean sweats, changed, and grabbed his gown. “Yeah…okay…sorry,” he said, rushing out, as the knives faced off in the hem of the gown.

  The door to the examination room opened just as he got there. Teresa came out still in her gown. No bra, he noticed, looking away.

  “I lost seven more pounds,” she said. “It feels good, you know, not to be puking in a gas station bathroom after binging on hamburgers. Even the sores in my mouth have healed. Sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know you think that stuff’s gross.”

  Bones raised his shoulders. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s so not okay, Bones. I don’t ever want to be that person again.” She shook her head in that way of disbelief. “I never thought I’d be able to eat like a normal person and lose weight.”

  “You’re up next,” Unibrow said from the doorway.

  Bones sat hunched in the droning silence of the too-bright office. The overhead light sounded like it was full of dying flies. Dr. Chu’s fingers were never still, unless they were forming a steeple, and even then they tap, tap, tapp
ed. Bones wanted to break them off. Snap, snap, snap.

  Bones knew what was about to happen.

  Dr. Chu confirmed it. “How are you feeling today?”

  It was a trick question.

  Bones let his eyes roll back in his head, trying to figure out what Dr. Chu wanted him to say. The truth was, he felt like crap. Unibrow had noticed the sagging hem in his gown when Bones stepped off the scales. Unibrow didn’t seem surprised. More like, Knives? Not very original.

  “Can you tell me why you added weight to your gown?” Dr. Chu asked.

  Another trick question.

  Bones shrugged. “I wanted you to think I was gaining weight.”

  Dr. Chu nodded. “We need accurate records for every patient.”

  (Our job is to make sure you gain as much weight as possible while you’re here.)

  Dr. Chu leafed through Bones’s file, checking off little boxes. “Since you lost weight—even with two stainless steel knives in your gown, it’s obvious you’ve been purging. Either by vomiting or—”

  (We have closed-circuit cameras and hidden microphones in your room.)

  “Or engaging in unauthorized exercise.”

  (Bingo!)

  “I know this may be difficult,” Dr. Chu said. “But the nutritionist and I have decided to raise your calories.”

  (We won’t be satisfied until you resemble a scrap-fed hog.)

  “Are you listening to me, son?”

  Bones’s eyeballs hurt from so much nodding. “Yes, sir.”

  (Fuck you!)

  “One-hundred calories isn’t as bad as it sounds.” Dr. Chu dropped his voice, forcing Bones to lean forward in his chair. “That’s it for now.”

  Bones got up and headed to his bathroom, where he stripped, cold and shaking. He stood on the overturned waste can, knowing he’d never see his ribs again. Not with an extra one-hundred calories per day. He focused on his collarbone, his sternum. His reflection flashed: The object in mirror is larger than it appears.

  He grabbed the can of shaving cream and doused his pathetic self in menthol foam.

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