BETHANY: We’ve worked our asses off. This is bullshit.
LARA: I say we let them know exactly how we feel.
MELISSA: Y’all, we gotta be strategic right now. Revenge isn’t getting us anywhere.
I almost jump in to try to defuse the situation with her, but to be honest: I’m pissed as hell, too. And I can’t believe this grody-ass gym is the thing standing in the way between us and a shot at Nationals.
I click the cursor in the message box.
Y’all are right. This is bullshit.
SAM: We’re trying to work on solutions. But this might be the end of the road this season, y’all.
JILL: Tonight. Midnight. Wear all black. Meet in the alleyway behind the gym. Bring toilet paper and eggs. They don’t even have to be fresh.
I start a new thread, and this one is just me, Sam, and Melissa.
ME: Did y’all see Jill’s plan?
MELISSA: This could end badly.
SAM: Everyone’s pissed. I think a harmless prank will get it out of their system.
ME: Should we go? Like, is it better or worse for the team leadership to be there?
MELISSA: I think we should let them act on their own.
ME: I don’t know. Will they feel like we’re abandoning them?
SAM: Listen, y’all, it’s my senior year and this season is already going down in flames. I feel like we might as well make it memorable. But either all three of us go or none of us go. Y’all know where I stand.
ME: I’m in.
MELISSA: Guess I am, too. I don’t like this.
Millie
Five
After I get home from closing up the gym, I hang my keys on the hook by the front door. My house smells like someone passed gas and low-fat cheese, which means my mom is probably cooking one of those dishes that she likes to call a sweet little compromise. This usually means zucchini alfredo or mashed potatoes made of cauliflower.
“I’m home!” I call as I brush past the dining room, where Dad is setting the table.
“What’s for dinner?” I whisper.
Dad’s expression is full of dread as he shakes his head. “You don’t want to know.”
“Eggplant parmesan with this dairy-free cheese I found in the refrigerated section of the vitamin store,” answers my mom over the sounds of the kitchen and the television.
I swear that woman hears everything. It’s her superpower.
Despite Dad’s disdain for Mom’s cooking, I’m lucky as all heck. My parents love each other.
They met when my mom came back from Daisy Ranch the summer after her senior year. She only went for one year, but it was enough for her to drop forty-four pounds and shrink to a size ten—sometimes even an eight, depending on the cut and fabric. She wasn’t that fat to begin with, but the way she tells it, she was a whale. Literally hours after she returned home from camp, she met my dad in the parking lot of Harpy’s Burgers and Dogs on a Friday night. He was a few years older and had just graduated from the University of Texas at El Paso. He told her she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen. Not only was my mother suddenly beautiful, but she was seen. Daisy Ranch, she swears, changed her life.
The big deception between them is that my dad secretly hates my mom’s cooking. It’s pretty bad. Her cooking is a mash-up of all the casseroles and Americana dishes she grew up on as a kid, with all the good stuff substituted for things like zucchini or cauliflower. Some of it isn’t bad, but much of it is an abomination.
I know a lot of people look at fat people like we’re gross slobs who are just constantly shoveling fatty foods in our mouths, but I could probably pass any written test for a dietitian or personal trainer. For so long I obsessively consumed any information I could get my hands on in the hopes that maybe one new little piece of knowledge would be the magical truth that changed everything.
But that never happened, and I don’t think it ever will. My magic truth—the thing that has changed everything for me—is this: the body I have shouldn’t change how deserving I am of my dreams. I stopped obsessing over my body being too round or too wide or too lumpy. Because I’m not too much of anything. I’m just enough. Even when I don’t feel like I am.
After dropping my backpack in my room, I head back to the kitchen to help my mom set up dinner. It still smells less than great, but I can appreciate how much effort she puts into every meal, even if my taste buds cannot.
Maybe it’s corny that we have family dinners like this every night. Amanda says that her house is a fend-for-yourself situation. I felt bad when I heard that and invited her over one night, but all it took was my mom’s zucchini-and-quinoa lasagna to show her that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.
We all hold hands for a quick prayer. Tonight’s my dad’s turn, and he always makes a joke of it.
“Rub-a-dub-dub, thanks for the grub. Yay, God!” he prays.
My mom tsks in his general direction.
He smiles. “The Lord has a sense of humor, Kathy.”
“Is that what the doctor told your mother when you were born?” she asks.
I laugh. “Nice one, Mom.”
She winks at me.
“How was your day, sweets?” Dad asks me as Mom serves each of us a piece of eggplant parmesan. “Working on any neat projects at school?”
“It was good.” I clear my throat. Every time we sit down for dinner, I tell myself that this will be the night I tell my parents I’m not going back to Daisy Ranch and instead hope to go to journalism camp at UT.
Mom won’t take it well. That I know for sure. Some mothers and daughters communicate via makeup and pedicures or shared hobbies like tennis or even horseback riding. My mother and I have crafting, romantic comedies, and above all else, diets. Diets are our love language. And it’s not been such a simple thing to shake. The truth is I’ve spent most of my life thinking of food in terms of point systems and calorie charts, and, for me, exercising only existed for the sake of becoming someone I’m not instead of taking care of who I am.
I know I’m not changing my mind, but I still don’t know how to break the news. Instead, I go for a smaller request. “I was wondering if I could have friends over this Saturday? For like a sleepover?”
“Of course!” my dad says prematurely.
“Well,” my mom says, “who’d you have in mind? I think my brother and Inga were going to come over on Sunday afternoon with the babies. And Gran and Pop-Pop, too, probably.”
“Oh, everyone would clear out before then. And we wouldn’t make a mess, I swear.” I take a bite of my dinner and swallow it down with a gulp of tea. “Well, Amanda, obviously. And that tall blond girl I met doing the pageant, Ellen. Also Hannah and Willowdean.”
My mom twists her lips to the side. “You know Amanda is always welcome here. And that Ellen seems like a very sweet girl. Such a pretty thing. But I just wonder if Hannah and Willowdean aren’t the best influences?” She pauses for a minute. My mom does this thing where she tries to plant an idea in your head and make you think it’s your idea, except that the only person it works on is my dad. “Especially that Hannah. So much dark makeup. It’s not flattering. You know, a good friend would tell her so.”
I put my fork down and count to ten. Lots of people would never guess this about me. But I have a temper. Well, I have a temper when dealing with my mom. “They’re my friends, Mom. And Hannah is awesome. No matter how she wears her makeup.”
“I just want to see you surround yourself with positive people, baby.”
My mom put the weight back on and then some after she had me, which was only a year and a half after she and my dad met. These days she’s closer to my size than her post–Daisy Ranch size ten. Ever since then, though, she’s been trying to become that girl again—“the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen.”
The irony is that she has always been that girl to my dad.
Dad clears his throat and touches my knee under the table. “We trust your judgment, Millie,” he says, his eyes steady on my mom. “And we would be glad to host your friends.”
My mom sighs into her dish. “I’ll pick up some extra snacks at the store on Friday.”
I almost just nod and say thank you. I don’t want to push my luck. But I do anyway. “Maybe they could be like regular snacks and not just rice cakes and stuff.”