The beach was no place for a fat girl but Beth knew it
was safe in September, when all the summer people had headed home and it
was too chilly for swimsuits. After two years of living by ocean she had
learned to relish this peaceful time, the still-warm months at either end
of the brief New England summer.
A few daring surfers, sleek like seals in their
wetsuits, dotted the water. Beth breathed in the moist salty air and
watched their progress. She didn't know them by name, but she was
familiar with their bodies and the distinctive way each one made peace
with the waves. A lithe teenage boy stretched out on his board until the
wave hit and then, in one fluid move, jumped into position. An older man
extended his sinewy arms out wide in perfect parallel to the board. Of
the regular surfers her favorite was the tall muscular blonde, who was
the only woman surfer on the beach most days. Beth never talked to the
surfers but she liked to think she joined them in being members of the
same ocean-worshipping tribe.
Beth's apartment by the ocean was an hour from her job
as a bus driver in downtown Boston. Two hours of commute tacked onto a
day already filled with driving but she didn't mind; it was worth it to
smell the ocean air each night. Driving is what she did best. In her bus,
she was at relative ease, her bulk comfortably settled on the large seat.
She hated the uniform. The way the blue polyester stretched over her
thighs made her conscious of her size every time she looked down. Beth
tried hard not to look down.
She had made her career choice shortly after dropping
out of college. Every day she took the bus from home into the city to
look for a job. She had one interview suit that she had bought at the
larger women's store. If she ever got a job she would have to buy new
clothes, but for interviews it was the same navy suit each day. One
morning, en route to another interview for an administrative assistant
position, Beth realized that the only place she ever consistently saw
people of her size, was on the bus. Driving the bus. She started to pay
attention. Not all the drivers were fat but more than a few were. No one
would question her size here. It wasn't like the offices she went to
interview at, where the managers looked at her and then at their fragile
desk chairs with skeptical eyes.
Even when it was cloudy and cold and spitting rain
Beth made her daily pilgrimage to the ocean. The rain plastered her hair
to her forehead. The female surfer was out on the waves alone battling
the tides. After a few failed attempts, she caught a big wave and rode it
into shore. She picked up her board and walked toward Beth. Beth stood
frozen, horrified but unable to move. Just before she got to Beth she
stopped and reached down. Beth felt the blood rise to her face as she
realized the surfer wasn't coming for her at all. The woman pulled a
towel out of her backpack and smiled up at Beth as she dried her
hair.
"Nasty weather, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Great for surfing, just me and the waves. Little
cold though, I could feel the waves biting right through my suit."
She bent an arm behind her, seeking the long zipper pull on her back and
began to peel off her wetsuit.
Beth remained, watching, unsure whether she should
stay or go. For an awful agonizing moment she was afraid the woman was
nude underneath the wetsuit. She nearly sighed with relief when the
woman's red lifeguard-style tank was revealed. Beth watched her shake out
her wetsuit and put it on a little hanger.
"I've seen you down here a lot. You live
nearby?"
"Just up the street."
"Lucky you, I've got a half hour drive each way.
But these waves are worth it, best surf around and hardly any surfrat
wavestealers to contend with. Oh, I'm Kelly, by the way." She looked
up from packing up her backpack and extended her hand to Beth, who leaned
forward and grasped it. It was wet and cold yet surprising hard. She
realized that Kelly was older than she thought, maybe even older than
Beth herself. It seemed surfing wasn't just for young boys.
"I'm Beth."
"Well, Beth, I gotta run. I'm sure I'll see you
around here."
Beth watched Kelly walk toward the parking lot, her
long strides gobbling up the sand in monster portions. After she was
gone, Beth made her own slow-gaited trip home. The whole rest of the day,
she felt an inexplicable happiness despite the fact that she usually
hated driving the bus on rainy days. But wet seats and slick roads and
grumpy passengers shaking their umbrellas out in doorway couldn't faze
her today. She had been acknowledged.
The next day, Beth waited at the beach all morning but
Kelly didn't show. Beth had to drive eighty miles an hour down the
freeway to get to work on time. She prided herself on her perfect driving
record, as much as she did her perfect attendance record at work so all
down the Interstate it was touch and go to see which perfect record would
win primacy in Beth's heart. But she arrived at work on time, without
getting stopped by the police, thus ensuring the sanctity of both
records.
The following morning Beth saw Kelly out in the ocean.
Beth smiled and waved. Kelly didn't wave back, but after a few rides she
came into shore, breathing hard, and beckoned Beth over.
"Hi Beth, great weather today."
Beth nodded.
"Hey, can I ask you a question? Can you swim? I
see you here every day but you're never in the water."
"I can't."
"You can't swim? I thought so. I was thinking
that if you would like me to I could teach you when the water gets a
little warmer."
"I know how to swim."
"You do? Great. Ever thought of
surfing?"
"I'm too big."
Kelly looked Beth up and down, as if it had never
occurred to her that Beth weighed three hundred pounds. She then glanced
down at her surfboard.
"You ever thought of losing weight?" she
asked in the same offhand way she asked about surfing.
Beth sighed with frustration. She hated having this
conversation, this same conversation she had been having since she was
twelve. She blurted it all out as one sentence. "I've always been
heavy, no it's not glandular, no, I was never molested, yes, I have tried
diets, no, I'm not on one now, yes, I know it is a health risk and no, I
haven't given up."
Kelly backed away. "Easy does it. I was just
asking. I'm studying to be a naturopath so I'm always curious about
people's health." She shucked her wetsuit and wrapped up in a towel.
"Later."
On the bus later that day, Beth thought about Kelly.
It almost seemed like Kelly wanted to be her friend. She had learned to
be wary of friendship; too many people used her as a stopgap, a bridge
between the next boyfriend or the cooler friends. In high school, she was
always the first to make friends with the new girl, only to watch the new
girl gradually get integrated into one or another social sphere while
Beth was left, forever peripheral. She wondered what Kelly was like in
high school. A jock perhaps, but jocks were always cruel to Beth. She
remembered one day when she had missed a volleyball shot and a girl threw
a sneaker at the back of her head.
Please, don't let Kelly be a jock, Beth
silently prayed.
********************************
On Sundays, Beth didn't drive the bus but she didn't
go to the beach either. Instead she took the train to visit her mother
who lived an hour inland. She had learned to dread these visits, but she
was the only one of her siblings who lived in the same state as Momma so
it was her responsibility to check up on her. Even though Beth was nearly
thirty, Momma still viewed her as the baby. She lingered over Beth's past
accomplishments as if they had happened last week instead of back in high
school. The previous week, Momma had brought out the old high school
newspapers from when Beth was one of the assistant editors. As she sat on
the train, wedged into her seat, Beth wondered what recycled hell Momma
would dredge up this week.
At the house, after Diet Coke and fat-free cookies,
her mother launched into her favorite subject. "I saw another story
on the news. More doctors are doing them now."
"Momma, let it go." Beth was taught to
respect her mother but it was difficult when every week it was always
this thing, her weight, which lodged itself between them.
"If you would just ask your doctor about it,
there's a specialist in the city that does them now."
"I don't want to have surgery."
"Honestly, Beth, it's no big deal. I had my
gallbladder out, it's not like you feel anything. It's just snip, snip
and you wake up later."
"People die from gastric bypass surgery,
Momma."
"People die from being too fat." Momma
scrutinized her in such a way that Beth felt every ounce of her three
hundred pounds.
Momma got up from the table.
"I was in the attic yesterday and look what I
found." She held out a leather-bound album. "It's the genealogy
project you did in high school. You got an A plus, remember?"
Beth nodded and took the book from Momma's hands. She
flipped through the pages, the grim-faced sepia photographs, her
painstakingly detailed hand-drawn family trees.
"Why did I do all this stuff?"
"It was a history project. Don't you remember?
You called all your relatives on my and your father's sides."
"I did?"
"I made the calls but you put the album
together."
Beth was pleased by the careful work of her younger
self. "Can I keep this?"
Momma hesitated, "Don't lose it.
""Forget it." Momma never gave Beth
anything freely. Each gift had invisible threads, tying Beth to her
mother.
"No, you keep it."
That night in the supermarket, Beth lingered over the
surfing magazines. She flipped through the pages, feeling excruciatingly
self-conscious. What if someone saw her? Would they wonder what that fat
girl was doing reading surf magazines? The magazines were in a section
surrounded by other publications that would appeal to young men.
Photographs of busty women with flat stomachs pouted on every cover. But
inside the magazine there were action shots of women who looked like
Kelly. Suntanned, healthy women with hard arms. She sandwiched a magazine
in the cart next to the family size frozen dinner of macaroni and cheese.
She hated buying them in the store, certain that the checkout girl knew
that there was no family. But nothing healed like noodles. Let Momma
imagine she was at home nibbling delicately on lettuce.
Beth ate the macaroni straight from its large aluminum
tray, conscious of her deliberate flaunting of Momma's rules of dinner
behavior. While she ate, she flipped through her high school genealogy
project, reading her own high-school-aged reflections on the importance
of family and lineage. Newspaper clippings relating to family data
fluttered out from between the pages. She took these out and spread them
out on the table and continued eating. A large greasy elbow noodle landed
on the newsprint.
"Darn it, Momma's going to freak," she
muttered to herself, picking up the noodle and popping it into her mouth.
She dabbed at the widening grease spot with a paper towel. She picked up
the clipping. It was brittle, dated 1934. " Man dies saving
girls."
Beth scanned the article quickly, her eyes widening as
she read. This man, this Reverend Howe, had died at her beach. She opened
through the album to the family tree and traced his connection to her. He
was her great-uncle on her mother's side. Her great-uncle drowned on
her beach. She closed her eyes. She could see it, beyond the
details in the tiny article; she could see the curve of the shore, the
man in his antiquated beach attire, diving again and again, his head
disappearing beneath the water.
The girls were girl scouts. It had been a church
outing. Of course he had no other choice but to save them. Beth read all
the other clippings relating to Reverend Howe. The last was a picture of
his tombstone. Under his name and dates, it said: "Greater love hath
no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."
********************************
At the beach the next morning, Beth wanted to tell
Kelly her news. Somehow it just seemed important.
"A relative of mine died here. On the beach,
years ago."
"Is that why you come here?"
"I just found out last night."
"Maybe you were drawn here. By the spirit of your
ancestor. His soul could be uneasy or you could be his
reincarnation."
Beth didn't quite know how to respond to that. She was
pretty sure she wasn't the reincarnation of some dead Reverend (although
it would explain the lack of a sex life). She looked over at Kelly who
was gazing at her all wide-eyed. Different than before, more interested,
as if Beth might have something special inside of her.
"You really think that's why I come
here?"
"Oh, sure. The universe is a wild place, all
sorts of things happen for reasons we aren't nearly evolved enough to
know. You here, this beach, it's definitely a message." Kelly stared
out over the water. "The question is what message. I have a friend
who's a psychic, you could go see her."
"I'm not sure." Beth had seen psychics on
television; the last thing she wanted was some turbaned woman prying into
her private life.
"She's totally on the level."
Beth looked at her watch, "I'm going to be late
if I don't leave. I'll see you tomorrow." She hated leaving first;
she imagined Kelly watching her waddle up the beach, struggling against
the sand and her own body. But she had to get out of there. It made her
nervous, Kelly watching her like that, so close. Beth was breathing hard
by the time she made it to the parking lot.
********************************
All day long Beth was haunted by the image of her
ancestor drowning in the same waters Kelly surfed, the same waters Beth
stared at day after day. Though she drove the bus up and down her route
all morning, stopping at all the right lights, smiling at the passengers,
inside her remained the water.
The next time Beth saw Kelly she could barely wait to
tell her. The remains of a hurricane pounded the coast. Bad weather for
driving or being out in but the storm-tossed waters were manna for
surfers. Beth wrapped her bulk in a red windbreaker and stood on the
beach.
"Great color," said Kelly, squinting through
the rain. "You were better than a lighthouse for guiding me to
shore." She shook her head and droplets splattered around Beth.
Beth wasn't sure if she should be insulted or
flattered but Kelly's face seemed open and friendly. "I've been
thinking. What if I'm meant to surf? That might be the message, from my
ancestor."
"So you want to go on a diet?"
"I've been thinking I should get bypass surgery.
I've got a lot of weight to lose. I called my doctor and he's going to
evaluate me."
"Oh, Beth, don't do that. It's major surgery,
it's totally risky. We could make a nutrition plan for you. You could
join a gym."
Kelly looked so alarmed, so truly concerned, it made
Beth feel warm.
"I would need a lot of guidance. It's never
really worked before."
"You've never had me helping you before,"
Kelly winked at Beth. "My yoga instructor says if you can believe
you can achieve." She peered forward, her gray-brown eyes searching
for contact with Beth's.
"Maybe." Beth looked down at her belly
dubiously. But if she could lose weight, if they could do it together,
they would be closer than sisters, an unbreakable friendship. And all
winter long, there wouldn't be the ocean between them. In the spring,
maybe she could finally take to the water.
********************************
One morning, a new surfer came to the beach. Beth
watched him out on the waves. He was like an elastic, a string against
the waves, a live wire sparking and slapping at the currents. When Beth
got down to the water's edge, the surfer had come in and was chatting
with Kelly. He was a surfer straight out of central casting, tall, blond,
the top part of his wetsuit off and dangling around his hips. His body
all sinewy muscle and evenly tan. Beth could tell by the tilt of Kelly's
head that the surfer's charms were not lost on her. A familiar pain
struck Beth in the gut, but she was certain that Kelly wasn't like those
girls in college. Beth stepped forward.
"Hi Kelly."
Kelly looked up and smiled at Beth. But it wasn't her
usual smile, it looked tight around the edges.
"Surfing is so fantastic. You are one with the
water. It's like writing a love letter to the ocean." The surfer
ignored Beth and continued to speak only to Kelly.
Kelly nodded enthusiastically. "That's exactly
how I feel about it. I'm going to teach Beth here, to surf
someday."
The surfer looked over at Beth. She could feel the
full weight of his disdain and his incredulity that such a whale could
ever take to the board. "Whatever," he said. "See you
later, Kelly."
"Isn't he fantastic?" said Kelly, not
sounding like Kelly at all.
"He's surfed everywhere, Australia, Hawaii, he
was on the circuit for a while, ranked and everything."
It was like college all over again.
Beth's first semester in college had been her only
one. She made it nearly halfway through. Her roommate was a volleyball
player and although Beth thought they would never get along, they had
become close friends. Valerie was wildly popular and she wouldn't accept
that Beth shouldn't be popular too. Beth went to all the frat parties,
all the football games and dances; she was fully integrated into the
social circle. Even when Valerie wasn't around, her residual charisma was
enough to insure that Beth always had a lunch companion or a study
partner. She lived in a bliss of acceptance.
One night at a Kappa Delta party, the guys were trying
to entice Valerie and her friends into a midnight swim at the lake down
the street. Beth stayed out of the discussion. She dreaded donning her
old-woman skirted bathing suit in front of the boys but she was
determined to go along with whatever Valerie wanted to do.
"Val, before we do anything, we've got to get
that wide-body out of here." Bill jerked his head in Beth's
direction. "I'm not skinny-dipping with her, my dick would shrink
back into my body," Bill said in fully audible whisper.
"Shut up, Bill. You're such as ass
sometimes." Valerie was half-laughing as she took a swing at him. He
grabbed her fist and then pulled her into his arms.
Beth pretended to get up to go grab a beer. Instead
she went back to the dorm room. In the end, she would always be the fat
girl. It didn't matter how charming or agreeable or funny she was. When
push came to shove, she would get shoved, get out of here, fat girl.
********************************
Beth learned to watch for the new surfer, and to stay
away when he was around. Finally one morning, Kelly was alone on the
ocean. Beth walked down to the shore. As soon as she saw her standing in
the sand, Kelly came in.
"Beth, long time, no see. Where have you been
hiding yourself?" She was flushed and smiling. That wide, false
smile.
"I'm having the surgery," Beth said. "I
thought you should know." She tried to pretend it was no big deal.
Like she hadn't endured hours in the hospital, being measured, weighed,
evaluated in every possible way. She brushed her hair out of her eyes and
tried to smile.
"Wait a minute. You aren't even going to try? We
were going to be a team. I was going to come up with a really great diet
plan for you."
"I'm done with pills and with diets. I talked to
the doctor, I'm approved, and they gave me a surgery date." Beth
hated the look on Kelly's face, the stony set of her jaw, her narrowed
eyes.
"You're a fool, it's way too dangerous. It's
unnatural."
"Kelly, be happy for me. I'm going to be thin and
when I am you can teach me to surf." Beth wondered why Kelly
couldn't see that she was doing this for her as well, so they could be
two surfer girls writing their own love letters to the ocean.
"If you survive."
Beth turned away and walked up the beach as fast as
she could muster. By the time she got to the street, she was breathing
hard and shaking. But she didn't stop and catch her breath for fear Kelly
might come after her, maybe even apologize. She was afraid she would, and
afraid she wouldn't. She continued up the road, only looking behind her
once to see if Kelly's blonde head had appeared over the dunes.
********************************
On the operating table, Beth feels for the first time
what it is like to be the center of attention. She likes it. The nurses
and doctors cluster around her and though her heart feels constricted and
fluttery, she manages to smile at the anesthesiologist as he hovers above
her face. She shuts her eyes and thinks of the ocean, of her great uncle
fighting his clothes and the current to save the girls. Perhaps she never
would have had the courage to do this without knowing that her beach was
his beach. As the anesthesia floods her system, she begins to float away,
her mind reaching toward that far off moment when she will be balanced
atop the waves, finally at peace with the sea.
BIO: Deidre Woollard is a fiction writer whose stories have
appeared in literary magazines such as Sojourn, Pebble Lake Review,
Rhapsoidia, Words and Images, and on the SNReview.org and
StoryGlossia.com websites. Her novel, Contemporary Art is being
serialized on the Keep It Coming website. A story of hers was
recently made into a short film. She has written freelance articles for a
variety of publications, is the astrologer for www.askapril.com, and
blogs daily on her website, TheFictive.com. Email:
c/o Moondance.
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