More of Me to Love
In the dark symphony hall, my voice softer than a spring breeze, I whisper in Daddy’s ear. “Any treats?” He slips a roll of Lifesavers out of his pocket and I smile. I unwrap the candy so softly that not one crackle will be heard. My sister glares at me. You shouldn’t be eating candy at a concert, her eyes say. I ignore her as the sweet taste of strawberry seeps over my tongue. Now I can watch Mama sitting on the stage playing her violin.
After the concert, Mom and Daddy take us over to the Baptist Church. The mellow smell of coffee percolating in the kitchen invites me in. There is red punch sparkling in a crystal punch bowl, pink napkins, and more cookies than I’ve seen in a year. My sister pulls on my arm. “Don’t run, Sarah!” she says.
I shove my coat at the coat rack, and hurry to the table. I pick a decorated pink sugar cookie, a chocolate mint brownie, a coconut chew and two lemon squares. I hold my paper cup out to the lady pouring punch from the glass bowl. Then I find a cold metal chair by the wall to enjoy my feast. Ooh! Nothing has tasted this good for I don’t know how long! I try to eat slowly, but my throat swallows everything before I can slow my teeth down.
I glance around the room to see where Mama is standing. Then I sneak back to the table. I slide two Russian teacakes and a snickerdoodle into my empty punch cup. I hide them with my napkin. My cup will hold two more brownies. I can’t resist the dainty creampuffs. We never have these at home. I wish I were wearing my pinafore with the big pockets. Suddenly my sister is at my back. “You’re like a pig up to a trough!” she hisses in my ear, sounding as crabby as burnt toast. “I’m going to tell Mom.”
My Mom doesn’t get hungry in-between meals. Her stomach stops. It digests slower than a turtle walks. She and my sister are skinny as asparagus shoots. This is not fair. I’m hungry all the time.
Later that night, lying in bed, I’m as empty as a scraped out potato peel. The whole house is dark, except for the lamp in my room. I’ve been reading my favorite book while my sister snores. I slip out of our room.
My bare feet are soft as a cat’s, and I miss every creak and titter going up the stairs. There are several large squeaks in the kitchen floor and I skirt them as if they were quicksand. Mama is a light sleeper and Daddy has to get up very early in the morning. I find my way to the fridge in the pitch dark. Inside the fridge is a bright glow of light. Mmmm. Beautiful cold pears. Mozzarella cheese sticks. Leftover blueberry pie. Nutella.
I escape down the stairs with my contraband and hide it in the little sliding compartment on the headboard of my bed. That way if anyone comes down, I will look innocent as a cat skirting the fish bowl.
Last summer I had one glorious week full of treats. We were at Redfish Lake, high in the Sawtooth Mountains. Mom and Daddy gave each of us five dollars spending money.
The lodge store is a good hike from our camp. “Hike? Are you kidding?” my sister says in disgust. “It’s flat the whole way.” The lodge store has lots of penny candy—or what my Mom says used to be penny candy. Cinnamon bears, Smartie rolls, pixie sticks, chocolate Sixlet packs. With my nickels and dimes, I bring back a treasure in my pocket, then stash it into my sleeping bag like a raccoon hiding his booty. My sister buys a five-inch plastic Indian doll whose hair falls out.
At home I never have any money. The day after the orchestra reception, I get so desperate for a treat that I snitch nickels out of the Sunday school jar. I ride my bike to the neighborhood market. Quickly I buy five packages of Sweet Tarts and hide them up my shirt. I eat them all the way home. Mama drives up just as I cross our driveway, so I ride around the block. The neighbor lady sticks her head out her door and says, “You’re dropping candy on the sidewalk.” I know she knows that I snitched the money out of the church jar. I pedal home slowly to tell Mom.
Later that night, Dad is going to the grocery store. I jump into the car before anyone can stop me. It’s useless to go to the store with Mom. She has a list and won’t get anything else. Dad’s easier to wheedle—for treats, that is. “How about some Malted Milk Balls, Dad? Aren’t those your favorite?”
I know that Daddy keeps a private stash of treats hiding somewhere, because sometimes he produces a bag just in time for a candy hunt. He sends all of us out of the front room, while he hides the candy. When he says, Go! we come rushing in. A brown M&M is in the nook of the picture frame. Three yellow Reeses Pieces are in the cracks on the sofa cushions. My sister yells because she found two Hershey kisses on the piano music rack. Mama never hunts. She says chocolate disagrees with her. Chocolate and I could agree every day of the week.
The next day, the school nurse calls me down to her office. “I’m worried about your weight,” she says. I think the skin on her face looks spotty and soft, like an overripe banana. “Step on the scale,” she says. She moves the weights across the number line at the top. “You weigh eighty-one pounds,” she says. “That’s too much for a second grader your size.”
What did Mama say last week? That as soon as I stop growing up, I am going to grow out? If I don’t stop eating. Have I stopped growing up?
I don’t want to hear what the nurse is going to say next. “Try eating only two crackers after school instead of ten,” she says. “Dessert only once a week. And get some exercise.” I look down at my feet. “Come back and see me in two weeks,” she says.
No one is going to find out what the nurse wanted me for. My lips are tight as an uncracked walnut. I suck in my tummy before I go down the hall back to class.
When I get home after school, I run to the backyard to seek some comfort from our dog, Alexis. She is so happy to see me that she runs to her doghouse and starts chomping down dog food.
This will not help! When people or pets are happy, they eat! I slam the backdoor and stomp down the stairs. Since I can have only two crackers, I will see if there are any Vienna sausage cans hiding under my brother’s bed.
By five o’clock, my stomach is gnawing like a rat chewing on a bone. Mom is standing in front of the stove stirring chicketti casserole. Yuck! Zucchini squash is boiling on the back burner. When Mom’s back is turned, I open the cupboard door behind my legs. Hurrah! Somebody left the Ritz cracker box open.
To distract Mom from the crinkling cracker package, I say, “Is orchestra tonight?”
“Yes,” she says, with a scowl. “And I haven’t had time to practice.”
Then a disaster happens. The cracker box falls out on the floor! Now I’m caught. “You’ll spoil your supper,” says Mom, shaking her head. “And all the trouble I’ve taken will be wasted.” Do I choose Mom’s sorry face, or my empty tummy? Which will yell louder?
At the dinner table, my skinny sister cheerfully eats a whole bowlful of yucky boiled zucchini. I take one bite and gag. Before I can recover, my brother pokes me to look at him. His grin is as wide as a pumpkin and I see two green beans hanging out of his nose. Now I’ve really lost my appetite.
After dinner, Mom goes into her room and locks the door. She has a secret hiding place for cookies that no one has ever found. When she comes back, she hands me two cookies. I didn’t tell her about the nurse. Then when she isn’t looking, my brother grabs five and quickly leaves the table.
After dinner, when Mama is gone to orchestra practice, Daddy decides to make homemade rootbeer. He brings a crate of old glass pop bottles from the basement. He asks me if I want to help. I stand by the sink and rinse each bottle carefully with sudsy water. Daddy is mixing extract, sugar, and yeast cakes in Mom’s big canning pot. Then he adds warm water. It smells yummy. Is rootbeer fattening?
Then Daddy uses a narrow funnel to pour the rootbeer into the bottles before he puts the caps on. When he gets to the last four bottles, he decides to try an experiment. He pours a little rootbeer out into the sink and adds some of his potowannami plum juice instead. Then he marks the cap with a big X. My older sister looks at him suspiciously. “Isn’t that going to ferment, Dad?”
Now Daddy gets vanilla ice-cream out of the freezer. He puts four huge scoops into his bowl. Then he adds a big blob of peanut butter. “The trick is mixing it all up before the ice-cream melts,” he says, as he stirs furiously.
My sister says, “Isn’t ice-cream made with algae—slimy green algae?” I scowl at her. What does she know? She fell asleep once with an ice-cream cone melting on her pillow.
Daddy hands a big spoonful my way. “Yummy!” I say. “Can I have some more?”
But when I sit down with my ice cream, I remember the stupid school nurse. And the mean kids who called me fat on the way back to class. I start to cry.
Daddy pulls me up into his lap. Daddy’s tummy is as soft and as big as a 25 pound flour sack. He says, “Mama has always been skinnier than I am, but that doesn’t make her any better than I am. Or any happier, really.”
I shove my ice-cream bowl away. Daddy continues: “Sometimes I choose to lose weight to help me be healthier, but it’s always my own choice. You have the right to choose for yourself.” Daddy squeezes me tight and kisses my cheek. “To me, you’ll always be beautiful.”
I sit in Daddy’s lap and think about what he’s said. Then I feel a grin coming back to my face. I say, “When I grow up, I’m going to run a bakery or a candy shop, and if a kid comes in, dying for a sweet, I’ll give him a free sample. That’s good for business, isn’t it Daddy?”
I decide that I like treats so much that I’ll probably never be a skinny minny. But maybe, just maybe, the only real difference between a skinny minny and ME is that there will always be more of me to love.
©Elaine C. Koontz, February 2001
