Chapter 2
The smell of maple syrup wakes me up on the first day of summer break. It’s not a bad way to wake up, that’s for sure. Grandma is an amazing cook, but during the school year I’m usually eating Pop-Tarts or cereal on my mad dash out the door. I’m not the kind of girl who wakes up two hours early to shower and fix my hair, and put on a ton of makeup with fifty different applicator brushes.
Don’t get me wrong—I’d love to be that kind of girl.
But look at me. Ew. There’s no point in “putting makeup on a pig” as this guy Bryce used to say in junior high. I remember the day clearly, the same way I remember just about every instance of being bullied. It was the first day back to eighth grade after the Christmas break, and Grandma had given me a makeup set for Christmas. I was in love. It was the good kind, from Sephora, this fancy makeup place in the mall. Until then, I’d only amassed a collection of drugstore lip gloss and some cheap powder that promised to eliminate shine. (Spoiler alert: it did not.)
I’d been spending a ton of time online looking up makeup tutorials, and I guess that’s what gave Grandma the idea. I was so excited, I spent forty-five minutes just on my eyeliner. Things were looking up for me. I’d lost ten pounds since school started, and now I had beautiful makeup.
And then, of course, Bryce ruined it all by calling me a pig. He said it in front of everyone in the cafeteria. Grandma had tried to comfort me by saying some of the students were probably doing their own thing and didn’t notice him say it, but it didn’t help much. Because I know he said it, and all of his friends laughed. Even one person knowing my humiliation was enough to ruin the rest of the year for me. It didn’t take long for me to gain back those ten pounds, and then about five more.
I put that makeup in my drawer and didn’t touch it again until freshman year when Grandma and I went out to celebrate her sixty-third birthday. She wanted to go to this Thai restaurant two towns over, so I figured I was safe from the prying eyes of my peers. I’d felt pretty that night. I haven’t felt that way since.
My mouth waters at the smell of breakfast rising up from the kitchen. As much as I want to stay in bed and begin my uber lazy summer of doing absolutely nothing until college classes start in August, it would be rude to make Grandma cook all by herself. The woman is my rock. She took over raising me when my teenaged parents moved out. Unlike most fifteen-year-old parents, mine actually loved each other and wanted to stay together. As far as I know, they still are together. They just didn’t think having a kid fit in well with their traveling-the-world-with-a-backpack scene, so they left me with Grandma. She’s somehow managed to be a mother, father, and both grandparents to me for my whole life. Her husband, my Grandad, died just a few months before I was born. She said I gave her back the life that was taken away from her.
So yeah, there’s no way I can make that woman cook breakfast all by herself. She’s far too important to me.
I crawl out of bed and climb over the mess of craft supplies I’d left on the floor last night. Although I consider myself a neat person, my room is kind of a disaster area right now. My dream is to become a kindergarten teacher, and although graduation is still four years away, I’m kind of obsessed with craft ideas for my future classroom. Plus, my cousin Aisha is a teacher and she said that coming up with creative teaching tools and crafts for the kids always gave you bonus points with the professors, so that’s what I plan on doing. Right now, I’m deep in the middle of about four Pinterest projects I found for kindergarten lesson plans. I’m having a blast, and I haven’t even started teaching kids yet.
I slip into the hallway, past the empty cat bed in the alcove near the stairs. My heart aches as I blow a little kiss toward the bed. My cat, Missy, died a few months ago. She’d been with me for as long as I could remember, my little calico fur ball of a best friend. But old age got to her eventually, and we buried her in the back yard. I haven’t found it in me to move the cat bed. Every time I walk past it, I can almost pretend she’s just snoozing in the other room and that she’ll be back any minute.
“Good morning,” I say, meeting Grandma in the kitchen. Though she works at an insurance company, I’ve always thought she would make an excellent chef. She has a way with food, and I’m not just saying that because I’m fat and love food.
“Morning, hun,” Grandma says, flashing me a smile that is all white teeth and red lipstick. Even though it’s Saturday, you’d think she’s going to work with how nicely she’s dressed. My grandmother is the opposite of me in that way. I’m all pajamas and T-shirts, she’s all silk blouses and dress pants.
“Can I help with anything?” I ask, opening the cabinet to grab plates to set the table.
“No, I have it all covered.” Grandma takes the plates from me and goes over to the table, setting them down in our usual spots. “Why don’t you make yourself a cup of coffee? Breakfast will be ready in a second. I made your favorites: French toast, bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, and thin sliced toast with butter.”
“That’s a lot of food,” I say, frowning. Usually we’ll have French toastoreggs and bacon, never both at the same time. I make some coffee and sit at the table. “I was actually thinking I might try to diet this summer so I can start out college as less of a fat cow.”
Grandma puts a hand on her hip. “You are not a fat cow!”
I take a sip of coffee. “It’s literally in my name, Grandma. Bess. Short for Bessie, as in Bessie the cow.”
“That is not what you’re named after,” she says, rolling her eyes as she piles several slices of French toast onto a plate that she puts in the center of the table.
I’ve been called Bessie the cow since I was five. It wasn’t until around the age of seven that I got smart enough to shorten my name to Bess. Now that particular insult comes less frequently.
I rest my chin in my hand. “We don’t really know what I’m named after, now do we?”
I heave a sigh and Grandma frowns, but she doesn’t say anything. My mother named me “Bessie” on my birth certificate, but then she never explained what gave her the idea. Maybe she knew I’d be a fat cow when I got older and she was just preparing me for it.
Grandma joins me at the table and we start filling our plates from the massive breakfast feast she’s prepared. “You didn’t have to do all of this,” I say, reaching for another piece of sausage. Then it hits me. I look up and fix her with an accusing glare. “Wait, why did you make all of this food?”
Grandma dunks a piece of French toast in syrup and gives me this apathetic look. “I don’t think you need to diet, Bess. That’s just asking for stress, and stress makes you way unhealthier than a little extra weight.”
I lift an eyebrow. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Grandma is a large woman. She’s been round and happy about it for as long as I remember. She’s the kind of lady who is unabashedly in love with food and doesn’t let someone’s perceptions of what’s attractive or not stand in her way. Unfortunately, I inherited her love of food, but not her love of being happy with your own body.
I hate my body.
I point my fork at her. “Why are you buttering me up?”
She waves a hand at me. “You’re being silly. I just wanted a nice breakfast since school is over. It’s to congratulate you on graduating, honey.”
I snort. “Just yesterday you said graduating high school was the easiest part of life and that no one should bother having a party for something so easy.”
