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We follow countless turns, one after another, as we continue down the halls in silence, and I'm still thinking about how I'm going to have to incapacitate one of these assholes before we follow a line of dimly lit wall sconces tucked along the crown molding. We veer abruptly to the right into an office when the fat guard throws open the tall wooden door.
I recognize this place now. It's where the driver took me after I first arrived, and just like then, I'm assaulted by the stench of mothballs and yellowing books as I enter the room. There's no one behind the front desk today, though, no old ladies with blue hair waiting for me.
"Come on," one of the guards orders as he heads through the swinging door built into the long desk that stretches across the room. We continue down another long hall before we reach the end. The guard knocks on a door hard and fast, three loud pounds.
The sound reverberates like knocks against a coffin.
"Come in," a woman eventually answers from the other side, and a moment later, the tall guard with his belly lapped over his belt throws open the door and shoves me inside. Headmistress's office hasn't changed since I was here a few days ago. There's still the giant stained-glass window behind her desk, and she still has a too-large desk for the too-large room. It's an office built for a giant, but she's the only one in here except for me. Despite all the little knickknacks on the built-in bookcases—sculptures and Russian nesting dolls next to books and photographs of landscapes—it still feels vacant. There's no personality to it. It's like she attempted to emulate what a home decor magazine would suggest for a large study, but it feels plain and underwhelming.
Headmistress waves a hand, gesturing for me to come closer, as the guards shut the door behind me. The latch on the door sounds like a death knoll to my dying hope of getting out of this place anytime soon.
"Step on the scale," Headmistress orders, and I follow her gaze to an old scale in the far corner of the room, near the window. It's the kind with the lever at the top that the nurses have to move back and forth when you go to the doctor's office, and I wonder if they dragged it out of a nurse's office on campus just for me.
I walk over to it and step on it. The headmistress rises from her desk, her chair screeching noisily, and comes over to me. She fiddles with the lever until she's satisfied it's measuring properly. Then a moment later, she announces my weight and writes it down.
I feel sick.
I wish she hadn't told me that.
Mother always said I had to weigh under one hundred and five pounds if I wanted to be pretty.
I'm not pretty.
Oink, oink, little piggy!
"Your father asked that I personally see to your success in the program," she explains to me, looking down the line of her nose at her notes.
I wonder if she ever sleeps, then again she might be a vampire given I only see her in the early morning. Then again, I'm betting my father is paying her enough to buy a small island and requires her to follow his west-coast schedule.
That sounds about right for him.
"I tried to convince your father that Dr. Boucher would be more than sufficient," Headmistress continues. "He has helped many of our students who suffer from eating disorders, just like you, but alas, we are stuck together, you and me. Now take a seat, Ms. Bardot."
My stomach still rolls, and bile nips at the back of my teeth as I drop to one of the black leather chairs in front of her desk. She walks around to the opposite side and sits.
"We have a maintenance plan designed for you," she tells me, cutting straight to the point. "Going forward, your trays will be weighed every day, starting today, to ensure that you are at minimum eating your maintenance calories. In addition, you will be weighed every morning, rain or shine. Absent death, I expect you to show up for your morning weigh-ins. Is that understood?"
I've done this long enough that I know what answers people like her expect.
"Yes ma'am," I say, and she gives a small nod, her hair in a tight bun on her head barely twitching with the movement.
"Good," she replies, "because I won't have you undermining the program. God knows your kind likes to go off the deep end every chance they get and purge."
What the fuck did this bitch just say?
"My kind?" I ask, the words slipping between my clenched teeth. If possible, I think I hate this place even more than I did before.
I know I'm pushing it, but it doesn't count if you just sort of lay your finger on the button, right? I mean I'm notpressingit.
Headmistress sends a nasty glare in my direction, and I'm pretty sure if my father wasn't paying her so much money, she'd already be shouting at the guards to drag me to the hole for my comment.
"I don't appreciate the attitude, Ms. Bardot," she snaps. "Your father has promised a substantial donation to my institution if we cure you of this affliction, so I will be seeing to your rehabilitation personally going forward, in conjunction with help from Dr. Boucher and our other medical personnel, of course. You will leave this place reformed. You will gain and maintain a normal weight. I will not accept anything else. Do I make myself clear?"
I nod. "Yes, ma'am."
"Good." She clasps her hands atop the monstrosity of a desk in front of her and tips forward, her flat chest brushing the top of the desk. "I want you to understand, Ms. Bardot, that I will do whatever is necessary to see that you are successfully rehabilitated. If I have to, I will shove the food down your throat myself. Understand?"
"Yes," I answer, my tone clipped before I add a terse, "ma'am."
