Danielle Steel - Big Girl

“I’ll get something with roommates. I’ll go back there in August and get settled before I start work.”

“When are you coming home?”

“Right after graduation. I want to spend this summer with you.” She wasn’t planning to get a summer job this year. She wanted to take some short trips with Gracie, and spend time with them, before she officially moved to New York. She might never live in L.A. again, or have as much time to spend with them, although she would have summers off if she continued to teach. But she might have to take summer jobs to supplement her income. This was her last summer to be home and not working, and her parents were fine with it.

Victoria didn’t go home for spring break-she took a job waiting on tables in a diner just off campus, to make some money to sock away. She was going to need every penny she could save for New York. But the meals they gave her for free at the diner got her off her diet again. She lived on meat loaf and mashed potatoes with gravy, and lemon meringue and apple pie à la mode for two weeks. It was tough to resist, especially the blueberry pancakes for breakfast at six A.M. when she started work. Her dream of losing weight by graduation was fading fast. And it was depressing always being on a diet, some new exercise program, and spending life on a treadmill to atone for her sins.

After killing herself at the gym all through April, and watching what she ate, she finally lost ten pounds. She was proud of herself. And she went to rent her cap and gown on the first of May. There was an endless line where they were handing them out, and when she finally got to the head of the line, the man assigning them looked at her to guess her correct size.

“Big girl, huh?” he said with a broad grin, and she had to fight back tears. She didn’t answer, and didn’t comment when he handed her an extra large that she didn’t need. But she was tall enough to wear it, so she didn’t complain. It was huge on her at least. She was planning to wear a short red skirt, high-heeled sandals, and a white blouse under it at graduation. The skirt was short, but no one would see it until she took the gown off. She loved the color, and her legs looked great.

She packed up all her things and sent them home two days before graduation, the day before her parents arrived. Gracie was coming with them, of course. And she was more beautiful than ever when Victoria saw her, wearing a white T-shirt and short shorts. She was fifteen now and, despite her diminutive size, looked eighteen. She could still do ads for children’s clothes and often did. Victoria felt like an elephant standing next to her and her mother, but she loved Gracie anyway. The two sisters almost squeezed the air out of each other when they hugged, after they met her at the dorm.

They took Victoria out for dinner at a really nice restaurant that night, where several of the other graduates were having dinner too. Victoria had asked about bringing a few of her friends along, but her father had said they’d rather have dinner alone with her. And he felt the same about their celebratory lunch the next day too. He said they wanted Victoria to themselves, but what he was really saying, as he always did, was that he was not interested in meeting her friends. It was nothing new to Victoria. But she was happy to be with them anyway. And Gracie was constantly cuddling up to her. The two sisters were always inseparable when they were together. And Grace was starting to think about college too. She wanted to go to USC. And their parents were pleased because it was close to home. Her father said she was a real southern California girl, which made Victoria sound like a traitor for going to college in the Midwest, instead of congratulating her for her sense of adventure and going to a hard school.

The graduation ceremony of the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern the next day was fraught with pomp, ceremony, and emotion. Christine was already crying when the procession began, and Jim was looking unusually proud with a damp eye as his daughter walked by him in her cap and gown, and Gracie snapped a picture and Victoria grinned, while trying to look solemn.

Just over a thousand students got their diplomas that day from Weinberg, in alphabetical order. Victoria shook hands with the dean who handed it to her. And she screamed as loud as everyone two hours later, when they threw their caps in the air and embraced each other. She had been solitary for much of her time at Northwestern, but she had nonetheless made some friends, and they had exchanged e-mail addresses and cell phone numbers, and they promised to stay in touch, even if that seemed unlikely. And then suddenly they were out in the world, as graduates, ready to take their place in their chosen careers.

Victoria had dinner with her family again that night at Jilly’s Café, and it felt like a real celebration, as other graduates did the same at nearby tables. The next morning she and her family flew back to L.A. together. Victoria had spent the night at the Hotel Orrington with them, sharing a room with Gracie, as she had to give up her dorm room right after graduation. The two girls chatted late into the night, until they fell asleep next to each other. They were looking forward to spending the next three months together. Victoria hadn’t told anyone, but she was planning to spend the summer following a serious weight-loss program so she could look her best when she started teaching at Madison in September. Her father had commented, when she took her gown off after graduation to return it, that she looked bigger than ever. As usual, he had said it with a broad smile. And then he complimented her on her long legs as he always did, but the first comment was far more powerful than the second. She never heard the compliment once he hit her with the insult.

She sat between her father and Grace on the flight home, and her mother was across the aisle reading a magazine. The two girls had wanted to sit together. They didn’t even look related. And as she got older, Gracie was more and more the image of her mother. Victoria at every age was the image of no one.

Her father leaned over to speak to Victoria right after takeoff. She and Gracie had been talking softly, and were thinking of watching a movie.

“You know, you’ve got the time to look for a decent job when you get back to L.A. You can always tell that school in New York that you’ve changed your mind. Think about it,” he said in a conspiratorial tone.

“I like the job in New York, Dad,” Victoria insisted. “It’s a great school, and if I back out now, my name would be dirt forever in the teaching community. I want the job.”

“You don’t want to be poor for the rest of your life, do you?” he said with a look of contempt. “You can’t afford to be a teacher, and I’m not going to subsidize you forever,” he commented bluntly.

“I’m not expecting you to, or even now, Dad. Other people live on teachers’ salaries. So can I.”

“Why should you have to? I can line up some interviews for you next week.” He was dismissing her entire achievement in landing the job in New York. To him, it wasn’t even a job. He kept telling her to get a “real” job for decent money.

“Thank you for the offer,” she said politely, “but I want to stick with what I’ve got for now. I can always figure it out later if I really can’t live on it. But I can always take a summer job and save the money.”

“That’s pathetic. It may seem all right to you at twenty-two, but trust me, it won’t when you’re thirty or forty. You can interview at the ad agency if you want to.”

“I don’t want to work in advertising,” she said firmly. “I want to be a teacher.” It was the thousandth time she’d said it to him. He shrugged in answer and looked annoyed, and after that she and Gracie put their headphones on and watched the movie. She was relieved not to have to talk to him about it anymore. Her parents were only interested in two things about her, her weight and how much money she was going to make at her job. And the third topic they brought up from time to time was her absence of a love life, which in both their opinions was a result of the first subject, her weight and size. Her father said, whenever the subject came up, that if she’d lose some weight, she’d find a boyfriend. She knew that wasn’t necessarily the case, since plenty of girls who had perfect figures and were half her size couldn’t find a boyfriend. And other girls who were overweight were happily married, engaged, or had significant others. Romance, she knew, wasn’t directly tied to your weight, there were a lot of other factors. And her lack of self-esteem and their constantly picking on her and criticizing her didn’t help her with that problem. They were never proud of her or satisfied with what she was doing, although both of her parents had said they were proud when she graduated from Northwestern. They just wished it had been UCLA or USC, and that she had found a different job than the one in New York, preferably one in L.A. in a different line of work. Whatever she did was never right or enough for them. And they never seemed to realize how painful their constant criticism was for her, or that it was why she no longer wanted to live in L.A. She wanted to put a whole country between them. That way she only had to see them at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and maybe one day she wouldn’t go home for those either. But for now, she wanted to be with Gracie. Once Gracie left home, Victoria wasn’t sure when she’d go home or how often. They had succeeded in driving her away and didn’t even know it.