Paula Bomer - Inside Madeleine

At night she dreamt of the breakfast of her past, she dreamt the hot sweet odor of pancakes and bowls of sticky cereal. She dreamt dishes of delicious food were in front of her and her hands were larger than ever; so thick were her fingers that they could not hold onto a spoon or a fork. As she tried to grasp them, the utensils would fall out of her useless swollen hands, clanging to the floor. She dreamt of thick stews and double hamburgers. Sometimes in her dreams she could eat and she would. In these dreams she ate and ate and ate, and when she woke, her stomach burned with acidic juices cruelly aroused for no real purpose.

She menstruated deep, brown blood that flowed for ten days straight. Soon after that her mother drove her to see the special doctor again. He weighed her, wrapped up in the same flowered robe. He made her touch her toes and reach for the ceiling, and he poked his clammy finger under her arms and in the small of her back. He looked at the inside of her mouth. He asked her how she felt, his brow wrinkled, his malodorous breath in her face. She told him fine.

But she felt like a deflated balloon, a neglected doll, a stuffed animal attacked by a dog. She felt small and see-through, less protected, less herself. She had been MaddyFatty, StinkyCow, Pigface. She had been Jiggly Jelly Butt. She had been round and soft, her eyes hidden behind folds, the shape of her chin and nose lost behind flesh.

But now all of her came out in sharp relief. She looked at herself in the mirror in the doctor’s office, wrapped up in the flowered robe. Her breasts had become their own shapes, separate from the rest of her body, large tuberous things, protruding outward from her newly slimmer waist. Her hips flared out like fans, swinging side to side as she walked. Her eyes came out, big and visible to the world, wet and round and white. Her nose became thin and angled and her chin pointed outward, a lonely exposed bone. She had lost sixty pounds and lost her names, her flesh pillows, her body as she knew it. Her mother beamed as she stared at the road in front of her on the drive home, her eyes shining glossy and her mouth curled with joy. No ball would be surgically implanted in her daughter’s stomach. No more expensive doctor visits. Maddy would just stick to her routine. Everything would be fine.

2

When Madeleine turned twelve she was five nine and a hundred and seventy pounds. That September she started the seventh grade and she felt nervous, fat, and ashamed. She worried about the clothes she wore to the extent that she didn’t sleep well at night and her breath came short and fast in the mornings, or sometimes all day, depending on what she was wearing. Lunch time was the hardest because she no longer could run home, the junior high was too far away, so she had to eat at the cafeteria. After a few humiliating days of eating alone, she sat at a table with a handful of girls that looked around at each other with irritated and vulnerable eyes. It was a table that soon disappeared altogether, the girls sitting together only so as not to be alone, and as quickly as possible, they migrated to real, defined groups — the preps, the jocks or the nerds. Madeleine knew some of the preppie kids from her elementary school but her view of them changed drastically in the first few weeks of seventh grade (she had once thought them important) and eventually they fell from her vision altogether, becoming vague, uninteresting phantoms that roamed the school in Izod shirts and cableknit sweaters. Instead, she found herself mysteriously drawn to the freaks, and without realizing it, she began following them around, especially a small, wiry girl named Jennifer.

The freaks, of which Jennifer was a kind of queen, were generally from the south side of South Bend, and the boys had long, stringy hair and wore heavy metal T-shirts; their shoulders were slumped and they didn’t look people in the eye. The girls dressed in tight, revealing clothing bought at discount stores, wore too much make-up and had bleached, feathered hair with dark roots showing. Both the girls and the boys had the reputation of being violent and mean and were rumored to carry knives with them. And although they were not thought of as stupid, they were known to get bad grades, because they didn’t care, because they smoked pot, because they were troubled. Maybe it was from fear, or curiosity or a kind of respect, maybe it was some knowledge they seemed to have, but Madeleine was drawn to their lunch table and their ways, her voice became twanged and filled with “ain’ts” and her look became less respectable. Mostly, she wanted to be Jennifer.

Jennifer was perfect. She was thin and petite, her eyes were hard and she always was impeccably dressed. Her sweaters outlined her smallish, well defined breasts perfectly and her pants were tight and new looking, without a pantyline to mar the boyish curve of her bottom. Her piercing laugh was distinctly cruel and always directed at someone. But otherwise she spoke deep and low; and other kids would have to lean toward her to hear her, which they did nervously. She often slapped people on the arm or shoulder, biting her thin bottom lip as she did, and it hurt, stung for minutes, but it was just play and no one could get angry about it.

Madeleine simply became Jennifer’s shadow. She did this discreetly, unknowingly on anyone’s part at first, especially her own. When Jennifer laughed, she laughed. When Jennifer kicked gravel, Madeleine did. She smoked Marlboro Lights because Jennifer did. Jennifer lined her dark eyes heavily with a Maybelline eyeliner and her cheeks sparkled with blush that came out of a pink plastic case. Madeleine began darkening her eyelids with the same brand of eyeliner and stroked her robust cheeks with the same sparkly powder. She wore the same boots as Jennifer; brown with thick red laces. And Madeleine began swearing frequently with a violent enthusiasm, her sentences littered with fucks and shits, as if it were a part of her she had kept hidden all her childhood and finally set free. When Jennifer craned her neck around to look at something, Madeleine’s plump neck carefully followed in the same direction, a peripheral eye ever on her friend, in case she were to change the course of her gaze.

She called Jennifer every day after school. When they spoke, Jennifer spoke of all the boys she knew, who was going out with whom, which girls did what with which boys, and Madeleine listened hungrily, curled up in the back of her parent’s closet so nobody could hear her, the phone held tensely on her lap, surrounded by her mother’s shoes.

Yeah, Marion is a slut. Last year she fucked half of the senior class at the high school. She thinks no one remembers because they’ve all graduated. But a slut’s a slut, said Jennifer.

Yeah, and I can’t believe she fucked that guy in his car, said Maddy.

What do mean you can’t believe it?

I just can’t believe it. How gross. Where were they?

I just said for the millionth time, they were in his car.

I mean, where was the car. Were they parked?

No, dumbshit, they were driving around while they fucked. What’s your problem? Of course they were parked. You can’t fuck someone when you’re driving around. You’re such a virgin.

Fuck you, I am not.

Yes you are. A fat virgin.

Fuck you.

Fuck you , Jennifer mimicked.

I am not a virgin.

Okay then. Who have you fucked?

I fucked Tim Spencer last year, lied Madeleine.

The previous year, while playing five minutes in the closet, Tim, a nervous, skinny boy with protruding front teeth that obviously bothered him, had groped at her breasts and put a twitching hand between her legs on the outside of her jeans.

No way. Tim Spencer couldn’t fuck no one if he tried. No way in hell. That nerd doesn’t have a dick.