Lois Metzger - A Trick of the Light

Mom: “I made an appointment for you this Friday. You’re going to my doctor.”

Mike: “What for?”

Mom: “You need to see a specialist.”

Mike: “Why?”

Mom: “You’re too thin and you know it.”

Mike: “I’m not. I got on the scale—”

Mom: “I don’t care. You’re always dressed like it’s snowing in here while it’s hot as hell in the house.”

Mike yanks off his jacket and sweatshirt. Unfortunately his shirt slides up too.

Mom (breathes in): “Oh, my God.”

Mike: “What?”

Mom: “Your chest… it’s caving in on itself.”

Mike knows she’s seeing it wrong. When he looks in the mirror, he sees results from his hard work.

She’ll never understand the way you’re fine-tuning your body. She can’t appreciate it.

Mom: “You’re going to the doctor and that’s final.”

Of course Mike can’t stuff his dad’s paperweights into a paper gown at a doctor’s office. He feels a stab of panic.

Call Amber.

Amber’s right there, as always.

Amber: “Drink lots of water before you go, and I mean lots. In the waiting room, drink even more. You can put on a good five pounds that way. Temporarily, of course.”

Mike: “What if this doctor can, you know, tell? Take one look at me and figure it out?”

Amber: “Doctors are idiots. They’re so easy to manipulate. Just tell them what they want to hear.”

Mike: “And what’s that?”

Amber: “They practically tell you what to say. It’s like being in a school play and they’re feeding you your next lines.”

At the doctor’s office, Mike’s mom paces in the waiting room.

Mom: “My doctor’s not here. She has a family emergency. You have to see someone else.”

Mike drinks another paper cup of water. It’s shaped like a cone with a sharp needle point at the bottom.

Mike: “It’s fine.”

Mom: “It’s not. I don’t have a good feeling about it. I don’t know this doctor.”

It could be Dr. Seuss, for all Mike cares. He really has to go to the bathroom. He drank a gallon of water at home and he’s gulping down another gallon here.

Mike and his mom are called into the doctor’s office. The desk is covered with piles of papers. Mike’s mom stiffens at the sight of it.

Doctor: “I’m Dr. Steiner.” He’s over six feet tall with deeply lined skin and black hair that curls over his forehead. He probably dyes his hair. “Hello, Michael, nice to meet you.”

That’s good. Michael is an adult, mature name. Mike sounds too curt and abrupt, or like the object you talk into so your voice can be heard.

But Mike’s mom has to put in her two cents: “Nobody calls him that. It’s Mike.”

Mike: “It’s okay. Nice to meet you, too.”

Doctor: “Do you mind, Mrs. Welles, if Michael and I speak privately?”

She minds, all right, but she leaves the room. She even closes the door behind her.

Doctor: “Your mother’s very concerned about you, Michael. Is there anything you wish to tell me?”

Tell him what’s going on, how your mother can’t cope.

Mike: “My parents just split up. It’s really hard on my mom. She can’t leave the house. I mean, she left today, but not usually. She sleeps a lot during the day. She takes baths that last for hours.”

Doctor: “I see.”

Mike gets a stab of guilt. I try to tell him to ignore it, but he says, “Lately she’s better. She goes to a therapist. She’s working again.”

Doctor: “Mm.”

No matter—the damage is done. The doctor thinks Mike’s mom is unhinged.

Doctor: “Now, Michael, I want to ask you a few questions. Just between us; your mother will not be privy to the answers. Do you take drugs?”

Amber was right. The doctor is practically shaking his head as he asks this.

Mike: “No.”

Doctor: “Are you sexually active?”

Mike: “No.”

Doctor: “No trouble at school? No failing grades?”

Mike: “I’m getting all As.”

Doctor: “Excellent. You’re not dieting, are you, Michael?”

Mike: “No.”

Doctor (grinning): “You seem fine so far. Let’s check you out, shall we?”

Dr. Steiner leads Mike to a cold room with a doctor’s scale and a metal table covered with crinkly white paper. The doctor tells Mike to put on a paper gown and discreetly waits outside the door. Mike badly needs the bathroom. Dr. Steiner comes i: &n and tells Mike to stand on the scale.

Don’t worry about the number. What matters is how you look, not what you weigh.

Doctor: “According to your record, you’ve lost about thirty pounds since the spring.”

Ha, with all that water, make it closer to thirty-five.

Doctor (raising the bar that measures height): “You’re five nine and a half.”

Mike: “I didn’t grow at all in six months?”

Doctor: “I’m sorry—what?”

Don’t worry about it. Growth comes in stages.

Mike: “Never mind.”

The doctor moves on to Mike’s blood pressure. It’s taking all of Mike’s concentration not to pee.

Doctor: “Well, Michael, your weight’s a little low for your height, and your blood pressure’s a little low too. Do you exercise? That might explain it.”

Mike: “I run.”

Doctor: “Good for you! So do I, when the knees don’t bother me. You’ve got to watch the knees, especially when you’re an old fart like me. Are you cold? I try to keep it warm in here.”

Mike (teeth chattering): “I’m fine.”

Doctor: “Look at that, your finger’s bleeding.”

Mike looks down. The cut, from the day he bought the mirror. He doesn’t know how it opened up again. Did the paper cup stab him?

Mike: “Is it okay if I go to the bathroom?”

Doctor: “Go right ahead.”

After Mike goes to the bathroom and gets his clothes back on, he returns to Dr. Steiner’s office. His mom is there.

Mom: “Don’t you think he’s too thin?”

Doctor (slowly, like he’s talking to a child): “I know what you’re thinking, Mrs. Welles. What all the girls are getting—anorexia nervosa.” He says it like it’s Italian food. “Michael’s just a skinny teenager, like we all were, once upon a time.” He laughs.

Mom: “He barely eats. He skips breakfast. Who knows what he has for lunch? At dinner I see him pushing his food around—”

Mike: “I eat after school. That’s when I get hungry. I make some mac and cheese—”

Mom: “But you don’t eat it! You throw it all away!”

Amber was right. His mom goes through the garbage. Dr. Steiner gives Mike a look of sympathy, for his crazy mom. Dr. Steiner stands. He casts a shadow over Mike and his mom.

Doctor: “Mrs. Welles, Michael’s in excellent shape.” Unlike you, he seems to imply. The doctor is smiling. Mike is smiling. I am smiling, in my way.

Mike’s mom is not.

ACCORDING TO THE WEATHER REPORTS, IT’S UNSEASONABLY warm for November. Then why does it feel to Mike like Belle Heights is ushering in a new ice age? At any moment he expects to see icebergs floating down the expressway. But, freezing weather aside, life is perfect. Mike and I are in sync, partners in the project that is Mike. He works out until his body sings—that’s how it feels, this pain that is also not-pain, because its intensity is so satisfying. He looks in the mirror and admires the tightness of his skin, the clean lines of his body. He is focused. If his mind ever drifts to unpleasant topics, I put him back on track:

Strong body, strong mind. Everything in its right place.

Mike takes Amber’s advice and starts putting the food he’s not eating in Ziploc bags. He stashes them all over the house—behind shelves, under his bed, in the corners of closets. But sometimes he forgets to take them outside, and one night his mom says, “It smells like something died in here.”