Belabored Chapter 1: Tanya

“It’s not time to worry yet.”

 – Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

“Tanya, honey, are you sure you need more potatoes?” Mom asks with emphasis on “more” and an eye on my protruding gut.

            Since I loathe being reminded about my weight, I answer with a resounding, “No, I probably don’t need more, but I did want more, and thanks for embarrassing me in front of the whole family.”

            With that, I haul myself up from the table and stomp out of the kitchen, ignoring her apologies and pleas for me to stay. I thump up the stairs to my room and slam the door. I throw myself onto on the bed and swing my size 10 feet onto the comforter, taking great pleasure in not removing my shoes because that annoys Mom.

I refuse to let tears come.

My shirt is high-waisted, and when I lie on my back, I can see how flabby my stomach is. It literally ripples like jello. We read an article in my ecology class about how whale blubber can be boiled down to make oil. I don’t know about whale blubber, but I bet my belly fat could power a whole village for about six months. Mom’s advice about the potatoes has brought all that up, so I do what I always do when I get to feeling awful about my body – I mentally compare myself to some of the massive girls I go to school with. Lucy Draper must weigh 250 pounds and carries herself like an orangutan. Somehow it makes me feel better to envision her in the dress she wore last year to the junior prom – a flowery nightmare that accentuated every bulge.

“Tanya!” Mom’s apologetic voice interrupts my mental image of Lucy swinging her tree trunk arms on the dance floor.

I start to respond, then remember how much it bugs her when I play deaf.

“Tanya, please answer me!” she begs, her footsteps getting closer to my door.

Why should I make things easy on her, when she causes a lot of my appearance problems to begin with? She’s always trying to save money by taking me to the thrift shop. What 17-year-old girl in 2017 America wants to shop in second hand stores? I have a hard time finding clothes that look right anyway because my scrawny shoulders are way out of proportion to my mega-hips.

Mom loves to tell the story of how Aunt Fran almost died having my cousin, Sam, because her hips are narrower than the gate Christians have to squeeze into to make it to heaven. That’ll definitely never be said of my hips! When I see myself in the mirror, my body looks like a light bulb (the old-fashioned kind my stepfather hoards, not those corkscrew shaped deals).  I’m only about 30 pounds overweight according to the doctor, but the BMI charts the gym teachers keep shoving at us every year say I’m obese. Obese! It’s a little disheartening when you’re not even out of your teens, and the powers that be declare you a whale just because you’re too short for your weight.

Mom tries the knob on my bedroom door. I smile, thinking of her irritation when she jiggles it without success. 

“Alright, Tanya, that’s enough. Please open the door!”

Jess screams from the kitchen, “Mommy, do I hafta eat my peas?”

Mom thinks she’s good at multi-tasking, but she gets distracted easily. Even though David answers my sister’s whining with, “It’s OK, Bon, I’ll take care of her,” Mom can’t leave it alone.

“Yes, Jessica, you have to eat two spoonfuls, just like always! You know the rule!” she bellows, instead of letting David handle it.

She lowers her voice but continues speaking frantically through the door.

“Tanya, I don’t wanna play this game with you. I know you can hear me, and I need you to open this door!”

“Fine!” I bark. I rise from the bed and turn the knob to detach the lock with as much defiance as I can muster.