Free 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl by Mona Awad Page A

huge woman with bubble-flipped dirty blond hair. She had with her then, as she does now, a little yipping dachshund on an absurdly short leash. Themoment I see her I know she is the woman who called me. This is the dog that was barking in the background.
    I lie there, still unable to move, while she seats herself in Archibald’s chair beside the bed, the one with the huge burn stain on the seat, with the overflowing ashtray on the armrest—full of all my ash and cigarette butts imprinted with Girl About Town gloss. She takes the dog in her arms and he wriggles there like a demon-possessed sausage, yipping like mad. He’s wearing a little tweed coat that looks like a cape.
    I look around for Archibald but he is now nowhere to be seen.
    â€œYou’re Lizzie.” When she says my name, it isn’t a cup anymore. It’s shards on the floor.
    â€œYes. You’re Britta.”
    â€œI just want you to know,” she says, “he’s been sleeping with me this whole time. After he sees you, he comes and sees me. He was supposed to see me tonight. Then he canceled on me last minute.” Her voice is grave but full of dangerous swerves and wavers, like it’s a car about to veer off the road.
    I look at her. Her tight black slacks covered in little dog hairs. One of those awful Addition Elle sweaters my mother and I would never buy. The ones they sell at the back of the store with all the lame bells and whistles that no self-respecting fat woman would ever purchase. Sweaters for the women who have given up on style. Sweaters for the women who just want their flesh to be covered.
    â€œOkay,” I say. My limbs are lead. My heart feels like it’s going to burst out of my chest, grow feet, and run out of the room.
    â€œLadies. Whoa. Look, everyone just be cool, okay? We’ll sit down and we’ll work this out,” Archibald says. He’s standing in a corner of the room, attempting to look grave, but I can tell that once more he’s trying not to smile. The perverse grin that appeared whenI first confronted him about Britta is once again sliding around underneath his concerned expression, just under his twitching lips.
    â€œOh, I’m very cool,” Britta says, rocking a little in his burned chair. The whites of her eyes are all pink. She’s been crying, that’s obvious. I think of the squidgy banana bread I saw him scarf in the break room. The Tupperware containers I’ve sometimes seen on his fridge shelf beside his staple industrial-size jar of Jif peanut butter, full of mayonnaisey-looking slaw, broccoli salad. When I first saw them on his shelf, I thought, How strange. I could never in a million years picture this man finely slicing broccoli florets, chopping bacon into bits, then mixing them carefully with Craisins and grated cheddar and mayonnaise. Could never in a million years picture him removing a loaf of bread from the oven. That was all the handiwork of this tenuously dry-eyed woman, who’s clearly been crying over Archibald all day and will no doubt cry again. When his pager was buzzing earlier, that was her, wondering where in the hell he was. Probably she made him dinner. I picture a table for two set carefully, a sad flower in a lame vase between the gleaming plates. Some terrible bottle of wine he’d drink in two swallows. Maybe she was wearing something nice. Or maybe
this
is her something nice. Maybe she lit candles for him. Maybe they’re still burning. Maybe her whole living room is on fire now.
    â€œI don’t owe this woman anything anyway,” she’s saying now, presumably in response to something Archibald just said. “I don’t owe her a damn thing. In fact, if anything she should thank me. She should be fucking thanking me.”
    â€œShe’s right,” I say. “I should be. Thank you.”
    I manage to rise up from the bed while they continue a discussion that falls in and out of my