Rosemary Is Fat
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By Shaunna Hopkins
((NaNoWriMo 2006))
**A Mad Action Noveling**
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Chapter One
I hate Target.
Target might be the worst department store God ever invented.
I know what you're thinking, "God didn't invent Target, Target is a creation of mortal man." Well, sure, Man built Target, but God created Man, therefore God is responsible, at least indirectly. I am a realist when it comes to such matters.
I have specific reasons for hating Target, I do try to refrain from arbitrarily despising things although sometimes it seems the most insignificant detail can arouse my ire. Target, however, quickly became the bane of my existence one cool fall morning.
It all started with a pair of socks. I absolutely love socks, the cuter and sillier the design on them the better. Somewhere on my heart there is a tiny discolored weak spot labeled "Socks" in official-looking courier font. And in Target, I found a pair of socks that triggered the weakest part of the weak spot -- argyle. I excitedly threw them in my shopping cart, determined to design an outfit around the socks. I do love the argyle pattern, interwoven diamonds stitched into cotton makes a small part of my soul unbelievably happy.
I pushed the cart eagerly towards the women's clothing section. I spotted the Juniors section, which often contained garments made for the supermodel type teenagers that prowl around these days. Towards the other side, there was sportswear, then the aptly euphemized "Women's" section, and then maternity.
I frowned. I'm overweight. I am not obese by any means, although I use my own personal standard of obesity to judge. Said standard includes many different variables, such as whether or not said fat person possesses "shelbows,"in which the shoulder fat merges with the lower arm fat, blending together the shoulders and elbows, or the dreaded "cankles", which is similar, but deals with the legs, in which the treetrunk-like calves meet the ankles in a hideous mating of adipose tissue. Luckily, I have neither such disfigurement, although I do weigh quite a bit, and have a belly that sticks out as far as my very developed breasts. So I am too fat to fit into anything in the juniors section, which covers sizes 0 (totally anorexic) to 15 (mildly bulimic), which isn't like a real 15, but more like a 9. "Women's" clothes are usually what others may call "plus sizes." Both terms mean the same thing, and neither one is really any less offensive than the other. However, different stores classify it differently. Most businesses define it as size 18 and up, and I usually hover around a 14 or 16, so I'm not that fat. Fat, but not that fat. That's usually how I describe it.
I searched desperately for the normal sized women's section, or what they call "misses." I suppose that means only married women are allowed to be a little bit fat. Single women and teenagers must either be bean-poles or beanbags, and neither option would fit me very well. I don't even like beans.
There was absolutely no normal sized women's clothing in Target.
I went down to the "Women's" section, thinking maybe they were like my eternal nemesis, Wal-mart, and considered 14 a plus size. (WHICH IT'S NOT.)
Nope! They didn't even have 18s, they started at 20 and went up to 44. 44? Dear Lord, I thought. That's Jerry Springer guest fat.
I finally found a nice sweater in juniors, that was one of the few extra large items the division contained. It was a darker shade of pink, and went so well with the socks I knew this was half of my quest. All I needed was a tan skirt and it would be wonderful, in fact, it might be the greatest outfit ever put together in the history of time.
Inches away from bliss, I pushed my cart up and down the rows of clothes racks, desperately searching for the very item that would make my life complete.
A flash of tan caught my eye. Aha!
I edged over to the rack and pulled at the corner of the skirt, and eagerly peered in the waistband for the tag. Size 4.
Awesome.
And by awesome, I mean the worst thing that's ever happened to me.
Grouchily, I pushed my cart furiously toward the customer service desk. The fact that Target's entire interior decor is red was not helping my mood. Even the blase little cashiers were adorned in red shirts, fueling my rage with each furious step. Jesus, they really should have decorated in a nice seafoam green. It might have thrown off their whole "Target" motif, but a bright red is no way to welcome patrons.
I arrived at the desk, slightly out of breath (I am fat after all) and set an appropriate glower deep into my facial features. "Excuse me, ma'am," I said to the disinterested teenager propped up behind the counter. She raised her eyebrows at the word "ma'am," and the little inner evil self I reserve for such situations smirked. "Where are your normal sized clothes?"
"Over there." She pointed to the juniors section with such an ultimate apathetic force I was almost impressed.
"No, I can't fit into any of those things!" I snapped. The red of the walls seemed to be bleeding with the souls of a thousand fat women.
"Have you considered losing weight?" she replied in the same bored monotone.
I was so shocked I couldn't respond. At least, not verbally. Not mentally. My brain couldn't process such a blatant insult. I wasn't in high school anymore, I was an adult, god-dammit. My fists clenched at my sides as the rest of me began to shake. I could break you in half, you little b***h, my brain screamed.
She stared at me, a slight look of annoyance gracing her countenance.
Quickly weighing the options of either walking away without making a scene versus leaping over the counter and wailing on her face until it resembled something close to dog food, I chose the former. I started to back up slowly, pulling my cart with me. At the last moment, I jerked it over on its side, spilling the groceries I had also thrown in there along with a very nice crock pot I had thought was reasonably priced. It shattered with the satisfying resonance of glass breaking, and I ran out the automatic doors as fast as my thunder thighs could carry me.
Now, being as disgustingly out of shape as I am, it wasn't very fast at all. Yet, seeing as how I don't like to walk, I had parked fairly close to the entrance and was able to make a clean getaway.
In my car, I realized how very childish my actions had been. I am only twenty years old, after all, but that should be old enough to prevent me from throwing temper tantrums. I usually do refrain myself from acting out like that, but the blaring fire engine color of the department store had warped my brain, transforming me into some sort of Fatty Avenger. Heroic sounding theme music began to run through my head, and I felt slightly better.
Then I remembered I still had to go to work.
I had gone to Target ridiculous early in the morning, around seven or so, in order to get some things out of the way. I didn't have to be into work until ten today, as our boss, a charmingly befuddled little man named Mr. Perkins, which is a name that suits him more than perfectly, was not going to be in until eleven. The other girls in the office had all agreed to fudge our timecards a little, since we are all kindred spirits and cherish our sleep dearly.
Ah, sleep. I love sleep more than anything in the world. If sleep had a corporeal body, I would marry him. We could have been high school sweethearts, passing mushy notes during algebra, or writing immature little sonnets to each other. Dear sleep, I miss you so.
Either way, it was only a little after nine when I pulled into the parking lot. No doubt I would be the first one in, but I didn't really mind, the quiet would do me some good. I could draw, or sing along to the classic soft rock or pop songs they play over the speakers throughout the entire building. Seeing as how recordings of me singing "Time After Time" are used to torture prisoners at Gitmo, I usually stay quiet in front of others, even when the mutated little songbird inside me cries out in desperation.
The building itself is only about five stories tall. I live in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a horrible resort city where the tallest buildings are the hotels at the oceanfront. Recently, our magnanimous city council decided to start building up the downtown area, but the building I worked in was fairly old, and had a stucco exterior that was chipping away with every small breath the god of the north wind cared to exhale. The inside had a large and roomy lobby, with a glass elevator where you could look out upon the small atrium that contained thousand of varieties of the most extravagant fake plants.
I rode it up to the fourth floor, humming along with a Muzak rendition of Aerosmith's "Janey's Got a Gun." The customary ding sounded when I arrived at my destination and I walked into our little office still humming. I was right, I was the first arrival, and I flipped on the lights and proceeded to boot up our computer system.
I work for a small little business doing secretarial work, answering phones, setting appointments, or just plain old data entry. Mr. Perkins is some kind of financial consultant, and despite his unassuming manner, he's quite good at it. Three other women work with me, and we range in age from twenty (me) to forty-two (Helen. It seems most forty-two year old women are named Helen nowadays). We all get along well, and Mr. Perkins is nice to work for. After a redundant string of retail jobs, sitting at a computer and typing all day is like heaven.
I took my place at the desk in the backroom and took care of the boring opening stuff. Helen would be pleased I had actually chosen to put in some effort today. I was still on an adrenaline high from playing the overweight superhero. The serenity of the empty office put in a good mood and I pushed up invisible sleeves and got to work.
Helen was the first to arrive after me, she usually was very prompt, which is one of my prized characteristics I use when judging human beings. And Helen was one of the few that didn't automatically generate the general disdain I reserved for the other sapient bipeds tottering around the earth.
"Rosie, how are you today?" She smiled, sitting at the desk across from mine.
"Not too bad. I got into a fight with the clerk at Target."
"Oh, I hate Target! Red is such an angry color!"
" . . . I love you Helen."
She laughed. I sometimes imagine myself becoming Helen in twenty years
and the future doesn't seem so bleak after all.
Patricia and Kelly, the other two girls, came in not much later and we spent the hour before Mr. Perkins arrived ranting about Target and other such retail hells, relating job experiences and customer complaints and the like. The common trait we all shared was procrastination, which was most likely why we got along so well.
Mr. Perkins came in, and not much changed. He's an unassuming little man, about an inch shorter than I am and bald with little gray tufts of hair behind his ears that make him look like a cartoon character. He has round glasses that magnify his eyes and give him a very innocent look. However, he dresses very sharply, never a wrinkle in his impeccable three piece suit. I believe he dresses that way in order to inspire confidence in his clients since they are trusting him with their money after all.
A little after lunch, I went to the filing room to look up something for Mr. Perkins. I moved through the four of five rows of cabinets with practiced ease, despite their narrowness. I found the one I was searching for and bent down to the bottom drawer.
CREAK.
I looked up. No one was around. Was that the cabinet?
I shrugged and poked through the files.
CREAK.
What was that? Is the ceiling about to cave in?
CREAK.
Okay, now what the hell--
CRASH!
I'm not entirely sure of the exact events that occurred after I heard that sound, although I do remember there suddenly being nothing under my feet, then something scratching my back painfully, then landing with a thump on my rather large posterior and coughing as I inhaled plaster and dust.
Dear Lord I'm so fat I broke the floor.
"Ugh . . ."
My eyes widened. That was a masculine voice coming from somewhere under the pile of rubble I was sprawled on top of.
Oh, and I'm killing someone why I'm at it!
"Oh God, oh God!" I rolled off the pile and saw whoever I had landed on pulling himself up to a sitting position. "Are you okay?"
He winced. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"But I landed on you!"
"I'm fine." He forced out a painful smile. "Just help me find my glasses."
"Oh, sure, okay!" I frantically pawed at the debris and found them quickly. I wear glasses myself, so I knew how he felt being temporarily blinded.
"Thanks." He shook the white dust out of his hair and brushed some off his face and I realized how handsome he was.
Dark hair, stern jaw, broad shoulders. He was at least six feet tall and well built under the dress shirt he wore. Soft almond eyes and a broad nose gave away his Asian heritage, but hardly detracted from his looks.
Men like that didn't exist in real life and I became convinced I was dreaming. I must have a concussion from the fall. Nevertheless, it is incredibly rude to just fall on someone, even in your subconscious, so I felt obligated to apologize.
"I'm so, so, so, sorry!" I put my legs under myself and clutched at my skirt.
"It's not your fault." He looked up at the hole in the ceiling with a rather exasperated expression. "I told Jim we shouldn't bribe the building inspector." He slowly stood and offered his hand to me.
I took it and pulled myself up but stumbled as ten bolts of lightning struck my ankle at the same time. I sprained my ankle by falling through the floor? Are you kidding me?!
Now that the shock had cleared, I felt the scratches on my back start to bleed as well.
Mr. Incredibly Handsome Figment-Of-My-Imagination helped me over to a chair against the wall and I flumped down, instantly exhausted.
"Rosemary? Are you all right?" Mr. Perkins' small little head poked through the hole above us and gave me a concerned look.
"I'm okay." I smiled weakly.
"No, you're not." Cutie McI-Fell-On-Him turned and looked up at Mr. Perkins. "Her ankle's hurt, bad, by the looks of it."
"Oh, dear, I'll call an ambulance!" Mr. Perkins replied frightfully.
"Ambulance?!" I heard Helen's scared shriek from above. "Rosie, what happened?" Her head promptly appeared next to my boss'.
"Well, Helen, the floor gave out." Despite her concern, I couldn't help but affect a rather sardonic tone. I really do have the worst luck.
"I'll call 911!" Mr. Perkins started to back out of the hole.
"No!" I cried, holding up a hand. I don't have health insurance. "I'm fine, really. I'll just go home and put some ice on it."
"Are you sure?" Helen replied worriedly. "I can call your dad . . ."
"No, really." Applying a fake grin to my face, I stood and bore weight on my ankle, causing me to think that maybe parapalegics don't have it that bad after all. "See? I'm fine."
"Well, take the rest of the day off, Rosemary, the other girls can handle it."
"But Mr. Pekins--"
He sighed. "I'll still pay you. Workman's comp, after all."
A genuine smile pushed my cheeks up this time. "God bless you, Mr. Perkins."
"Yeah, yeah." His head disappeared.
Helen's, however, remained. "I'll get your stuff together, Rosie, and take it easy, okay?"
"Sure thing, Helen." I smiled at her reassuringly until she lifted herself back up as well.
"AAGH!" I let out a small scream and collapsed gratefully into the chair.
Cutie looked down at me with a stern expression. "You're lying. You're ankle's probably broken."
I shook my head. "Nah, I can still move the toes. I've sprained it before, I'm pretty clumsy."
His features didn't soften one bit. "You should still go to the doctor."
"Can't. I haven't worked here long enough to get health insurance, and my dad's doesn't cover me because I'm only a part time student. It'll be fine, like I said, I'll ice it, wrap it in an ace bandage, and it'll be fine in a coupla weeks."
Defeated, he offered me his hand once again. "Okay, if you're sure. I'll help you out to your car at least."
I took his hand and stood, but refused his offer of help. "Really. Don't worry about it." Briefly, I pondered why I was talking so casually to someone I didn't know at all, then reminded myself it was definitely a dream and shrugged it off.
I hobbled out to my car where Helen brought me my purse and hugged me for at least ten minutes, nearly in tears. Calming her down, I used secret ninja techniques to slide into my car and paused after buckling my seatbelt, then took a moment of silent prayer to thank the great Olympians that I did not drive a stickshift.
In case you didn't know, driving a car with manual transmission requires coordination and dexterity, involving using both feet, the left one, which was the one I had sprained, to push in the clutch, and the shifting of gears with the right hand which I had a long scratch down the center of the palm. Two of the four cars I've been through in the past year (like I said, I have terrible luck) had been sticks, but luckily now I drove a small automatic sedan, and I was never more grateful for the Toyota Camry in my life then I was at that moment.
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