Fat Cat

Chapter 3

3

“Okay, so ... what exactly does that mean?” Amanda asked.

“No more candy, for one thing,” I said, polishing off my Butterfinger. I stuffed the M&Ms in my backpack for later. “No modern food of any kind—only natural foods they could have found back then, like nuts, berries—”

“You’re only going to eat nuts and berries for seven months?” Amanda said. “Are you insane?”

“I’m sure they had other things,” I said. “There was that dead deer.”

Amanda made a face. “Awesome.”

“And probably vegetables and a bunch of really healthy stuff.”

“So what you’re telling me,” Amanda said, “is you’re going on another diet.”

“No! It’s not that at all. I mean ... not entirely. This is going to be an actual science experiment. On myself. It’s not just the food—I’m going to give up everything modern. Computer, telephone, car, TV—”

“And this is supposed to prove what?” Amanda broke in. “Other than that you’re crazy?”

“That we’ve screwed ourselves up,” I said. “That somewhere along the way all of our modern advances have gone too far and we’ve let ourselves get lazy and soft.”

“Excuse me,” Amanda said, “but I happen to think my iPod is a brilliant piece of evolution.”

“No, but look at our bodies.” By which I really meant look at mine. “We have all these modern problems like obesity and diabetes and cancer and heart disease—”

“That’s because nobody used to live long enough to get those,” Amanda pointed out. “They were all getting chomped by wild beasts.”

“Yeah, but I think if we just went back to living a simpler life, we’d all be a lot better off.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, “but I think it’s my job to tell you that you’ve finally gone too far.”

But I just smiled. Because the more we talked about it, the more radical it sounded, and that’s exactly what I need. Nothing ordinary is going to impress Mr. Fizer or the science fair judges—especially not with Matt in the game. I really need to bring it.

“Besides,” Amanda said, starting up her ancient yellow Mazda, “you can’t just give up everything. Some of our advances are actually pretty important.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Like running water, hello? Electricity? Soap? Are you just going to sit in the dark at night and rub yourself with dirt? And do you get to sleep in a bed anymore or do you have to sleep on the floor? Is carpeting allowed?”

“This is good,” I said, fishing for my notebook as Amanda pulled out of the parking lot. “I need to make a list. Keep going.” I had approximately 47 hours until my next class with Mr. Fizer. We were supposed to use that time to do as much preliminary research as possible before turning in our formal research proposals. I had a lot of work to do.

“Okay,” Amanda said, getting into it now. “You said no car—but they had the wheel back then, right? Can’t you improvise? Maybe you could ride your bike.”

“Right, and let Mr. Fizer catch me? ‘I wasn’t aware Homo erectus had the bicycle, Miss Locke.’ Forget it—I’m going to have to walk everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Amanda said. “What if it’s dark out? Or it’s like twenty miles away and it’s raining and lightning outside? You can’t put yourself in danger.”

“Okay, good point. Maybe I need to make a few safety exceptions.”

“Yeah, like your cell phone,” she said. “I can see not talking on it in general, but you have to have it for emergencies, right?”

“Right,” I said, jotting that down. “Hold on.” The ideas were really flowing now. The whole thing was a lot more complicated than I thought—issues of safety, practicality, unavoidable conveniences like showers—

“So when does all this insanity begin?” Amanda asked. “This eating of leaves and berries and such?”

“I don’t know, Wednesday night. Maybe Thursday.” Soap, shampoo, toothpaste—“I want to make sure Mr. Fizer approves my proposal first.”

“Great,” Amanda said, “because Jordan and I were just talking about you last class.”

She said it in a really cheery, innocent voice, and normally that would have been a clue if I weren’t so distracted. I knew she and Jordan had Creative Writing together while I was in Mr. Fizer’s, so I didn’t really think anything of it.

“So ... what are you doing tomorrow night?” Amanda asked.

Cell phone, darkness, weather—“Working my face off on this project. Why?” Refrigeration, soft bed, clothing, shoes—

“I was just thinking you could take a break,” she said. “You know, like for an hour or so. Maybe for dinner.”

Finally some innate sense of self-preservation kicked in and I noticed what was happening. Amanda’s voice was about half an octave higher than normal—always a bad sign. The fact is my best friend is a really terrible liar. I put down my pen and gave her my full attention.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said a little too innocently. She squinted at the traffic ahead of her as if it were suddenly the most important thing in the world. “It’s just that tomorrow’s Jordan’s and my anniversary.”

We’d only talked about it a dozen times in the past few days—she knew very well that I knew. “Yeah ... and?”

“And so we’re going out to dinner tomorrow night, and we thought you might want to come along.”

“Um, don’t you think that would be a little weird?” I said. “Jordan would probably rather be alone with you on your anniversary. Just guessing.”

“Actually, it was Jordan’s idea.” Amanda glanced at me nervously. “Really. He likes you.”

“Yeah, I like him, too, but I still say you two should be alone.”

She made the left turn. “Oh, we will be—we’re ditching you right after dinner. We just thought ... ”

Amanda glanced at me again and saw I wasn’t buying it. She sighed and gave it up. “Okay, fine. Look, here’s the thing. Jordan has this friend—”

“No. Stop right there.”

Instead she just talked faster. “He said he’s a really nice guy—he’s on the swim team with him—and Jordan thinks the two of you will really hit it off—”

“No,” I said. “No, no, no.”

“Come on, Cat! Just this once?”

Amanda has this delusion that guys might actually like me—that somebody out there is seriously wishing he knew some fat girl he could date. But rather than get into that debate again, I went with the easier excuse. “Have you not been listening? I have tons of work to do. This proposal is huge—it has to be perfect.”

“It will be! Come on, Kitty Cat, it’s just for an hour or two—”

“I can’t,” I said. “This whole semester is going to be a nightmare if I don’t stay on top of it. I’ve got Fizer’s, AP Calc, AP Chemistry—”

“I know,” Amanda said, “but that’s why I worry about you. When are you ever going to have time to do anything but go to school, go to your job, and do homework?”

“I’m very organized.”

“Yes, I think I know that,” she said, “but there’s this other matter you seem to keep forgetting about—it’s called a social life.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“That’s what worries me,” she said. “Don’t you know how happy I am with Jordan?”

“Yes, and I’m very happy for you. He’s a great guy.”

“There are other great guys,” she said, pulling up to the side of the hospital. “I’m sorry, but I have this fear that someday you’re going to wake up a dried out, bitter old hag with plenty of science awards, but no personal life whatsoever. And you’ll sit there at night and sob about how you’ve wasted your life.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a really horrible story.”

“Good. I’m calling it, ‘She Didn’t Listen To Her Friend.’”

I thanked Amanda for the ride and got out. But she wasn’t through with me yet. As I walked up the steps she rolled down the window and called out, “Will you at least think about it?”

“No.”

“But how will our babies ever grow up next to each other if you don’t ever go out on a date? Cat?”

I waved to her over my shoulder and escaped.

Amanda has this fantasy that we’ll both go to the same college, we’ll both meet our husbands there (“Jordan can apply for the position if he wants to,” Amanda told me. “I’m not ruling him out.”), and then we’ll move to the same city, both have fabulous jobs—me as either a research scientist or a doctor if I decide to go that route, her as either a poet/novelist or an English professor—and we’ll both have at least two children apiece, and we’ll all live happily ever after next door to each other, our kids playing together, our husbands taking turns barbequing while Amanda and I sneak off to the kitchen to bake fabulous desserts and talk all night.

There are definitely parts of that I like. It’s fun to sit back and listen to Amanda spinning her tales about what our lives might be like in the future. I kind of like the person she imagines me to be. Except when the story involves me being a dried up old hag.

So I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world that she—and now Jordan, apparently—wants to find someone for me. But even if I wanted that, which I don’t, they’re both ignoring an obvious fact: There has never been a single guy who has ever liked me. I mean, there have been guys who have been nice to me—friend guys—but never, ever one who thought of me romantically.

Maybe Amanda and Jordan have gotten so used to me, they just don’t see me the way other people do anymore. I guess I should take that as a compliment. But I think it also doesn’t occur to them that it’s just easier for me not to ever go down that road and end up disappointed. Or worse, really hurt.

Only one of those per customer, thank you.