Big Summer(23)

When I opened the clear plastic door to her cage, Bingo stood, gave my fingers a grave sniff, and allowed me to pet her. When I stopped, she nudged at my hand with her snout: Did I say you could stop? When I began to scratch behind her ears, she sighed, wriggling with pleasure. Her dark eyes were sad—I’ve seen some things, they seemed to say—but she seemed happy enough in my company. And the article I’d read that morning had said that one of the fastest ways to get over pain was to volunteer, to donate money or time, to do a good deed, or to help someone who needed helping. Maybe I couldn’t help someone at the moment, but maybe something would do.

Thirty minutes and one large check later, I had a pet bed, pet vitamins, chew toys, poop bags, eight pounds of nutritious organic kibble in my backpack, and Bingo, on a leash, trotting politely beside me. She cringed at loud noises and large men, and, when a trash truck came rumbling toward us, she planted herself against my ankles and refused to move, so I was forced to scoop her up and carry her the length of the block, tucked underneath my arm like a football. “Don’t get used to this,” I told her, setting her down once the trash truck was gone. At 101st Street, I told her we were almost home. “So take care of business here.” Bingo seemed to have heard me, dropping into an obliging crouch, then vigorously kicking dirt over her leavings. I cleaned up the mess and brought her upstairs.

“You got a dog?” said my mother. After one look at my face, she bent down to fuss over Bingo. “Hello there, cutie!” she said. Bingo toured the apartment, gravely sniffing at the rug and the legs of the furniture, peering underneath the couch. She allowed my mother to scratch behind her ears, then she hopped onto the couch, turned three times in a circle, and fell asleep with a contented sigh.

It worked out well. Back at school, when my classmates asked “How was your break?” I could answer “I got a dog” instead of saying “I was in a viral video because some guy called me fat and I stomped on his foot.” Bingo proved to be an excellent companion, mellow and pleasant, easygoing, and extremely photogenic. My parents doted on her as if she were a grandchild. My mother knitted and crocheted her sweaters; my father used his air fryer to make her dehydrated meat snacks.

“I just walked her,” Darshi called from the living room as Bingo raced from one end of the apartment to the other, then back again. Workout completed, she stood at my feet, panting, tongue lolling as she gave me her best beseeching look. I rummaged in the box of Alpine Yum-Yums as Bingo’s tail revolved frantically and her eyes seemed to sparkle in anticipatory delight.

“What do you think? Thai or Burmese?” Darshi asked. “Or are we going to keep scaling Mount Mahima?”

The month before, Darshi’s older brother Charag had gotten married in a three-day-long, six-event celebration that had culminated in a hotel ballroom in New Jersey. The party had featured hours of dancing—first Garba and then, after midnight, the DJ had started playing Beyoncé and Demi Lovato. The lavish vegetarian buffet had been replenished all night long. At the end of the night, Darshi’s mother had stood by the door, piling each departing guest’s arms with food, neatly packed and labeled by the caterers. For weeks after the wedding, we’d gorged on dhokla and shrikhand and three different kinds of dal, and we’d still barely made a dent in the stash that Darshi had started to call Mount Mahima, in honor of her brother’s bride.

We decided to heat up some of the khadi and order spring rolls and peanut pancakes.

I tossed Bingo the treat and went to my bedroom, clipping my camera into the tripod that I’d affixed to the doorframe. I fired off six shots of myself holding the garment bag, chose the best one, cropped it, threw on my favorite filter, and added the caption that I’d typed up on the trip home: Wondering what’s in the bag? I can’t tell you lovelies what’s in store yet, but it’s going to be (pun intended) HUGE. Big things are happening, and I’m so grateful to each and every one of you for following along on this journey. I know you’ve heard it before, but I never thought I’d be in this place, where I’d be posting pictures of myself for the whole world to see. I thought my body was unacceptable, and that I had to hide. That’s what the world tells us, right? But now, maybe, if enough of us stand up and show ourselves, just as we are, if we post about our thriving, busy, messy, beautiful lives, our daughters won’t have to swallow the same lies.

I added the appropriate hashtags—#showus and #plussizebeauty and #celebratemysize, #plussizestyle and #effyourbeautystandards and—my favorite—#mybodyisnotanapology. I tagged the brands that had made the foundation on my face, the liner on my eyelids, and the berry stain on my lips, as well as my tunic, my leggings, and my shoes, and tried not to feel guilty, knowing that I was leaning into the “thriving” and “beautiful” more than the “messy” and “busy.” Tomorrow, I promised myself. Tomorrow I’d post something a little more honest—a workout picture with my makeup-less face, or an unfiltered shot of my legs in yoga pants. I grabbed a picture of Bingo jumping for another Yum-Yum and posted it on her Instagram page, and padded into the living room that Darshi and I had furnished with Craigslist finds and parental cast-offs—an old couch that my parents were getting rid of; a glass coffee table from the Shahs. Together, my mother and I had papered one of the living room walls with squares of scrapbooking paper, putting together a pattern of glittery golds and pale greens, and I’d decoupaged inexpensive trays from Ikea with scraps of old wallpaper and wrapping paper. The wooden jharoka that Darshi’s grandmother had given to her as a housewarming gift had pride of place on the south-facing wall—“A wedding gift! From Rajasthan!” Darshi’s Nani ma said, nodding proudly as Darshi’s brother and father had wrestled the heavy carved piece into place. In the kitchen, the pressure cooker Darshi’s mother had bought for us sat next to the toaster oven. “You’ll make idli,” Dr. Shah had said, nodding as if this was a given, and Darshi had nodded back, smiling, waiting for her mother to turn around before mouthing the words “I won’t.” My craft table stood against the far living room wall, piled with plywood boxes in various stage of completion, the ones I called memory boxes. I customized them with photographs, old postcards, wallpaper or wrapping paper or pictures from vintage children’s books, and sent them to customers on Etsy, who would pay up to a hundred dollars for a unique and personal gift.