Keeping The Moon(37)

girls shaking their hips and hair, the boys all doing that same white-guy shuffle with their eyes somewhere else, their faces

bored.

It wasn’t bad, all of a sudden, being there. Everyone around me was moving to the loud music, even the other fat kids. So I did,

too.

No one ever really teaches you how to dance. I was kind of moving back and forth, looking down like everyone else. I couldn’t even

find myself in the crowd reflected in the cafeteria windows. That was nice.

There was a girl standing next to me with glasses and long hair, and when I looked over she smiled shyly. The music was good and I

relaxed, letting myself move a little bit more, copying some of the moves I saw other people making. Maybe this would be different,

this school. Maybe I would make friends.

I kept dancing, thinking this, and I realized suddenly why people liked to dance; it did feel good. Fun, even.

Then I heard it. Someone laughing. The noise started off quietly, but as the music was dying down, the song changing, it got

louder. I looked up, still dancing, to see a boy across the cafeteria with his cheeks puffed out, moving like a hippopotamus, his

legs straight and locked, rocking back and forth. Everyone was standing around watching him, giggling. The more they laughed, the

more pronounced he became; sticking out his tongue, rolling his eyes back in his head.

It took a few seconds to realize that he was imitating me. And by that point everyone was staring.

I stopped moving. The music changed and I glanced around me to see that the girl with the glasses was gone; everyone was gone. I’d

been all alone, dancing, in my big fat Misses Plus jeans and new shirt.

When this happens in the movies and in after-school specials, the fat, teased kid is always befriended by some nice person who sees

her for the wonderful, worthwhile person she really is. But in real life, middle school just isn’t like that.

No one followed me as I walked back across the football field and sat beneath a stubby pine tree for two and a half hours, waiting

for my mother. I could hear the music from the cafeteria. I could even hear voices through the woods, people sneaking away from the

chaperones. When my mother pulled up at ten o’clock I climbed into the car and didn’t say a word the whole way home.

I told her later as I sat with her arms around me, crying, my voice hiccuping and ashamed. She just rocked me back and forth, her

mouth set in that thin, straight line that meant she was angry. She stroked my hair and told me I was beautiful, but I was old

enough by then to know not to believe it anymore.

Two weeks later, she gave up her job at the dentist’s and we moved to Massachusetts, where I was the fat new kid all over again.

But I never forgot Central Middle or that dance. I never could.

There’s something about dancing that’s like being stripped naked; you have to be very self-confident to thrash around in public,

deliberately attracting attention. I’d never been that way, even without the weight that once kept me in everyone’s eyes. Dancers

were the lightest and brightest of butterflies, while girls like me stayed low, bellies scraping the floor, and watched from there.





Chapter Ten


The first thing I saw when we stepped inside was Isabel, her hair in rollers, crossing the kitchen floor to turn up the CD player.

She had on cutoffs and a short white shirt, and her bare feet had cotton balls between each toe. The polish on her toenails was

bright red and still looked wet.

“Is this new?” Morgan yelled, as I put the eggs down on the coffee table. Isabel tossed her a CD case before heading back to the

kitchen. Morgan turned it over, examining it.

“I love disco,” she said.

I nodded. I had my eyes on Mira’s house, my excuses ready. I could not stay.

“I bought supplies,” Isabel announced, coming back into the living room with a grocery bag. She started unpacking it, stacking

its contents on the table and floor: two six-packs of beer, a six-pack of Diet Coke, Cosmo, two bottles of nail polish, a pack of

Fudge Stripes, and a plastic container of what looked like cold cream. Then she picked up the bag and shook it, emptying out a

handful of Atomic Fireballs, two packs of gum, and some cigarettes; there were a couple of boxes of sparklers, too.

“For you,” she said to me, handing over the gum. She gave Morgan the Atomic Fireballs and kept the cigarettes, tucking them in

her shorts pocket.

“Isabel,” Morgan said disapprovingly. Actually, she yelled. We were all yelling to be heard over the Bee Gees. “You quit,

remember?”

“I got you Fudge Stripes,” Isabel pointed out. “So hush.”

“Fudge Stripes don’t kill you,” Morgan fussed.

“Morgan.” Isabel shook her head. “Let it go, okay? Just for tonight.”

“They cause cancer,” Morgan said.

“Let it go….” Isabel said, closing her eyes.

“And heart disease.”

“Let it go….”

“And emphysema.”

“Morgan!” Isabel opened her eyes. “Let it go!”

Morgan reached for the Fudge Stripes and sat back on the couch. “Fine,” she said, ripping open the package and stuffing one in