Because Fat Girl

Chapter Four

The sun was starting to rise when I got back to my sister’s house in Arcadia, a suburb nestled on the edge of the L.A. basin, far from Hollywood. By the time I’d taken off my makeup and slid into bed, my niblings were up and playing not-so-silently in the room next to mine.

“Sshh, you’re going to wake Aunt Didi,” Reggie whispered loudly to her sibling.

I pulled out a pair of earplugs and a sleeping mask, hoping to push through the noise and get some rest, but my mind was racing, thinking about my interactions with Drew Williams. I replayed the whole evening, wondering what could have happened if I’d actually been nice to him instead of acting like a jerk. Questioning if Janelle had been right and he really was flirting with me.

I knew I wasn’t the only person in the world lying in bed thinking about the famous movie star, but I told myself that mine was a different kind of longing. Sure, he was handsome and kind, but he was also a cishet man, and I hadn’t been interested in one of those since high school. No, this weirdly twitterpated heart of mine couldn’t be for Drew himself but what he represented: an opportunity to fast-track my dreams—one I’d stupidly given up by being hangry.

My stomach growled on cue, registering the scents wafting from the kitchen where Cecily was preparing our Sunday ritual of pancakes and painting.

“Wake up, lazy butt!” My sister opened my door, turned on the lights and fan, and threw her kids on top of me.

“Sleeping!” I yelled, clinging to the covers as my niblings tried to pull them off me, laughing hysterically. My mother used to do this to us. I hated it then, and I hated that my sister was perpetuating it now. Still, I was powerless to fight it, so I rolled out of bed, threw on some clothes, and met my sister in the kitchen. “You’re the fucking worst.”

“And a good morning to you, too,” Cecily said as I grabbed a piece of bacon off the griddle and shoved it in my mouth before she could stop me, burning my tongue in the process. Cecily laughed at me for making the same mistake I made every Sunday morning.

“How’d you sleep?” she asked, flipping the pancakes.

“Dreamed of winning an Oscar,” I replied.

“How’s the script coming?”

“It’s coming.” I reached to steal a pancake off the griddle, but Cecily swatted my hand away before I could get one.

“So,” she said, turning excitedly toward me, “tell me, tell me! I want to know everything about last night. Don’t leave any detail out, especially one regarding a certain handsome host.”

“Chris Stanson is a dick,” I said, trying to grab at another pancake. “I’ve told you this before.”

“Ugh, that party was wasted on you.” Cecily swatted my hand again. “I should have been there. Why did I have kids?”

“I ask you that same question every day.”

“Little brats ruin everything.”

“They’re kind of cute, though.”

“Yeah, they are. I guess I’ll keep ’em.” Cecily poured new batter onto the griddle. “So, tell me, who did you see? Was it full of famous stars? Wait, no, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know who I missed out on falling in love with.”

“How have you lived in L.A. for over a decade and are still this star crazy?”

“We live in Arcadia. Celebrities wouldn’t be caught dead here.”

“I keep telling you we should move to La Brea or Fairfax, maybe even Beverly Hills,” I said, sweeping around her other side, grabbing for the plate of pancakes.

“And I keep telling you to win the lottery.” Cecily slapped my hand hard with the spatula this time.

“If you’re going to wake me up early, the least you can do is let me have a pancake.”

“It’s not my fault you stayed up past your bedtime.”

“I have no bedtime. I’m a grown-ass adult who can do whatever she wants.”

“You’re basically my oldest child.”

“Whatever,” I brushed her off. I didn’t want to get into the same argument we’d had a million times since we were kids.

Knowing it was best to walk away, I headed outside to help the kids set the table, watching Ellis haphazardly throw down the placemats while their older sister, Reggie, followed behind, straightening them and carefully placing a folded cloth napkin with perfectly aligned forks and knives on top, ever the perfectionist, just like her mother.

Once the table was set, Ellis and I lay out together in the grass, waiting for their mom to let us back in the kitchen to get some food. Their little body curled up into the crook of my arm, and we both sighed, soaking up that famous Southern California sun. It was a gorgeous day, even by L.A. standards. The sky was clear, but there were still wisps of clouds here and there for aesthetic effects. It felt like the studios set the perfect backdrop for a Sunday outdoor brunch.

It was images of days like this that had convinced me to move to L.A. in the first place a decade ago, when I was a starry-eyed eighteen-year-old leaving my small farming town on the Mexican border to enter film school in the shiny big city. While my friends had dreamed of marrying the latest TV heartthrob, I dreamed of working with Nora Ephron and directing Meryl Streep. I longed to be someone who inspired others, like I’d been inspired by Holland Taylor, Gabourey Sidibe, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Lena Waithe, Janet Mock, Jane Lynch, Michaela Jaé Rodriguez, and Melissa McCarthy, to name just a few. Women and nonbinary folks who taught me that Hollywood wasn’t just for straight, thin, white men.

I’d gotten close, too. A year out of film school, my senior thesis short film, Lalo’s Lament , won a handful of awards, getting me an agent and helping me sell a full-length script—all by the age of twenty-three. As a congratulations gift, Janelle had somehow scored bleacher seats outside the Oscars, and we clenched each other’s hands with excitement, knowing someday soon that would be us walking the red carpet, reporters asking who we were wearing, to which we’d indignantly reply, “Ask me about more than my clothes. Ask me about my work, my ambitions, my causes, like you do the men!”

That was years ago, back before I knew that studio execs would buy scripts with no real intention of making them, just to keep them off the market if they were about to release something similar. I wrote more scripts and put together a crew for another short. I pushed and hustled, putting in the work and refusing to accept rejection.

Then my brother was diagnosed with cancer, and everything stopped. Grief shattered me into a million pieces, and it took half a decade to gather back the bits that had been lost. Some, like my directing career, I worried I’d never see again. When Cecily got divorced, I gave up my apartment in Silver Lake, moved in with her in the suburbs, and spent the hours I used to attend industry events helping with the kids, my career as a writer and director a distant memory. I could barely watch movies these days. I hated wondering what my life would be like if cancer hadn’t come in and chopped off a limb of my family tree.

“Breakfast!” Cecily yelled, coming outside with platters full of bacon and pancakes. Ellis and I stretched slowly and got up, meandering to the table where Reggie was already digging in.

“Slow down. You’re gonna choke,” Cecily said, and Reggie spat a giant wad of pancake out of her mouth.

“Lovely,” her mother said.

“We raise ladies ’round these parts,” I said, making a farting noise with my mouth. The kids joined in, fake farting and laughing so hard Ellis started choking.

“Either make farting noises or eat,” Cecily said. “I don’t want you dying of a fart attack.”

Ellis chose to eat and shoved a piece of bacon in their mouth. I got up and went into the house, returning with the butter dish.

“I already buttered the pancakes,” Cecily pointed out.

“You call this buttered?” I plopped a pat on my plate. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix your mistake.”

“If you don’t like how I make pancakes, maybe get up early and do it yourself next time,” Cecily replied.

“Thank you for making us breakfast,” I said, genuinely grateful she cooked but still pissed off that she’d woken me up early.

“Can I have that?” Ellis pointed to the last piece of bacon.

“How can you possibly eat any more?” Cecily asked.

“I’m like a squirrel,” Ellis said, grabbing the bacon. “Except I don’t save anything for winter. I eat it all right now.”

“Sounds very practical,” I nodded, suppressing a laugh.

After breakfast, Reggie and I cleared the dishes while Cecily and Ellis gathered art supplies from the garage-turned-studio. It was the largest room in our house and full of canvases and materials we’d inherited from our grandfather, a farmer turned amateur artist. Her artistic background and bossy inclinations meant Cecily always took charge of our family art projects, and that morning she came out with a plan. We were all going to use the same color construction paper to cut up different patterns, then put them together to make one large piece of art.

After two hours of scissors, glue, and strips of construction paper flying all over the place, we had four highly individualized pieces of art that came together to form one cohesive unit. It was a bit rough around the edges, far from perfect, but that made it an even better representation of our little family.

“I bet they didn’t have art this fancy at your bougie LACMA fundraiser last night,” Cecily said, placing our masterpiece on the wall.

“Chris Stanson ain’t got nothing on us,” I replied. “Who needs a Calder mobile in your entryway anyways?”

“That party was wasted on you.” Cecily shook her head.

“More than you know.” I sighed, thinking back on how I’d ruined my chance to network with Hollywood elites because I’d been hangry.

Even still, I refused to believe that meant my dreams were over. I didn’t need Chris Stanson, Drew Williams, or any of their rich and famous friends. Janelle and I had made Lalo’s Lament with a tiny crew and minuscule budget. We could do it again.

After pancakes and painting, I desperately wanted to go back to sleep or at least spend the day reading on the sofa, but instead I took my laptop to a local café and got to work. Nothing propelled me forward quite like black tea and spite, and I thought of rubbing my Oscar into Chris Stanson’s smug face each time my eyes drooped. I would finish this script, send it to my agent, and make this film. And I would never again lose a night of sleep over Drew Williams.