Because Fat Girl

Chapter Eighteen

When I got to my car, I sat there for a while, unsure of what came next. I was all dressed up with nowhere to go and a whole afternoon free. I thought about checking out the new exhibit at LACMA or going to Joan’s on Third to eat my way through the cheese counter, but then my phone pinged with a picture of Janelle flipping off a photo of Mr. Roussard, and I knew what to do.

It was time to fight for my best friend.

Thirty minutes later, I pulled up to a little Mediterranean bungalow in Studio City and parked behind a white Subaru that looked just like mine. Gathering my courage, I walked up the steps and rang the bell. No one answered, so I double-checked the address and rang again. Still no answer. Frustrated, I started heading back to my car when I heard a familiar voice giving out orders in the backyard.

“No, no, no, that’s all wrong!” Jaqueline shouted as I unlocked the gate and made my way inside. “Have we tried to the right?”

“We tried there already, and you insisted the lighting was wrong,” Drew said as he put down a giant wicker chair.

“You could get a lamp,” Tammy suggested.

“Where would she plug it in?” Joan asked.

“I could get an extension cord,” Jaqueline offered.

“Or you could leave it where it is under the light,” Joan said.

“But the light attracts bugs,” Tammy pointed out.

“Am I interrupting?” I asked, making my way over to the group.

“Diana, darling, I’m so glad to see you!” Jaqueline opened her arms and engulfed me in a warm hug, one arm tight around me, the other holding on to a particularly dapper cane. “Help me convince my son that this chair must be moved.”

“She’s moved it five times already,” Drew cut in, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Do you expect me to just sit there, being eaten alive by bugs while I write?” Jaqueline countered, still embracing me.

“Don’t you have an office inside for that?” Joan reasoned.

“I hate writing in there.” Jaqueline waved her off. “So stuffy. I like being a part of nature.”

“Honey, nature bites,” Tammy said in her thick Southern drawl.

“Tell me about it,” Jaqueline said, letting go of me to scratch her arm.

“You could get one of those blue lights that zap bugs,” I suggested. “Or a citronella candle.”

“Citronella makes you hallucinate,” Jaqueline said.

“Maybe it would make you write better,” Drew quipped.

“There, there, no need to get mean just because you’re not strong enough to carry a little chair from left to right.” Jaqueline used her cane to point out how short the distance was.

Drew threw his hands up in the air, turned around, and walked into the house.

“What’s the point of all those muscles if you won’t help your poor old mom?” Jaqueline yelled dramatically after him, a smirk on her face. “Don’t worry, he’ll be back.” She winked at me. “Now, darling, you are here in the middle of the day all dressed up needing to talk to my son, which means something salacious happened. Tell us everything, and don’t leave a single detail out.”

Jaqueline, Tammy, Joan, and I sat down on wicker furniture under a big umbrella, and I told them everything, about Alex and their mother getting me fired, about the Focus meeting and Janelle being kicked off the film, I even told them about my fear of paying my bills and my absolute terror of being a horrible director. Drew brought out some iced tea for all of us but disappeared again when Jaqueline shooed him away. The women were so easy to talk to that it was almost an hour before I sat back with a sigh, completely spent.

“Oh, to be young and excitable again.” Tammy sighed.

“I’ll take old and wise,” Joan rebutted. “Such drama these young kids have.”

“Tell me about it.” I smiled at Joan.

“And you’re never dramatic now?” Tammy raised one eyebrow at Joan.

“I am not dramatic,” Joan insisted. “I’m theatrical. There’s a difference.”

“You know what you need to do, darling?” Jaqueline said, handing me an embroidered hankie to blow my nose.

“No, I don’t. God, please tell me what to do.” I sat up straight, dabbing my eyes with the hankie while waiting for her magical words of wisdom that would make everything okay.

“You need to get high.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a joint.

And because I had nothing better to do with my day, I did just that.

…

Hours passed in a haze of giggles, ice cream, and multiple Tegan and Sara albums. At some point I stripped out of the ELOQUII pantsuit I’d worn to work and ended up in Jaqueline’s pool wearing nothing but my bra and underwear, competing with Drew for who could create the biggest cannonball splash. Jaqueline, Tammy, and Joan acted as judges, holding up crooked signs with our score scrawled on them. Sober, I might have felt self-conscious mostly naked in front of practical strangers, one of them a famous movie star known for his newly ripped physique, but stoned I simply enjoyed the feeling of my body floating in water. I spent a ridiculously long period of time admiring how perky my boobs looked in the pool and ate a whole bag of Pirate’s Booty Jaqueline brought out for me. I didn’t think about Roussard’s once. I also didn’t talk to Drew about Janelle, a fact that my sobering brain realized around sunset.

Tammy and Joan had left long ago to avoid traffic, and Drew was inside doing dishes, leaving Jaqueline and me alone. She’d made Drew move her furniture one more time, back to the spot it had originally been in, and we sat together swatting mosquitoes as they gathered around the light above us.

“What am I going to do about Janelle?” I sighed, leaning my head against Jaqueline’s shoulder.

“The solution, my beautiful darling, is simple. A sacrifice was demanded, so a sacrifice must be made.”

“I cannot sacrifice Janelle.”

“Then you must find something else to die for her,” she declared. “And until you find that sacrifice, you must be honest with her. She needs to know that her life is on the line.”

“I wouldn’t say life,” I argued.

“Then her livelihood. But you should know that’s the same thing to those of us outcast by society, my dear.” She paused as Drew emerged from the house carrying two large glasses of water. “Now, I shall revel in the privilege growing old affords me and retire early for the evening with good wine and a great book. You two stay as long as you want and help yourself to anything in the icebox. Except for the last piece of cheesecake. That is mine.”

Jaqueline kissed both of us on the forehead, then headed inside.

“Your mother is truly wonderful,” I said to Drew.

“She’s a pain in the ass,” Drew taunted after her. “But I absolutely adore her.”

“I’ve definitely overstayed my welcome.” It had gotten dark, and there was a chill in the air. “I can head out—I’m sure you’ve got glamorous places to be this evening.”

“There’s nowhere I’d rather be right now than here with you.” Drew smiled, handed me a glass, and sat down next to me.

“I find that very hard to believe”—I took a sip of water—“but I’m flattered.”

“Do I get to know what happened today? Or is that information just for your queer elders?”

I folded my feet up under me and gave him an abridged version of my day. He asked questions and told me a story of growing up the son of a single lesbian, being teased for wearing dresses to school, not understanding why he couldn’t. I enjoyed the ease with which we conversed, just two people talking about our lives, not a famous actor and some random shopgirl. I guessed I wasn’t a shopgirl anymore. Now, I was a director spending the afternoon with my producer and his mother. It was surreal and yet it felt right, like I’d always belonged right there on that sofa next to Drew.

I shivered as the Santa Ana winds picked up, and Drew went inside, emerging again with a big, fluffy blanket. “Can I ask you something?” he said, throwing the cover around me.

“Sure,” I said, tucking my toes under the blanket to stay warm.

“I know it’s been years, and you probably had lots of people vying for your attention at that time, but I just need to know. Why wouldn’t you meet with me?”

“After LACMA?”

“No, after Lalo’s Lament .”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I’ve always wanted to do a rom-com,” he explained, “something my mother would love, maybe even based on one of her books. I had an idea for a project, and I thought your style would be perfect for it. I made my agent call yours and ask for a meeting, but you turned me down. I know it’s silly. It was years ago. It’s just been bugging me since I met you at the LACMA party, so I had to ask.”

I was speechless. I had no idea any of this had happened. “It wasn’t personal.”

Drew’s shoulders shrank, and he chuckled a bit. “I thought you hated that line.”

“I do!” I insisted. “But in this instance, it really wasn’t personal. I didn’t even know that you called.”

“Your agent never told you?”

“She told anyone who called that I was too booked to talk.”

“That’s a baller move.”

“I wasn’t trying to be cocky. I just needed space.”

“Hollywood can be overwhelming when you’re in demand,” Drew agreed.

“And lonely when you’re not,” I added.

“But you answered those calls eventually. Why not mine?”

I paused, not sure how much I was willing to share. Drew was friendly, maybe even a friend by now, but few people knew about those months after Lalo’s Lament came out, and talking about it always sent me into a downward spiral. But if this movie was going to work, Drew needed to know the story behind it, and the person behind the story. So, taking a deep breath, I opened up.

“Henry, my brother, was diagnosed with cancer right after the movie came out.” I shivered, my body reacting to the change in both weather and subject. Drew tucked the blanket around me, and his proximity and warmth encouraged me to keep going. “It’s hard to deal with Hollywood when you’re living in a hospital, watching someone you love die. He had his jaw removed the week I won Best Short. He died in my arms a month later. Offers came pouring in, and all I could do was move from my bed to the sofa to binge-watch old sitcoms. Some days I couldn’t even do that. I ignored my agent, and she told everyone I was booked. That seemed better than saying I was in a deep hole of despair. I wasn’t trying to be cool or seem in demand. I was just trying to stay alive. When I reemerged from my black void of mourning, my career had died along with my brother.”

Drew paused, taking it all in. “I don’t know what to say, except I’m so sorry, and fuck cancer.”

“Fuck cancer indeed.”

“This whole time I thought… It doesn’t matter what I thought.”

“It matters to me.”

“I thought…” Drew spoke more to the blanket than to me. “I thought you didn’t want to work with me, because I was the broke, fat, jovial sidekick. And now you will because I’m—”

“Ripped and famous,” I finished for him.

“Don’t forget rich,” he added.

“Oh, I can’t forget that.” I gestured around his mother’s gorgeous backyard. Drew chuckled. “I’m not going to pretend that you being rich and famous isn’t a bonus. It got me a meeting I’ve waited years for and will help get this movie made. But that’s not the reason I’m here right now. You don’t see me getting high with Chris’s mom.”

“She’s a teetotaler. Doesn’t even drink the sacramental wine at church.”

“That explains so much.” I shook my head. “I’m not here right now because of your money and fame.” He looked up at me, our eyes meeting, his face nervous, like the butterflies in my stomach had taken up residency in his as well. “I’m here because of your heart and soul.”

Without thinking, I leaned forward and pressed my lips to his. I pulled back quickly, unsure of what I’d just done. We stared at each other again for a split second before both of us plunged forward, bonking our heads and laughing. Drew let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me toward him. Our lips met again, gently at first but gaining in voracity as I climbed on top of him, feeling his eagerness grow. He grabbed my back and pulled me closer while I lifted my hands to touch his face.

My body wasn’t used to kissing people with five o’clock shadows. The scruffiness of it shocked me. I became acutely aware of Drew’s muscles, his scent, his hardness beneath me. The way his tongue pushed into my mouth, eager for more.

But what would more look like? His hands on my fat rolls. Broken condoms and begging my period to come. The inevitable heartbreak when he never called me back. The lack of emotional awareness if he did. I’d been with men before. I knew the drill. I wanted no part of it.

“I can’t do this,” I said, pulling away.

“I’m sorry, did I do something wrong?” Drew asked as I climbed off him. “Are you okay?”

“It’s not you, it’s me.”

“You’re going with that line again?” Drew chuckled.

“Sorry, it’s just that this is a very bad idea.”

“I like you. I think you like me.” He entwined his fingers with mine. “Maybe this is a very good idea.”

“Good for you, sure. You’d get praised for being an open-minded feminist, accepting all bodies and sexualities. The newspapers would eat it up. But me, I’d be the fat dyke who doesn’t deserve famous Drew Williams, and people would think my movie only got made because we were sleeping together.”

“What happens when this movie is made and you’re more famous than I am?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “First off, that won’t happen. Second, I don’t want to just be famous, I want to be respected. I want to have creative freedom. I want to make movies about girls like me. I don’t want to be some old tabloid headline, the fat girl Drew Williams once fucked.”

“I’m not going to just fuck and leave.” He was suddenly serious. “I like you more than that.”

“So what, we date?” I posited. “I don’t even know how that works. Forget that you’re rich and famous. You’re also my boss. And a cis man.”

“We’d find a way.” He sounded so sure of himself that I wanted to believe he was right.

“Have you thought about what dating me would mean for your career?” I pondered, enjoying the feeling of his hands in mine but still not sure it was a good idea to keep touching him. “There are expectations people have of A-list actors. You’re a contender for the next Bond, for fuck’s sake. People expect Bond to have a Bond girl on his arm, not someone who looks like me.”

“That’s really unfair.”

“You’re right, it is unfair.” I nodded. “But just because it’s unfair doesn’t mean it’s not true. If people saw me with you, the backlash and hate would be too much. For both of us.”

“You know I don’t care about that stuff.”

“You don’t have to care. Your privilege allows you to rise above it. You’re an action star—you can jump over hurdles. But me, I’ve got barricades ten stories high with sharpshooters trying to take me down while I climb to the top. It’s not the same for us. Even if I want this, I can’t have it. There’s just too many walls between your world and mine.”

“Then we take down the walls.” Drew put his hands on my face and looked me in the eyes. “People will always talk. The paparazzi will always spin whatever story they think will sell. But there’s something special here. You’re something special.”

I touched his hand on my face and realized it was wet. Somewhere in there, I’d started crying.

“I like to think of myself as a courageous person.” I pulled both our hands away and placed them intertwined on my lap. “I like to think I don’t make decisions based on what other people would say. But courage takes energy, and I don’t have the energy for what pursuing this would take right now. I’ve got too much to do. I have to make this movie. I have to rebuild my career. I have an Oscar to win!” I sobbed, placing my head on Drew’s shoulder.

He held me as I cried, wishing it weren’t all so complicated, that sexuality and attraction and body size were all so much more fluid than society let them be, and wondering how I was going to focus on this film with my confusing feelings for Drew clouding every move. It felt like years had passed since I quit Roussard’s, decades since I left Cecily’s house that morning. So much had changed in less than twelve hours. I wanted to crawl into Drew’s arms and stay there, comforted and protected. But I couldn’t imagine a world where that ended well, couldn’t dream of a way to make it work. So instead, I pulled myself together, wiped my eyes, and sat up.

Drew handed me a hankie from his back pocket. “When you win an Oscar for this movie, will you date me then?”

“ If I win an Oscar for this movie, you can fuck me right there on the stage.” I laughed at the absolute absurdity of the idea. “Just wait until after my acceptance speech.”

Drew lifted up his little finger. “I, Drew Williams, pinkie swear to keep it purely professional between Diana Smith and me until this movie we’re making together wins an Oscar.”

Smiling, I lifted my little finger and wrapped it around his. “I, Diana Smith, promise to fuck Drew Williams on the stage if I win an Oscar for this movie. Right after my acceptance speech, that is.”

“It’s agreed, then.” Drew twisted his pinkie around mine and pulled both our fingers down in a shake.

We sat there for a while, our hands held together, my body aching for his. I wanted to lean in, to give in, to kiss him and straddle him and let him fill me. Our bodies pulled toward each other. His forehead touched mine. My lips grazed his.

“I should go,” he whispered, “before I forget my promise, scoop you up, and take you to bed.”

“You couldn’t lift me.”

He leaned in farther, his lips brushing past mine as they made their way to my ear. “I can hold all of your greatness, Diana.”

Drew’s whisper sent erotic shivers down my spine. I pulled back from him and looked into his eyes. We were inches apart and my whole body was begging to kiss him. “I can’t…”

“I know,” he lamented, moving away from me.

I stood up, already missing his warmth. “I should head out.”

“Are you good to drive?” Drew asked. “I can call you a cab.”

“It’s been a few hours since I smoked.” I grabbed my bag and fished out my keys. “I’m good.”

“Need directions out of here?”

“I’ve got this wonderful invention called a cell phone.” I smirked. “Not only does it answer calls, it gives me directions, too.”

“Just trying to help.” He smiled back at me. “Drive safely, okay?”

“Will do,” I promised. “Thanks for today. I needed it.”

“Anytime,” Drew said, and I knew he meant it. He was the kind of guy who would hand you his whole world. But I wasn’t the kind of gal who could take it.

“Goodbye, Andy.” I turned around and forced myself to leave.

“Goodbye, Diana,” I heard as the gate closed between us.