The Fat Girl by Marilyn Sachs Page B

explained.
    “I’m taking a fat girl named Ellen out for pizza tonight, because I’m sorry for her and I want to help her. She’s the one who says she’s going to commit suicide. I started telling you about her last night.”
    My mother brightened up and I went on.
    “She keeps saying she’s going to kill herself, but her mother says she isn’t. Her mother says she’s always threatening to kill herself. At least once a day, her mother says, but after a good dinner she generally feels better.”
    My mother shook her head, but she was smiling. “When people say they’re going to kill themselves, you have to take them seriously,” she said. “It sounds to me like that’s a family who could use some counseling.”
    My mother handed me the keys to the car and offered to give me some money if I was short.
    We ordered an extra-large Vince’s Special and waited about fifteen minutes before it arrived. Since it was Tuesday night, the place wasn’t mobbed the way it always was on weekends. Still, Danny Ryan and his girlfriend, Amy Peterson, were there, sitting at a table on the other side of the room. “Hey, Jeff,” Danny called out when we came in. But then he blinked hard and his smile kind of stuck on his face when he saw Ellen. Amy turned around to stare and gave me such a wide, phony smile, I could feel the irritation growing inside me again. Very deliberately, I rested my arm on Ellen’s shoulder as I guided her over to a table.
    She didn’t notice. She was busy sniffing the air as we waited for our pizza. Her eyes rested hungrily on all the dishes that could be seen on adjoining tables. She was dressed up in another one of her old-lady outfits.
    “I’ve never been here before,” she said. “When we go out for pizza, we usually go to John’s or Ernesto’s.”
    “I think this is the best place in the city.”
    She smiled and nodded at me. Good! She wasn’t angry anymore.
    “Anyway, Ellen, I wanted to explain about yesterday, and I wanted to apologize. I know I promised not to tell your mother, but I was afraid you would, you would . . .”
    Her face grew serious. “Kill myself? I will, too.”
    “Now Ellen, don’t start that all over again.”
    “I know she told you I wouldn’t. SHE doesn’t believe me. She thinks I won’t do it, but I will.” She was pouting like a little child.
    “Look, Ellen, that’s what I wanted to talk about. Has your family ever gone for counseling?”
    “Counseling?” Ellen screwed up her face and twitched her nose as if something smelled bad. “Ever since I can remember, either we’re all going, or I’m going, or my parents are going, or my brothers. Right now, my mother and Ricky are going, but I’m not going anymore.”
    “But maybe you should.”
    “Why?”
    “Maybe it will make you feel better.”
    “I’m never going to feel better until I’m dead,” she said. “I just can’t make up my mind how to do it. The best way is to jump off the bridge, but I don’t know how I’d get myself out there. I don’t drive. I could take the 29 bus, but then I’d have to walk and I’m not really sure I’d like to jump off the bridge. I think it would hurt too much. I don’t want it to hurt. I could cut my wrists. That might be the easiest way, but blood makes me throw up. So I guess I’ll have to take sleeping pills, but then somebody might find me . . .”
    She went on and on, and I listened. I meant to talk to her about going for counseling, and I meant to say something about changing her attitudes and making friends, but that night I forgot everything, listening to her. I was fascinated as she talked on and on, listing all the possible ways she was considering killing herself.
    She stopped talking when the pizza came and she began eating. I talked a little then, but she barely listened. She ate slowly, with deep concentration. Maybe I ate two or three pieces. She ate all the rest.

eight
    That night it happened again. I woke up so frightened I could