friends and be friends with people. Girls especially. Boys, I don’t know, boys always seem to be making friends. But girls, you know, they need an occasion and this was an occasion. It was like a friend sale, with everyone starting from scratch, NEEDING friends, and OH LOOK here’s a bunch of kids your own age. People BECAME friends really fast. Like these two girls from Shar’s floor: Sarah and Tori. Sarah was this tall Chinese chick with a big long ponytail of jet-black hair and a lot of cartoon character T-shirts and Tori was this little curly hairedredhead with a lot of track pants. By the end of the first week they’d become this sweatpants-andcartoon-T-shirt-wearing posse.
Shar hated Sarah and Tori. Shar said something about going to the Tower of Power with Sarah, but I guess she rubbed Shar the wrong way. Whatever happened, it left a mark. Shar narrowed her eyes whenever Sarah and Tori walked past us in rez. She called them “the Patties” because they’d quickly developed the habit of eating these veggie patty things they bought at the convenience store around the corner and then toasted in the communal kitchen.
“Look, it’s the Patties .”
“Yeah. Their colons must be totally twisted from eating all that soy.”
“That’s Asian Patty,” Shar said, pointing.
“What’s the little one?”
“Mini Patty.”
Shar detested the food at the cafeteria too, but her solution was a little less healthy than the Patties’. Basically, whenever possible, we ate in one of the many crappy diner-type places in and around campus. EatWhat does that mean?”
and looked sly and serious. But she ate like someone who was about to have her plate yanked away. Plus she covered just about everything she consumed in a mess of ketchup so that it looked like roadkill. It was kind of gross.
“The Patties are TOTALLY anorexic,” Shar said one day while devouring a hamburger special with fries. “Anyone who insists on going to the bathroom WITH someone, that’s anorexia.”
“Weird. How do you know they weren’t just going to the bathroom together like girls do all the time?”
“There’s a difference. You can just tell with girls that are precious like that.”
Shar said the Patties reminded her of her sister.
“My sister Madison is anorexic.”
Madison, I wanted to say, sounds like a hotel.
“Allison, you don’t know what it’s like living with that kind of reality-TV fucked-up-ness. It’s all well and good to feel sorry for people like that until you have to eat with them.”
Shar sucked up a french fry and swiped her ketchup lip gloss off with her napkin. In the booth behind her, boys were rapping along with the restaurant radio. Shar paused to roll her eyes. “My parents had to install a widescreen in the kitchen so we wouldn’thave to watch Madison lick her hundred calories out of her special teacup every night. That’s the fucked-up thing about anorexia, right? It’s cute until someone’s skin starts losing its elasticity and their gums bleed. Wait. You’re not ’rexian are you?”
“No. I mean. Obviously.” Actually I was probably exactly the opposite. My whole life my body had had the exact same shape, like a tube of toothpaste. It was hard to get all worked up about a consistency.
“Never, when you’re around me, bitch about feeling fat.”
Shar’s eyes pinched and focused in on me as though to detect any future body image issues I might whine about.
“You really think the Patties are anorexic? They don’t look very thin.”
“That’s how it STARTS, doesn’t it?” Shar scoffed. “You have to BE FAT to want to BE THIN, Allison. Now THERE’S a social problem for you.”
Ever since the first Social Problems lecture Shar had gotten into the habit of pointing out social problems whenever they appeared in her view. Crowding, littering, mass stupidity, sameness. College was rife with them.
“Is this a social problem you plan to do something about?” I asked.
“If I wanted
Shar hated Sarah and Tori. Shar said something about going to the Tower of Power with Sarah, but I guess she rubbed Shar the wrong way. Whatever happened, it left a mark. Shar narrowed her eyes whenever Sarah and Tori walked past us in rez. She called them “the Patties” because they’d quickly developed the habit of eating these veggie patty things they bought at the convenience store around the corner and then toasted in the communal kitchen.
“Look, it’s the Patties .”
“Yeah. Their colons must be totally twisted from eating all that soy.”
“That’s Asian Patty,” Shar said, pointing.
“What’s the little one?”
“Mini Patty.”
Shar detested the food at the cafeteria too, but her solution was a little less healthy than the Patties’. Basically, whenever possible, we ate in one of the many crappy diner-type places in and around campus. EatWhat does that mean?”
and looked sly and serious. But she ate like someone who was about to have her plate yanked away. Plus she covered just about everything she consumed in a mess of ketchup so that it looked like roadkill. It was kind of gross.
“The Patties are TOTALLY anorexic,” Shar said one day while devouring a hamburger special with fries. “Anyone who insists on going to the bathroom WITH someone, that’s anorexia.”
“Weird. How do you know they weren’t just going to the bathroom together like girls do all the time?”
“There’s a difference. You can just tell with girls that are precious like that.”
Shar said the Patties reminded her of her sister.
“My sister Madison is anorexic.”
Madison, I wanted to say, sounds like a hotel.
“Allison, you don’t know what it’s like living with that kind of reality-TV fucked-up-ness. It’s all well and good to feel sorry for people like that until you have to eat with them.”
Shar sucked up a french fry and swiped her ketchup lip gloss off with her napkin. In the booth behind her, boys were rapping along with the restaurant radio. Shar paused to roll her eyes. “My parents had to install a widescreen in the kitchen so we wouldn’thave to watch Madison lick her hundred calories out of her special teacup every night. That’s the fucked-up thing about anorexia, right? It’s cute until someone’s skin starts losing its elasticity and their gums bleed. Wait. You’re not ’rexian are you?”
“No. I mean. Obviously.” Actually I was probably exactly the opposite. My whole life my body had had the exact same shape, like a tube of toothpaste. It was hard to get all worked up about a consistency.
“Never, when you’re around me, bitch about feeling fat.”
Shar’s eyes pinched and focused in on me as though to detect any future body image issues I might whine about.
“You really think the Patties are anorexic? They don’t look very thin.”
“That’s how it STARTS, doesn’t it?” Shar scoffed. “You have to BE FAT to want to BE THIN, Allison. Now THERE’S a social problem for you.”
Ever since the first Social Problems lecture Shar had gotten into the habit of pointing out social problems whenever they appeared in her view. Crowding, littering, mass stupidity, sameness. College was rife with them.
“Is this a social problem you plan to do something about?” I asked.
“If I wanted
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