I sighed. “Hey, Lexi,” I said from my bed. She and Jean were giggling together. She looked over, caught in mid-laugh. Her eyes shone. She looked beautiful. Please stay, I wanted to say. Wait for me. Don’t leave me in our room alone. But all that came out was, “Good luck.” It sounded lame, even to me. Her smile evaporated. She opened her mouth like she was about to say something, but right then Jean stood up and announced, “We are going to be so late!” and Willa and Beth and even Margot got up and rushed Lexi like she was a Kardashian, literally waiting in line to give her a hug. I hung back, watching the circus, hoping that if I didn’t participate, she wouldn’t actually leave.
My first activity of the day was art therapy. The girls were cheery and the sun was out, but the room still felt dark. Our task was to decorate wooden picture frames with stick-on jewels, paint, feathers, buttons, and the other dribs and drabs left over from past art projects. In between the tacky decorations, we were supposed to write positive affirmations, like STRONG! BRAVE! WORTH IT!
I glued one hot-pink feather to mine and then put it down. I couldn’t let Lexi leave without a better goodbye. She deserved that from me. When the art therapist wasn’t looking, I stashed my picture frame under a rainbow-colored pile of feathers and snuck out. No one noticed.
Back in our room, I found her perched on her bed, back to me, filling out forms. Even after all this treatment she still looked like a Disney princess—impossibly tiny waist, minuscule wrists, huge head. I tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around.
Holy crap. It wasn’t Lexi. It was her mom. Lexi often complained about her mom’s weight, but I never imagined her looking so small and emaciated. Sick, like Lexi when she’d first arrived. She peered at me over the top of a pair of reading glasses. Her hair, the same color as Lexi’s, was thin, and her skin was caked with makeup.
“Oh, hello,” she said, in a hoarse, tinny Long Island accent. “Were you Lexi’s roommate?” She looked me up and down. I wondered what she saw.
“I’m Elizabeth.” I stuck my hand out. Hers was limp and cold, like shaking hands with a vampire. I thought of my mom’s own firm grip. I felt a pang. I hadn’t talked to her since phone therapy.
“Lexi has talked about you a lot. Where are you from?” Her mom smiled at me. Her teeth were nearly translucent.
“Esterfall.”
“You’re lucky you’re close by.” She sounded overwhelmed. “We have a drive of six hours ahead of us.”
Lexi walked out of the bathroom. She was wearing jeans, which I’d never seen her in, and a short leather jacket, also new. She looked like a different person. Older. Pretty. I remembered her that first day, how colorless she’d been. Now she actually had a tinge of pink in her cheeks.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’s in the car on a call. God forbid he clears his schedule for his daughter.”
Lexi ignored her and turned to me. “You’re supposed to be in art!” she said, hugging me hard.
I returned the squeeze, whispering, “I couldn’t let you leave without a proper goodbye. I’m sorry I didn’t say something better before. I should have.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
She held me at arm’s length, like a mom would. “You’re going to leave soon too. I just know it.”
My brain flashed back to the conversation with my parents. I wasn’t sure if I wanted that or not. “Can I ask you something?”
She nodded. I pulled her into the bathroom.
“Lexi, don’t take too long,” her mom called after us.
She turned to me, her face open. “What’s wrong?”
At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the words out, but then they poured out in a rush, tumbling over each other. “Do you think there will be a day when we don’t think about food at all? That we’ll just eat it, enjoy it, and move on with our day?”
She looked me right in the eyes. “Yes. I do. I believe we will have a day when we eat lunch and never think about it again.” Then she smiled.
“Lexi, honey, come on!” Her mom’s nasal voice needled its way into the bathroom with us.
We hugged. “Well, you better go. Smith is waiting.” I followed her out of the bathroom.
Her mom smiled at me. “Thank you for being such a good friend to Lexi. I hope you two stay in touch. Lex, honey, you ready?”
Lexi nodded. They both turned toward the door, and that’s when I saw that her mom was carrying an inflatable plastic ring, similar to a pool floatie. She was too thin to sit without one. Her bottom didn’t have enough cushioning.
Lexi stared at the doughnut. She flushed. I pretended not to see it.
“Good luck, Elizabeth,” Lexi said with a final squeeze of my hand. “I’ll never forget you.” Then she grabbed the handle of the suitcase, tipped it onto its wheels, and left, her mom trailing almost weightlessly behind her.
26
Three days after Lexi left, we got a postcard, just like she’d promised. On the front was a picture of a bakery in the Hamptons. I snickered. Nice irony. On the back it read:
Being home is great. Taking it meal by meal, but so far so good! Mom put in a call to Smith, so we’ll see what happens! Thinking of you all, all the time. If I can do it, you can, too! Love you all!
xoxo Lexi
I brought it with me to group.
“That’s so great,” Jean said as we waited for Marcia.
“That’s cool,” Margot agreed.
Willa looked at it. “Can I have the card?”
I knew the nice thing to do would be to hand it over. But I shook my head. “Maybe later, Willa. I have to show it to a couple of other people first.”
Willa sat back and pouted. I didn’t look at Margot or Jean, but I could feel their disapproval. Still, I carefully tucked the postcard into the back of my journal.
I missed Lexi terribly. More than the other girls did. Without her, our room was quiet and cold. It made me homesick.
Parents aside, I couldn’t stop thinking about home. I wanted to be able to watch TV whenever I felt like it. I wanted to be able to shave my legs and go to the mall and get coffee—real coffee. I didn’t want to feel like a prisoner anymore. Oh, and I wanted my phone back. I was dying to have my phone back. And I wanted to sleep in my own bed, which definitely DID NOT have a plastic cover that crackled when I moved, and I wanted, more than anything, not to have an empty bed next to me that looked like a coffin in the dark.
Marcia arrived and produced a Magic 8 Ball, the black plastic toy where you ask a question about your future, shake the ball, and then turn it over to see a prediction appear on the bottom. I got one in my Christmas stocking when I was ten. I’d ask it questions like, Will I be rich someday? or Will I be a famous movie star? It always said stuff like, My reply is no, or Don’t count on it. Once, I asked it if I would be pretty. I got, Reply hazy, try again. When I tried again, I got, Does not look good.
I promised myself that when Marcia asked for a volunteer, I’d raise my hand. If I wanted to go home, I needed to be an A student, just like Lexi.