If It Makes You Happy Read online

  “But I’ve been watching him lately. I think he has—”

  “Mind. Your. Business. The answer is no.”

  My temper swelled to a frothing boil. Jaw clenched, I took breaths that were not fucking working. How could she doubt him like that? Her own grandson!? He was my brother. He could do anything he wanted and be successful. My hands shook at my sides, balled into fists, and it took every last ounce of love I had for Granny to not explode. I thought of Winston, of making it worse, of fighting his battles anyway even when he told me not to. “Fine.” Teeth still clenched, the word, the lie, vibrated in my mouth. “Let’s talk about me, then.”

  I was the oldest. Everything began with me. If I could get her to see how unfair she was being to me, I could convince her to cut Winston the same slack. We weren’t babies.

  “What about you?”

  Deep breath. In and out. In and out. Let go of the anger.

  Anger and hurt tended to blend together inside of me, with anger surrounding the hurt in a ferocious, protective ball so no one could ever reach it. Not even me. But I needed it.

  I would try my mom’s method. Starting here with someone I loved, someone who loved me back, someone who was supposed to understand.

  “About what happened in Dr. Skinner’s office. I’m not sorry.” Granny scoffed and I held up my trembling hands. “I know that sounds terrible, and I know I probably could have handled that better, but like, everyone hates fat people. At least it feels that way. They might not admit it, or consciously think about it, but at one point or another, a fat person will piss them off and that’s the first thing they go for when they retaliate.”

  “Winnie.” Granny used her stern and that’s final voice. “You are not fat.”

  “But I am. It’s not a bad word to me at all. I get what you hear when I’m saying it: I’m calling myself ugly or unlovable or it’s the horrendous state of slovenly being. That’s not what I’m saying, and it’s not my fault that almost everyone has been conditioned to think that way. I just don’t see it like that. I don’t know why I don’t. I don’t know why the word fat as an adjective, as an insult, doesn’t hurt me. It just doesn’t. But what does hurt me is the way people treat me because of what I am. So—I get defensive. Sometimes preemptively.”

  “He wanted to help you. You don’t behave like that when people are being nice.”

  “He wasn’t.” I closed my eyes and breathed. It wasn’t about Skinner. I couldn’t let him ruin this for me. Let go of the anger. Speak the truth. “Being fat changes the rules for me because … being nice? Being helpful? All of that becomes an act. Saying things that he thinks could happen to me because I’m fat wasn’t nice. It wasn’t kind. It was dehumanizing.”

  “You don’t honestly think that.”

  “Yeah. I do.” I nodded, finding the steady pulse of confidence that would carry me through this conversation. “Look at it like this: I may have snapped but only because he had all of the power. He’s a doctor. He has degrees and experience and science, and so by default it’s assumed he knows better than I do, right? He didn’t look at my chart to see my blood pressure is stellar. He didn’t call my doctor and ask to see my records and blood tests and everything else. He saw me, a Black fat girl, and assumed diabetes and hypertension and death by thirty-five from a heart attack. Those same exact things could be just as true for Sam as they are for me, and the only difference is he looked at me and with no evidence other than my weight deemed me more likely to be the one to go through that.”

  I paused to breathe again. Granny sat still as stone, lips pressed together, eyes judging and weighing what her next step would be, regardless of how long that took.

  “That’s what I have to fight against all the time.” My voice softened against my will. “They see me and refuse to hear me. And it’s not just doctors. So no, I’m not sorry for sticking up for myself, but I am sorry for the way I handled it. I knew what I was doing would make you upset and I chose to do it anyway.”

  Everyone always said I had Granny’s eyes. Deep set, dark brown, and could cut through anything with a single look. They’d skipped a generation and jumped straight into her grandbaby instead of her son. She even took a deep breath before deciding to talk, too.

  “I’m not going to live forever. Some days I wake up and the pain is so bad, I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

  “Granny—”

  “Don’t.” She held up a gnarled finger. “I listened to you, now you listen to me. I’m old. It happens. But I’ve lived my life. I have two wonderful alive and free sons who went to college, met their beautiful wives, and gave me three beautiful grandchildren. I’m spending my retirement living my last dream—owning my own business. My own restaurant. You’re still young, Winnie. You have your whole life ahead of you. You are so, so blessed that you can do and go and be just about anything, but you have to think about your health.”

  There’d be no point in repeating that fat didn’t mean unhealthy. Or mentioning that even if it did, it wouldn’t automatically disqualify me from deserving a dignified life. “I can live my life and be fat. If I want to lose weight, I will, but I don’t.”

  “Life will only get harder for you.”

  “Then that’s the path I’ll walk.”

  “If you don’t care, then why did you go running with Sam?”

  “Deciding to do that doesn’t mean you were right. I’m not doing it for you. That’s about Sam. She wanted to do something together, just us, and that’s what she picked. So you don’t have to make me special diet food. I’d super prefer if you didn’t.”

  “Baby, I hear you but I can’t just do nothing. I talked to your mom.”

  “Yeah.” I flirted with danger for one hot second and narrowed my eyes at Granny. “Feel free to not do that either.”

  “Winnie.”

  “Sorry, but don’t bring my parents into this. They’ve never done stuff like this.”

  If my parents cared, they never showed it. The only time my mom had ever said anything about my weight was when she asked, “Do the kids at school bully you?”

  It got hard at times when my friends, not just my fat friends, would cry about the way their parents restricted their food. I’d sat through lunches of them eating carrot sticks, not because they liked them but because they were being good, chugging protein shakes and tearing protein bars into smaller and smaller portions to make them last, while staring at hamburgers because they had to make weight. I never judged. Never said anything. But I watched and I listened.

  They would say things to me like, “It’s nice to talk to someone who understands.” Thing was, I actually didn’t. I could empathize. I believed them. People had messed-up thoughts about food and weight and took it out on their kids who took it out on one another.

  I knew I was lucky. Lucky that I was being raised by two rebel unicorns who wanted to be different than their parents had been. I never took that for granted—on God, I loved my family so, so much.

  “I love you. Your mama loves you.” She shook her head and breathed again. “I can understand how you would think Dr. Skinner wasn’t trying to help. I don’t judge, but that man sins Monday through Saturday and is in the front pew in church on Sunday. We want what’s best for you and it would be wrong if we didn’t do something to help.”

  I almost laughed.

  “Help me with what? Medical problems that I don’t have? If that’s the case, why aren’t you talking to Winston? He doesn’t exercise, eats more than I do, and considers Pepsi and Doritos to be major food groups, but he’s skinny so I guess it’s fine. Don’t you see what you’re doing? How unfair it is?”

  “We’re not talking about Winston. We’re talking about how we can help you to—”

  “Right.” I stood up. The shift in my mood hit me like an adrenaline rush—heart pounding, hands shaking, and an added hot flash for rage-tinted funsies. Being soft, being open and honest hadn’t worked. I’d wasted all of that time being vulnerable only to go back
to square one. “Okay, I can feel this isn’t going to end well right now, so I’m going to go. I love you. Thanks for listening.”

  “Don’t walk away from me. Sit down.”

  “No. I don’t want to yell at you, but I’m frustrated and I’m going to lose my temper if you keep on. Just let me chill for a minute. Please.”

  Twenty-Two

  My fury refused to leave.

  I locked myself in my room, hands fisted in my top blanket, staring at the slats underneath the top bunk until my eyes unfocused and crossed. I had to stay still and stay away from everyone. I’d attack the first thing to look at me. Tear into them with unrepentant glee. I hated that about myself almost as much as I loved it. The ballooning feeling of my anger. The way it fit and molded itself into every nook and cranny I had inside of me.

  Not even Kara would be safe.

  Winston knocked on the door about an hour into my self-imposed isolation, asking if I was still taking the deliveries.

  “No.”

  I had never missed a shift at Goldeen’s. Even in the summer, if I had caught a cold, I had sat in the back office doing paperwork to help out in some way. Today I had missed not one, but two.

  Winston didn’t ask why or if I was okay. But he did knock three times on the door—our code for when one of us had passed the point of all sibling help.

  I’m. With. You.

  I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to leave.

  Unfortunately, when six thirty rolled around, my crown and I had somewhere to be.

  Second Street Food and Wine Tasting. Our first Royal Engagement.

  Dallas took one look at me before pulling me to the side. “Are you okay?”

  “No.”

  He nodded, eyes never leaving my face. He had the deepest wrinkle of concern between his perfect eyebrows. “Tonight is really easy. I’ll do all of the talking; you can stand there and be pretty. Maybe a little less ragey? I think there might be a few children out there.”

  I scoffed. “No promises.”

  “Understandable.” He smiled, tilting his head to the side—his art appreciation stance. “Your angry face is actually pretty cute. I like it.”

  “Are you trying to make me laugh?”

  “Not a chance.” He winked. “You okay with touching?”

  He remembered. Surprise slashed straight through my turbulent anger. When he had come to the diner, he had steered the conversation. I never got to explain my side of what happened at the photo shoot.

  But he remembered and he asked. I wanted to thank him, to show him how much I appreciated his thoughtfulness, but all I could manage was, “I don’t know,” because I still didn’t trust my mouth to be civil.

  “We’ll keep it PG, then.” He stood next to me, one hand hovering near my lower back, leaned in close, and whispered, “Five minutes. Not a millisecond more. I promise.”

  We walked together to the small stage, where a band had already set up. He stood directly in front of the mic, me slightly off to the side. His crown glinted in the rapidly dwindling sunlight. He looked like the kind of king that would star in a racebent historical drama. Unfit for the throne because of a glut of kindness, but eager and ready to learn how to rule.

  “Can I have your attention please? Hello?”

  The small crowd near the stage quieted, but he didn’t have the attention of everyone present.

  “Hi. I’m Dallas. The Merry Summer King.” He turned to me. “And this incandescent beauty, Winnie, first of her name, courageous and unchallenged, quick in thought and sly of tongue, holder of a laugh that can make the angels weep in envy, is my Misty Summer Queen.”

  “You showboating jackhole.” The words, ugly and unwarranted, ripped out of me before I could stop them. But the crowd laughed and so did he.

  “She’s a bit more reserved with her compliments for me.” He nudged me closer. “Needless to say, my queen and I have been getting along brilliantly. Communicating, playfully insulting each other, plotting world domination, conducting interrogations masquerading as twenty questions, as is the way. Tonight is pretty special. It’s our first official date—ah, please, applause isn’t necessary—and we decided to share our night with you. There are a few rules for the Food and Wine Tasting, of course. Number one being leave us the hell alone.”

  The crowd laughed again. Dallas continued, “Vultures all of you.” More laughter. “Second rule, please do not provide alcohol to minors unless they’re your own children, in which case they will need to remain with you at all times and you will then be responsible for their hangovers.”

  Dallas continued on, listing each rule he must have memorized, his jokes landing every time. Watching him, I’d almost forgotten about my anger. He knew I would snap at his over-the-top introduction and everyone would laugh. He had called them vultures and probably meant it, but they thought he didn’t. The crowd, which had grown substantially in less than two minutes, was loving every second of this.

  Speech ended, we walked off the stage. “Have I impressed you yet?”

  “You are diabolical. I like it.”

  “I thought you might. How do you feel about pizza?” A few steps to our right, a vendor sold fresh slices.

  “I feel just fine about it. Can’t eat it. I’m gluten intolerant.”

  “For real? That sucks. Almost everything here is wheat-based.” He scanned the carts. “Gelato?”

  “Sure.”

  We picked the same flavor, lavender, for the same reason: to see if it was as gross as it sounded and to suffer through an entire cup together if it was.

  “Holy God, this is amazing.” He looked to me for confirmation. I waited to try it, letting him go first. “I honestly expected it to taste like perfume.”

  “I did, too. That was exactly what popped into my head when I saw it.”

  The crowd thinned out toward the end of the street, so we headed that way. According to the Royalty Rules, we were supposed to mingle and take pictures with everyone. People said hi to us, smiled, and shouted congrats, but no one stopped us per Dallas’s decree.

  “Do you want to talk about why you were so mad? I’m a good listener if you need one.”

  “Just stuff with my granny.”

  “Are you two close?”

  “Relatively.” I snapped my fingers into a finger-gun aimed at him. “Pun point for me.”

  He laughed. “Cute.”

  “It’s a game me and my friends play. It’s kind of like that old show Whose Line? where the points don’t matter.”

  “Cool.”

  A wild bench appeared. The same one he’d found me at a few days ago. My subconscious must have led me to it whenever I was mad at Granny.

  Behind us, the band began to play soft rock, the singer crooning with his voice the same way Kenny G did with his various saxophones. My uncle loved Kenny G and always played his music in the car. I think he must have grown up constantly defending why he liked Kenny G so much, because he always said, “That white boy can play. I’m telling you, he got soul. Respect him” when I tried to change the music.

  I needed to talk to my parents. I’m sure Granny had already called them again, telling on me for being combative again. They’d probably take something away from me this time. After leaving Haven Central, I’d have two weeks at home before moving for school. I’d most likely have to spend all of that time in the house on punishment.

  Dallas gently pressed his index finger against the back of my hand, drawing my attention. “You zoned out there for a second.”

  “That happens. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  “Is it me?” He sounded playful, flirty. Fitting, since he had dubbed the night our first date.

  I smiled at him, unmoved by his charming grin. “You’re in there. Like way, way in the back. A distant speck on the horizon of my consciousness.”

  “Ouch. I’m sitting right here.”

  “Guess you’re not nearly as captivating as you think you are.”

  He didn’t answer r
ight away, but when he did the smile was gone and his voice had gone deeper. “Give me time.”

  “No.” I didn’t like games like this either. Flirting for sport wasn’t fun to me.

  “If I can’t have time, then what can I have?”

  “Nothing. Why should I let you have anything?”

  Dallas turned his body to face me. He leaned on one arm, draped across the back of the bench. “Because you want to.”

  “And what makes you think you know what I want?”

  “Because I want the same thing. Like attracts like.”

  “Oh, is that how that works? I had no idea. So what is it that we want? Enlighten me.”

  “Easy. To talk. To get to know each other—find out what we have in common, what we don’t.” He paused so long I thought he’d finished, but then he added, “To be friends.”

  My smile froze in response to his astounding confidence. “And here I thought your psychic powers were only fashion-related.”

  “I’m a man of many talents. Let me be your confessional tonight. I want to help.”

  “Why do you even care? It’s nothing.”

  “Because I like you.”

  “You already said that.”

  “And I’m saying it again because it feels like you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you.” But did I trust him? What happened with Granny wasn’t a small thing. Baring my soul to him, on technically our second night of friendship, didn’t feel like a good idea.

  “How about this? You only tell me the parts you’re comfortable with me knowing and skim over the rest. You could also vaguely summarize what happened so I’ll only get the gist of it. Just enough to help.”

  That didn’t sound too bad. “We need a code first. Since we’re still bright and shiny, we should have something we can say that means it’s private. It stays between us.”

  “Do you have a code with Kara?”

  “I know her well enough to not need one.”

  “Ah. Okay then. How about gelato? In honor of tonight.”

  “Gelato.” I nodded, taking another bite of mine. I hadn’t eaten all day, but my stupid emotions were in control of things they shouldn’t have been, so I still didn’t feel hungry. “Do you ever feel like people don’t listen to you on purpose? My granny does that. It’s like she refuses to.”