If It Makes You Happy Page 6

  I needed to know why. I needed to be able to give Kara a definitive answer and fix this before it was too late.

  Eight

  My summer, my perfect, fun, and stress-free summer, had been thrown to the Haven wolves. Kara’s radio silence, Dallas’s disappearing act, Winston’s grouchiness, Sam and her surprise-attack thing we’d soon have to share, the impending tiebreaker—no more surprises were allowed. None!

  On top of that, I should have been at Goldeen’s, twirling happily around the floor while taking orders, serenading customers with some surprisingly pleasant off-key renditions of whatever song played and impressing them with my ability to shimmy while holding four plates full of food, two on each arm.

  Instead I had been doomed to endure the unnatural stillness of Dr. Skinner’s waiting room. Only the ticking of the analog clock meant time continued to pass and we hadn’t been transported to some accursed Langoliers dimension.

  Winston made me watch that movie during a random Netflix binge session.

  Nightmares. For weeks.

  Too short to elegantly tap my toes on the floor, and thighs too big to comfortably cross my legs at the knee to do that fidget thing with my foot like my mom did, I sat slumped in my seat. Shoulders raised near my ears. Flicking my fingernails. Just miserable.

  Granny tapped my arm. “Don’t slouch. Sit up.”

  “Winnie Woodson?” the nurse called.

  I shot to my feet, ready to skulk across the room. Granny stood, too. “Are you going to the bathroom?”

  “I’m coming with you.” She placed a hand on my lower back.

  “Uh, no? I mean, I’m okay. It’s just a quick test.”

  “I want to ask the doctor some questions. Come on. We’re wasting Nurse Nicole’s time.”

  “I doubt it. There’s no one else here.”

  Granny pinched the skin above my elbow with pursed lips.

  “Hi,” Nicole said, cheerier than any human had any right to be. “I’ve heard so much about you. It’s nice to finally meet.”

  “Likewise.”

  Notwise. Or whatever the reverse of that word was.

  Naturally, I had already heard the lowdown about Nurse Nicole Winters since Granny made weekly trips to the doctor for her asthma and arthritis pain management. Recent graduate, top of her class, couldn’t get a job in the saturated nursing field until nepotism kicked in and got her the gig in Misty. No kids. No spouse. No roommate. “Pretty as could be”—Granny’s words—“and had that Michael Jackson thing but didn’t cover it up with makeup.”

  Vitiligo. Every time I had to explain to Granny that it wasn’t a thing, had a proper name, and didn’t need to be covered up, my temper shortened another inch.

  Nicole walked us to the back, stopping at Dr. Death’s way station in front of a short hallway with four doors, two on each side. She smiled. “I’m going to take your blood pressure and temperature. Have a seat here.”

  I sat, trying to remain motionless and calm while the machine inflated the cuff that squeezed the life out of my arm, and returned her smile. Sort of. It might have been a grimace—like I had a stomachache I wanted to hide, which, coincidentally, I did.

  “Excellent.” Nicole sounded surprised as she jotted down the numbers in the manila file. I narrowed my eyes, watching her. “And if I can get you to step on the scale.”

  The metal base of the scale gleamed in the light.

  “No, thanks.”

  Nicole blinked at me. “It’ll only take a moment.”

  I held in my initial reply, a superb and snarky one, instead choosing to say, “I’ll keep my moment, thank you.”

  “But I have to.”

  “But you don’t, actually.” I aimed for pleasant. Conversational. “You’re not legally required to weigh me and I am within my right to say no, so no, thank you.”

  “Winnie,” Granny said, voice a decibel away from a hiss. “Stop it.”

  “What? I was nice.”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Granny said to an increasingly flustered Nicole. “She can be so hardheaded sometimes. Stubborn just like her daddy.”

  I picked my battles with care. Denying Granny anything often came with the unwelcome side effects of silent treatments, disappointed sighs, nagging, and an abundance of newly created chores. But hospitals and medical clinics and even a tiny doctor’s office in a small village could be an active war zone for fat people. I’d read the stories online of fat people not getting the treatment they needed because the magical catchall cure for them was to lose weight. Not even suspected cancer stood a chance against weight loss!

  I wasn’t ashamed of the way I looked. I weighed what I weighed and that was that. Everybody else seemed unable to comprehend that memo. The second Dr. Skinner saw the number, my appointment would turn into a lecture meant to “help.” It wouldn’t be my first fat-shaming rodeo. I knew that script, and nope. Not happening.

  “Stop making Nurse Nicole’s job difficult. Get on the scale so we can get on with your appointment. I want to inspect that shipment of strawberries before the driver leaves this time. Come on, now.” She waved me toward the scale. Nudged me in that direction, tapping my behind.

  I knew what I needed, a blood test and a possible shot, and that it didn’t require me to get weighed. This battle? Worth it? Defiance in the name of self-preservation.

  Twisting away, I walked past both of them. “Which room am I in? Eeny, meeny, miny, mo?”

  Granny’s eyebrows hit her hairline. She tucked in her chin, lips formed to make the “Tuh!” sound.

  “Um, number two.” Nicole hurried to open the door and escorted us in.

  I jumped onto the exam table, legs swinging.

  Granny followed, settling into the chair in the corner.

  Nicole placed my chart in the inbox for Dr. Skinner.

  I eyed Granny. Her physical cues of indignation rose like a thermometer stuck in boiling water. Any second now …

  Granny placed her bag on the small counter because it was bad luck to set it on the floor.

  Nicole excused herself.

  The door clicked shut.

  “So I guess you grown now?” Rain or shine, the Vexation Express was always on time. Granny sat back, hands laced together on her lap, staring at me with enough wrath to make Khan bow down. “I’m talking to you. Answer me.”

  “I didn’t want to be weighed today. That’s all. I wasn’t disrespectful.”

  “But what did I tell you to do? Out here acting like…”

  Well. That conversation had ended. Anything I said from that point on during Granny’s tirade could and would be used against me in the Black Parental Court of Law. The right to remain silent didn’t exist. Once the rhetorical questions started, the tirade would turn into a trap of Faerie Queene proportions.

  If I answered, I was screwed.

  If I stayed silent, I was royally screwed.

  “… you look at me when I’m talking to you!”

  “Knock, knock,” Dr. Skinner greeted as the door opened. Granny shut up mid-sentence, mouth snapping closed. “How are you, Winfrey? Or should I say Queen Winfrey.”

  “Ha. Ha.” I smiled until the urge of wanting to kick him in the back of the knee and watch him roll down a hill passed. Usage of my real name was punishable by bodily harm.

  Most people assumed Winnie had been shortened from Winifred. My full government name was Winfrey Diane Woodson. Yes, that Winfrey. My mom loved Oprah. Loved her to the point of worship.

  My mom had given birth to yours truly, had wanted to name her darling newborn daughter Oprah, and then my dad threatened to divorce his glowing and exhausted wife on the spot. She had settled for Winfrey. He had called me Winnie. History had been made.

  No one called me Winfrey. Skinner knew that but insisted on using my real name every chance he got because that’s the kind of guy he was.

  He placed the stethoscope pods in his ears and did all of the normal doctor checker-upper things—listened to my heart and lungs, looked in m
y eyes and ears, made my knee kick like a possessed donkey, and made my ankles twitch.

  “So what’s this about you not wanting to be weighed?”

  Granny’s head swiveled in my direction, an expectant look on her face.

  “It’s not illegal to say no.” One … two … three …

  “That’s true,” Skinner confirmed. “But in order to give you a complete health assessment, I need to know how much you weigh.”

  Four … five … six … Maybe if I smiled he would just do what I wanted. “Mmmm, that’s not why I’m here. I have a primary already. Thanks.”

  Skinner exhaled, leaning back against the small counter. “I don’t have access to your file, so I need to collect information to help me help you. Do you understand that?”

  “Do I—understand? Ooookay.” I felt that familiar indignant, self-righteous pull, the speech already locked, loaded, and eager to go. Half the time I didn’t even have to think of what I wanted to say because my mind stayed ready. “I understand that you know my weight is irrelevant to the task at hand. And I understand that you are not listening to me. Can you please give me the blood test so I can leave?”

  Another exhale with a headshake on top of it. “I’m not the enemy here, Winnie. I want to help you—”

  “Then give me the blood test.” Seven … eight … nine …

  Dr. Skinner began rattling off a litany of ailments, conditions I could look forward to if I didn’t lose weight.

  Osteoarthritis. Gout. Hypertension.

  I sat there, taking it, letting the words wash over me. It wasn’t like it was Brand! New! Information! I’d heard the same preachy speeches for what felt like forever.

  Infertility. Sleep apnea. Depression.

  But with each new potential prognosis, Granny’s face fell a little lower.

  Stroke. Sudden cardiac arrest. Death.

  “—but she’s not that big. It’s just baby fat,” Granny protested.

  The sadness in her voice broke my heart, and rage flooded the cracks.

  Ten.

  I tried.

  I really, really did.

  “You know what?” I looked him dead in the eye. “We all have to go sometime. And evidence has shown that the universe doesn’t care if you’re skinny or not. Otherwise, mass shootings wouldn’t happen in schools. Don’t even get me started on genocide.

  “I’m paying you out of pocket because my insurance doesn’t cover any kind of service here at your little Podunk practice. So do the job I’m paying you to do and stop trying to use me being here as a chance to flex and make my granny upset. You don’t know the first thing about me, but oh, I know all about you, and I know you have way bigger problems than a fat girl in your office, Dr. I Cheated on My Wife with Her Sister. Learn to worry about yourself.”

  Nine

  My temper landed me in more trouble than I would have liked. No trouble would have been great, but actions had consequences, and I accepted that fact of life. But. If people would just chill out and listen to me, I wouldn’t be forced to snap so often and hurt their little feelings.

  And honestly? My parents told me that I’d straight up inherited that trait from Granny, so it was pretty amazingly hypocritical of her to get mad when my sass showed up to party.

  And punishment number one of the forthcoming eleventy billion? One-hundred percent unfair.

  Instead of letting me spend the afternoon shadowing Nadiya to finish learning my managerial duties like I’d planned to, Granny kicked me out.

  “Go outside and get some air. Take a nap. Do something. I don’t want you or your attitude in here.”

  That cut me deep. Right to the bone. Nothing could have possibly hurt me more than being banished from Goldeen’s.

  Also, for the record? Air was everywhere. That made zero sense, but even my parents said it.

  I walked to the Sugar Shoppe on Second Street even though the weather could be described using the words muggy, hot, and balls, with a few conjunctions thrown in for clarity. Kara loved chocolate-covered walnuts and red whips, so I bought those and some jawbreakers for Winston because he hated them. Sweetening Kara up and irritating Winston would at least open the communication door.

  Granny was mad at me. That overrode everything else. I needed my people back on my side and talking to me. She would get over it eventually, but I wasn’t above playing the victim card to gain sympathy points from my people until that happened.

  After buying the candy, I wandered through Misty Haven, saying hi and catching up with everyone.

  That lasted like twenty minutes.

  Granny had kept me up to speed throughout the year. I already knew everything about Miss Shin’s new online store, Sunshine Cross-Stitch; the automotive shop’s expansion into the tow-truck business; the day care that opened up last fall and was currently really pissed off at Sam for taking some of their business; how the floral boutique Forget-Me-Nots had reached their first million-dollar revenue milestone after thirty years.…

  All of it so wonderful.

  All of it so boring and not what I wanted to be doing.

  I ended up at the park, sitting on a bench, with a cup of praline ripple ice cream. Not even Sam could save me from my boredom. Her shift babysitting the Honey Bunches of Kids didn’t end until five.

  Side note: I really needed to make more friends in HC.

  I could’ve moved on to Merry, but thanks to Kara I knew all about the happenings over there, too. Move-ins, babies, foreclosures—all of it started to bleed together after a while.

  The indelible charm of Haven Central tended to suck people in until, when you thought about it, only one pervasive whimsical feeling stuck out. Nothing felt unique or exceptional about it. It was a place to live, just like any other.

  “Winnie.”

  Butterflies, birds, bees, name a winged creature, and it flapped inside of my stomach at the sight of Dallas. That initial gut reaction from seeing him always took me by surprise.

  Having a type was a strange, strange thing. So far, I knew I liked pretty boys and beautiful girls, and thought that love at first sight was a myth on par with the Loch Ness Monster. Maybe it was real in a prehistoric, tale-as-old-as-time kind of way. But maybe it was a fantastical hoax created to uphold unreal romantic expectations, because there was no way that’s all there was to it.

  Right then, all I knew for sure was that I really, really liked Dallas’s face.

  And that two days ago, he had volunteered to be my king and would have to compete against Kara to win that title.

  He stood next to my bench, holding a reusable canvas bag stuffed with—I squinted for a second—books.

  “Oh. Hey,” I said, setting my ice cream down. I was cool with eating in public alone as long as I didn’t feel like someone was watching. But if someone had joined me and they weren’t eating? I had to stop.

  “You know, they only sell that flavor in the summer when you’re here.” He gestured to my ice cream. “Sascha told me. People don’t even know what it’s called. They just go in and ask for Winnie’s ice cream.”

  “They are rather fond of me.”

  “Most of the people here are. When you’re not biting their heads off anyway.” He smirked. “Skinner’s already lit up the phone tree.”

  “So much for doctor-patient confidentiality. I’m convinced the devil created group texts.”

  “Probably. And doubled down on the evil by creating the ones you can’t opt out of.”

  I laughed, but it sounded like a humorous, drawn-out growl. “This is going to haunt me for the rest of the summer. I can feel it.”

  “Not gonna lie, I was pretty shocked when I heard about it at the library just now,” he said, gaze drifting off to the side. The muscles in his jaw worked as he shook his head, a quick frown settling then disappearing on his features. Whatever he had just thought of in that briefest of seconds irritated him. “It didn’t seem like something you would do, insult him and stuff. You’re always so nice.”

  So
metimes, I didn’t want to be nice. I didn’t think I was a bad person, but that niceness felt like a burden I had to endure because of my Blackness. Doubly so because I was a girl. Triply so because I was fat. How come I wasn’t allowed to have that space where my attitude could be less than? I was a person, human, too. People weren’t always nice. Neither was I—I just hid it until the breathing and the counting failed me.

  “Well,” he continued hastily. “Maybe not nice, but you’re not that kind of mean.”

  My face must have given something away for him to change his mind. Unsurprising.

  “I did what I had to do,” I said.

  “I’m sure. Dude’s an asshole.” He gave me an approving look. “If you say you had a good reason, I believe you.”

  I … wasn’t expecting that. He believed me? “Thanks,” I said, softer than I intended, while looking at him. “Usually, people don’t give me the benefit of the doubt.”

  He nodded as if to say you’re welcome. “So what are you up to? Just enjoying the view of screaming, happy kids terrorizing their wooden playground empire?”

  “It’s been fascinating.” I pointed at a pair of kids. “The one in the red shirt pushed the one in the blue shirt down the slide because he was taking too long. Blue was super scared, and, I mean, look at the height on that thing—I’d be scared, too. Anyway, Red pushed him, and Blue howled for his dad the whole way down, poor kid. But then he gets to the bottom with Red trailing behind him, right, and then he turns around and slaps Red dead in the face. I heard the smack from way over here. I was shocked! Shocked! Five minutes later, they’re holding hands running for the seesaw like nothing happened. Truly riveting stuff.”

  Dallas chuckled. “If only that worked the same way for verbal slaps.”

  “Kids, man. They don’t know how easy they got it. My granny is mad at me about the Skinner thing. She kicked me out. Temporarily. I think. I’ll see what happens when I go home.”

  “Yikes,” he said. “So you want to get out of here or what?”