Anita Rose: Part II

Anita Rose
by Jill C.

I can't sleep. I rarely can sleep. It's been this way all my life. I used to have nightmares about when I lived with my real mother, but they've mostly gone away. I don't think about her hitting me anymore. I think mostly about myself.

I can't sleep. I run the fingers of my right hand down the long scar on my left forearm. I put it there two years ago. I had been grasping for control, of myself, of anything. The pain had been too much; I could never have done it again. My excuse to Momma Betty about shaving the coarse black hair off my arms was only good once as well.

I really can't sleep. I lay flat on my back, the tattered shorts of my pajamas sit on my skeletal hip bones, the waistband stretched taught a full inch from the skin of my stomach. I slide my hand into the gap and pinch just below my navel. Skin stretches up between my fingers easily. Fat. Yuck.

I push myself out of bed and look in the mirror. In the dark and without my glasses, it looks like my pale blue pajamas are floating on their own; my dark tan skin has completely disappeared into the gloom. The image is disconcerting, and the dizziness that came on when I got out of bed suddenly takes hold. I stumble and hold my abdomen, nauseous and seeing stars. God, I'm hungry. I had a few bites of meatloaf at dinner, that should have held me over through the night. Momma Betty had sighed when she saw my nearly full plate next to the sink, but she didn't say anything. She knew meatloaf was my least favorite meal.

The thought of dinner brought something else to my mind. Momma Betty had been standing at the sink, washing dishes, when Rosie had wrapped her pudgy arms around Momma's legs.
"Sweet girl," Momma Betty had said. Rosie beamed, and gave her another squeeze, bumping into the garbage can on the other side of Momma's knees. When Rosie relinquished her grip, her fat fist was stuffed with the meatloaf Momma Betty had scraped from my plate into the garbage just a moment before.

My stomach twists, and sick hunger fills me again. I ease to my bedroom door and peer down the dark hall. No lights, not even streaming from under Momma Betty's bedroom door. Everyone is asleep. I begin to walk down the pitch black hall towards the kitchen, when suddenly there is the sound of a seal being broken and light floods the hall. I squint, and make out the silhouette of Rosie's fat body in front of the open refrigerator.

She turns her head owlishly to look at me, not moving her body at all. She clutches at a large blue sausage shaped thing. I take a step closer, and I can make out the image of the Pillsbury dough boy on the roll of pre-made cookie dough.

"What're you doing," Rosie says in her bland voice. She's been living her for almost a week and I still haven't gotten used to her disconcerting way of talking.

"I'm hungry," I reply.

"You're never hungry." This is true, or at least what I tell everyone. Rosie lets the refrigerator door close, then brings the tube of dough to her mouth. She bites off the sealed end, then squeezes the sweet goo into her mouth. She offers the tube to me. I take it, but don't eat.

"Why do you do that?" I ask. We have all so far avoided saying anything about Rosie's obvious obesity, but I am suddenly too curious to be polite. "You're already so-- I mean..." I trail off.

Rosie smacks the food around her wet, fat mouth. "I know," she says thickly, "I know I'm fat. I just can't help it." Tears well around her deep set eyes. "I never have enough. I want more. I can't sleep, and I want more." Rosie's nose and eyes are streaming.

I look down at the cookie dough in my hands. Thick drops of saliva cling to the blue plastic from where Rosie's mouth touched it. I clamp my mouth around the tube and use my teeth to force the dough up into my mouth. I swallow immediately, and I feel chocolate chips scraping my throat on the way down. I squeeze more dough into my mouth, then shove the tube back into Rosie's eager hands. Tears fill my eyes as well.

We are opposites, yet the same. We both want, crave, but not the thing. The control. The power. We take turns shoving the raw dough down our throats until it is gone. Then we cry. We sit on the kitchen floor and let tears stream down our cheeks, weeping for what we've done, what we want, what is.

Rosie finally falls asleep, curled on the rug in front of the refrigerator. I think of putting her back in her improvised sun porch of a bedroom, but I can't move her bulk. So I leave her and head back to my own room. The faint tinge of dawn glows behind the blinds on my window. Cleavland will be home soon, and Momma Betty will be up to make breakfast. I laugh a little when I think of Momma finding Rosie sleeping in the kitchen.

The laugh hurts my stomach; it's so full, and stretched tighter than it has been in years. Disgust grips me. How could I have done that? How stupid! You're stupid. You're fat...

And then I'm in the bathroom kneeling in front of the toilet, so sickened by what I've done that I don't even have to stick my finger down my throat to purge myself. I'm ill again and again, until I begin to see stars. I lay my head on the edge of the toilet seat and close my eyes.

Tennis shoes are clapping down the wood floor of the hallway. The bathroom door is pushed open, and it collides with my leg. I groan in pain, but whether it's from my leg or my stomach, I can't tell. I see Momma Betty's long red bathrobe out of the corner of my eye. I hear her sigh, then feel a gentle hand on my back.

"Oh, 'Nita, baby, I don't know if I can take this anymore."
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