Make Me Skin & Bones

The phone number on Amanda’s card went straight to her agent. He was a sharp and to the point person and forwarded my call to his assistant. This was a soft spoken young lady who gave me Amanda’s cell phone number and asked if we would be needing limo service for the day. How the hell would I know how to respond to something like that?

It only went to prove how little I knew about her. When I called Amanda it was to get directions to a diner she loved to go to. It took a lot of effort to make this lunch date happen. How different would things be if fate kept throwing a wrench in our plan? It would probably be the same, only maybe on a different time line. Maybe I would have died. I know that this fate, this destiny, was inevitable because I wanted it. Even if we didn’t connect after the first meeting, there were others and we could easily try again.

Our meeting spot was quaint, the kind of hole in the wall place Alex liked to go to because it made you feel like you had returned home after a long trip. The dirty and faded red brick of the building spoke of long years of operation. The clear picture perfect glass showed a lot of love and tenderness.

It was called G&G and was owned by a couple named George and Grace. The two had been married for close to twenty-five years and employed their children. Overall it had that family atmosphere. It wasn’t for that reason that Amanda insisted we have lunch here. She claimed that it was practically secluded and that George made the best hamburgers she had ever had.

She was waiting for me outside pivoting on her right leg. She had on these amazing grey skinny jeans that hugged her in the right areas and seemed to hang low on her hips in a tantalizing fashion. Her scuffed up converse seemed just so casual for a girl that I knew had a collection from Gucci in her closet. Her hair was pulled up and elegantly curled at the top of her head. Her red long sleeved v-neck t-shirt hugged her chest tightly. I wasn’t sure if Amanda was looking at me, it was disconcerting to have those large white sunglasses focused on you with no human characteristics.

I felt very plain next to her in a pair of jeans stained at the thigh and torn at the right knee and a plain dark blue t-shirt. She greeted me with a large smile and two air kisses to each cheek. That is how Amanda came to greet everyone, a trait earned straight from modeling. She was always the leader, at least when it came to us. I guess I kind of looked up to her too much. I may not fit Alex’s description yet but I knew the perfect place for me was under Amanda’s wing. She would guide me; she would make my dreams come true. At least that is what I thought in the moment.

It was sickening the way I followed her around. A large snake of regret slithers in my stomach whenever my mind wanders to that time frame. I was like a sheep and she was a shepherd bringing me to my slaughter. I trusted her too; I went willingly because I wanted this. Amanda made me feel protected with her charisma that felt like a shield. Her sense of confidence was intoxicating and the more time I spent around her the more my self-esteem rose. Next to Amanda I knew I wasn’t as beautiful, but I still felt like I was something worth looking at.

Amanda was so cultured and had all this knowledge that I didn’t. I was honoured by the fact that she even wanted to share it with me. I was constantly stuck in awed silence in her presence. Yet in her wake I couldn’t seem to stop talking about her.

When I first began my dangerous endeavor, I had aspired to be more like my best friends. Shana and Justine both had guys, both got those double takes when we walked down the street and both seemed just really happy with their lives. But then I met Amanda and I didn’t aspire to be anything like her. I just wanted to be her, plain and simple. She was everything I could ever want to be . First thing people noticed about her was that she was gorgeous but it went further than that. Amanda was so smart, and she was kind to a certain degree. Most of all she had this fucking impermeable attitude. Nothing could bring her down, or at least it seemed like it.

I couldn’t quite figure out what it was about her that had me so star struck. Maybe it was her modeling career or maybe it was just how she carried herself with such poise and grace. I had only ever seen Amanda lose her composure once but that is a story for another time.

In high school it seemed like the cool kids just knew everything that we didn’t. When they spoke and asked you to do something you usually complied with a smile because they were just so damn likable. I gave myself over to her instruction much too easily; I complied to her every suggestion with the bare minimum of thought. She also made me feel like I was important to her. Just something in her expression and her body language said without words that she had my back and that if I went up against anything she could make it go away. The idea of not having to think so much was too sweetly appealing.

Amanda’s willingness to share with me what she would never tell and share with another soul had me feeling obligated. It was like if she told me something, I had to do it out of respect. I just wanted to please her. It was so hard to be open that her blunt honesty begged for reciprocation. I didn’t need to tell her my secrets because she already seemed to know. It was similar to how George and Grace greeted me when I entered their family business. They didn’t really know me but they still had this sense of who I was.

Or maybe who I was didn’t matter to them. They welcomed me with sincere smiles and even embraced Amanda. Grace took one look at me and opened her arms wide for me. I felt cherished and loved by these two strangers. They treated me like a long lost relative. I felt more welcome here than I did in my own house. Most of all, Grace place her hands upon my cheeks and told me that I was beautiful. This was a place that I regrettably stopped going to, again, that is another story entirely.

The booth we were seated at was closest to the kitchen tucked into a corner near the washrooms. The blue corduroy was faded, stained and torn in places where stuffing would peak out at guests. The plastic covering of the table was pulled up and slightly marred with age. Toward the wood paneled sat all the usual objects: napkin dispenser, vinegar, salt, pepper and sugar. Before I had even settled down in the booth Amanda was speaking to Grace.

“We’ll have two of your amazing hamburgers with fries. I’ll have a diet coke to drink and oh, can we get a basket of onion rings to start? Naomi, what do you want to drink?”

After having that much to say on my behalf, being asked my opinion was almost baffling.

“Oh, um, I’ll just have a coke, thanks.” Grace smiled at me and I couldn’t help but notice how it made her brown eyes glisten. Her graying brown hair and laugh lines gave hint at how old she could be but her eyes seemed new, at least when she smiled. It held all that curiosity and innocence of a newborn.

“I’ll be right back with your drinks, sweethearts.”

Grace pushed her way through a swinging door and Amanda wasted no time in turning on me.

“So what do you think?” What did I think? That was a little general. I think a lot, too much to be considered normal. I bought my time from answering by observing our surroundings, old black and white pictures of places nowhere near Maryland decorated the walls. All art in the restaurant, I learned later, was made by Grace’s late mother who traveled quite a lot before settling down with Grace’s father.

“I think this place has character.” That answer seemed to be good enough for Amanda. It was less than a second before she was changing the subject and speaking with rapt excitement.

“I thought after we could go to my house. I got you a present!” She followed this statement with a wink. The reaction was an embarrassing amount of butterflies in my stomach. It was caused by acute attraction but mostly anxiety. I bit my lip and averted my eyes from her intense stare.

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” I muttered embarrassed. I had no gift for her other than friendship. A rush of heat traveled from the back of my neck to my cheeks. Grace brought us our drinks then and promised that our food should be another ten or fifteen minutes. I took a sip of my drink just for something to do because I didn’t want to give myself the option of embarrassing myself.

“It was really no problem Naomi,” Amanda reached across the table and placed her cool hand on top of my seemingly heated one. I stiffened at the contact and Amanda smiled, sensing my tension.

“I like you, Naomi. You’re so kind and beautiful. I feel as though I can trust you and can be honest with you. I want to give you this gift, to symbolize this new found friendship.”

She released my hand as Grace came through the swinging doors with Amanda’s basket of onion rings. The sickening smell of grease had me biting down hard on my quivering lip. Amanda offered the basket to me but I turned my cheek and she got the message. She shrugged off my rejection and finished off the entire basket on her own.

My stomach was rocking with angry acid tidal waves full of pepsin searching out proteins to break down. I took slow and calming deep breaths through my partially opened mouth. If I didn’t breathe through my nose I wouldn’t have to smell it.

Then Grace came with two plates that were nearly invisible under the large hamburgers and abundance of fries. The hamburger was heavily layered with different toppings. The cheese was at the perfect soft melted point with three strips of crispy bacon, mustard, ketchup and mayonnaise. My throat went dry as the smell of cooked beef infiltrated my system. I wanted to be brave though and so I lifted the surprisingly heavy burger to my mouth and opened wide. I quickly bit down and began to chew as fast as possible. I hoped that my tongue wouldn’t taste much of the food if I ate quickly.

I nearly dropped the hamburger as my taste buds erupted with flavour. The message that was sent to my brain was loud and clear. I did not want to eat this, not now, not ever. I leaned forward and my hands came to clench my stomach as my throat contracted in rapid succession. I wanted to lie down, to sleep this feeling away. I felt Amanda’s stare on me even though I refused to meet it. There was no concern, just mere observation.

“I can’t eat it,” I admitted in defeat.

“Don’t be silly, Naomi, of course you can. It’s always really hard to eat for the first time after ignoring your body’s needs. You just have to keep eating; I promise you that if you keep eating it’ll get easier.”

I had my doubts about her soothing words. I had a logical fear that if I kept eating that I would have an episode like the night Jack sold me out to our mother. I did not want to cause a scene here. I didn’t want Amanda to be mad or embarrassed. As it was though, Amanda was telling the truth. The more I forced myself to nibble on my fries and nurse the hamburger the better I began to feel. I felt like I had this heavy weight in the pit of my stomach that completely stifled the nausea.

Over lunch Amanda talked and I got to learn a lot about her. Like that she never hated her body, not when it started and not that day. She probably doesn’t even hate her body today. She just had to be a certain size. Her modelling career is what was saving her family. Her parents couldn’t take care of her so she took care of them. She even sent her older school to England to pursue her education abroad.

She had all this pressure and no outlet. If she hadn’t found me she would have died, she told me that. Not at that particular lunch but one night as we lay side by side in her queen sized bed. She said I saved her. What she did tell me at that lunch was that she loved to eat junk food, her agent was a bitch and she really liked the color red.

Most things Amanda told me were lies, at least the things about her personal life. I found out the truth about her eventually. Her parents were both very successful people, but they were never around. Her father worked in the music industry and spent the majority of his time in L.A. recording studios working closely with artists. Her mother was an editor for a fashion magazine and spent most of her time in New York.

At least what she told me about her sister was true; except for the part about Amanda sending her to England. That was paid in full by her parents. Somehow between her elder sister being gone and her parents being gone, Amanda fell through the cracks. Starting a career so young left her jaded, to say the least, and she had to do it alone without guidance from people who actually cared about her well being. When the only people you have around you are agents, photographers, models and your maid, the lines between good and bad just seem to dissolve. She at least had a dog to keep her company but that isn’t exactly a parent or a good influence.

Amanda was jealous of me. She admitted that to me at our lunch that day. I had these two older brothers that lived at home, a mom and a dad who didn’t go away and I wasn’t constantly competing with my friends for jobs. I was just competing with them for attention, but in the long hull that wasn’t too bad.

When we had nothing but a few unfinished fries left on our plates Grace swooped upon us with the bill. I automatically reached for my wallet but Amanda made a noise of protest that had me freezing mid-action. She waved off my confusion and placed a fifty dollar bill down on the table. Despite my protests Amanda was very persistent or more plainly she was stubborn as hell. Amanda knew what she wanted and how=2 0to get it. She had this way of talking that could coax a person into going bungee jumping without the cord. She would also have that person believing that it was a good idea and that it would them in the long run.

I had never been to Amanda’s neighbourhood before. It was more high class than I was used to but the houses weren’t as large as I thought they’d be. From the outside Amanda’s house looked warm and inviting; the outside was painted a powder blue and had the sweetest little garden out front.

The interior of the house was amazing. Amanda’s mother had put a lot of work into decorating with paintings, photos and pale green wallpaper. The living room had this beautiful fireplace mantel which was filled with awards. I didn’t get to take a good look that day because Amanda was ushering me up the tall curling staircase to the second floor. It wasn’t until we reached the landing did I realize how warm her house was. Already beads of sweat were collecting just beneath my hairline.

Her room didn’t say much about her. It was light purple with dark blue trim. She had taped up random posters, maybe four of them at most. The thing that sort of scared me about her room was how clean it was. It was most unnatural for a teenager’s room, that and the lack of knick knacks. I would later come to find that every inch of her house was perfectly clean. It was like being in a hospital.

But Amanda did not let me linger in her bedroom; instead she laced our hands together and sent me a smile. I felt squeamish and uncomfortable as she squeezed my hand and brought me toward one of two doors. The door she led me through brought me straight to her sizeable bathroom. Unlike mine it was a soft pastel yellow and her lights were soft.

Amanda didn’t leave time for observation. She walked purposefully to her bathroom counter and picked up her blue toothbrush. She repeatedly smacked it against her palm as she spoke.

“Okay so what we’re going to do is take a tooth brush and use the handle part to pull the trigger. By this I mean we’re going to shove it into our mouths until we gag and vomit.” Amanda placed her toothbrush on the counter and turned sideways to rummage through her top drawer. After a moment she picked up a crinkling object and turned to wiggle a purple toothbrush still encased in plastic at me.

She tossed the object to me and I luckily caught it (kind of an accomplish for me). Amanda then proceeded to get onto her knees in front of her pristine porcelain toilet bowl and smile at me. It was then that I watched her purge, the sight making me sick. She flushed the toilet, wiped her mouth and brushed her teeth. Then she turned and pressed her lower back into the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. She made a gesture with her head that translated into a challenge.

I swallowed hard and pulled the plastic wrap from the toothbrush she had given me. My first attempt is clear in my memory, one of those traumatizing moments people reflect on when at their deathbeds. I wasn’t pushing it far enough, just deep into my throat so that I would gag and cough. Amanda kindly looked away as I crouched down next to her toilet feeling like a small child. She coached me through it, and after the fifth time of putting that toothbrush into my mouth it happened. The feeling of something thick crawling up my throat overpowered me. The stomach acid was burning at the walls of my oesophagus and the sweat began to roll down my face, mixed in with tears.

I nearly choked. I was afraid all the while it was happening. I hated every moment of it. My hair got in the way, stringy and covered in my own sick. It was then that Amanda dropped to her knees next to me and pulled my hair back. She didn’t care about the partially digested substances caught in my wild locks; she stuck her fingers in it and pulled it from my face. She began to rub my back as I finished and began to sob over the toilet bowl, my tears falling onto the seat.

I collapsed against her and she brushed her hand along my forehead. She helped me stand and brought me over to her sink to clean me up. She wiped my face with a wet cloth and watched me through the mirror.

“It gets easier,” she promised. I believed her because she had said the same thing at lunch and things h ad gotten easier.

Her actions were very loving. Every few minutes she’d wipe the tears from my cheeks and murmur something soothing. She pushed my head down toward the sink and washed the sick from my hair. Amanda wrapped my wet hair into a towel and gripped me by the shoulders, pulling me back up to face the mirror. I didn’t particularly like what I saw. My makeup was ruined, my face white as a sheet and I looked terrified.

I asked myself silently, challenging my reflection, if Alex was worth this. The answer was yes. His approval would be worth every scary moment I spent in front of that toilet. That wasn’t all though; there was this new added pressure for weight loss. I had to meet up to Amanda’s standards now. She had called me beautiful and she had encouraged me and touched my hand and smiled. But she was helping me lose weight which had to mean that she knew I had more potential.

She placed her arms around my waist from behind and rested her chin on my shoulder and began to sway us from side by side. I found her eyes in the mirror and they were on us. She smiled and placed a kiss to my neck that made me shiver against her.

“Next time we’ll tie your hair back. Now when you do this at home you’re going to want to cover up the sound. I suggest running water and playing music and turn on the overhead fan too. God Naomi, you’ve just made me so proud of you. I know that was ha rd but you went through with it. You should be so proud of yourself. Now, you brush your teeth while I go get your presents.”

I vaguely was aware of her use of plural but was too enthralled with the idea of brushing my teeth. The after taste had been a second thought pushed to the back burner of my mind. I felt hollow as I looked into my eyes while I vigorously brushed my teeth and tongue. Even as the taste was being washed away I still held the memory of it. It was almost as bad as having the residue staining my tongue. I was rinsing when Amanda returned with a wrapped package and her unwavering smile. She placed the package on the counter and waited for me to finish.

I fingered the purple bow sitting on top and glanced at Amanda through the mirror. She nodded her encouragement and I used a manicured nail to pop a hole in the paper. As I tore through the wrapping paper like an animal, I felt momentarily nostalgic for happier birthdays. Finally I held in my hand my present.

“A bathroom scale and a notebook, thanks Amanda?” My gratitude came out as more of a question and it sent Amanda into a giggle fit. She hugged me once more from behind and leaned in close to my ear. I wanted to lean away from her hot breath as it hit the hollow of my ear.

“It’s so you can monitor your progress,” she whispered. Then Amanda had pulled back and was placing my scale on the ground.

“Let’s weigh in together,” she suggested. Amanda tentatively stood on the scale and looked down on me from her new found height. My self-consciousness and hesitation must have been broadcast on my face. Amanda gave me a patient smile.

“You don’t have to worry about how much you weigh now. The fun is seeing how much you can lose. It’s okay; I won’t look at your number unless you want me to.”

Amanda made a satisfied noise in her throat as she descended from the scale. For a small piece of plastic it was quite the daunting apparatus. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Cautiously I lifted a foot and placed it on the right side of the scale. With another deep breath I brought the other foot up and looked down while the number fell into place. True to her word, Amanda didn’t look but I stared appalled at the number I was seeing.

I weighed in at one hundred and forty-five pounds. It is very hard for me to believe that by the time I realize I had a problem, I only weighed ninety.