Big Summer

by Jennifer Weiner

stopped and asked myself, What did I do wrong? Who am I hurting? Is this what I deserve just for having the nerve to leave my home, to dance and try to have fun? I’m fat. That’s true. But I’m a good person. I’m kind and funny; I’m generous; I try to treat people the way I’d want them to treat me. I’m a hard worker. A good daughter. A good friend.

I was going to eat to nourish myself, I was going to exercise to feel strong and healthy, I was going to let go of the idea of ever being thin, once and for all, and live my life in the body that I had.

I wondered why whoever was in charge hadn’t gotten larger, more comfortable chairs, or at least spaced them out a little instead of cramming them up against one another. Then I thought that maybe the discomfort and the shame were the point, and that the women were meant to be embarrassed, and that their embarrassment would keep them from eating. The

I wondered if this was what being an adult was: endless denial, requiring limitless willpower.

“I weigh myself every morning, and if I see that needle creeping up, I cut back.” Cut back where? I wondered. Would she eliminate the single square of chocolate she permitted herself every other night? Would she reduce her afternoon snack from twelve almonds to six? What was left for her to deny herself?

“There’s absolutely no reason to restrict what a growing girl is eating.” He put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You are fine, just the way you are,” he said. “Bodies come in all shapes and sizes. Don’t ever let anyone make you feel any differently.” I wanted to believe him, but by then, of course, the damage had been done.

I wondered how many of the guests were faking something—confidence, friendship, maybe even love. I wondered how many had ulterior motives—fame or fortune or just proximity to someone who had both.

There’s a trust fund from the other side of the family. I get it after I turn thirty, or when I get married.” She shook her head, trying to smile. “Gotta love the patriarchy. ‘You can’t have the money until you’re old enough to make good decisions, or until you marry some man and let him decide for you.’ I mean, what if I got married when I was sixteen, and my husband was seventeen?”

“I just hate when people do that.” “Do what? Look at their phones?” “Live on their phones,” he said, and sighed. “I know it’s a cliché. You know, that Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving picture, only Mom and Dad and Bobby and Sally are all on their phones or their iPads and not even looking at each other. But it really does bother me. I think about it a lot, especially with the kids. How are they going to learn to have real relationships when most of their interactions are online? How are they going to tolerate distress if they can just distract themselves with their phones?”

“Social media means we’re listening to different voices. It’s not just the same old powerful white men who all went to the same places for college. It means everyone gets a soapbox. And if you’ve got something important to say, you can get people to listen.”

“I’m hoping an answer’s going to swim up to the surface of my brain, like one of those blind cave fish.”

Thoughts, remembered sentences and phrases, firefly flickers of half-remembered conversations were zipping through my mind like the patterns of a kaleidoscope, forming and re-forming themselves until they aligned in a conclusion that I probably should have seen long ago.