This choice: Dillon's lazy daughter D.W. lives at home, and enables her mama's worst habits.. • Go Back... Carrie Cooleyfinger had always had some reservations about being alone.
After the divorce, that was what had hit her the hardest. Getting used to it just being her and Katie. Having suddenly gone from always having her husband by her side, knowing everyone in town and an established life and career, to having to carve out a new life for herself and her daughter while trying to scrape by financially had been absolutely exhausting and terrifying.
In hindsight, that fear of being alone explained a lot about why Carrie’s life turned out the way it did. The overeager social affections, her shocking weight gain, and especially the longing need for a new social circle were all explained by a need to fill a void that had been left where her old life was. Carrie had done the best with what she’d had, establishing herself in the Upstate with a new career and a group of friends she could rely on, but she would have been lying if she’d said that the thought of Katie transferring out of state hadn’t left her breathless.
But then, what didn’t?
Luckily for Carrie, she wasn’t alone.
Her friends were all of a similar age and dealt with a lot of the same issues that kept Carrie on her toes. Not the least of which was the idea that they were old enough to have girls moving away to college…
Of course, not all of them had to deal with suddenly empty rooms.
A circus of fat ladies, the four of them large enough to merit headlining tents of their own, had piled around a party-sized table. The four of them could seat for twice that many, their wide rear ends buckling lesser chairs and requiring double the reinforcement that any regular should have gotten. Their bellies beaching onto the long wood grain, disrupting the table cloth and pressing harder against the edge with each bite, the four of them tended to attract quite a lot of stares in their increasingly frequent outings to their eatery of choice.
From the minute that the four of them wobbled in, great aprons of belly flesh kicking from side to side, until the moment that they shuffled arch-backed out the doors, Carrie and her group of friends were sometimes all the other patrons could stare at. They would feast regularly, stay for extended periods of time, and had more than once emptied out the kitchen for the lunch rush.
In times of duress, some of them could eat even more.
“You’ve gotta kick her out of the nest.” Shelby sucked through her teeth as she wolfed down a forkful of macaroni pie, “That girl’s gotta grow up sometime.”
Rather than object or defend her position on letting D.W. forgo college for yet another year, Dillon Duncan chewed mournfully on her Meat and Three, her fat jowls flexing and rolling with every sorrowful swish. Her guilty expression, set deep between chubby cheeks, was all that needed to be said on the matter. Shifting awkwardly in her seats, the poor overloaded chairs groaned beneath her.
“She’s right, honey—” Carrie wiped thick-cut potato wedges through a messy mix of ranch and ketchup, “—where’s (munch) D.W. gonna be in (URP) three years if you don’t send her to a good school?”
“Or any school.” Flo oinked out a snort as she bit into her burger, grease dribbling on the great bib of belly between her and the table, “She ain’t exactly goin’ to Harvard.”
The four of them clamored amidst their meal, grunting and huffing and puffing as they struggled to reach past their own stomachs to grab at this and that. Most conversations at these things were formalities at best; each of the humongous hogs were winded by the effort of keeping it up. But they’d gotten onto the topic of daughters, and that was just going to be Dillon’s cross to bear today.
“Y’all be nice.” Dillon’s dark brown voice could jump three octaves when she wanted it to, “I know she’s lazy an’ all but she’ll find her way.”
“Yeah right into her mama’s hand-me-downs.”
“When’s the last time you saw your toes, darlin’?”
Dillon’s quick rebuttal earned a few belly-quaking chuckles from the other southern mothers as they tittered at Shelby’s expense. The wide-hipped ginger pursed her lips in a tight acceptance of her ridicule, taking a respiratory break to indulge in what remained of her macaroni. Double chins rippled and flexed as the laughter died down, Shelby coming to rest her hands on her pale ivory stomach.
“Well, I had a nice lunch—y’all behave now.”
Groans of bad sportsmanship on Shelby’s part echoed throughout the table and restaurant, effectively calling on Shelby’s inability to make a stand and walk out—at least not without assistance from one or two of the poor waiters. She raised her plump hands, ringed by bread dough forearms, and spread her plump sausage fingers in defeat.
“Y’all are just lucky that they’re serving dessert.” Shelby sniffed, hurt by Dillon’s defense of her daughter at the expense of her weight, “Or I’d high-tail it out of here and back home.”
“Where there’s enough room for your ass and your attitude?”
More raucous laughter from the other three members of the mega moms as Carrie ventured a rare dig at the unofficial alpha of their big fat wolf pack. Shelby’s pale freckled face turned bright red as a reluctant smile sent her meaty cheeks to dimple. That was an admittedly good shot.
“Yeah, well, I don’t care how big my ass or my attitude get—you’re still the Fat Friend.”
Shelby stuck out her tongue as she stole a little bit of cornbread from Carrie’s side of the table. The action forced her upper tier of stomach fat to bunch painfully against the table, and she had to let loose an ugly grunt to reach, but it was worth it.
“Y’all really think I should talk to her?” Dillon asked sheepishly, “I just don’t want her to hate me…”
“I had to have the same talk with Myr—she’s at Converse now.” Flo added helpfully, her hands resting comfortably on her billowing belly, “D.W.’ll come around.”
“You know, Katie didn’t transfer out until two years ago, but she loves her school.” Carrie ventured, “I could see if it’s not too expensive if D.W. didn’t bridge in…”
The conversation continued in the fashion of daughters and their curriculums, devolving into the competition that any group of mothers would have about whose girl was doing what. A competition that Dillon almost always lost, but one where all of the participants were treated to heaping helpings of the dessert bar… once they put it out.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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