On Samantha Meeting Her Sister for the First Time in Thirty Years (From The Fat Lady Sings: a Big, Fat Novel)
S HELDON PARKS THE CAR in front of the small rock house, just outside Timber City. There are no other houses in sight. The sun has just set, and the peepers and katydids try out-chirping each other. A tension – maybe static – seems to crackle around us. Sheet lightning in the distance. A hot night, the humidity hanging in the air like a damp towel. I had heard about the humidity here, how it clings to you like a whiny kid, but I never realized how it could sit on you and make you beg for relief. Half moons of sweat drip under my armpits, and my skin feels hot and scratchy and raw. Later, I’ll find out about the chiggers, how they get on your skin and stick to you until they get what they need. My sister’s thin silhouette poses in the doorway, long cigarette in hand. My stomach suddenly aches; I don’t want her to see me like this, fat and bloated. I want to be thin like her, thin like the rest of the world. Why, for our first meeting, does she have to see me like this...