Feminine Side

Any returning readers to my blogs should be familiar with the full story below. It was the first creative piece on the original blog of plenty and quite the departure from what I usually write about. Not that I have the talent/continuity needed to fit into a genre, but, instead, I just know I usually don't write about body issues. I have no idea why I wrote this story or why I even chose to present it to a class. However, here it is. It lines up nicely with the last post about the little boy with asthma. Maybe I can sell this thing to Seventeen or Cosmo Girl?

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Breathe With Me

By Garik Charneco

Jess wondered how weird it must be on the campus at seven a.m. on a Saturday as she laced up her left sneaker. Except for a few unlucky kids slicing bags of powdered eggs open at the cafeteria and the hooded employees at the gym flipping on light switches she must have been the only one up. She could have always slept a bit longer. But when she lied on the grainy sheets for too long she thought about what the crew guys in her 8am class were used to. Crew girls were so thin and not just that but also toned. That was powerful enough that Jess didn’t need an alarm clock anymore.

Jess laced up the other sneaker, grabbed the door knob and peeked out into the hallway. Some greasy pizza boxes, left over from last night’s floor meeting, peppered the hallway. Jess hadn’t had any of the pizza and made up the excuse that she was vegan. The RA’s believed it and left her alone for the rest of the program.

With the hall empty and sensing the opportunity for an unnoticed getaway, Jess grabbed her keys and student ID from the dresser. When her fingers curled around the doorknob the phone rang. Jess put down her things and plucked the receiver off the hook.

Jess’s parents still had trouble calculating west coast time. Her mother spoke in a chipper nasally tone. After the usual niceties the time finally hit mom.

“Oh my gosh! Honey, it must be 7am over there,” she said over the sound of ruffling newspaper pages.

Jess figured that she must have seen the time zones on the weather page. “It is ok.”

“I hope I didn’t wake you.”

Cradling the phone between her shoulder and ear Jess tried to shoo her mother away. “Really mom, it is ok. I was up already.”

“What are you doing up so early on a Saturday? It is still Saturday over there?” She giggled gingerly, amused at herself. “I am just so used to your brothers staying so close to home for school. You know at GMU and all.”

Jess rolled her eyes. “Yeah. It is Saturday and I was going to go to the gym.”

“The gym? I have heard of the freshmen 15 but Jessie aren’t you about a size five? Remember what Doctor Sorka said about body image.” The line went silent for a moment and then a quick gasp, like someone had just been choked. Then the clatter of porcelain as her mother got enough courage to speak and ask the big question. “Jessie this isn’t something serious? You are eating, right?”

It was about 7:15 then and Jess started worrying about too many other people in the gym. “Yes mom. I am eating and don’t worry.” Jess stole a glance at a picture of her family on the desk. Maybe it was her mother’s sincere concern or just the picture which was of the whole family, smiling, on the National Mall but Jess felt comforted. Then her mother spoke again.

“Is this about boys, Jessie? Because you…” Jess sighed loudly and actually worried about hyperventilating because of all the air rushing out. Her mother had raised three kids and wasn’t dismayed by light whines. “Because you are beautiful as you are. Your father and I don’t call you our stars and sky for nothing!”

Jess hated that pet name. Her parents had it all wrong. She knew that they were full of it and the whole ‘stars and sky’ thing was probably ripped off from an old folk song. They were parents and Jess knew that somewhere, deep in some parental codebook, there was a rule that said you always had to lie to your kids about how they really looked. It was right underneath the stipulation that said that you could never just understand. “Thanks mom but…”

“But nothing! Where did you get this horrible, negative self-image? I want you to look in a mirror and tell me what you see.”

Jess wandered over to the mirror before she even realized it. Jess thought whether she was just humoring her mother or whether she really wanted to see. At the mirror Jess saw the same things she saw last night. The words plain and plump came to mind. Jess envisioned first losing a bit more weight before starting on anything toning. It was 7:20 already. “I see fat.” Jess tried to pinch off some pudge from her side, trying to prove it, but her fingers slipped against skin.

“Oh really? Well if I remember my daughter then I see chestnut hair, sea foam colored eyes, a great smile, and greater skin. Can you at least be happy that your brothers got all the acne in the family? I could go on you know but I think it would start sounding a bit creepy. You have looks and a personality that someone can and will love Jess.”

Maybe someone could but not Jess. Not right now and not with this. She smoothed out the wrinkle at the bottom of her white tank top and wished she could do the same to her stomach. “Thanks again mom, but I’m still going. I’m already up and it’s just a quick run. To stay active, you know?”

Her mother groaned. “Do you at least have your inhaler with you?”

* * *

Of course Jess had her inhaler. She never went anywhere without her Snorkel. That was a pet name, unique and beautiful unlike ‘stars and sky.’ Jess stuffed her inhaler into the back pocket of her shorts as soon as she was dressed. It lived in a cloth cage and went everywhere that Jess went. Actually, the last thing she wanted was to be without it. Whenever Jess felt the wrenching asphyxiation of an attack it became father, mother, friend, doctor, nurse, and guardian for the brief terrifying seconds of the event.

The specialist told her that the asthma would subside as she got older. If anything it got worse and Jess spent plenty of time in high school, sitting in the back of classrooms, gasping in and out trying to calm her treacherous bronchioles down. At those moments she wished she could have taken just one burst but she was in class and it was high school.

Jess wasn’t supposed to exert herself too much. Remembering her mother’s warning and all her years of asthmatic experience she pulled the inhaler out and thumbed the plastic shell. The tiny nooks on the inside of the orange mouthpiece cap were lined with fuzzy blue lint from a lifetime stuffed in pockets. The once neon yellow shaft had been buffed to a paler shade of saffron. The label on the party popper cylinder melted away at the edges, but what mattered was still good. Jess conjured up a word for her relationship with her Snorkel: extreme anthropomorphizing.

Saturday mornings the gym was only sparsely populated with overachieving athletes and insomniacs that needed some sort of a release before they could sleep. It always smelled of an antiseptic massage. Jess signed in at the front desk, her name being only the third of the day. She tried to keep the sound of the pen on the paper to a minimum, so she wouldn’t draw the attention of the lone employee who didn’t even bother checking ID’s this early. Jess tucked the pen back under the metal clip of the clipboard and tugged at the bottom of her tank. With her shirt slipping off her collarbones and over her stomach, Jess waddled past the front desk and onto the actual exercise floor.

Those two other people on the list must have been changing because Jess faced an empty floor, lined with still slick treadmills and free weights. She looked back at the front desk, wondering if the guy was in one of her classes, but he held his head down. Jess shuffled over to the farthest treadmill, one under a popping speaker that blurted out soft Muzak. Elevator music suited Jess.

She stretched her long legs and tried hard to not look like some crazed crane. Jess had always hated how awkwardly tall she was and her sandpiper legs were to blame for it. She tossed the keys, ID, and inhaler into the water bottle holder and throttled the speed to the highest it could go. Faster was always better.

After nine or so minutes she felt the first squeeze of her chest by some great invisible hand that possessed her body. She closed her eyes and tried to not think about the inhaler in front of her and the relief that it promised. Her mind clung to other things; class, homework, boys or anything else but that tiny oasis in front of her. It was a small neon siren that called her back to the life she was running from.

At the thirteen minute marker there was another chest ripping bolt that made her cough. The cough turned into a cackle and ricocheted around the gym’s high glass and steel walls. The clerk at the desk looked up from his computer screen and towards her. She stifled a dry wheeze and tried to look normal, but how normal can one look pounding away at a treadmill and pining for first hit of Proventil? She fingered the inhaler’s cap open like a champagne cork, holding it in between her thumb and hipbone. The attendant shrugged and turned back to his computer screen. Jess took the opportunity and pounded the stop button. The belt began to lose speed and she gobbled up gulps of mist in quick, machine gun fashion that assaulted her wincing lungs. The smell of the stuff was the closest thing to euphoria she had ever experienced. This was the feeling of being born and taking in your first huge gasps of air as your lungs, the last organ to develop, engorged in their new responsibility. On this high it was easy to get lost in the moment.

The belt lulled to a stop but the machine ejected Jess off it and into a set of free weights. The entire building rang up in a crescendo that brought the attention of everyone onto Jess. The single employee actually stood up at his desk and peered over the floor. Those two other patrons appeared and looked. She took three more gulps of the stuff and the inhaler was happy to give it up, like a greedy bartender giving a wino just one more drink. She thought she heard it say “Sure, Jess. Have another.” Jess pressed the clammy device to her heaving chest and brought her knees up around it. Jess tried to reassure herself. It didn’t say anything, she thought while someone asked, over the sound of footfalls, “Are you ok?” Jess took another hit from her inhaler, this time drawing the mist in slow and keeping her lips to the mouthpiece. She felt someone grip her shoulder, a large hand holding onto a shaft of bone. Above her was the lone employee, a boy, with brown eyes still groggy from the dawn and smooth taut skin. He was in one of her classes and Jess tried to compose herself, propping up against the treadmill. She put both her hands around her inhaler and pulled it away from her lips. A gossamer line of spit trailed from her lip to the edge of the mouthpiece.

The employee winced, his skin furrowing into kneaded hilltops. Running his hand along her shoulder his fingers wicked up sweat and radiant heat. Flicking his hand, droplets of liquid pouring off, the employee asked, “You ok? Did you fall or something?”

Jess swivels her head back, confirming he is her psychology class and then shooting her head away, so she faces the eggshell colored brick wall. She tried to calm herself, breather slow and smooth so her lungs stop asking for too much air. She tucked her inhaler under her knee where it was out of sight, but also where it jutted into soft flesh. Jess nodded and muttered, “Yeah, fine. Just slipped.”

The employee crouched down and looked her over. “You sure?”

Jess took a small breath, trying to wedge it down her throat, but her body, tired and broken, rebelled. She sputtered and felt the mouthpiece of her inhaler press against the back of her knee. It was right there, making its presence felt and Jess just wanted this guy to leave. Come back later, she thought, letting the inhaler push into her skin. “I am fine. Just fell.”

He came out of his crouch and the folds of his sweatshirt brushed Jess’s side. She caught a glimpse of the inlay on his name tag. It said Tyler and Jess struggled to get enough energy and breath to mention his name. “Take it easy.” Tyler extended his arm out, offering to help her up.

Jess lifted one arm but then caught her reflection in the band of his watch. On the silvery links she saw brown veins of hair matted onto her forehead between droplets of sweat. Her eyes were sunken into their sockets, receding like pools at low tide. Her entire body was red and Jess felt she could glow in the dark. She pulled back, saw the surprise in Tyler’s eyes and felt the inhaler under her knee poking, a tiny incubus offering pleasure with a grip and a squeeze. Jess glanced into her reflection and shook her head. Tyler pulled back his arm and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans. He swiveled on the balls of his feet, his job done and offer rejected.

Jess watched him walk away and observed how the cuffed hem of his sweater undulated with each step. She extricated the inhaler from underneath her; saw the oblong groove it left and poured another burst of artificial air. Jess brought the inhaler back to her chest and then pressed her knees against her ribs. The inhaler, cradled by her and tethered to her, followed Jess’s heart in an ultimate infinity of up and down. Up and down. Up and down.