Chapter 2
Camilla
“I’m calling about the storefront on Shallow Lake Drive. I’m from out of town, and I’d like the details on the store and building. Are they both for rent? For sale?” The machine beeps just as I finish leaving my phone number. I sigh, frustrated.
“How’s the search going?” Mom asks, fixing herself a cup of tea and sitting with me at the kitchen table.
I hold my head in my hands. That should be answer enough. I don’t want to admit that it’s going the way everything else in my life is. Nowhere.
“Camilla,” Mom pries a hand away from my face. “It’s not working because you’re meant to stay here, not run away. You have to learn to face your problems and work through them.”
I sigh. I need to take this step, and I wish my mother didn’t insist on making it harder. It seems the only thing my parents care about is marrying me off.
“I need to leave.”
“Stay and fight for your man,” she says, slapping a hand on the glass table top with fire and indignation.
“I don’t have a man. I tried making things work with Miguel, but I couldn’t. I’m done looking backward. I can do better than staying with a man who thinks he needs to dip his spoon in every pot of honey.”
“That’s because he’s a musician, not a doctor,” I hear the disdain in her voice.
“You say that like it’s my fault.”
“You encouraged him to go to open mic nights, when he should’ve been home with you, studying.”
“Miguel would have done it whether or not I wanted him to. He was done with medicine. He used me as an excuse, that’s all.”
“Fine. Forget him.” She’s the one who keeps bringing him up. “There are other men around. Good, wholesome husband material.” Mom says with the same certainty she has that the sun will rise tomorrow.
“Did it ever occur to you that I’m not good, wholesome wife material?”
My mother shrinks back with a look of horror on her face. “Why on earth would you say that?”
“Because I’m—” I look into my mother’s warm brown eyes as I worry my lip and see her love for me reflected back.
She doesn’t understand. How can she? Body size has never been an issue for her.
She’s bounced between a size three and a size seven her entire life.
The seven was when she was nine months pregnant with me.
“What, Cami? You’re beautiful? And kind-hearted?” She holds my hand tight, bringing it close to her chest. There isn’t an ounce of sarcasm in her voice. “And you don’t fall into bed with every available man in town. Do you? Women do that these days, you know.”
I shake my head. “I don’t.” Is she really this na?ve, or is she pretending for my benefit? I’ve come to terms with it; it’s about time she does, too. “But, I’m fat.”
“Such nonsense.” Yet again, she dismisses what’s been an issue my entire life. “You’re curvy. Voluptuous.”
“Yes, but I’m thick. More like Dad’s mother and sister.”
“This is in your head. I see how men look at you.”
“That’s in your head. And if you’re honest, you know I’m telling the truth.
People here are fixated on looks and status.
I want to go someplace where I fit in better.
” I hope she realizes I’m not talking about clothing.
“I want to wake up every morning excited to do something because I love it and am passionate about it. Not climb an invisible ladder of status and success that I don’t care about. ”
“Now, you’re thinking like Miguel. That’s not realistic.
People have responsibilities. We can’t do what we want, when we want.
I promise, having a full life surrounded by people you love, that love you,” she sighs as if that will add to her point.
“That’s what makes all the difference, what makes a life fulfilling. ”
“Mom.” I sigh.
“What? You act like I’m putting chains and shackles on you.”
If I stay, she might as well.
“I understand that because you love me, you want me to have a life like yours. You want me to work on the boards of non-profits with you, as a mother-daughter team, to solicit donations and plan galas together.”
“What’s wrong with that? We’ve been blessed with a good life. Shouldn’t we do all that we can to give back and help those less fortunate?”
“Of course we should.” Mom’s not wrong, but that’s not what I want.
At least not at this point in my life, and I don’t know how to get through to her.
She’s using logic to prove her points, and I’m bordering on sounding like a whiny little girl who’s upset that she isn’t getting her way.
“Please, try to understand, I want something different. Something that I can put my sweat and hard work into and build from the ground up. Something that’s mine. ”
“I can help you do that.”
I shoot her a look.
“We can lend you money. I can call in favors. I know plenty of people who are in positions—”
I reach my hand out and place it over hers. “Mami, I want to do this on my own. I’ll call you every day. And I promise, once I’m making money, I’ll donate to every cause you want.”
“Why can’t you stay home and do that?” Her eyes well with tears. “You can live with us until you get married and start your own family.”
“If I stay here, I’m never going to do any of it.
Not move out, not start my own business, and not get married.
I appreciate that you want to help, but nothing will change.
You and Papá will keep trying to set me up with men I have no interest in, and honestly, I don’t have time to date if I want this to work. I need to spread my wings.”
“You still haven’t given me one good reason why you can’t at least stay in town. You want to move out? Fine, I’ll find you an apartment.”
Fine, she asked for it. “I’m not happy here. I don’t think I ever was. If I open a bakery here, all people will see is a fat girl indulging herself with cookies and cakes.”
“That’s not . . .Don’t talk about yourself like that.” Mom’s brows furrow. “I told you, you’re not fat, you’re . . . full figured.”
Another euphemism. “It doesn’t matter. Bottom line, I’m not skinny, and I never will be. I’m okay with that.”
“If you were truly okay with that, then you wouldn’t be looking to run away.”
“You think it’s running away, I think running toward something. Toward the beginning of a new life.”
“A life without dating.” She shakes her head. “What if you continue working at the hospital and start a catering business on the side?”
“You’re. Not. Listening! I don’t want to work at the hospital anymore. I don’t like medical billing. I never did. It’s so damn boring.”
“How will you find a doctor to marry?”
Can I bang my head on the wall? We keep having this same conversation over and over and over again. This conversation proves my point. I need space. From my parents.
“That was your dream. Your goal—”
“Yes. Your father is a good man, and he’s given us a good life.”
I close my eyes, ready to snap.
“He provided you with a good life.”
She furrows her brows, and I can see her losing patience. “What is that supposed to mean? We bought you whatever you wanted. Sent you to sleep away camp every summer when you were a kid.”
“Fat camp,” I snap. “You sent me to fat camp. Do you really think that I looked forward to going? That it was what I wanted?”
“I would never send you to fat camp!” She shakes her head, still in denial.
I always knew it was my father’s idea, but she had to have known.
How could she not have realized that the camp, packed with physical activity and nutritional training, was really a place rich parents sent their overweight kids to learn how to eat better and burn off calories?
There’s a reason there was a weekly weigh-in and weight-loss competitions.
“Why would you say that? Are you trying to hurt me?”
Hurt her, that’s funny.
“Because that’s what it was! I’m not upset about that, Mom.
Not anymore. But I never have, and never will, look the way he thinks I should.
I was always too fat. Too round. And too, ‘unhealthy,’” I say the last word while making air quotes.
“I’ve heard it all my life, and I can honestly say that not a meal goes by without me wondering if maybe I should have a salad or fill up on a glass of water instead of food, because we all know, ‘a moment on the lips equals a lifetime on the hips.’”
“I never cared about your weight.” Mom looks insulted. “You’re so beautiful.” She smoothes my hair. “And some day the right man will come along—”
I struggle to keep the tears stinging my eyes at bay and reach for my mother’s hand. “I don’t want to wait for a man to start living out my dreams.”
Mom leans in, her eyes narrowing on mine. “Is it because you prefer women?”
“Oh my goodness! No, Mom.” Frustrated, I lean back in my chair. “I’m good at baking. And even if all I ever have is a struggling store, it will be mine. I can do this, Mom. I want to do this.”
I think I’m making progress.
“Does it have to be so far away?”
I smile. “Two-and-a-half hours isn’t that far. It’s time for me to be on my own, and I think you know it. I want to be happy. I’m ready to be happy.”
She shakes her head, closes her eyes, and sighs. “Well then, tell me how I can help.”