4

      a toast to hot redheads

      ‘Kaylie, sweetheart, I don’t know how else to say it: you do not need to lose weight. Look at your statistics; look at this chart. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are.’

      ‘No one else here looks like me,’ Kaylie said, lowering her eyes. The girl absently twisted her limp brown hair in circles around her forefinger, methodically wrapping and turning, wrapping and turning. Her face was filled with anxiety.

      ‘What do you mean?’ Brooke asked, although she knew what Kaylie meant.

      ‘I just … I never felt fat until I came here. At public school, I was totally normal, maybe even on the skinny side! And then this year rolls around and they stick me in this weird place because it’s supposed to be so fancy and special, and suddenly I’m obese.’ The girl’s voice cracked at the last word, and it was all Brooke could do not to hug her.

      ‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re no such thing! Come here, look at this chart. One hundred twenty-five pounds at five-one is well within the healthy range.’ Brooke held out her laminated chart showing the huge range of normal weights, but Kaylie barely glanced at it.

      She knew it wasn’t particularly comforting in light of all the astonishingly thin girls in Kaylie’s ninth-grade class. Kaylie was a scholarship student from the Bronx, the daughter of an air-conditioning repairman who raised her alone after her mother was killed in a car accident. Her father was clearly doing something right, considering the girl’s straight-A record in middle school, success on the field hockey team, and, according to what Brooke heard from other teachers, an ability to play the violin that far surpassed that of her peers, and yet here was his lovely, accomplished daughter, and all she could see was that she didn’t fit in.

      Kaylie tugged at the hem of her plaid skirt, which rested across thighs that were strong and muscular, but nowhere near fat, and said, ‘I guess I just have bad genes. My mom was really overweight, too.’

      ‘Do you miss her?’ Brooke asked, and Kaylie could only nod, the tears welling in her eyes.

      ‘She always told me I was perfect just the way I am, but I wonder what she would’ve said if she could see the girls here. They’re perfect. Their hair is perfect and their makeup is perfect and their bodies are perfect, and even though we all have the same exact uniform, even the way they wear it is perfect.’

      It was one aspect of the job she had least expected but had grown to appreciate more than she could express, this crossover between nutritionist and confidante. They’d learned in grad school that anyone who came into regular contact with teenagers and was merely willing to listen could play an important role as a caring, involved adult, but Brooke hadn’t known what they meant until she started at Huntley.

      Brooke spent a few more minutes explaining that although it might not have felt that way, Kaylie was well within a healthy weight limit. It was a hard argument, especially considering the girl’s muscular, athletic body was broader than most of her classmates’, but she tried. If only I could fast-forward her through four years of high school and send her straight to college, Brooke thought. She’d realize then that none of this ninth-grade nonsense means anything in the long run.

      But Brooke knew from experience that this was impossible. She, too, had self-consciously been on the larger end of normal all through high school and Cornell, straight up until grad school, when she went on a drastic diet and lost almost twenty pounds. She couldn’t keep it off, though, and gained fifteen of it back almost immediately. Now, despite mostly healthful eating and a dedicated running program, Brooke was also on the outer limits of the healthy range for her height and, just like Kaylie, was acutely aware of that fact. She felt hypocritical even trying to tell Kaylie not to worry about it when she herself thought about it every day.

      ‘You are perfect, Kaylie. I know it doesn’t always feel that way, especially surrounded by girls with so many advantages, but believe me when I tell you that you’re absolutely beautiful. You’re going to make friends here, find the girls you connect with, and feel more at home. And then before you know it, you’ll kiss the SATs and prom and some dumb boyfriend from Dalton good-bye, and you’ll run off to a fantastic college where everyone’s perfect in their own way, in exactly the way they choose. And you’ll love it. I can honestly promise you that.’

      Brooke’s phone rang, the special piano-sounding ring that she’d attached only to Julian’s number. He never called when she was at work, knowing she wouldn’t be able to answer, and even kept his texts to a minimum. She knew in an instant something was wrong.

      ‘Excuse me, Kaylie. This will just be a minute.’ She swiveled in her chair the best she could to get some privacy in the small office. ‘Hi. Is everything okay? I’m with a patient right now.’

      ‘Brooke, you are not going to believe this, but—’ He stopped and breathed in deeply, dramatically.

      ‘Julian, seriously, if this is not an emergency, I need to call you back.’

      ‘Leo just called. One of the main bookers from Leno was at the showcase last week. They want me to perform on the show!’

      ‘No!’

      ‘It’s true! It’s a hundred percent guaranteed done deal. Next week, Tuesday night. Taping at five. I’ll be the musical performance on the show, probably right after the interviews. Do you believe it?’

      ‘Ohmigod!’

      ‘Brooke, say something else.’