Even at 11 years of age, Sylvia had an eye for foreshadowing. She was the daughter of would-be writers, after all. She looked at her parents, both the size of Subarus, and realized a sedan-sized fate was something she would not outdistance.
The prospect depressed her to no end.
“It’s genetics, honey. Don’t worry about it. Got to learn to live with what you can’t rise above,” advised her dad, borrowing from Bruce Springsteen. The longtime aspiring songwriter was always borrowing from someone. He liked to think of the practice as homage. Others, like music publishers, for example, saw it as something closer to plagiarism.
“Big girls don’t cry, Syl,” added her mother. “Besides, all the great intellects of your world have been husky – the ones who’ve really made a difference. Look at Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling or Judy Blume, for heaven’s sake. God, Stephenie Meyer!” The authors she envied were not plus-sized, of course. The so-far failed writer of young-adult literature just wanted to believe she wasn’t so different from those who’d made it.
Sylvia was young, but she recognized a classic case of projection when she heard it. Plus, she’d Google-Imaged all those literary giants and judged them to be of standard proportion. The central dramatic question for her was if she’d end up like those ladies she watched on embarrassing weight-loss reality shows and saw confined to gargantuan beds on TLC. Would she be a woman who one day needed to be removed from her bedroom by crane? Lithe little things populated the romantic vampire films she so loved, and they positively oozed with influence.
“Go have a snack. You’ll feel better,” continued her mother.
“Nestle makes the very best chocolate,” said her dad.
When Sylvia reached her 12th birthday, she appeared no more rotund than any other Los Angeles school kid. She was bright beyond her years, interested in dance, obsessed with Disney Channel pop stars. Alarmed, her parents wanted to take her to the doctor.
Sylvia wanted to jump for joy. Perhaps, she allowed herself to believe, she had beaten the Carrasco Curse. She didn’t share this information with her little brother for two reasons. First, she didn’t like Steven. He was stinky and gross. But chief among her complaints was that he poked about her room when she was gone. Her suspicion of his snooping led to her leaving a video camera tucked between the stuffed animals upon her bed when she’d leave. Sure enough, surveillance footage confirmed Steven’s breaking and entering. It also showed his wiping of a booger into the rug.
To put an immediate end to this activity, she’d left a cache of realistic-looking water guns behind her door, accompanied by a Bratz poster with red “X”s scrawled across all of their faces but one. It didn’t make a lick of sense, but it had been enough to keep young Steven a shooting’s distance away from her after that.
The second reason she didn’t celebrate in front of the boy was because she loved him. It was plainly evident that Steven had not beaten the Carrasco Curse. He was 10 years old and had the waistline of a man at middle age.
(To be continued)
