The Resurrected Compendium Read online

  But it was all Kelsey could think about now, the rise and fall of the waves against the boat and the wind pushing them faster and faster along the water. She’d wanted to go to the Caribbean, where the water would’ve been smooth and clear, nothing like the Atlantic Ocean with its gray-green water and whitecaps. The boat skipped along it as Tyler and Jeremy did things with the sails, and it tipped from side to side as they hooted and hollered.

  She would not be sick. No. She would not be sick. She refused. Kelsey swallowed hard and repeatedly to tamp down the nausea.

  She would. Not. Be. Sick.

  19

  Hey, fatty.

  Hey, girl.

  Kathy doesn’t want to turn and look, but there’s no way she can keep avoiding her. She will just keep going until she gets what she wants. So, clutching her towel around her as best she can, though it barely covers her, Kathy turns.

  “Where’s your robe? Why are you in the hall without a robe? You know how I feel about that.”

  “My robe’s too small.”

  As soon as the words come out of Kathy’s mouth, she knows she should’ve kept quiet. It’s true, the robe is too small and has been for months. It’s not Kathy’s fault that she only just now noticed.

  “Too small? Too small, eh? It’s because you spent too much time stuffing your fat face, isn’t that right, piggy? Isn’t that right, pig-girl?”

  Kathy wants to scream. The robe got too short in the hem, then in the arms. She had it since she was a little kid, and she’s twelve now. She grew four inches in the past year. She can’t help it if she grows, can she?

  “Come here.”

  Reluctantly, bare damp feet dragging on the worn hall carpet, Kathy does as told. The old woman’s gnarled, scraping fingers claw at her. They yank the towel, and though Kathy does her best to clutch it tight, Grandma is stronger. She slaps Kathy’s belly and thighs and butt, each blow stinging more in humiliation than actual pain. But it’s worse when she doesn’t hit, because then she just…touches.

  “You giant lump. You huge, gross slob. You’re a whale, you know that? Look at yourself. I said look!”

  Fighting tears, Kathy looks at her body. She’s growing hair. Her breasts have started to feel tender and swell. The book the teacher gave them in school says that’s all normal, but Kathy doesn’t want it to happen to her. She doesn’t want to get bigger. She’s big enough already.

  “Turn around. Bend over.”

  The bath water was barely hot, but the winter air is chilly in here. That’s why she shivers, Kathy tells herself, knowing it’s a lie. She bends to touch her toes. The fingers pry her open. Invade. Kathy takes short, shallow breaths to keep herself from screaming.

  “You repulsive, fat cow. You make me want to vomit. You hear me? I’m going to vomit!”

  “No, Grandma, don’t do that.”

  Grandma slaps her on the butt again. Tells her to turn around. Kathy reaches for the towel, but Grandma snatches it away.

  “You’re such a glutton, I’m surprised you don’t puke, yourself.”

  Tonight for dinner, Grandma made meatloaf. Mashed potatoes. Boiled red beets, string beans with cheese and fried onions on top, macaroni-and-cheese. Dinner rolls. Salad with bleu cheese dressing. For dessert, cherry pie with ice cream. Grandma loads Kathy’s plate, and Kathy must eat what’s put on it, every crumb, every speck. Grandpa doesn’t have to, but then Grandpa can only eat what Grandma cuts up to feed him in tiny bites, like a baby.

  If Grandma also eats the food she’s put on the table, Kathy knows she will be okay. But there are plenty of nights Grandma will pass up the meat, the vegetables, maybe nibbling on a saltine cracker and sipping her diet cola. Those are the nights Kathy knows to risk a beating or other punishments rather than filling her belly with whatever Grandma’s made, because chances are good it’s been spiced with something other than love.

  Tonight, Grandma had eaten some of everything, nowhere near as much as she made Kathy eat, but still. She ate it. Now she makes coughing, gagging noises and bends over her chair like she really will puke. Then she sits up straight.

  “Go get me the bucket.”

  Kathy shakes her head, and Grandma is quick to slap her face.

  “Get. The. Bucket.”

  It’s under the sink in the bathroom, stinking of the blood that leaks out from the cloth pads Grandma uses when it’s her period. Kathy hasn’t started hers yet; she hopes she never does, because all the other girls in school and the teacher and the book the teacher gave them on puberty says there are maxi pads and tampons made of cotton that you throw away…not these cloth pad Grandma soaks in the bucket under the sink and washes to use again and again. The bucket has an inch or so of bloody, stinking water in it. Kathy dumps it, but it still stinks.

  Still naked, she brings the bucket to Grandma and holds it out to her.

  “Here.”

  Grandma holds up a small bottle. She opens the top. She hands it to Kathy.

  “Drink a mouthful of that.”

  “What is it?”

  “You never mind, pig-girl. You drink it. Just a mouthful. Or more, what do I care?”

  Grandma’s laugh is sharp. It cuts. Kathy reads the bottle. The label says IPECAC.

  From the living room comes the sound of Grandpa farting and crying out. He’s probably pooped in his pants again. Grandma will clean him up, cursing and making fun of him while he says nothing. He might cry. Kathy hates it when he cries.

  “You drink it. I’ll be back in a bit. You do not go anywhere. And God help you if you put that towel back on. And Kathy…you use that bucket.”

  The ipecac is sickly sweet but goes down hard, making her gag until the taste fades. Kathy wants to go to her room, or at least put her towel on, but if she does, Grandma will punch or kick her. She might cut Kathy’s hair again, and it’s only finally growing out to look at least a little bit cute.

  The feeling, when it comes, is familiar. A boiling upward. Hot liquid, chunky and thick, chokes her and she opens her mouth to spew it into the bucket. Stuff splashes on her face, and Kathy can’t even catch her breath to cry out. She can’t breathe. She pukes, again and again.

  Oh, God, oh, no, she’s going to fill the bucket. It’s going to fill and overflow. It will spill.

  Desperately, she tries to hold back, but her entire dinner shoots out of her. The sound of it hitting the mess already in the bucket triggers another wave of nausea; she can’t stop herself. She pukes again, holding her stomach. Naked, her wet hair hanging in her eyes, Kathy crouches on the cold floor and sicks up everything she’s ever eaten.

  A shadow falls over her. Grandma. Kathy cringes, waiting for a kick or a punch, but Grandma only laughs.

  “Nobody will ever love you like I do,” Grandma says.

  Kathy can only hope that nobody ever does.

  20

  Sheila had been pretty sure Kelsey was going to blow chunks by the way she’d gone so pale beneath that ridiculous tan she had going on, but apparently the girl could rally. Probably had a lot of practice, she thought. Didn’t people who binged and purged develop some sort of super control over their vomit reflex, or something?

  As soon as she thought it, Sheila felt bad. Kelsey’d never done anything mean to her. It wasn’t Kelsey’s fault that Sheila found everything about her ridiculous, from her fake blonde hair to her eyelash extensions and her gel-tipped nails and that God-awful tan. Not only ridiculous, but frankly, sort of insulting to women. Kelsey was the sort of useless woman Sheila had avoided all through college and continued to avoid as best she could — well, when they weren’t dating her boyfriend’s best friend, anyway. Sheila had been with Duane for four years. In that time, she’d met no fewer than seven women Tyler had “dated,” a term he used pretty loosely, sometimes as shorthand for “met at a party and banged a couple times.” Kelsey had been around the longest of any of them, probably because she was the prettiest, had the biggest boobs and also, Sheila thought as she watched the other woman stroke suntan