no-protein total-carbo diet, the non-carbohydrate total-protein diet. Last year she joined one of those weight-loss support groups and came home every week drowned in guilt. The thing is, she wasn’t fat and never had been.
And a lot of the girls at school got totally boring about the whole thing. My friend Sara was always saying, “I’m so
fat!”
as if she could hardly get through the door. She looked just fine to me. All the girls seemed to be dieting. They’d rather have been dead than overweight. They all wanted to look like those flat-chested concentration camp types that model in magazines. They wanted to be hangers—that’s what they called models. Even when Sara’s best friend checked into the hospital with a case of anorexia and almost died, Sara said to me she secretly wished she could be anorexic for a few months so she could get her weight down.
“Down to what?” I had asked her. “Who wants to go out with a bag of bones?”
She told me I didn’t understand. Right on, Sara. Go forward three spaces.
Anyway, I didn’t want to lie there any longer thinking about Sara, so I crawled out of the sleeping bag, pulled on my damp bathing suit and went down to the lake. The old man was standing by the calm green water, leaning against a thick birch, barefoot, bare-chested, looking out toward the islands. He didn’t have a beer in his hand or his pipe in his mouth, so I figured he hadn’t been up long.
I felt uneasy about last night and tried to think of something to say to smooth things over.
He beat me to it. “Nice day, eh?” He tore a loose piece of bark from the birch and began to work it with his hands like a piece of leather.
“Yeah, great. Coming in?”
“Nope. Had my dip already.”
“Oh.”
I dove in and started to stroke out toward the horizon.
“Don’t go out too far,” he shouted after me. “Breakfast is ready.”
Soon we were on the road again. It looked like another great day, and except for the pipe smoke and the horrible music—country and western this time—I half-enjoyed myself.
We continued north on 69 under a blue sky decorated with slow-moving ice-cream clouds that broke the sun’s glare every few minutes. I caught the odd glimpse of Georgian Bay on the left before we swung inland and crossed the French River on a big silver trestle bridge. We made Sudbury about ten and the old man took the turn-off into town.
“Have to buy some food,” he said.
Coming into Sudbury is like coming into any town, I guess. You have to drive past all the junk-food places—hamburgers, a million flavours of ice-cream, pizza, chicken massacred in various ways, fish and chip stores that always look like they’re about five minutes from bankruptcy—and then the malls with huge ugly signs and parking lots that stretch on forever. The buildings in Sudbury seemed to be carrying on a losing fight with the ugly black rock that poked up everywhere through the thin soil.
The old man turned in to a little mall and parked he van between two pick-up trucks in front of a store.
“I thought you wanted groceries,” I said.
“Right.” He looked hesitant as he shut off the notor.
“This is a
drug
store.” I pointed to the big sign with I.D.A. painted in red half-metre-high letters on a white background. “You want the IGA, right?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Pretty stupid. Guess my mind was somewhere else.”
The old man started up the van and we drove around some more. He stopped three times to ask for directions, looking for a food store, squinting through the windshield like a pensioner. Finally he pulled into another mall where there was a little IGA store.
“You don’t need to come in,” he said. “I’ll only be a sec.”
“I think I will. I’d like to stretch my legs.”
Big mistake. I thought shopping with Mom was frustrating. The old man grabbed a cart, one with a wheel that flapped like a demented sparrow, and walked to one side of the store.
He moved up and down the aisles,
And a lot of the girls at school got totally boring about the whole thing. My friend Sara was always saying, “I’m so
fat!”
as if she could hardly get through the door. She looked just fine to me. All the girls seemed to be dieting. They’d rather have been dead than overweight. They all wanted to look like those flat-chested concentration camp types that model in magazines. They wanted to be hangers—that’s what they called models. Even when Sara’s best friend checked into the hospital with a case of anorexia and almost died, Sara said to me she secretly wished she could be anorexic for a few months so she could get her weight down.
“Down to what?” I had asked her. “Who wants to go out with a bag of bones?”
She told me I didn’t understand. Right on, Sara. Go forward three spaces.
Anyway, I didn’t want to lie there any longer thinking about Sara, so I crawled out of the sleeping bag, pulled on my damp bathing suit and went down to the lake. The old man was standing by the calm green water, leaning against a thick birch, barefoot, bare-chested, looking out toward the islands. He didn’t have a beer in his hand or his pipe in his mouth, so I figured he hadn’t been up long.
I felt uneasy about last night and tried to think of something to say to smooth things over.
He beat me to it. “Nice day, eh?” He tore a loose piece of bark from the birch and began to work it with his hands like a piece of leather.
“Yeah, great. Coming in?”
“Nope. Had my dip already.”
“Oh.”
I dove in and started to stroke out toward the horizon.
“Don’t go out too far,” he shouted after me. “Breakfast is ready.”
Soon we were on the road again. It looked like another great day, and except for the pipe smoke and the horrible music—country and western this time—I half-enjoyed myself.
We continued north on 69 under a blue sky decorated with slow-moving ice-cream clouds that broke the sun’s glare every few minutes. I caught the odd glimpse of Georgian Bay on the left before we swung inland and crossed the French River on a big silver trestle bridge. We made Sudbury about ten and the old man took the turn-off into town.
“Have to buy some food,” he said.
Coming into Sudbury is like coming into any town, I guess. You have to drive past all the junk-food places—hamburgers, a million flavours of ice-cream, pizza, chicken massacred in various ways, fish and chip stores that always look like they’re about five minutes from bankruptcy—and then the malls with huge ugly signs and parking lots that stretch on forever. The buildings in Sudbury seemed to be carrying on a losing fight with the ugly black rock that poked up everywhere through the thin soil.
The old man turned in to a little mall and parked he van between two pick-up trucks in front of a store.
“I thought you wanted groceries,” I said.
“Right.” He looked hesitant as he shut off the notor.
“This is a
drug
store.” I pointed to the big sign with I.D.A. painted in red half-metre-high letters on a white background. “You want the IGA, right?”
“Oh. Oh, yeah. Pretty stupid. Guess my mind was somewhere else.”
The old man started up the van and we drove around some more. He stopped three times to ask for directions, looking for a food store, squinting through the windshield like a pensioner. Finally he pulled into another mall where there was a little IGA store.
“You don’t need to come in,” he said. “I’ll only be a sec.”
“I think I will. I’d like to stretch my legs.”
Big mistake. I thought shopping with Mom was frustrating. The old man grabbed a cart, one with a wheel that flapped like a demented sparrow, and walked to one side of the store.
He moved up and down the aisles,
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