by Jadyn Marshall
His mother had made him come home—to her new-old home, not Florida—after she got it into her head that New York City was one of those infectious parasites that dogs get, the kind that lives in the bag of your stomach and digests your food before you do. She was sure it had to do with the pollution that was settling in his lungs—skinny by smog. At least, at first. Next, she blamed the gum spots on the sidewalk for pulling away a pound every time his shoe got suckered. Finally, she decided that his lack of fatitude had to do with latitude, and made STEAMTech NY give him a gap semester.
He had tried to sonsplain the counter science over Skype—he’d been in the organic chem concentration for a year, after all—with no effect. Nothing would condradict his mother’s Louisiana-bred, wives’ tale logic—not regarding the chapstick she wouldn’t need if she didn’t use it so often, and not regarding the AN.
He’d expected that his mother was going to spend the next six months compensating by coddling him with saliva and cooking wilted produce—nervous habits. She would compensate for the fact that the saltbox outside of Tampa had been sold and the cash split two months after he’d left. She’d compensate for the divorce that kept her long distance but brought his father back to New York, sixteen blocks from his dorm but still intercontinental (though she didn’t ask). He knew that she’d feel like she owed him something, and though he wouldn’t use that against her, he wasn’t against using it to win himself time alone in his new, not-his room.
He’d underestimated the extent to which she was using New York as a proxy for herself. As it turned out, she didn’t trust herself with his treatment. He so did not expect that she would send him to the Shreveport burbs and sign his life into the hands of Mrs. Setaria Bleu—but here he was.
Bleu was the antithesis of a parasite—if roundworms really were his problem, she’d be a squareworm (though round was admittedly closer to her body shape). If living donors could give fat cells she’d be a regular on the register, such was the never-ending generosity of her sweet, saggy soul.
He’d spent September caged up in Cajun cooking, trying to decide which woman was worse. Every time he got his phone call home, his mother’s simpering nerves put her in first place. But then Bleu would start up one of her lunchtime lectures, and send his opinion of her straight into the toilet (which was where most of her cooking went on the bulimia floor).
Although Bleu gave off the impression that her swing set as a kid had been ropes of Spanish moss, and that her swimming lessons took place in the bayou, and that her fourth grade reading log was comprised solely of Keach’s Catechism…she’d gone to Hah-vahd. She had chemical neuroscience to back up every one of her folky, this-is-how-you’ll-eat-at-home-one-day-so-this-is-how-you’ll-eat-here exercises. He couldn’t forgive her for using his own science against him. He was Spiderman strung up. He was Wonder Woman whipped to the bone. He was Super Man having Lasik surgery. He was…late for dinner.
The girls relished parading down the grand staircase Bleu’s grant had purchased for them, dreaming of Scarlet O’Hara’s age, when eighteen-and-a-half-inch waistlines were the height of beauty. James found the stairs unnecessarily shallow, and skipped three with every step. He came down hard on the balls of his feet, to the oak’s great distress (Bleu stayed downstairs mostly, so it never got a good workout).
He was the last student into the dining room, the only place in the house that wasn’t fully Antebellum. Bleu had Romanized the room to evoke a time when eating to death was a sport, but the cushions and lounge chairs were upholstered with homey hooked paisley and pastels, which ruined the effect somewhat. By the time he got down there the only vacancy was on a backless chaise bench next to So-Ann. It would be a wet evening.
Even though he was late, Bleu was always later. Or maybe just slower. The thick molding at the top of the wainscoating had stamped its tobacco plant pattern into his back by the time Bleu sailed in, her aids rattling behind her with crates in their arms.
“Hello,” she sang.
“Hey,” a girl without hair said back for all of them. Bleu smiled at her, then busied herself with scattering almonds across their bench-like tables, confetti style.
James stared at the crates. Two years ago his mom would have clubbed him behind the ear for failing to respond. New York could rub the southern sentimentality out of anyone—you needed elbows to survive there, and not the proffered gentlemanly escort kind. European heritage wasn’t fashionable.
Bleu didn’t speak again until she’d arranged everything just the way she wanted it, unpacking weird stacks of paper napkins and taking care of everything but the mysterious crates. She had her aids set them on a table and they retreated to their guard tower cushions—strategically placed so that no mouth would go uninspected.
“Thanks be,” Bleu said, and cradled her paunch with low-hanging prayer arms. The hairless girl added a “to God.”
“Ritual,” Bleu said happily, and then she said it again, and again, and everyone but James joined her in the exercise to get it over with. They sped up until the word spun into itself into “rich y’all.” It was appropriate to an extent, though the Remedial Dietary Institute cinched some belts tighter than others, and not everyone had South in their blood. James repeated, Irony, in his head. Irony. Irony, Irony, Irony Irony IronyIronyIronyIronyIrony. All he came up with was “are a knee,” which didn’t have as much cosmic resonance.
While he’d done his exercise, Bleu had asked the room to define “ritual.” The question bounced across bored volunteers until Bleu gave them her textbook definition. Next was the request for examples. Bleu let four Christian ones pass by before she waved away the remaining hands.
“Rituals can be upheld to keep a practice sacred, but most of our rituals are mundane. Brushing your teeth, always stepping into a room with your right foot first. Sharing a meal.” The key to ritual isn’t religion—it’s consistency. Consistency is sacred. And so,” she popped the lid off of one of the crates, “I give you layers upon layers of consistency.”
She held up a mason jar. “Each one of you will get a Ball jar with the same pretty script. I love this script. Shabby-clique now, but it used to be just homey. Same jars,” she started passing them out, “but different paper.” Her distribution brought her close to James now, and she held up his napkin stack as an example. Ah. Not Napkins. Origami paper. Periwinkle with a cloudy pink and blue baby shower pattern. “Everyone may perform the same rituals, but we each carry them out with our own style and flair.”
If the paper designs had been matched to personalities, James wanted a new one.
Using a larger sheet, Bleu walked them through the folding process until each of them had an origami star. Or at least a spitball that could pass for a star at an institute for the blind. Bleu took up an almond and placed it on her tongue. She crunched once, and waved for the room to imitate her.
James was luckier than some—his AN favored rigorous exercise over food restriction. So-Ann was sniffing and getting the collar of her shirt wet, and he hoped she wasn’t about to spit out the almond. Masticated food wasn’t his idea of appetizing, and they’d think he was regressing if it curbed his appetite.
Bleu pinched her star and dropped it in her jar, where it landed on a point and bent a little. “One bite, one star. Ritual. It’ll slow us down, give us a chance to be mindful eaters in between bites while we fold. And,” Bleu got a kind twinkle in her eye, “it’s philanthropic.”
James tried to swallow his snort down after his almond, but it caught in his throat.
Bleu looked at him like she’d heard, though he didn’t think it had been that loud. “One bite, one star. Many stars, one full jar. One jar, one developing nation saved. In theory. For every jar you fill, we’ll donate an equivalent meal to someone who isn’t hungry by choice. As we go on, we’ll talk about establishing a reward system. If you provide a whole family with a meal, I think it’s fair that you get to design a menu for one of your meals.”
Some members of the audience perked up.
“Think of it as FreeRice.com for those who dislike carbohydrates. No need to worry about those yet—we’re still sticking to the high protein diet.”
So-Ann tapped his knee below the patella. He slid his eyes over to her. She had matte tears dried on her face. Between her fingers, she pinched an almond on the vertical. Calories? she mouthed.
James cocked his head. No duh, it had calories…oh. How many. He thought. They’d done almonds in joules in one of his chem labs. He did some math with decimals, then wiggled seven fingers on the tops of his thighs. She was looking at his face instead. He fought to keep from rolling his eyes and looked pointedly at his lap. She blinked, and her followed. She nodded, and gave him the tiniest of smiles, one that didn’t curve her mouth up, just brought the corners to a horizontal.
Ah. She was of the opposite category of AN, a restrictor. He was surprised that she didn’t have the nutrition label of every item in the grocery stores memorized, then realized that a, she probably hadn’t touched any nuts since her problem started, and b, there was an app for that. Which she wouldn’t have anymore, since all phones were locked up tighter than Tinkerbelle in Bleu’s desk. They were probably vibrating just as angrily, if they weren’t dead by now.
So-Ann surprised him by lifting a sheet off his stack and folding it neatly, pressing the creases with long nails. Few people here surprised him—their diseases were ritualistic. Bleu was right about that, at least. So-Ann waited a moment for the nearest aide to get distracted, then dropped it into his jar, though he hadn’t had another almond yet. Ah. Payment.
That could be…lucrative.
Bleu was looking at him, though he didn’t think she’d caught the exchange. She eyed his jar, and gave him a thumbs up close to her body.
He gave her a flat New York smile.
