Good Luck, Fatty

housecoat and watches me scrape the Schwinn off the lawn. “Oh, yeah,” I add, the money feeling heavy and dirty in my hand. “You can keep this.” I crumple the bill further and hurl it to the ground, then hop on my bike and start for the road. When I glance back, Wilma is hobbling after the ten-spot, and Tom is in his bedroom window, the curtains pulled aside, staring after me.

 
     
    chapter 11
     
    I MAKE it home at five ‘til two, tear-stained and sweaty. Marie is already in our driveway, biding her time listening to fossilized cassette tapes in the dilapidated van. I roll past her into the garage, which Orv has mercifully left open. As I wedge the Schwinn into the corner by a random old door we’ve got lying around, it dawns on me that the Royale’s gone.
    “Rober—” my mother says before catching herself. She’s now out in the driveway, the raffia ties of her pumpkin-orange espadrilles wound so tightly around her legs they appear to be impinging her circulation. Or the pregnancy just left her with cankles. “I’ve got something for you.”
    I shoot a sideways glance into the back of the van, where I note that the only viable seatbelt is buckled around an infant car seat. But it’s empty. “Where’s Roy?” My sweet baby brother is the only thing that makes these visits with Marie and Duncan bearable.
    Marie ignores me, goes arms-first into the open driver’s window and comes out with a flat, square box, which she presents to me as if it’s the Great American Novel. “Your father and I thought you could use one of these,” she declares.
    Do I dare look? “Where’s Roy?” I repeat as she presses the box into my uncertain hands.
    She flips her hair, which, if you ask me, is much too long and stylish for someone of her age and political persuasion. I mean, shouldn’t her head be shaved (to protest misogyny)? Or her locks be in dreads (to prove she’s a woman of the people, man)? “Roy’s fine,” she says with a dismissive wag of her hand. “He’s napping while your father attends to some work.”
    What kind of work? I wonder. That flying-machine contraption thing? Is Duncan preparing to launch a new mode of transportation in Calcutta or Timbuktu? At Marie’s urging, I flip the box over. “A scale?” I should be offended, but I’m not. Actually, I’m sort of curious about my weight, since the digital scale Denise brought with her when she moved in quit working seven or eight months ago.
    “That’s right,” Marie says, beaming. “How can you expect to get your… situation under control without the simplest bit of data? Before a problem can be solved, it must first be defined.”
    Did I just sprout whiskers and an itty-bitty pink nose? Because I’m starting to feel a whole lot like one of Marie and Duncan’s sacrificial lab rats. I tuck the scale under my arm, fish my key out and head for the door. “I’ll be right back.”
     

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    It pains me to admit it, but I’m actually (gasp!) starting to enjoy my time with Marie, Duncan, and Roy.
    “How are the croquettes?” my father inquires as my parents and I huddle around the mahogany island, eating from our designated Pottery Barn plates. “Not too dry, are they?”
    I lick one of my fingers, then another. “No,” I say, only too happy to report on the tenderness of the meal my father has prepared (who knew vegetables could taste so good?). I give a little thumbs-up. “They’re perfect.”
    Roy lets out a restless gurgle, prompting Duncan to dash over to the basket where my brother is stashed and swoop him up. “There, there,” my father coos, patting Roy on the back.
    “We’re taking a shot at attachment parenting this time,” my mother says with a crinkly-eyed smile at Duncan and the baby. “We tried the Ferber method with you,” she tells me, “and it didn’t pan out.”
    “The what?”
     “Ferberizing,” Duncan chimes in. “Developed by Dr. Richard Ferber, a highly regarded pediatrician of the time. Or a psychologist.” He squints. “I forget which.”
    Marie clatters her dinner fork across her plate and swirls a colorful linen napkin over her mouth. “You wouldn’t stop bawling,” she says with a frown in my direction. “Drove us to the doorstep of the funny farm.”
    Duncan hands the baby off to Marie, who, once again, flops out a boob. I slip off my stool and linger in the kitchen, fingering the miniature spice jars Duncan has left on the counter. “Why did I cry so much?” I