Body By Night by Zuri Day Read Free Book Online Page A

girls’ movements were jerky, they more or less walked backward. But D’Andra fairly glided across the floor. When they won, the other girls were convinced it was because of D’Andra’s Moonwalk. She’d been a mini-celebrity at Marcus Garvey for the rest of the week.
    Chanelle was also the first among her peers to recognize she was smart. Whenever there were instructions or directions or anything lengthy in word count, Chanelle would summon D’Andra over with a “Hey girl, what’s all these words?” Aside from her teachers, and an every-now-and-then compliment from her mother, it was her only early, grade-school praise.
    D’Andra’s smile faded as she turned her cart and headed in the opposite direction from the voices. Those happy moments were a long time ago, happier times separated by more recent, less happier ones. Months had passed, but D’Andra was in no hurry to encounter her former best friend who’d been willing to throw almost twenty years of friendship away over some walking dirt.
     
     
    When D’Andra returned home, all was quiet, a rarity since Cassandra had moved back in. She wondered for just a moment where everyone had gone, then chose to make the best of her time alone. She decided to eat a quick bite and then get on the computer.
    Moments later she sat with the best semblance of a healthy meal she could make from what was available in the kitchen: a small amount of the spaghetti sauce her mother had fixed, spread over a piece of baked fish instead of pasta. She’d grated a small amount of Parmesan cheese, a commodity that used to cover everything on her plate if Italian was the food choice. She’d opted for wheat crackers instead of butter-soaked French bread and sparkling water replaced the soda she loved. Still reveling in a quiet house, not to mention being able to control the remote, impossible when Mary Smalls was home, she munched on a cracker and flipped on the TV. She was just about to decide that there was nothing on when she landed on a channel in time to see a big woman’s naked backside as she proudly stood on a balcony with her hands in the air.
    “What in the world?”
    D’Andra clicked on to the cable guide and saw that the show she was watching was called Monique’s Fat Chance P.A.R.I.S and the woman on the balcony was naked because as part of a beauty contest, she would be photographed in the nude. D’Andra sat transfixed as she watched five women struggle with whether they could go through with the photo shoot. All five of them and also the host, Monique, voiced the same concerns and attitudes she had about her own body. One contestant, a virgin, said no one else had seen her adult body. Another hesitated for religious reasons, afraid of how appearing nude might affect her children. A third, speaking with new confidence, said she’d worked for every roll on her body and she was going to own them. The woman she’d seen on the balcony, who she later found was named Marcia, didn’t want to pose nude because she’d always been known as the “clumsy queen,” with a very negative view of her body image.
    Monique empowered them by telling them the choice was theirs, that no one had to pose if she didn’t want to, and that she was going to pose with them.
    “If I’m going to talk the talk, then I’ve got to walk the walk,” Monique said.
    Tears came to D’Andra’s eyes as one by one the plus-size models faced their fears and decided to pose for the camera, with body paint their only covering. Marcia had stood on the balcony in celebration of her decision to be free.
    That’s when D’Andra decided. Monique was right. If she was going to try and help other people get healthy and feel better, D’Andra knew she was going to have to start with herself. She put down her plate and picked up her purse. After finding Night’s card she reached for her cell phone. It was time to face her fears, all of them. She was going to do the photo shoot. She wouldn’t strip