The Appetites of Girls by Pamela Moses Read Free Book Online

greater value.
    •   •   •
    O n the first day of the swim season, Coach Hadley had advised us about our diets—heavy meals could slow our systems; we were to think about eating for speed. For some time I had noticed how carefully my classmates, the girls especially, chose the foods they ate. I overheard them in the cafeteria comparing calories, sharing recipes for meals low in fat as they picked at half sandwiches, salads with cottage cheese, diced fruit. But until our coach’s warning, it had never crossed my mind that there was anything to be done about the plumpness around my thighs or the thickness of my middle. “You should be proud to have a healthy physique, Ruthie,” Mama had always told me. “No one’s frame is meant to be skin and bones like so many girls I see these days.” In temple or riding the bus, she would nudge me, jutting her chin disapprovingly toward women whose waists were as small as children’s. “They look as sickly as refugees!” Even Ruby, her new employee, had dropped ten pounds since summer, drinking only strawberry diet shakes for breakfast and lunch. “But now she tells me she is struggling to keep up with her classes,” Mama said. And the other day Mama had caught her incorrectly filling out an order for a wedding announcement—embossed instead of engraved. “Well, what did she think would happen from existing on fruit-flavored sugar substitutes! How can she possibly think straight?”
    But after swim practice, in the girls’ locker room, as I blotted my hair with a towel, I began to sneak peeks at my teammates—at their stomachs flat as stone slabs, at the perfect slope of their breasts, at their arms and legs as lean as the classical Greek figures we sketched in art class. To me, they didn’t look bony, but beautifully muscled, feminine and strong. If I followed our coach’s guidelines, would my body slice through the water more quickly? Could I, too, be womanly and sleek? And I stared down at the protrusion below my waist, the lumpiness of my hips.
    That evening, Mama, to my dismay, served a supper richer than usual—potato-lentil soup, buttered noodles, veal roast smothered withfat mushrooms, glazed challah rolls. My mouth watered as she placed dishes of the steaming food on the dining table. But I was determined not to weaken. I requested only a single ladleful of soup, rather than the usual two or three. I handed the basket of rolls to Poppy without taking one. Later, when the platters of veal and noodles were passed around the table for seconds, I shook my head, “No, thank you.”
    “Is something the matter, Ruthie? An upset stomach?”
    “No, Ma. No, I feel fine!” But there was a good reason, I explained, for my modest portions, and I recited the suggestions Coach Hadley had given.
    There was a pause in the scraping of Mama’s fork and knife. “It seems your coach has appointed himself the authority on all kinds of matters, hasn’t he?”
    But Papa laughed before there was time to answer Mama’s question. “Sarah, Valerie, did you know your sister was turning into such a dedicated athlete!” And he stroked one hand with the other as he did whenever he was pleased, causing my face to warm with pride.
    Sticking to my new diet regimen took more effort than I had anticipated. I craved Mama’s breakfasts—salmon scrambled eggs, buttermilk pancakes, oatmeal with brown sugar. And dinners of turkey with gravy, stuffed cabbage, kasha with onions. How easily I would have given in, but after some weeks, I thought I noticed what seemed almost a miracle—a slightly smaller bulge to my stomach, a bit less flesh around my upper legs. Was I merely wishing it? No! When I stood sideways before the full-length mirror on my closet door, I was quite sure I could make out a change. Along my route to school, I began to check my reflection in the windows of the nail salons, the coffee shops, Ganiaris’s fruit market. If I squinted my eyes, I could make my