Page 42 of The Unraveling

I didn’t get the reference, but shrugged and said, “Hurry, let’s get this stuff off.”

We hurried out of my mom’s lingerie, both of us down to the leotards we had on underneath. Sadie was in my ballet class, and we had spent most of the evening so far dancing around.

We ran to put my mom’s stuff away and then scrambled back to my room, where I started anxiously cleaning up the mess of two eleven-year-olds left to their own devices.

Sadie didn’t miss a beat, rushing with me to make things neat again.

My mom reappeared in the doorway. “What were you thinking?” she asked.

“I—we were just practicing and then we were playing,” I said. “We—her—Sadie’s parents said she could have a sleepover.”

“No, no. Absolutely not. After this? No way. Was that song supposed to be funny?”

I screwed up my face. “Huh?”

She shook her head and breathed in deeply, like she couldn’t believe how dumb I could be.

“Sadie, go call your parents, have them pick you up.”

Sadie, eyes wide, shuffled off to the phone to go call, and I cowered in my mom’s presence by myself.

I was told to wait outside with Sadie until her parents arrived, and neither of us said a word until her parents’ minivan pulled up and Sadie said, “Well…bye.”

I dreaded going back inside. I didn’t know who that man was or what was going on, but my mom was clearly pissed.

I found her in the kitchen with a trash bag, throwing out all the junk food Sadie’s parents had bought us.

“Mom, no!” I said, tears starting, as if she were throwing out my old stuffed animals or something. Which I could also see her doing.

“You can’t eat this shit, are you kidding me? I’m out there finding you opportunities and you’re back here doing this? What’s anyone going to want with you when you can’t fit through the doorway and your skin is all covered in pimples and your fat rolls are all lumpy under your leotard?”

I looked at the trash bag. I had never made a connection between food and appearance like that before. Not consciously.

“Do you know who that man was?” she asked, pointing at the doorway, where presumably he had exited. “That was Roger Harris! He has a cousin who works at one of the best ballet schools in the country. And you ruined that for yourself!”

My stomach churned.

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

“Sorry my fat ass. You have to stop eating this crap—I can tell when you come back from Mimi’s and she’s been stuffing you with chocolate chip cookies and popcorn all goddamn weekend. You get this little roll of fat right on the edge of your leotard. See? You can see it now!”

I looked down and saw where the top of my tights ended around my stomach. “I just thought that’s because it was tight. And because it’s skin.”

“Why do you think it’s so tight, Jocelyn Rose? Jesus Christ.”

She inhaled deeply and leaned against the counter.

“You have that,” I said.

“I have what?”

I started to second-guess my words. “Never mind.”

“I have what?” She launched off the counter and turned to me.

“The skin thing. Your clothes are tight, too.”

She raised her eyebrows and bit her tongue. “It’s a little different, Jocelyn. And I’m not the one who decided she so desperately needed to become a fucking prima ballerina. You know how expensive this whole thing is?”

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