The next day was Saturday and Luanne was off, so I opened the store by myself. It was open already when I came in, and I was surprised to find Scott there, posting up a new schedule for the month, showing that we would, indeed, be closed for the day after Thanksgiving. I wanted to gloat a little and I wanted to confront him with the things I found out last night, but I figured that it'd be better if I kept my mouth shut until we knew more. Scott had other ideas, however, staring at me and making me totally uncomfortable as I clocked in.

"So, you go over my head," he said. "Or was it just an amazing coincidence that right after I turn down your stupid demands, I get a call from my old man telling me to make sure that I keep the store closed on the Friday after the holiday. "I didn't talk to him," I said. "No, that's true," he said. "Your fat friend talked to him. The Millsbury Dough Girl." "That's not necessary," I said, using all my effort to restrain myself. "No, what's not necessary," he said in an evil tone, "is for me to close this store and give money away to a bunch of fat-assed crybabies on a perfectly good business day. What's not necessary is that I should be donating the little bit of profit from this store to a bunch of mental defectives who choose to live outside on MY property, eating MY food, wasting MY time and leaving a mess for ME to clean up! That's what's not necessary!" I watched, still in total shock at his outburst, as he managed to get control of himself, taking a deep breath, then looking up at me with one of the most sarcastic, disingenuous smiles I'd ever seen.

"So," he said, "I guess you've got some work to do? Or -- how could I be so foolish! It's breakfast time! So you've got to get yourself over into the bakery to stuff your face with some of my profits." I struggled with myself to not lose my temper and spit out the first things that came to my mind. He's angry, I told myself. He's angry and he's a baby and he's stupid and he just lost a fight, so he's going to lash out with whatever words he knows will hurt the most. Don't respond. Don't give him what he wants. "I've got to get to work," I said. "I've got to get the food for the Guests before we open." "No," he said, "I don't think so. In fact, I think that from now on we're going to have to change our priorities a little bit. See, this is a store where we SELL things. So, I think that from now on, the processes involved in SELLing things are going to have to take precedence over the proce-dures involved in giving things away. You're here, you're on the clock -- I think we're going to open early today. You can ring register for a while until some other people get here, and then -- if we can spare you for a couple of minutes -- I'll think about letting you get them their breakfast."

I didn't scream, I didn't yell, I didn't say all the things I'd wanted to. "Your father is a hun-dred times the man you are," I said. "In every way." "I don't think you should be talking about mul-tiplication," he replied, "because it's obvious that you're twice the woman you were when you started here. Although it does have it's benefits, since it makes these so much bigger and juicier." And with that, he reached out and cupped my boobs in his palms, squeezing them roughly and painfully. Complete and utter shock enveloped me and without thinking, I swung at his face while twisting away from him; he ducked and I missed, almost losing my balance, feeling him slap me with great force right on my butt.

"Fuck you!" I screamed, unable to bottle myself up any longer. I backed away from him, wishing that the word could convey all the horror and I hate I intended. "What did you say?" he asked, smiling his evil smile and knowing that he'd just won some kind of victory. "Fuck you!" I said again, unable to think of anything else. "Is that an invitation? No, probably not. You would have said, 'Fuck me!' if it was an invitation. So, then it must've been a curse and we can't tolerate that. You're fired!" He punched my time card out, waved at me with a big smile and started to walk away.

"You bastard! I'm going to report this as sexual abuse and harassment," I yelled. "Oh, really?" he replied. "Look at yourself, you fat cow: no one else is going to look at you and think any-thing sexual is possible! Especially not when I show them the picture of you from when you started working here -- fifty pounds ago? -- and tell them that I fired you for stealing food from the store. Now give me your key and get the hell out of here before I have you arrested for pilferage." I was crying hysterically by then and I didn't know what to do, so I pulled the key off my keychain and threw it at him with all the strength I could muster; he just reached out and caught it like it was nothing, denying me the little satisfaction I could have taken from bruising him.

Driving back to the dorm, I almost got into a couple of accidents, since the tears were com-ing so violently that I could hardly see. When I'd calmed down enough to catch my breath, I called Luanne to tell her what had happened, but I got only the answering machine, so I lay down on the bed and cried myself into a troubled sleep.

I was woken up at four o'clock by the phone ringing; it was Luanne. "I can't believe it!" she said. "I stopped by the store and Roger told me that you were fired for stealing food! What the hell?" When I finished telling her the story, breaking into occasional hysterical sobs, she said, "Look, why don't you come over here for dinner, I'll tell you what I found out and we can call Mr. W and see if we can get this worked out, okay?" I agreed, cleaning myself up and putting on some loose sweat-clothes to avoid having to see my body, before heading over to her apartment.

When she opened the door, Luanne gave me a big hug, and despite my anger at my body, I couldn't help but feel how wonderful it was to be so soft and pressed up against another soft person. "You look like shit!" she said, smiling at me. "I think you need a cookie. Cookies solve all problems!" "No thanks," I said. "I've decided to go on a diet. I don't want to ever be called a 'fat cow' again." "Don't let him get to you," she said. "Don't do it! You liked yourself this morning; you thought you were beautiful and sexy. He's a stupid goddam bastard that we all despise and you can't let him de-termine what you think about yourself! You wouldn't take his opinion on anything else in the world, so why take him seriously about this? Don't do it!" I knew she was right, but I also knew that he wasn't the only one with that opinion, and I couldn't help but think that there must be hundreds of other people who looked at me and thought the same thing. I turned down the cookie the second time it was offered and Luanne just looked at me, then said, "You'll come around. I know you will. But I won't bug you."

At that moment, Jimmy walked in the room, came over to me and gave me another hug, saying, "Hi, gorgeous! What's with the sweats? I was looking forward to those incredibly tight jeans of yours. Mmmmm-mmmm!" He stepped back and said playfully to Luanne, "Y'know, honey, if I didn't think you'd chalk it up to me really wanting a thinner woman, I think I'd leave you for this incredible chick over here!" "Oh, really?" Luanne said. "I hope you have enough blankets to keep you warm when you sleep on the porch tonight!" Even I felt some of the tension break and I laughed a little for the first time since that morning.

But, the topic of blankets brought us back to the Guests, and we started talking about what Lu had sleuthed out as we sat down at the table. She served us a big Caesar salad to start, modified from the traditional recipe with the addition of oil-cured black olives and crumbled goat cheese and we all dug in hungrily. Despite my determination to diet, I couldn't help myself and resolved that one more night of indulgence wouldn't be a problem, so I'd start in the morning.

After slathering a couple of slices of crusty home-made bread with an herbed butter and passing it around the table, Luanne told me how she and Jimmy had started checking out some of the donation barrels, discovering that almost all of them were in the same condition as the one in my dorm: overflowing with donations and garbage, uncollected for god-knows-how long. They'd taken the barrels out to Jimmy's truck and made the pickups from every barrel they could locate.

They went over to the laundromat where the blankets were cleaned and the owner told her that Scott had been promising to send someone over to pick up the blankets every day for two weeks, but kept cancelling and promising he'd be there the next day. It was the same story at the gas station which was supplying the kerosene and at all the other places in town which had been mak-ing donations; in each case, the owner had volunteered to bring the stuff over, but Scott had insisted that they shouldn't trouble themselves and that he'd take care of it. At the security guard agency, we were told that Scott had demanded the guards be provided for no charge, but the owner said he couldn't do it; after offering to charge half-rate, Scott refused the proposal, saying that he'd get the town police to do it for free.

The police department isn't very big in this town, especially since the University has its own force, so when they walked into the headquarters, they were greeted by the chief himself and invited into his office. He was a big man with thick white hair and was full of chat that afternoon. He told them that he'd had to refuse Scott since their budget was so tight that they'd been thinking of ra-tioning dog biscuits for the canine officers. "Seriously," he said, "we've had so many cutbacks that we're going to have to cancel permits for any parades scheduled through the end of the year. Of course that means I'm going to be called a homophobe, since the first parade to be cancelled is go-ing to be the Gay & Lesbian parade next weekend. No one here'll remember that my wife and I marched with our son -- may he rest in peace -- in the first gay pride parade they held six years ago." Luanne said that he showed them a picture then of him and his son; the chief looked exactly the same -- hale and healthy -- while the son was thin with sunken cheeks and dark patches on his skin. "Taken last year," he'd said. "Almost exactly a year ago. He died right after New Year's. We had our differences, but... he was a fighter, an organizer, a leader. I was proud of him in every way and I knew he felt the same about me... I've known Tom Walters most of my life and all I can say is that he doesn't deserve a son like that. Do you know what that idiot said to me? He said, 'It's not an indi-vidual's responsibility to care for the lazy human waste-products when the government chooses to do nothing about it.' I was so flabbergasted by that statement, I didn't know what to say. I just told him to get the hell out of here.'" Luanne said they talked a while longer and she walked away from there feeling like this town was really a town of people and not some abstract thing.

While we talked, Luanne brought to the table a beautiful grilled vegetable polenta gratin with smoked mozzarella. It looked wonderful, smelled tantalizing and tasted even better than that. Jimmy had only one helping, but happily and unobtrusively kept mine and Luanne's plates full, so that practically without realizing it, the two of us finished the rest of the huge dish. "Well," I said a little drunkenly, when we had polished off the last of the meal, drained our wine glasses, and swal-lowed the last crust of bread, "I hadn't intended it this way, but -- I'm sure glad I decided to wear such loose pants!" "Well, just in case they're not loose enough," Jimmy said, eagerly, "feel free to take them right off. I won't mind at all!" "Jimmy!" Luanne yelled playfully. "Okay, okay," he said. "But a guy can hope, can't he?"

Luanne and I went into the living room and sat down on the couch while Jimmy did the clean-up in the kitchen and made some coffee. We talked for a while until I realized that I WAS in-credibly stuffed and the elastic waist of the sweatpants WAS feeling a little restrictive. "I almost feel as if I SHOULD take off my sweats," I said. "Go on, if you want to," she replied. "And don't worry about Jimmy: he talks big, and he WILL stare, but he's very well-behaved and as faithful as the Pope. Tell you what: I'll take off mine, too. Let's see if he drops the coffee tray!"

We laughed and stood up, shucking our pants and lifting our shirts to show off our swollen stomachs. Mine was round and globe-like, standing out from my body like a pregnant stomach; Luanne -- with a hundred pounds on me -- had the biggest stomach I'd ever seen. It was a whitish pink, criss-crossed with a network of faint blue veins and bright red stretchmarks, looking like a road-map to ecstasy; it had succumbed to gravity and folded over itself, creating deep creases at her sides and hiding completely the front of her bikini panties. "Can I?" I asked, reaching towards her with both hands. "Sure," she giggled, closing her eyes as I made contact with the warm skin and be-gan caressing its softness and testing its roundness.

Jimmy didn't trip when he came in at just that moment, but his gasp was like a shout, and it was the first time I'd ever seen anyone eyes actually bug out. "I'm dead," he said. "I'm dead and I must've been a good boy all my life because I've gone to heaven!" He put the coffee tray down and came over to us, putting his arms around Lu's waist and my shoulders and hugging us all together. There was an actual little tear, coming out of the corner of one of his eyes when he said, "I have fan-tasized about seeing something like this for all my life -- to be in the presence of two goddesses..." In a subtly territorial move, Luanne gathered him into her embrace, stroking his hair and pressing his face into her bosom, while looking at me and saying, "Men are so emotional, aren't they!"

The room was filled with a lot of sexual tension and danger, but Luanne skillfully managed to avoid any problems by sitting on the couch next to me and leaving Jimmy to sit by himself in the armchair as we drank our coffee. I couldn't help but notice the bulge in his pants and the way his hand kept casually brushing his crotch as he continually rearranged himself; did it hurt? I won-dered, and then I smiled, thinking about how it must be painful for him to have to sit and restrain himself and how he must be dying for me to either join in or get the hell out!

Luanne didn't notice or didn't care or -- the way she kept stretching and "accidentally" lift-ing her shirt , exposing her gigantic belly, led me to think that -- she was enjoying his torture, and so, kept the conversation going. She served us a pumpkin custard pie, cutting a generous slice for Jimmy, then saying, "We're sitting here half-naked so, let's cut the politeness --" and with that she divided the remainder of the cake into two pieces and put them on plates for me and her. We man-aged to finish them in no time at all, forcing the sweet and creamy, crusty and flaky delicacy into our already bursting bellies. Jimmy could barely pick at his pie, since he was so engrossed in our eating, and when Luanne was finished, she looked at him and said, "Are you going to eat that or not?" He couldn't answer, couldn't move, just gulped a couple of empty gulps before she said, "Okay, then do you mind if I finish?" The look he gave her was pure wondrous, helpless amazement, and as soon as she had finished the last forkful and made a production of licking the few stray crumbs from the plate, he stood up and choked out, "I... I... I've got to... Excuse me..." before leaving the room in a hurry.

The two of us wanted to laugh, but stifled ourselves because we knew that we were full to a dangerous level. Her face was bright red when she said, finally, "I hope he's taking care of himself in there, because I don't think I'm going to be interested in moving an inch later on!" He came back in a couple of minutes later, his face washed and his hair combed, obviously more composed, a little embarrassed and asserting some control by saying, "Don't you think we should call Mr. W now? It's getting a little late." "It's only nine o'clock," Lu answered. "Sure, but if he's resting and trying to get better, then it might be late for him." We agreed, and after an unsuccessful attempt to heave herself from the couch which ended in half-suppressed giggles, Luanne asked Jimmy to bring her the phone.

She dialed the number he'd given her, reaching the front desk of the resort hotel. "I'm look-ing for Mr. Walters' room," she said, then we watched as her brows knitted and she frowned. "For how long?" she asked, then paused before saying, "I see. Well, when he does check his messages, can you tell him that Luanne called -- he has my number." She thanked him and hung up, then turned to us and explained: "He's gone on a little excursion to the Bahamas for two weeks. He's supposed to be back by Thanksgiving and he might be checking in for messages." Suddenly, I felt like I wanted to cry again. "And he didn't leave a hotel name or anything where he'll be in the Bahamas?" Jimmy asked, sensing my frustration. "That's just great! And what is Rachel supposed to do about money? And what are the Guests supposed to do? Everyone's going to starve and he's off in the great un-known."

He was sweet in his concern, and I thanked him, saying, "Don't worry about me. I'll find something. I might get some unemployment." "Not after being fired for stealing, you won't," he said. "Just hold on a second," Luanne said. "I've got an idea." She picked up the phone and dialed another number; neither Jimmy nor I knew who she was calling, but we gathered from the conver-sation that by the time she was done, I had a job. "And what am I going to be doing?" I asked. "Waitressing," she said. "Have you ever waitressed before?" "At a diner for a couple of months..." "Well, this is a little different. You're going to be waitressing in the J.C. Grace Restaurant of the Uni-versity Hotel -- probably the classiest joint in this here burg."

And it was. I was terrified on my first day, but the wait captain, one of Lu's best friends, took me under his wing and showed me everything I needed to know to be a good waitress. "Be atten-tive, but don't hover," he said. "Never ask if everything is okay, but make sure you're watching when the customer lifts his head and looks for you. Never ever reach over anyone's plate. Anytime you're near the table, begin to pour some wine: if they want it, they'll be pleased, if they don't they'll thank you anyway, and if they wanted to ask you for something they'll be grateful for the ease of oppor-tunity. Never ask who gets which dish -- it's your responsibility to know." By the end of two training shifts, I was confident and assured and my tips after each four-hour lunch shift were equal to two days work at the market.

The only two drawbacks to the job were that they could only give me two permanent lunch shifts -- with the promise of more lunch and possibly some dinner shifts when they became avail-able -- and the black uniform I had to wear. It wasn't tacky or costume-y, but though the skirt was long and generously fit, the button-down blouse was tight around my ample belly, while the neck-line plunged too deeply for my comfort -- especially since my skin was so white and my boobs were so big.

My first solo shift went well, as did the first half of my second shift. Joellen was coming to visit that weekend, and I was in an incredibly excited mood; the day was flying by while I was thinking about Jo's sweet face and soft body. It was one o'clock on Saturday afternoon when I was assigned a table of four; I was confident and ready until I stepped up to the table and saw that it was Scott and another man and two women. Be professional, I told myself, and I was. I took their drink orders, smiling the whole time, then asked them if they'd be drinking wine with lunch. The other man said yes, and I sent the sommelier over, then hurried to the bar to beg with anyone who was around to trade tables with me. Nobody would or could, so I fetched the glasses and headed back to the table to bring them their drinks and take their appetizer order.

They weren't ready to order, but Scott said they'd need a second round. He'd gulped down his first drink by the time I returned with the next and he quickly knocked that one back, too, sig-nalling that he'd need a third. The other guy and one of the women, meanwhile had figured out their appetizer order. The second woman, a very pretty brunette with a dark mole on her upper lip, said, "Oh, I just don't know!" then looked at me and asked, "What would you have?" "It's obvious, isn't it: she'd have everything," Scott said. The other woman, the blonde who was his date, looked at him and said, "Scott!"

"What? I just meant that everything's probably delicious!" She wasn't sure, but backed off anyway and the brunette took my recommendation of the grilled portobellos when I told her that they were very light. I brought Scott his third scotch while the appetizers were being prepared and his fourth drink when I served them. They had been very leisurely in their decision-making, so I fi-nally took their orders at that time. The other three were ready, but Scott, was just looking at his menu, and said to me, "I'm looking for something heavy. A really big meal, stick-to-your-ribs, un-button-your-pants kind of thing. I wanna walk out of here with a real big belly, so -- in your experi-ence, what would be the best entree for that?"

My hands were shaking with pent-up anger at his digs, but I managed to hold it in, recom-mending the freshly-carved steamer roast with mushroom and herb potatoes and an onion gratin. He looked up at me and said. "Sounds like a lot of food! Well... maybe you could eat that much, but I don't think I could. So, I'll just have the roast chicken." I could feel my face flush with embarrass-ment, then the blood quickly drained away and I fought to control an attack of the dizzies. "What's your problem?" the other guy asked him. "Leave her alone." Scott played all innocent, but none of the others bought it, and when he asked me for another drink, his date said, "I think you've had enough." He turned to her and said, "Damn, for a second there, I started thinking that I hadn't got-ten divorced and that my ex-wife was sitting next to me telling me when I've had too much." He turned to me and said, "I'll have that other drink now, Rachel."

The wait captain found me a moment later in the hall where I was trying to calm myself down. I'd put the dinner order into the kitchen and I was holding the scotch on my tray, leaning against the wall. "Is everything okay? Things working out? I've had some good reports about you from customers and from the other waitstaff." "Fine," I choked out, but he didn't believe me, look-ing first at my order pad on the tray and then at the corresponding table. "Problem customer?" "No," I lied. "It's under control."

When I bent over and put the drink down in front of Scott, he followed it down with his head, looking through the glass at me and saying, "Hey! There's a crack in this glass!" Then he picked his head up and pointed at my cleavage, saying, "Whoops! My mistake." "Oh, grow up!" the brunette said, disgustedly. "We're really sorry," the other guy said. "He's just drunk and... we're sorry." "Maybe we should just get the check," the blonde said. "No way!" Scott said. "We're having lunch! A nice big fattening lunch! Right, Rachel?" "If he wants to stay, he can stay," the man said. "But we're leaving, so could you get us our check." "Sure," I said, but before I could walk away, Scott said, "Excuse me. I'm very sorry if I offended you and my friends. I'll be leaving, too, but before we go..." he pointed at the bottle of wine which was sitting across the table from him. "Would you mind?" I took a deep breath, walked around the table and got the bottle, then poured his glass three-quarters full and put the bottle down. I heard something fall on the floor and saw that it was a fork, so instead of putting my cleavage in his face again, I turned sideways and bent down.

"Jesus Christ, you clumsy cow!" I heard him yell and stood up quickly to see what was the matter now. He was standing up, holding the empty wine glass with a big dark stain of wine all over his shirt and jacket and pants. "If you can't control where your fat ass is going then you shouldn't be out in public, you stupid fat pig!" I hadn't yet had a chance to even react when the wait-captain was there, asking what was wrong. "What's wrong?" Scott was yelling. "Can't you see what's wrong? That fucking blimp of a waitress is too big to get out of her own way and bumped her fat ass into me so I spilled all my fucking wine all over me!" "I'm very sorry, sir," the captain said.

"Don't be sorry," the blonde said. "He's been on that poor girl the whole time, making all kinds of comments about her weight and she's been nothing but professional. He knocked a fork on the floor -- on purpose -- and when she went to pick it up, he spilled the wine on himself! I am horrified to be in the same room with him, let alone as his date!" "Shut up, you stupid..." Scott started to say, but the other guy reached over and grabbed his lapel so tightly that the spilled wine started to seep through his clenched fingers. "No," he said. "I think you'd better shut up and march your sorry ass out of here and out of my sight. I don't know how your father wound up with such a sick waste of flesh as yourself!" "Oh, yeah?" Scott said, "well I better not see any of you in my store again." The brunette laughed, saying, "I don't think you have to worry about that." She motioned around the dining room, filled with local people who were all watching the scene unfold. "In fact, I doubt if you'll see any of these people in your store again."

They left and I went to the ladies' room and cried, discovering after I'd calmed down a little, that I was still holding the fork. There was a gentle knock at the door, then it opened a crack and the captain peeked his head in, saying, "Look, Rachel, your shift's almost over -- why don't you take the rest of the day." "I need this job," I said, pleadingly. "I know you do. That's not even a problem. You did really good. If I were you, I would've hit him or something. One of the women told me about the whole thing, so don't worry about it, okay?" I shook my head, knowing that it was going to be im-possible for me not to worry about it.

If you've got any comments or criticisms, you can post them on the WeightBoard or e-mail me at: melaniebel@aol.com.

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