Starling, veteran yard-sale decorator, stood in the center of the room and turned slowly around. Fredrica had done a pretty good job with what she had. There were curtains of flowered chintz. Judging from the piped edges, she had recycled some slipcovers to make the curtains.
There was a bulletin board with a sash pinned to it. BHS BAND was printed on the sash in glitter. A poster of the performer Madonna was on the wall, and another of Deborah Harry and Blondie. On a shelf above the desk, Starling could see a roll of the bright self-adhesive wallpaper Fredrica had used to cover her walls. It was not a great job of papering, but better than her own first effort, Starling thought.
In an average home, Frederica’s room would have been cheerful. In this bleak house it was shrill; there was an echo of desperation in it.
Fredrica did not display photographs of herself in the room.
Starling found one in the school yearbook on the small bookcase. Glee Club, Home-Ec Club, Sew n’ Sew, Band, 4-H Club—maybe the pigeons served as her 4-H project.
Fredrica’s school annual had some signatures. “To a great pal,” and a “great gal” and “my chemistry buddy,” and “Remember the bake sale?!!”
Could Fredrica bring her friends up here? Did she have a friend good enough to bring up those stairs beneath the drip? There was an umbrella beside the door.
Look at this picture of Fredrica, here she’s in the front row of the band. Fredrica is wide and fat, but her uniform fits better than the others. She’s big and she has beautiful skin. Her irregular features combine to make a pleasant face, but she is not attractive looking by conventional standards.
Kimberly Emberg wasn’t what you would call fetching either, not to the mindless gape of high school, and neither were a couple of the others.
Catherine Martin, though, would be attractive to anybody, a big, good-looking young woman who would have to fight the fat when she was thirty.
Remember, he doesn’t look at women as a man looks at them. Conventionally attractive doesn’t count. They just have to be smooth and roomy.
Starling wondered if he thought of women as “skins,” the way some cretins call them “cunts.”
She became aware of her own hand tracing the line of credits beneath the yearbook picture, became aware of her entire body, the space she filled, her figure and her face, their effect, the power in them, her breasts above the book, her hard belly against it, her legs below it. What of her experience applied?
Starling saw herself in the full-length mirror on the end wall and was glad to be different from Fredrica. But she knew the difference was a matrix in her thinking. What might it keep her from seeing?
How did Fredrica want to appear? What was she hungry for, where did she seek it? What did she try to do about herself?
Here were a couple of diet plans, the Fruit Juice Diet, the Rice Diet, and a crackpot plan where you don’t eat and drink at the same sitting.
Organized diet groups—did Buffalo Bill watch them to find big girls? Hard to check. Starling knew from the file that two of the victims had belonged to diet groups and that the membership rosters had been compared. An agent from the Kansas City office, the FBI’s traditional Fat Boys’ Bureau, and some overweight police were sent around to work out at Slenderella, and Diet Center, and join Weight Watchers and other diet denominations in the victim’s towns. She didn’t know if Catherine Martin belonged to a diet group. Money would have been a problem for Fredrica in organized dieting.
Fredrica had several issues of Big Beautiful Girl, a magazine for large women. Here she was advised to “come to New York City, where you can meet newcomers from parts of the world where your size is considered a prized asset.” Right. Alternatively, “you could travel to Italy or Germany, where you won’t be alone after the first day.” You bet. Here’s what to do if your toes hang out over the ends of your shoes. Jesus! All Fredrica needed was to meet Buffalo Bill, who considered her size a “prized asset.”
How did Fredrica manage? She had some makeup, a lot of skin stuff. Good for you, use that asset. Starling found herself rooting for Fredrica as though it mattered anymore.
She had some junk jewelry in a White Owl cigar box. Here was a gold-filled circle pin that most likely had belonged to her late mother. She’d tried to cut the fingers off some old gloves of machine lace, to wear them Madonna-style, but they’d raveled on her.
She had some music, a single-shot Decca record player from the fifties with a jackknife attached to the tone arm with rubber bands for weight. Yard-sale records. Love themes by Zamfir, Master of the Pan Flute.
When she pulled the string to light the closet, Starling was surprised at Fredrica’s wardrobe. She had nice clothes, not a great many, but plenty for school, enough to get along in a fairly formal office or even a dressy retail job. A quick look inside them, and Starling saw the reason. Fredrica made her own, and made them well, the seams were bound with a serger, the facings carefully fitted. Stacks of patterns were on a shelf at the back of the closet. Most of them were Simplicity, but there were a couple of Vogues that looked hard.
She probably wore her best thing to the job interview. What had she worn? Starling flipped through her file. Here: last seen wearing a green outfit. Come on, officer, what the hell is a “green outfit?”
Fredrica suffered from the Achilles’ heel of the budget wardrobe—she was short on shoes—and at
her weight she was hard on the shoes she had. Her loafers were strained into ovals. She wore Odor-Eaters in her sandals. The eyelets were stretched in her running shoes.
Maybe Fredrica exercised a little—she had some outsized warmups.
They were made by Juno.
Catherine Martin also had some fat pants made by Juno.
Starling backed out of the closet. She sat on the foot of the bed with her arms folded and stared into the lighted closet.
Juno was a common brand, sold in a lot of places that handle outsizes, but it raised the question of clothing. Every town of any size has at least one store specializing in clothes for fat people.