The Turquoise Pants

I see Janice as I round the corner of the pharmacy. About 5’ 5”, she has dark auburn hair straight out of a bottle with an inch of white regrowth at all times. Her gold wire-rimmed glasses rest on a round face where the freckles and age spots blend together.  

Some might call her portly. I see is a normal female body that has settled into middle age – a slight paunch with another chin or two on the horizon. She waves when she sees me and calls, “Picking up for you or mom today?”

My life has been easier because of Janice. Five years of health challenges with my mother involved dozens of trips to the pharmacy that Janice unofficially runs with a velvet-gloved fist.

I’ve watched the young techs go to her with problems and questions, seen how she steps in to help them with difficult customers – they are after all dealing with people who are often in pain and ill. Her acts of kindness and the benefit they receive from her temperament and hard-earned wisdom endear her to me.

I tell her I am picking up for both of us and she clicks away on the keyboard.

“How’ve you been?” I ask. I’ve lost count of the crises she’s averted for me – the phone calls she’s made to light a fire under an overworked nurse who’s forgotten to send over a script; the inside information she’s provided about delivery service so I don’t have to make another trip.

“I’m doing okay,” Janice answers and turns to pull our prescriptions from the giant drawers behind her. She wears nearly the same thing every time I see her – dark baggy stretch pants, a loose-fitting flowered T-shirt and a burgundy cotton lab coat that bears the name of the pharmacy.

Our fashion choices are not usually too far apart. But today, I am wearing bright turquoise pants – a gift I received nine months ago from my friend Michelle, who bought them for me when she saw them on clearance at T.J. Maxx.

As a fat woman, black and occasionally navy are my go-tos. It makes it easier to blend in. There’s too much risk in being noticed.

Growing up in the early 70s, there was one store with a chubby section. They only carried Wrangler jeans because the cut was generous enough to allow for bigger bellies and rear ends. My mother resorted to making a lot of my clothes because the retail choices were, well, limited.

I resented having to come right home after school so she could measure me and pin the pattern pieces to a body I had already started to hate. She did a great job, but it was obvious they were home-sewn, and I often dodged verbal bullets after walking past the clique of popular girls.

The funny thing is that when I look back at pictures of myself as a girl, I wasn’t big, and the irony that I’m fatter now because I ate to ease the pain of being “big” isn’t lost on me.

The fact that I am wearing Michelle’s present for the first time is a sign of two things. First, I haven’t done laundry in a very long time. Second, I’ve reached the tipping point from decades of work on body image issues and their underlying causes.

Although I still feel anxious about the potential unwanted attention wearing such a bright color could bring, I’m well into my 50s and the part of me that gives less than zero fucks about what other people think has expanded. In fact, I have reduced my fuck count so much that I’ve also worn a raspberry form-fitting T-shirt even though it doesn’t come anywhere near hiding my belly.

Janice places three bags on the counter. “I can hear them doing the final count on mom’s prescription,” she says. “It’ll just be another minute.”

I look around. There’s no one in line. A rare occurrence.

“Looks like we’re back to spring with the weather,” I offer. I wear my purse like a mail bag across my body so the pouch rests over my stomach. I like it there. I feel safe.

“You never know who you’ll run into when you come here,” I continue while we wait. “I just bumped into the couple the couple who used to run the Einstein’s on Baum Boulevard. I haven’t seen them in ages. They have a baby now! Eight months old.”

I am rambling – a sign of discomfort as I stand alone at an empty counter and wonder why I decided to wear a neon bull’s-eye that begs for commentary, even if it’s silent. My body is tense in anticipation.

“My mom and I used to go there all the time, but not so much since they left,” I continue.” Some kind of political thing with the manager. At Einstein’s. Can you imagine?”

She smiles, and I laugh at the implication. This location has three pharmacists and a half dozen techs in the store at all times. It’s an enormous operation in the center of an area with multiple hospitals and doctors’ offices. I’m pretty sure the politics are insane.

“I just do me,” she says. “I’m a very basic person.” She waves her chubby hands over her body. “I dress the way I dress. No make-up. Nothing fancy. Even when I’m on a cruise.”

“Oh, you like cruises?”

“Love them. But my girlfriend keeps riding me about how I dress.” I’m curious. When a middle-aged woman references a girlfriend, it can mean multiple things. “She points out people in those bright Hawaiian shirts, but I keep telling her that’s just not me.”

“This morning the only clean pants I had were black velour and it just felt too nice to wear winter clothes.” I raise my leg up to show her the bright turquoise pants. “So, I put these on.”

“I could never wear those!” Janice shakes her head and hunches her shoulders like she’s trying to hug herself. “I’ve walked around my whole life like this.” She shrinks in front of my eyes.

As a fat woman, I too, have mad skills to make myself smaller. I know how to manipulate my body to take up less room in a bus seat or chair so I don’t annoy the people next to me. When dining out, I calculate the space available between chairs to carve out the path of least resistance to the bathroom. I never choose a place to sit without first assessing the sturdiness of the chair.

“Trust me,” I say. “I get it.”

But getting older has depleted my fuck bank and I’ve grown weary of my bland wardrobe. Lately, I’ve immersed myself in videos and photos of fat women happily wearing brighter clothes, proud to display a fun fashion sense. 

“I found this woman on YouTube,” I gush like a fan girl. “She tries on and reviews clothes from online plus-sized stores.” Janice is not impressed. “She wears rompers and sleeveless tops! Bright colors. And patterns!” I say it as if the YouTuber is a heretic of the highest order.

Janice shakes her head again. “Not me.”

“Part of me is freaking out that I’m in these pants,” I whisper as I lean partway over the counter. “But part of me is like, ‘you go!’”

She pats my hand. “Good for you.”

The pharmacist calls my mother’s name and tosses a bag in the basket on top of the cabinets. Janice turns around and grabs it. “Mom’s birthday?” she asks as she scans the barcode.

“Five, twenty-two, forty-two.” On an impulse, I pick up my phone and swipe to open it. “That’s why I have this as my screensaver,” I say as I hold up the image of a fat woman’s floating nude body with ‘take up space’ scrawled across her belly.”

Janice’s nod is barely perceptible. “Your birthday?” I tell her, and she keys it in. “$15.42 all together.” I hand her the money. “Would you like these in a bag?”

“That’d be great,” I answer. “Have a wonderful afternoon.” She hands me the blue plastic bag and I throw it on top of the groceries in the cart.

“Tell mom hi,” she calls as I walk my oversized neon ass and raspberry-covered back rolls toward the door. I wore turquoise pants. In public. And I survived.

Artwork: Kat Kissick