The Silence of the Lambs - Thomas Harris [113]
In an average home, Fredrica'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, HomeEc 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 uni?form 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 fetch?ing 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, goodlooking 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 fulllength 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 de?nominations 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 mag?azine 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 goldfilled 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 Madonnastyle, but they'd raveled on her.
She had some