Thinner - Stephen King [9]
Oh, come on, now, is that fair?
Fair enough. When your imagination got out of control, it wasn't good news.
'You can jump me if you want to,' Heidi said, 'but what I really want is for you to jump on our bathroom scales'
'Come on, Heidi! I lost some weight, no big deal!'
'I'm very proud of you for losing some weight, Billy, but we've been together almost constantly for the last five days, and I'll be darned if I know how you're losing it.'
He gave her a longer look this time, but she wouldn't look back at him; she only stared through the windshield, her arms folded across her bosom.
'Heidi '
'You're eating as much as you ever did. Maybe more. The mountain air must have really gotten your motor revving.'
'Why gild the lily?' he asked, slowing down to slam forty cents into the basket of the Rye tollbooth. His lips were pressed together into a thin white line, his heart was beating too fast, and he was suddenly furious with her. 'What you mean is, I'm a great big hog. Say it right out if you want, Heidi. What the hell. I can take it.'
'I didn't mean anything like that!' she cried. 'Why do you want to hurt me, Billy? Why do you want to do that after we had such a good time?'
He didn't have to glance over this time to know she was near tears. Her wavering voice told him that. He was sorry, but being sorry didn't kill the anger. And the fear that was just under it.
'I don't want to hurt you,' he said, gripping the Olds's steering wheel so hard his knuckles showed white. 'I never do. But losing weight is a good thing, Heidi, so why do you want to keep hitting on me about it?'
'It is not always a good thing!' she shouted, startling him making the car swerve slightly. 'It is not always a good thing and you know it!'
Now she was crying, crying and rooting through her purse in search of a Kleenex in that half-annoying, half-endearing way she had. He handed her his handkerchief and she used it to wipe her eyes.
'You can say what you want, you can be mean, you can cross-examine me if you want, Billy, you can even spoil the time we just had. But I love you and I'm going to say what I have to say. When people start to lose weight even though they're not on a diet, it can mean they're sick. It's one of the seven warning signs of cancer.' She thrust his handkerchief back at him. His fingers touched hers as he took it. Her hand was very cold.
Well, the word was out. Cancer. Rhymes with dancer and You just shit your pants, sir. God knew the word had bobbed up in his own mind more than once since getting on the penny scale in front of the shoe store. It had bobbed up like some evil clown's dirty balloon and he had turned away from it. He had turned away from it the way you turned away from the bag ladies who sat rocking back and forth in their strange, sooty little nooks outside the Grand Central Station or the way you turned away from the capering Gypsy children who had come with the rest of the Gypsy band. The Gypsy children sang in voices that somehow managed to be both monotonous and strangely sweet at the same time. The Gypsy children walked on their hands with tambourines outstretched, held somehow by their bare dirty toes. The Gypsy children juggled. The Gypsy children put the local Frisbee jocks to shame by spinning two, sometimes three of the plastic disks at the same time - on fingers, on thumbs, sometimes on noses. They laughed while they did all those things, and they all seemed to have skin diseases or crossed eyes or harelips. When you suddenly found such a weird combination of agility and ugliness thrust in front of you, what else was there to do but turn away? Bag ladies, Gypsy children, and cancer. Even the skittery run of his thoughts frightened him.
Still, it was maybe better to have the word out.
'I've felt fine,' he repeated, for maybe the sixth time since the night Heidi had asked him if he felt quite well. And, dammit, it was true! 'Also, I've been exercising.'
That was also true of the last five days, anyway. They had made it up the Labyrinth Trail together, and although he'd had to exhale