Nicole 1

There was a cake in front of her.

Nicole looked at it, then down at herself. She was wearing a beautiful, pink dress, its waistline cinched all the way in, and there were people around her, their faces indistinct. They were singing for her, giving her their very best wishes, and Nicole knew – she just knew – that there were presents waiting for her, hundreds upon hundreds of them, so many that they couldn’t even fit beneath the Christmas tree. Daddy had had to rent out a warehouse to store them all.

There was something warm on her hand, and Nicole realized that wax was dripping onto the back of it. She looked up, but there was nothing there. The wax atop her hand was flesh-coloured, spreading in thick, cloying gouts across her skin, and Nicole realized, entirely too late, that it wasn’t wax at all. She was swelling up, inflating like a balloon, her growing gut popping the stitches on her dress, and as her eyes rose from the ruin of her body, she saw her father on her left and her mother on her right. They were holding her hands as they expanded with fat, her fingers like sausages, her narrow, delicate wrist a distant memory.

Everything below her father’s breastbone was a bloody ruin. Her mother’s blonde curls were splattered with gore.

Happy birthday to you… happy birthday to you… happy birthday, dear Nicole… happy birthday to you…

Nicole fell, screaming, into darkness –

//

And woke up, panting, heart hammering in her chest. This was her default state.

Nicole’s weak, watery eyes darted around, squinting at the faint glow coming from behind her thick curtains. She wasn’t sure what time it was. She hadn’t had to care about what time it was for a while. The low drone of her TV reached her ears, and Nicole fumbled for the remote, dialling up the sound. She wasn’t sure when she’d last switched off her TV. Her computer monitor lurked to the side, waiting for her to turn to it and get back to what she’d been doing before she’d dozed off, but Nicole instead grabbed her phone and messaged her maid.

Pizza

There was one tick, then two ticks, and then the ticks glowed blue. Nicole knew that her order had been taken. Momentarily satisfied, she turned back to her computer, but was sidetracked by an itch in her bowels. Grunting, she rocked back and forth to stand, then limped to the bathroom. She didn’t bother closing the door.

When she wandered back out, struggling in vain with the fraying waistband of her trackpants, her maid was in her room, placing her pizza on the table. It wasn’t her maid, though. Nicole’s maid had been killed along with the rest of the help. On the same night that her parents had died.

Nicole’s throat closed up. She wobbled to her bed, sat down heavily, and stared at nothing. Behind her, the maid let herself out.

It was a while before she felt up to eating the pizza that she’d ordered.

//

“… be that as it may, we are your last surviving guardians, Nicole.”

Nicole looked from one face to the next. These people said that they were her aunts and uncles, but she’d never heard her parents discuss them once. Then again, she hadn’t paid much attention to anyone over the past few years. Dully, she nodded. One of them slid a family-sized pack of potato chips across the table.

“Now, your parents’ attorneys have been giving us some trouble, but we’re very well-resourced.” One of her uncles smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “We just need you to sign here…”

Nicole stared blankly at the contract as it was slid across the table. A pen joined it soon after. After a few moments, she became aware that she had started eating her potato chips. Crumbs scattered over the paper. One of her aunts sneered, then smoothed out her expression.

“We can’t bring you home until you sign,” one of her aunts said, her voice terribly grating. Nicole’s face scrunched up. “You do want to go home, don’t you, Nicole? Safe in your room, your every need attended to. Food whenever you want. Free Internet. Cable TV.”

“The police have already cleaned up your home,” another uncle chimed in. Was this the uncle who’d spoken just now? “It’s good as new. Your parents’ attorneys are being difficult, though. They won’t let us bring you –”

His voice cut off. Someone had kicked him under the table. Another aunt replaced him, her voice syrupy. “Sweetie, just sign. And we’ll make this all go away.”

Nicole signed.

//

Back in the present, Nicole sagged back against the cushions, her face slack and her stomach comfortably full. The TV was on. Her hands were sticky with grease and butter. The maid had included a pack of wet-wipes, which she used to clean herself before shuffling back to her computer. Clicking over to Facebook, she stared at her new friend request for what must have been the thousandth time.

It was from a Nora Lazard. Nicole didn’t know a Nora Lazard, and she didn’t usually get friend requests, either. (She never got friend requests. She had always been the one requesting for others to befriend her.)

Nicole wavered, staring at Nora Lazard’s profile, and searched her (pitifully small) list of friends. She did know a Chloe Lazard, it turned out. Her heart pounded in her chest as her cursor hovered over the Accept button, and then she clicked it, cringing.

Nothing happened, but Nicole was still clenched, still curled in on herself as much as she was able to. As quickly as she could, she scooted backwards and turned back to her TV. Some time passed before her Facebook pinged her again.

Nora Lazard: Hi, is this Nicole?

Nicole hastily deleted her draft and responded with proper grammar.

Nicole Bloom: Yes, hi!
Nora Lazard: Nice to meet you. I wish we could have met under better circumstances. My condolences.

Nicole flinched. She returned to the TV until her heart had stopped racing and she felt better. Then she ordered a casserole.

Nicole Bloom: Thank you.
Nora Lazard: I was trying to get in touch with you on behalf of Frank Funeral Services to figure out where you stood on your parents’ burial. Preferences and all that.
Nora Lazard: However, we received a response from your relatives first.

The rusted gears in Nicole’s atrophied brain struggled to turn. As she stared at the screen, jaw slack, processing the implications, the maid entered the room, placed her food in its usual spot, and left.

Nicole Bloom: Oh

Before doing anything else, Nicole started on her casserole. Then she took a deep breath and Googled her parents.

… Albert Bloom and Evelyn Elliot were laid to rest by their relatives in a sombre ceremony at the Bloom family mausoleum on Sunday. Notably absent was Nicole Bloom, their only daughter. When asked about her whereabouts, Vera Bloom, Albert Bloom’s second cousin, stated: “Nicole is processing her grief in private and does not wish to be disturbed.” Also present at the funeral were…

Nicole sat back, mind churning. Her parents had been buried, and she hadn’t even been there to say goodbye. Her aunts and uncles… they weren’t really her aunts and uncles, were they? They might have been her cousins. They’d lied to her. A vein started to throb in her forehead.

She hadn’t felt this angry in a long time. It was like whatever she’d used to numb her emotions – eating, drinking, sleeping, watching TV, gaming – had finally failed. (All it had taken was the death of her parents.) A great tidal wave of rage was building inside her. Clogging her veins, churning in her belly, rising up her throat like bile. Nicole swallowed it down, speared a chunk of casserole with her fork, and stuck it into her mouth, chewing, but still the anger was still there. She couldn’t fight it… and she didn’t want to. Rather, what Nicole wanted to do was hunt down her relatives. Figure out what they’d done. Understand what they were still doing. Where were they? Where were they –

The shadows rippled and Nicole fell through them.

She landed with a gasp behind a thick bolt of material. Despite its ostensible foreignness, Nicole recognized it immediately. She was behind the curtains on the second floor of her parents’ mansion. (Technically, it was hers now.) She’d played hide-and-seek with her parents here, once upon a time. Before elementary school. This had been her favorite hiding spot. But what was she doing here?

“– only a matter of time before Nicole eats herself to death.”

Nicole stilled. All thoughts of how she’d ended up here faded into nothing. The woman speaking… she didn’t remember her. She should have. The television was on, but her voice was audible enough for her to make out each word clearly.

“What? Oh, I’m not going to do anything. None of us are going to do anything. None of us need to do anything. We can just sit back and watch. All we need is patience.”

Silence. Nicole tried to get her heavy breathing under control, but this was just how she breathed now.

“I’m not exaggerating, Graham. I’m really not. Did we look at the same girl? She’s enormous. She’s a whale. She can barely make it from the bathroom to her bed and back again. And I’m pretty sure she’s getting bigger.”

Silence.

“I know it hasn’t been very long, but when she’s awake, she eats once every two hours. And she doesn’t eat small meals. This isn’t sustainable. She’s going to die, Graham. At some point. Sooner rather than later.”

Silence.

“Take your pick. Heart attack, diabetes, cancer, some infection or another… have you ever seen someone of that size before who lived to a ripe old age? In my opinion, it would be best if she just stopped breathing in her sleep. That’s the most humane. All that fat, pushing down on her windpipe…”

Silence.

“Yeah, but I’m not concerned. If she were coming down the stairs, trust me, you’d be able to hear her over the phone. Huffing and puffing up a storm. No, a lift is unnecessary. It’s in all our interests to make sure that she stays in her room until… yeah.”

Silence.

“No, I’m not saying we should – of course not. We’re not murderers. I’m just saying we should let nature take its course.”

Silence.

“Who knows? I don’t. And I don’t care. That trust fund of hers, it’s going to be the first to go. She’s eating her way through it at a sickening rate. That money could be put to better use.”

Silence. A sigh.

“It is a waste. It really is. And Evelyn was very beautiful.”

Keep my mother’s name out of your mouth, Nicole thought.

There was a long, meaningful pause. The back of Nicole’s neck prickled. Had she said that out loud? Had her lips formed the words? Had her throat worked and pushed a telltale sound out into the world?

“Hey, uh, give me a minute. I’ll call you back.”

There was a beep as the call disconnected. Nicole’s mind whirled as the woman on the couch stood. She could hear her moving towards her hiding-spot. Her eyes swiveled downwards to look at herself. Were the curtains bulging unnaturally? She made as if to take a step back, but froze as her butt skidded across the glass. She occupied the entire space behind the curtain. She was so big that she’d grown to fill this entire space. When had she gotten so big?

That wasn’t the point. She had to get out of here.

She could still hear the woman moving towards her with deadly intent. Nicole could see her in her mind’s eye, lithe and severe with knifelike limbs, her face a malevolent smudge. She was going to pull back the curtain like Norman Bates in Psycho, and she was going to slash downwards and open her from throat to groin, and she had to get away get away get away –

The curtains fluttered. There was no one there.

//

The door opened. Nicole looked up, eyes fuzzy, mouth full. There was a woman standing in the door. Light streamed into her dimly-lit room. “Hi, Nicole.” Her voice was sticky-sweet. Chokingly sweet. Cloying. Like honey, or a whole spoonful of sugar.

Nicole waggled her hand. Her arm jiggled. The woman’s smile was fixed on her face, plastic. “Just came up to… check on you.” She paused. “You didn’t… go downstairs, by any chance, did you?”

Nicole shook her head and swallowed her mouthful of casserole. “Who’re you?”

“Don’t you remember? I’m your aunt Vera.”

“Oh.” Nicole nodded dumbly. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Nicole. Don’t worry about it.” Vera stood in the doorway for a moment. “Want something to eat?”

Nicole thought about it for a moment.

“Cake, please.”

“Okay. What flavor?”

“Um, chocolate?”

“Sure, chocolate. We can do that. We’ll stuff it full of chocolate for you.”

“Okay.” Nicole started to struggle upright. “’M going to take a shit.”

She felt Vera’s eyes burning into her back as she waddled into the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind her, and she waited until she was sure that the other woman was gone before burying her face in her hands and screaming herself hoarse.

Nicole hadn’t lied in a while. She was out of practice, but she didn’t think that had been a bad performance. She’d always been honest with her parents about her eating habits. She’d looked them in the eye as she’d taken second helpings, then thirds, then fourths, at the dinner table. She hadn’t made excuses when they’d asked her why she refused to leave her room. That was the kind of person she’d become, and it had been so easy to slip back into its skin and pretend to be that thing for her “aunt”. A bovine, mindless thing. No: not bovine. Porcine. Piggish. Devoted to stuffing its face and nothing else.

Nicole punched her sink blindly and stuffed her other fist in her mouth to muffle her instinctive howl at the pain. She hated herself so, so much.

When she was done, she left her room. An enormous cake had been set down beside her half-eaten casserole, heaving with chocolate and whipped cream. On any other day, Nicole’s mouth might have watered at the sight, but she wasn’t going to eat it. (At least, not yet.) Settling herself back onto her bed and moving in front of her computer, she sifted through her Facebook and began compiling a list of people who could help her.

Nicole Bloom: Hey Sam
Nicole Bloom: Heard you were back in town
Nicole Bloom: Was just wondering if you would like to meet up? Like get back in touch or something?