Fat Girl, Terrestrial: A Novel

Four: Walrus Disgrace

25 Tonight I, Wallis Grace Armstrong, am dusting off my two left feet and knock-about knees and am going for my fourth ballroom dance lesson at the Arthur Murray studio in Kingdom Come, a gift from my parents who had high hopes for the steering power of a middle name and who are disappointed that I’ve instead lived up all too readily to the stout stamp of the surname. You can imagine what a rich source of heckling being saddled with such a nom de guerre has been: Wall-ass Strong Arm, Wall-eyed Goose, Wall is gross, Walrus graze, et cetera. My mother, trying to assure me of a glamorous life of class-busting romance, named me after Wallis Simpson—the twice-married socialite who so captivated Edward VIII, Duke of Windsor, he abandoned his royal heritage and lived with her in exile—not realizing the eighteen-pound baby she secretly believed had to be four Walrus Disgrace 26 quadruplets, the baby stretching her belly beyond a reasonable arc, would, with this name, be more likely to call to mind a steam shovel operator than a duchess, even one once removed (I can only assume my mother was and remains unaware that the Duchess fatale, though ambitiously thin, was a darkly complicated Nazi sympathizer known both to captivate and scandalize polite society with her ribald quips and the punctuating snap of her tiny wrists). Would that I had been named rather for that developer of infinitesimal calculus, John Wallis, who gave us the neverending gift of this: ∞. The number eight lying on her side, eternally asleep like a fairy-tale heroine. My mother does not know there is a man named Wallis who contributed to infinity , lent a shape to perpetuity, who formulated Pi. She would be perfectly appalled at the notion. She does not care for unending things. The vastitude of me she finds sheer insubordination and she takes each inch personally. Sometimes on applications and census forms I sign my name so: Having recently killed a man, I found my nerves were still ajangle, and I called Mr. Mundrawala, my dance instructor , to cancel, but he sounded disappointed and urged me to reconsider, insisting that “continuity and repetition are key to mastering the fox-trot. Practice makes graceful, Miss Armstrong ,” so I decided to go. Inexplicably, Mr. Mundrawala, not a hair over 5’ 7”, had decided it was best if he personally partnered himself with me, even though there was, by mortal standards, one reasonably tall man in the class, and he was strangely prone to wearing elevator shoes, which meant 27 his eyes could at least glimpse my clavicle if he stretched and I sagged forward. Mr. Mundrawala assured me that dancing with pint-sized men would be instructive, would teach me to move more thoughtfully through the world, help attune me to the feet bustling around me that I have to be careful not to flatten. “It’s very nice to see you here, Miss Armstrong,” Mr. Mundrawala said with a nod of the head, grinning broadly. “Nice to see you too, Mr. Mundrawala.” “Please, you have now had the benefit of my instruction for how many lessons, three? As we are partners, it is time we observe the American custom of quick familiarity and employ first names, don’t you agree? Yes, please, you may call me Mateen.” He held out a delicate hand. “Wallis,” I said, and shook his paw, though it was, from his end, really more of a firm squeeze of a few fingers. He had the nimble grip of a flautist. “A lovely moniker,” he said sincerely. The first time I’d heard that from someone to whom I was not related. 28 There were three other couples present, all decked in ballroom duds, waiting to begin the beguine. I was wearing a black t-shirt, parachute pants (in case I ever figured out how to bail out of this body), and built-to-order sneakers , and, like every week, the others stole glances and shifted nervously, tried not to stare, thanked God for their small feet and wasp waists. In tenth grade, Jojo Fridel asked me to the homecoming dance. Jojo was a gymnast, 5’ 1” in platform shoes. I’d kneel down so he could mount the howdah of my shoulders, and he’d ride aloft, waving to the minions below, then he’d...