Lunch Date
by Brittany Ackerman
Jensen orders a meatball sub, unafraid as always whether she might stain her uniform white polo shirt with marinara sauce. I ask for a plain grilled chicken sub, but on a kid’s roll, with only lettuce and a little salt and pepper. This is the year of disordered eating before I go away to college and things really spiral out of control. This is the year of eating only chicken breast for lunch, broiled in the oven with no sauce, wrapped in tin foil. The year of drinking one 16oz water bottle every hour, of Coke Zero as a replacement meal, of Blow Pops as a snack. I roll the waistband of my navy-blue uniform skirt twice and it hangs loose on my waist. My white polo, unintentionally matching Jensen’s, billows out, un-tucked for the duration of our lunch period.
It’s senior year, and it’s already been decided that Jensen will stay in Florida and I’ll go off to Indiana to chase a boy. A boy who was a senior here last year and is now a freshman in Bloomington. In just a few short months, I’ll be a whole plane ride away from Jensen. But we don’t talk about it—the distance, the separation.
At Subway, we sit in a booth by the window, the seats sticking to our thighs. We move around while we eat to avoid the sticking. I peek under the bread of my sandwich and check on the steaming slab of grilled chicken, the one the sandwich artist pulled from a metal tin with a lid; the tin’s contents were submerged in water. I don’t want to think about it. The chicken is rubbery and tasteless, but I know it’s protein. I know it’s the healthiest option at Subway, the healthiest sandwich I could eat without ordering a salad, which would annoy Jensen to no end. I have to get a sandwich in solidarity, a wordless pact between me and my best friend.
“I think I'm going to have lunch with Anthony Niccolo tomorrow, just so you know,” Jensen says and licks a dollop of red sauce off her thumb; continues eating.
“Okay,” I say, even though tomorrow is Friday and Friday is usually our day to go to Rotelli for two slices and a Coke for $4.99. I take a bite of my sandwich and wonder if she’ll be mad if I save the other half for later. Or, more honestly, if I only eat half and throw the rest away. “Where are you guys going?”
“Rotelli,” Jensen says, like it’s nothing. “You don’t even like going there anyway. You said so last week, you were all like, ‘I'm just not a pizza person.’”
“First of all, I said ‘pizza gal,’ and second of all, that’s not true. Everyone’s a pizza person. If you don't like pizza, something is clinically wrong with you. But it’s fine. I’ll just eat alone like Josh Weiner, bringing his Pub subs into the 500 Building like a freak.”
“Well, now you can eat your tin foil chicken and no one will judge you,” Jensen says and I want to slap her in the face. “JK,” she says, but I'm still mad.
“Shit, I forgot my water in your car,” I say.
“They have water here.”
“Yeah, but I like to know how much I'm drinking.”
“You texted me between every single period today that you were peeing, so I think you’re good.”
“True.”
We finish our sandwiches in mostly silence. I don’t want to press too much about Anthony Niccolo because Jensen rarely goes on dates. I already know that they have Spanish together, right before lunch too. He probably just asked her today, only an hour ago. I already know he has a crush on her because I see how he looks at her when they walk out the door of their class: her first, him behind, his eyes glancing down at her famously plump ass. The way her skirt bubbles and bounces around her waist to fit the ass underneath, to cover it, just barely. Her hair is so blonde today it looks white in the light of the Subway booth, the sun streaming in from outside, a little too humid for an April day in Florida, but our classrooms are still freezing. Both of us have hoodies waiting for us in her car, hoodies with our future school’s emblems on the front, a senior privilege to represent our colleges when we get accepted and commit.
Jensen finishes her sub and goes to refill her Sprite. I rip my sandwich into smaller pieces so it looks like I’ve eaten more than I have and lean back in the booth.
“Ready to go?” Jensen says and I swipe my garbage up from the table and we leave.
“I hope it goes well,” I tell her once we’re back in the car, but she doesn’t say anything. I can’t tell if she’s nervous, or she just doesn't want to put too much thought into the date. Or maybe she just thinks they’re friends. Anthony, I know for a fact, is also staying in Florida next year, but going to a different school, a community college instead of the big time University where Jensen will be. But still, it could work out. They could drive a few hours to see each other. They could talk on the phone or video chat. They could be something.
Jensen drives us back to school and I watch the palm trees as they seem to connect with the power lines over and over again. I can’t wait to get out of here, to be in another city, another climate, another chance to start over. I retrieve my water bottle from her center console and chug its contents. I like to time out my chugging so that by the time I get back to school, I’ll fully have to pee, right before Government and Economics. Jensen opted for World History, but we’re both in the 500 Building for the rest of the afternoon. After History, I have Study Hall, and as seniors we can sit on the couches upstairs and do our homework there instead of trekking over to the other side of the lake to the library. It sort of works on an honor system that we won’t leave early, that we won’t just walk over to the parking lot and smoke a spliff, wait for the bell to ring and then drive off. Jensen has Algebra II, but she gets out early a lot for Varsity Volleyball away games. Sometimes our goodbye in the parking lot after lunch is our goodbye for the rest of the day. Sometimes I forget she has a game and it’s not until I walk over to the parking lot and her car is gone that I realize it. Seniors don’t have to take the team bus. I imagine Jensen driving alone with all her gear in the back seat, what must go through her mind before a game. She’s athletic, always has been, and maybe she doesn’t think about it as much as I would. Maybe she doesn’t worry about it at all. Maybe she can actually just feel good and enjoy things, like it’s easy, just that easy.
We pull into the parking lot and I finish the last sip of my water. I put the empty bottle in my backpack and resolve to refill it once I get to the fountain. I heard something about warm water, how it helps fill your stomach and tricks your brain into think you’re full. But I can’t get myself to drink warm water out of the school bathroom faucet. There are some limits I'm not yet willing to cross.
Jensen’s never said a word to me about the eating stuff. Only stupid jokes and maybe that she doesn’t understand how I can go all morning only having eaten Key Lime flavored Oikos Greek yogurt. Maybe because I oblige in Friday pizza, maybe because I don't comment on anything she eats, ever. She plays sports year-round and even though she’s a little thick, it’s the good kind, the kind guys like.
“All the food goes to my ass,” Jensen jokes, slapping her own bottom and giving it a jiggle. I know she doesn’t want to live how I do—the restriction, the worrying, the constant fear of becoming something else.
Jensen grabs her bag out of the back seat and locks her car. I thank her for the ride and she nods, checking her phone and smiling at something on the screen. It’s probably a message from Anthony, but I don't ask. We walk towards the 500 Building as the end of lunch bell rings. Underclassmen flit between us like fish. Anthony appears out of thin air and puts his arms around Jensen’s shoulder. She laughs in a way I’ve never seen before. She looks nervous but happy.
I wave goodbye and enter the building, heading to the bathroom quickly before my next class starts. I throw the rest of my sandwich away in a big round garbage can before I enter a stall to pee. I pee for a long time and I'm proud when my urine appears clear, like there’s nothing even in the bowl. I'm so hydrated and a rush of energy flushes over me. I used to feel so tired after eating a big lunch, returning to class and wanting to take a nap like I was back in Kindergarten. But there’s a high to the constraints, the rules, the limitations.
I think of dinner later, the whole-wheat pasta with cottage cheese, or maybe a microwaved dish of steamed vegetables. Dad’s in New York for work, Mom will be late at the department store, my brother is in Miami. I’ll climb out my window and sit on the roof, smoke a joint and watch the sunset. I’ll pretend I'm not alone up there, taking it in all by myself. I’ll pretend someone is watching me, eyeing my every move.
Brittany Ackerman is a writer from Riverdale, New York. She earned her BA in English from Indiana University and graduated from Florida Atlantic University’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She teaches General Education at AMDA College and Conservatory of the Performing Arts in Hollywood, CA. Her work has been featured in Electric Literature, Jewish Book Council, Lit Hub, Entropy, The Los Angeles Review, No Tokens, Hobart, Cosmonauts Ave, and more. Her first collection of essays entitled The Perpetual Motion Machine was published with Red Hen Press in 2018, and her debut novel The Brittanys is out now with Vintage.
