Biggie and the Devil Diet - By Nancy Bell Page 0,15

out?"

"The other kids knew, of course. The girls all thought it was great and used to cover for me, but the boys were different. They teased me a lot, and once I found a nasty slur written on my locker at school."

"Why?"

"Because they were jealous, I guess. I don't know. Maybe they thought I was, you know, having relations with him. I wasn't, though. That came later."

"Biggie!"

"My stars, J.R., you hear worse than this on TV every day!"

"I know, Biggie, but you're my grandmother. Give me a break!"

"Just be quiet and listen. In June, he got a letter saying he had been accepted to Texas A&M in the engineering department. I was glad for him but heartbroken that he would be leaving town. How I was going to miss him! I even thought of running away and finding a job in College Station just to be near him."

"Biggie! That was crazy!"

"I know. It was foolish, but someday, honey, you'll know how it feels to be in love for the very first time."

"Not me. I don't even think about girls."

She gave me a look then continued. "One night after we'd been to a movie, he asked me to marry him— later, he said, after he finished college. Well, when you're sixteen, four years is a lifetime. I burst into tears and said I couldn't wait that long. I was young and in love, and I wanted to be with him right then. We talked for hours that night. He tried to convince me that we could wait, that he could come back for visits, maybe even bring my parents around. I wasn't having any of that. I told him it was now or never, that I wouldn't wait for him."

"I guess you haven't changed very much, huh, Biggie?"

She smiled. "Well, I've always been hardheaded. Anyway, finally he agreed. But he said he wouldn't take me with him unless we got married."

"Biggie, even I know you can't get married when you're sixteen."

"At that time you could in Arkansas. One day, we slipped off to Texarkana and got a marriage license. The next week, we were married by a justice of the peace. We went to Paris for our honeymoon— Paris, Texas!"

"And your parents didn't know?" I sneaked another peek at the clock. It was almost two.

"No. I had told them I was spending the night with a friend."

"So what did they say when you got back?"

"They never found out. After the honeymoon, I went back home and slept in my room just like before."

I looked around at my room with its solid green walls and sports posters and imagined what it must have been like when Biggie was a girl. In my mind, I saw flowered wallpaper— maybe ruffled curtains and a lace bedspread. I sighed and wondered if this room would ever feel the same to me again.

"Finally," she continued, "it was time for him to leave, and I was determined to go along. I packed my bags one night and slipped out of the house while Mama and Daddy slept."

"So what happened? Did you move to College Station?"

"Yes— for four days. That's how long it took my daddy to find me and bring me back. He threatened the boy with jail if he ever tried to see me again, and he could have made it stick because I was a minor."

"And that was it? You just came back home?"

"Almost. Daddy made me get divorced from him. I cried myself to sleep every night— wouldn't come out of my room for weeks. And I couldn't hold down food anymore. I lost so much weight, my parents threatened to put me in the hospital and have me fed by a tube. My parents arranged a marriage for me to Albert Wooten. He was the son of friends of theirs. I had always liked Albert, just not in that way, doncha know."

"Why, Biggie? Why'd they have to go and do that?"

"There was reason enough."

"And Albert? He agreed— just like that?"

"Albert wasn't a very forceful person, if you know what I mean. And he had always liked me a lot. I felt trapped, so I just gave in. I was just a kid, and I didn't see how I had any choice. But I promised myself then and there that nobody would ever force me to do anything against my will again— and they never have. We had a big church wedding and seven months later your daddy was born."

"Biggie! You mean…"

"That's right, honey.