Dumplin - Julie Murphy Page 0,1

see that smile Ellen loves so much. “Will.” Tim may have his face in his phone most the time, but when he does actually talk—well, it’s the kind of thing that makes a girl like El stick around. “I hope you have a good day.” He bows at the waist.

El rolls her eyes, settles in behind the wheel, and pops a fresh piece of gum in her mouth.

I wave good-bye and am almost halfway to my car when the two speed past me as Ellen yells good-bye once more over Dolly Parton’s “Why’d You Come in Here Lookin’ Like That” blasting through the speakers.

As I’m digging through my bag, looking for my keys, I notice Millie Michalchuk waddling down the sidewalk and through the parking lot.

I see it before it even happens. Leaning against her parents’ minivan is Patrick Thomas, who is maybe the biggest douche of all time. He has this super ability to give someone a nickname and make it stick. Sometimes they’re cool nicknames, but more often they’re things like Haaaaaaaanah, pronounced like a neighing horse because the girl’s mouth looks like it’s full of . . . well, horse teeth. Clever, I know.

Millie is that girl, the one I am ashamed to admit that I’ve spent my whole life looking at and thinking, Things could be worse. I’m fat, but Millie’s the type of fat that requires elastic waist pants because they don’t make pants with buttons and zippers in her size. Her eyes are too close together and her nose pinches up at the end. She wears shirts with puppies and kittens and not in an ironic way.

Patrick blocks the driver’s-side door, him and his rowdy group of friends already oinking like pigs. Millie started driving a few weeks ago, and the way she zips around in that minivan, you’d think it was a Camaro.

She’s about to turn the corner and find all these jerks piled up around her van, when I yell, “Millie! Over here!”

Pulling down on the straps of her backpack, she changes her course of direction and heads straight for me with her smile pushing her rosy cheeks so high they almost touch the tops of her eyelids. “Hiya, Will!”

I smile. “Hey.” I hadn’t actually thought about what I might say to her once she was here, standing in front of me. “Congratulations on getting your license,” I say.

“Oh, thanks.” She smiles again. “That’s really sweet of you.”

I watch Patrick Thomas from over her shoulder as he pushes his finger to his nose to make it look like a pig’s snout.

I listen as Millie tells me all about changing her mom’s radio presets and pumping gas for the first time. Patrick zeroes in on me. He’s the kind of guy you hope never notices you, but there’s really no use in me trying to be invisible to him. There’s no hiding an elephant.

Millie talks for a few minutes before Patrick and his friends give up and walk off. She waves her hands around, motioning at the van behind her. “I mean, they don’t teach you how to pump gas in driver’s ed and they really—”

“Hey,” I tell her. “I’m so sorry, but I’m going to be late for work.”

She nods.

“But congratulations again.”

I watch as she walks to her car. She adjusts all of her mirrors before reversing out of her parking space in the middle of the near-empty lot.

I park behind Harpy’s Burgers & Dogs, cut across the drive-thru, and ring the freight doorbell. When no one answers, I ring again. The Texas sun pounds down on the crown of my head.

I wait as a creepy-looking man wearing a fishing hat and a dirty undershirt rolls through the drive-thru and recites his painfully specific order down to the exact number of pickles he’d like on his burger. The voice on the speaker gives him his total. The man eyes me, tilting down his orange-tinted sunglasses, and says, “Hey there, sweetcheeks.”

I whirl around, holding my dress tight around my thighs and punch the doorbell four times. My stomach is squirming with discomfort.

I don’t have to wear a dress to work. There’s a pants option, too. But the elastic waist on the polyester pants wasn’t quite elastic enough to fit over my hips. I say the pants are to blame. I don’t like to think of my hips as a nuisance, but more of an asset. I mean, if this were, like, 1642, my wide birthing hips would be worth many cows or something.

The