“Yeah, yeah,” I said, annoyed. I’d heard it a million times.
“Oh, and by the way,” she said with a hint of niceness to her voice, “Meg said she plans to talk to you tomorrow when you’re back in the office. I smell promotion! Good luck!”
Click. I switched my phone to vibrate.
“Listen,” I told Denise, “whatever you said to us on the phone, you need to tell me during the interview. That’s what Mr. Dean goes by. So don’t hold back. Otherwise, we can’t help you.”
I nearly gagged on that last sentence.
During our interview, which went like clockwork, Denise repeated all the lines appearing on my one-sheet production notes. She told me her daughter was the most important thing in her life, and that she wanted desperately to help her. She admitted to being embarrassed about her daughter’s size when all the other seven-year-old girls were bone-thin. But she came across more honest than nasty. She said “our world” looks down on fat people, and with Madeline so young and already ballooning, she saw trouble ahead for her, and with it the risk of being ostracized. Her daughter was already being teased. She’d have trouble getting a job, making friends, finding a boyfriend, falling in love. “Life is tough enough,” she told me. “I don’t want my only child to be unhealthy and hating herself because she’s fat.” As she said all this, she cried.
Great, I thought, another underdog about to be turned into a monster. Sure, Denise thinks her daughter’s fat, but it’s not a vanity thing. She loves her. She cares! That’s why she’s doing this. Yet, by the time we’re done with her, you’d think she was a gas tank away from driving Madeline into a river.
“Denise, that was excellent. Thank you for being so candid. I really hope we can help you. I mean, I know we will. Can you get Madeline now?”
Madeline, reluctant to enter the room, hugged the doorframe just off the hallway. In the living room, we’d stacked pillows and teddy bears and created a comfortable place for her to sit for the interview. I plunged into a cross-legged sitting position on the rug and started playing with her stuffed dinosaur, trying to make it look like fun.
“Come play with me, Madeline,” I said, trying to sound excited.
She waddled into the room, pouting but curious.
Madeline’s mom had pulled her hair tight into a perfectly round donut at the peak of her head. Curls framed her face like tiny mattress springs. She wore snug blue-jean overalls and a frilly orange shirt. Her eyes were bright and innocent, but they made her look sad. This was going to be hard.
“Now Madeline,” I said, “this won’t be hard.”
My soul sank into flames as I struggled to convince this girl to say just one more thing. To her, I was officially one of the evil clown soldiers of the Ricky Dean Gestapo.
“Listen, sweetie, and you are a sweetie, I just need you to say, ‘My mommy would love me more if I were skinny like my cousin.’ Okay? Repeat after me. It’s easy.”
Silence, blubbering, and tears followed, as tissues stuck to her eyebrows. Why am I doing this? Help! What’s wrong with me?
“Makeup!” Oh, that’s my job. I leaned forward again on my knees to wipe her, bouncing from cold-producer-lady to compassionate human. “It’s okay. You’re doing great. Just please say that sentence for me. Please, please, say it. Just say it—the thing about your cousin, the sentence. Come on—”
“What sentence?” She looked at me, sobbing through yet another tissue.
All she knew was that being fat, and having to admit it publicly, really hurt, and that she really, really hated me. So did I.
“Oh, hell, forget it,” I said out loud, rather than thinking it, as I usually did. “Everyone forget it. Stop tape!” I turned my head toward the bedroom, where Denise was waiting behind a closed door. “Denise, this interview is over!”
I grabbed my phone to make the call as Denise scrambled out of the room to hug her daughter. Denise looked confused but put on a brave face for Madeline, firmly convinced that from this torture only good would come.
“Corinne?. . . Yeah, hi, it’s Jane. Listen, the kid’s seven. Hear me?” I stepped outside onto the porch, out of earshot. “She’s seven years old! I can’t do this. She can’t do this. She’s a baby, for Chrissakes. She’s bawling. She can’t articulate a big sentence like that, and this stupid script’s insane!” I was