Priscilla and the Big, Fat Taiwanese Wedding

[Guest chefandfoodee]

I

She should take off the dress before she spilled anything on it.  Priscilla had been wearing it around the house, a light coral pink dress with a wide, rounded collar, cinched waist and broad pleats that came down just over her knees.  In two weeks she was attending her cousin’s wedding and she was trying it on to make sure everything looked alright and that the dress still fit okay.  The last time she’d worn it was at the height of spring and Priscilla was sure she’d gained at least a few pounds since then.

    She pranced round her living room before plopping down on the sofa to make sure the dress was comfortable in all ranges of motion.  It was tight in the bust and just below the waist, where the pleats and dress fanned outward, it was clear that her tummy bulged underneath the fabric.  That was nothing new, nor was there any concealing it.  Her tummy did bulge and no dress was going to hide that.  But the dress looked good and fit well.  Priscilla gave it a passing score.  Besides, at the moment it was really the only dress in her closet suitable for a wedding.  Still in her dress, Priscilla cracked open the book lying next to her on the sofa.  She read for no more than twenty minutes before the faint dizziness of hunger made the lines of text blur and the pit of her stomach began to gurgle with nausea.

    Priscilla had been looking forward to lunch all morning.  Waiting in the fridge for her were yesterday’s leftovers from dinner out with friends.  They’d invited her just as she was finishing a rather large sandwich.  She was already full, but she didn’t want to miss the opportunity of company, a drink, and lunch for the next day.  Today all she had to do was heat it up.  Priscilla undid the zipper on the side of her dress and slid it off.  She changed into a baggy, gray sweater and a pair of leggings.  It would be foolish to eat curry in the dress.  Priscilla could just imagine long streaks of yellow running up and down the front of it.

    The curry wasn't in the microwave two minutes before she could smell its sweet, mouthwatering aroma.  While she stood waiting near the fridge, Priscilla pulled the clip off a bag of apples chips and began snacking.  She removed the curry when it was done, replacing it with a paper carton of jasmine rice.  Three fresh avocados balanced on top of a small collection of pink lady apples that filled the bowl on her bar counter.  Priscilla sliced into one, so perfectly soft, fragrant and yellowish-green, and removed a half section, slicing it into eight thick pieces.  Beep beep beeeeep! sounded the microwave, and after another two minutes of assembly Priscilla set down a bowl of yellow curry - chunks of beef, tomato, bacon and basil peaked out from a pool of coconut milk broth - next to a wide, white plate on which she molded her mound of rice. Garnishing the rice was the sliced avocado with just a crack of garlic salt and lemon pepper for seasoning.  She poured the remaining apple chips in a bowl and sat this next to the two dishes - perhaps for dessert or maybe just to cleanse her palate between bites of curry.

    Priscilla spooned the hot broth over the rice, watching the thick chunks of beef topple down onto her plate.  Firm but tender, stewed beef, spicy-sweet coconut, salted-fatty bacon, umami-loaded tomato, buttered, just slightly caramelized onions, fresh but tangy basil, and soft, rich avocado- all these flavors collided together in her mouth.  It was a symphony of flavor that surged beautifully, triumphantly over every little taste bud on her tongue, rounded out and completed by the pure, clean simplicity of jasmine rice.  She spooned bite after bite into her mouth, chomping down on all the vibrant, juicy goodness, half-forgetting herself, forgetting the room around her, the scenery outside her window, over the balcony and beyond, and forgetting to pause and savor each sensation.  Priscilla wasn't one to savor.  She loved to have her senses, her sense of taste particularly, flooded and saturated.  The most perfect food to her was the food that overwhelmed her completely, delivering her to an almost transcendent, transient state in which everything else in the world faded away and nothing existed but the pure, sublime sensation of delicious!  When a meal sat before her, be it pizza, cake, a burger, or budino, there was nothing else in the universe except pizza, cake, a burger, or budino.  At least for just a little while.

    The food before her now wasn't perfect, but it was still tasty, tasty enough that when Priscilla finally woke from her trance, most of the bowl and more than half the mound of rice were already gone, disappeared into her stomach.  She brought her spoon from bowl to mouth more slowly now, eating deliberately.  She was hungry, not having had much breakfast, and when she was hungry she ate fast.  Thomas, her boyfriend, was often amazed by the speed with which she could wolf a meal down.  When she’d first sat down to the table, Priscilla wasn't sure if she was going to finish everything, but there were only a few bits left and these tasted just as great as the first.  She dumped the remaining rice into the curry bowl, using it to sop up any leftover broth.

    “Mmmm mmmm,” she exclaimed aloud, stretching both arms back and kicking her legs out beneath the table.  Her sweater rose up slightly to reveal a one inch segment of her belly.  Sitting back in her chair, she briefly rubbed one hand over her stomach.  It was rotund and soft, pressed slightly firmer with the lunch that was inside it.

    She wanted some Thai Tea.  Priscilla was a sucker for Thai Tea, ordering it just about anywhere it was served.  She had a glass the night before when she joined her friends for dinner.  While they had entrees, Priscilla sipped her tea while snacking on coconut-rice custard she ordered off the dessert menu.  If only somebody made instant Thai Iced Tea powder, she would have bought a large tin and made some everyday!  Alas, this day, this lunch, she had eaten her Thai food without any of their respective, delicious Tea.

    Lucky for Priscilla, she was also a sucker for root beer floats, the ingredients for which were conveniently available in her fridge and freezer.  With a hand-brush and soap she wiped off the oily residue from her plates and tucked them into her dishwasher.  Then, with her favorite, yellow-handled ice cream scoop, she dished out three large scoops of vanilla ice cream into a tall glass, pouring root beer over it until it came up to the rim.  She stirred the mixture with a spoon, letting the ice cream melt about halfway so that the root beer lightened in color and turned a mild creamy brown.  She popped in a straw and carried the float with her to the sofa, where she flipped open her laptop and pulled up the Netflix homepage to stream one of several shows she was currently watching.

    There was just something special about the sweet, creamy spice of a root beer float.  Priscilla took small, frequent sips from her straw.  This time she was savoring all the yummy goodness as it passed over her tongue and down her throat.  She was full- full and comfortable and beginning to feel a little sleepy.  She rolled over onto her stomach, transferring the laptop from her coffee table to the end of her sofa.  Her coral pink dress was draped over the side.  It was a nice dress; the thick outer lacing gave it a pattern and texture that she admired.  Sipping at the root beer float from the straw between her lips, Priscilla suddenly remembered why she’d been concerned about the dress in the first place.

[Jazzman]

Terrific Start.Artistically written. Please continue daily.

[Guest chefandfoodee]

      All at once, the root beer in her throat turned sour and the pleasant warmth of a full stomach gave way to the thick, heavy, disgusting sensation of being bloated.  Out of the corner of her eye, Priscilla could see the wedding invitation where it lay on her table.  That dubious sheet of lettering…  When she first ripped open the envelope and slid its contents out, Priscilla read over the invitation excitedly, then apprehensively.  When she considered the prospect of seeing her family, a small terror grabbed up from the pit of her stomach and twisted its violent claws until she sank down with a brief pang of anxiety.  Half her family would be there, and while half is only half, half still includes a demanding set of parents, prying uncles, violently blunt aunts and far too many cousins to count.

      Priscilla was of Chinese-Taiwanese heritage.  First generation Americans, her parents had arrived thirty years before fresh off the slow boat.  Priscilla’s older sister actually grew up for a substantial part of her childhood in Taipei, but both she and her younger brother were born and raised stateside.  Aside from obvious similarities in appearance, people often didn't even realize that the three of them were siblings.  It didn't help their case that Karen, her sister, had a slight Taiwanese accent while she and Kevin, her younger brother, spoke pure, unbroken English in the typical fashion of East Coast American youth.  Growing up, two additional sets of aunt and uncle, along with their children - Priscilla’s cousins- lived in the same town as them.  A number more were spread out across the Midwest.  A few dwelled next to the Pacific shore and one set had even made their way down to Texas.  A good portion of the family remained in Taiwan or China, east of the Pacific, but the East and West branches had mostly fallen out of communication as the lives of each respective side gradually had less in common.  With such a large, far-ranging diaspora, it wasn't often that the family all came together in reunion.  Nothing but a death or wedding could bring all the families back in one place, and thus the last such gathering was well over three years ago.

      A lot can happen in three years, and while Priscilla was both proud and contented with her current position in life, she still had reasons to dread a reunion.  It wasn't that she hated her family or had any especially awful memories associated with homecoming and holidays.  It was just that they were all so Taiwanese, or Chinese depending on how you look at it.  Especially the older folks.  Everything, literally everything was a competition to them.  There wasn't a single trait, achievement or possession that couldn't be compared, measured, and criticized, and it was she and her many cousins who were the main objects of this merciless scrutiny.  They grew up under it, accustomed to it, but vexed by it all the same.  She had a couple cousins who actually seemed to thrive under this pressure, but the rest had merely plowed through it, trying to please, a few developing neuroses and complexes and spending the rest of their adult lives struggling to shrug it off.

      Luckily, her immigrant parents’ years in America had softened their proclivity for competition, criticism and condemnation.  Most of the time, Priscilla felt a hundred percent American.  It was the only life she’d known.  When her parents spoke to her in Mandarin, she responded in English.  But it had been worse for her older cousins and elder sister Karen.  It always is.  That’s why it was so fortunate that Karen was eight years her elder.  Her sister’s upbringing had been a world apart from that of Priscilla and her little brother Kevin.  Her parents hadn't been as bad as some of her aunts and uncles, but they were still competitive, while Priscilla was nothing of the sort.  In fact, she shirked away from confrontation.

      They were blunt, perhaps rude depending on how accustomed to it you were, and would spare no little comment or criticism to protect your feelings.  They never intended to be vicious; it was just the way they had grown up, and then somehow worsened by the thrilling, almost unbelievable success they had met with in life.  To come from relative poverty and scarceness to a land of plenty, then to thrive and have children who would be more successful yet...  They had reason to feel proud, even if some of that pride seemed silly to Priscilla.  Her eldest aunt was the worst of the bunch.  On first encountering her younger brother several years back, the first words out of her aunt’s mouth were, “My son is taller.”  Some greeting.  But she was too old to change to change her ways.

      This time around, the family all coming together for a wedding, Priscilla didn't need to guess what they were going to say.  She had a great job, was making good money, had a nice place to live, and a fantastic boyfriend.  Everything was looking up for her, going smoothly; she was moving towards her goals and had achieved relative success so far.  She was happy; she generally loved her life and enjoyed waking up every morning.  They couldn't blame or criticize her for a thing.  Yes, she did had some rich relatives here and there and a few female cousins who had married wealthy men, but she was comfortable and proud of her own life.  She wasn't worried about any of that.  There was just the one thing, in some ways the most obvious thing of all.  The one thing she dreaded.

[flavor42000]

You are a super writer! Great character development and I'm hooked already.

[Sidiwen]

Great story and very well written.  Its nice to have good literature supporting our special interest.  I live in Taiwan and enjoy the cultural background developed (ing) in this one.

Cheers

Steve

[Guest chefandfoodee]

        Priscilla had gained some weight recently.  In most circumstances that wasn’t such a big deal, except that she’d already put on a few pounds here, a few pounds there, a few more pounds again.  All in all, in the three years since she’d last been home, Priscilla had gained over twenty pounds; after this last summer it was now probably closer to thirty.  And this came on top of the fifteen or so pounds she’d put on in college.  All of this meant that she was now close to fifty pounds heavier than when some of her family had last laid eyes on her.  The last image some of them had of her was likely the tiny high school girl scarcely over a hundred pounds, if even that.  There were going to be comments and more comments; there would likely be full blown conversations.  Her aunts in particular had never learned restraint, and Priscilla knew they were going to have a good laugh about it- a good-natured laugh, but a deep, hearty laugh nonetheless.  She was terrified of becoming the talk of the wedding.

        What could she do?  Crash diet?  No way could anyone lose fifty pounds in two weeks.  And what was the point of only losing a few?  Truth be told, Priscilla was comfortable with her current weight, at least most of the time.  In her youth, she had struggled from time to time to maintain a healthy body image.  Her esteem hit a low point for a short period after college, but she’d made a full recovery since.  She’d actually never been more comfortable with her body than she was at present, even if she’d also never been heavier.  She wouldn’t trade her recent acceptance for the world, even if it meant being thin again.  She was a chubby girl - she still felt a little awkward admitting it - and most of the time she was okay with that.

        None of that, however, meant she didn’t dread being the fat cousin.  She had always been one of the very shortest and that was bad enough.  Now she was likely to be the shortest as well as the fattest.  To make matters worse, she used to be known as the athletic one.  As children, while other cousins learned piano and violin or went to cram schools to become whizzes in science or math, Priscilla begged to enroll in gymnastics school.  She kept at it until the middle of high school, when she dropped the pursuit to focus on studies and prepare for college.  She kept fairly active in college, too, regularly attending practices and meets of her college’s Boulder & Belay Club, as well as taking weekend trips to go climb.  During her junior year, however, her attendance steeply declined and as a senior she only made it to a single meet.  Rather than gaining a freshman fifteen, Priscilla put on all of her college weight in the last two years of school.

        Moving out after college, getting her own place and a job with a steady income, all of that brought huge transformations to her way of life.  Living in a big city, it wasn’t long before Priscilla’s favorite new hobby became restaurant going and bar hopping.  Literally hundreds, if not thousands, of places to try, each one with dozens of delicious dishes.  She was first hooked during a restaurant promotion week, when numerous participating restaurants offered multi-course meals for a reduced price.  She started following recipe blogs, food Tumblrs, hundreds of chef and foodie Pinterest accounts and kept up to date on the latest seasonal menu changes and restaurant openings.  With a new-found disposable income, most of which was spent on food, she hit up cafes and bakeries almost daily, joined her friends for lunch, and went out to dinner or hosted extravagant meals at her apartment on weekends.  Moving into a place with Trader Joe’s down the street only encouraged her habits.  She found herself there several times a week making some impulse buy or another.

        Culinary delight displaced all athletic pursuit.  These days Priscilla honestly couldn’t remember how long it had been since she last got any intense, heart pounding cardio.  She remembered jogging with her boyfriend once, but that was almost a year ago, and not much of a workout besides.  She remembered having to stop less than halfway in.  The muscles in her feet were on fire, her left knee throbbed with every step, she was short of breath, and her chest burned.  She walked the rest of the way back, slowly.  For days afterward, her thighs were sore.  It was a little pathetic, but in her defense, Priscilla had never been one for running, not even when she was a gymnast.  But she wasn’t altogether lazy.  She walked to work, took strolls to the park with her boyfriend, and did yoga at home with some regularity.

        In retrospect, it didn’t surprise Priscilla that she’d gained as much weight as she had.  When one of your personal goals is to rate and rank the best combination of burger, fries and shake in the city, a girl should reasonably expect to add an inch or two to her waistline.  When her clothes first started getting snug, Priscilla perhaps not so wisely solved the problem by purchasing a wardrobe of yoga pants, leggings, jeggings, loose shirts, baggy sweaters and flowing dresses.  In loose and comfy clothes, she almost never felt fat, even if in reality she kept getting fatter.  She had been vaguely aware of her expanding figure, but somehow unconcerned.  The truth of it was, she didn’t want it to be true.  She was having too much fun.  After meeting her boyfriend Thomas, she worried briefly about how big she was getting.  But then things got serious between them, and she got comfortable fast.  He shared her love of food and the two of them were almost always eating together.  She’d probably gained at least 20 of the pounds since they started dating.

        Priscilla sat on her sofa, looking down at the way her breasts and tummy puffed out underneath her grey sweater.  She grabbed her soft belly fat and frowned at her chubby thighs.  She must weigh somewhere between 145 and 150 pounds at this point.  It didn’t sound like a whole lot, but for a woman one inch short of five feet, Priscilla was right on the line between overweight and obese.  It was reason enough to lament her short stature- at her height, a little went a long way.

        She confessed her fears to Thomas later that evening.  Pulling up an old photo of herself on her laptop, she told him, “The last time I went back to visit my family, I looked like this.”

       

        The screen displayed an image of Priscilla from three and half years before, a full body photograph of a girl with slender legs, a flat tummy and a slim face.

        “Today, I look like this.”  Priscilla squeezed both sides of her waist and pressed her fingers into her flabby stomach.  Beneath her round, chubby cheeks, she pressed her lips into a pout, and when she looked down at her gut, there formed a little double chin.

        “So?” was the only word he said.

        “So,” returned Priscilla, “Do you know what it’s like to be the fat girl in your family?  Do you know what it’s like to be a fat Asian girl in general?”

        “You’re not fat,” said Thomas.

        “By Taiwanese standards, I’m huge.”

        “You look gorgeous.”

        Priscilla sighed.  “I just don’t want them to quip about my weight, lecture me, or poke fun.  It’s going to be so embarrassing.”

        Thomas moved toward her.  She could see he was coming in for a hug.

        “I’m such a fatty,” she continued.  He wrapped his arms around her.

        “You’re not,” he retorted.

        “You know I am.”

        “Not a fatty,” he said, “Just chubby.”

        “I am,” Priscilla admitted.  “A chubby, chubby girl.”

        “I love my chubby girl,” spoke Thomas, before kissing her chubby cheeks.

[Guest chefandfoodee]

II

“Wow, Priscilla!  Looks like you’ve been enjoying yourself,” her brother teased.

      Her younger brother Kevan and elder sister Karen had driven out to the airport to pick their sister up.  It was welcome relief spending time with her two siblings before having to face her parents and the enormity of their family.  And since it was late by the time her plane touched, there was no risk of being dragged out for a visit.  Her parents were already at the hotel, where they had reserved two rooms for the weekend. Her mother and father would be put up in one room while Priscilla and her siblings would stay in the other.  She and her sister Karen could share a bed, leaving Kevan with his own.  Karen’s fiancé couldn’t make it out for the wedding, and although Priscilla dearly wished Thomas could have accompanied her, he too was engaged that weekend.

      “Shut up!” Priscilla retorted.  “I’m going to hear enough about it from mom.”

      “No offense,” Kevan went on.  “You look fine.  You look great!  It’s just kinda funny.  I was always the fat kid.”

      He had been, growing up.  A short, chubby little boy.  Now he was tall and, while not exactly skinny, still comparably slender if not for the slight gut he had likely accumulated after too many nights of beer and liquor in college.  Priscilla hadn’t seen her brother in just over two years.  Karen, living on the same side of the country as Priscilla, had visited on several occasions during the last few years, so the two of them had less catching up to do.

      “You look beautiful,” Karen chimed in.  Priscilla wasn’t sure if her sister meant it or if she was just trying to be supportive.  Karen had always been skinny, as a child and now as an adult, without any struggle or effort to keep her weight down.  She and Kevan regarded it as yet another aspect of her Taiwanese childhood that set Karen apart from her two younger siblings.  Priscilla remembered how, as kids, Karen waved off sweets and dessert while she and Kevan jumped at any opportunity for cake and candy.

      “You think mom will care?” her elder sister continued.  “She’ll be glad.  Remember Taiwanese mothers?  ‘Fat children are strong, healthy children!”’  Karen imitated their mother in her native tongue.

      “Yeah,” Priscilla agreed, unenthused, “Until one day, one pound over the line, suddenly you’re a pig.”

      “Don’t worry about it,” Karen consoled her.

      “Easy for you to say, skinny!”

*      *      *

      The next morning, the three siblings skipped on the meagre continental breakfast offered by the hotel in favor of brunch at a modern diner in town.  Priscilla was enjoying hanging out with her sister and brother, staying up late chatting, sleeping in, enjoying the hotel’s amenities and a long, luxurious bath.  At the diner, she ordered chicken and waffle and was served a large plate of fried chicken thigh and breast with thick, crunchy breading piled on top of a crisp but fluffy belgian waffle topped with brown sugar butter.  The dish was served with a jar of pure Grade A light amber Vermont maple syrup on the side.  Priscilla liberally poured this over her chicken to give it that mouth watering sweet and salty crunch.  The dish was so delightful it made up for the fact that she neglected to order herself the maple milkshake that called out to her from the menu.  On another occasion, maybe out for brunch with Thomas, she would have ordered it without a second thought, but here she restrained herself, not eager to fit her siblings’ image of the skinny sister gone fat too perfectly.  She settled instead for some orange juice.  She’d just have to make that maple milkshake herself when she returned back home after the weekend.

      Priscilla wondered at first if the chicken and waffle dish itself was a bit too much.  But when Karen ordered the goat cheese frittata and Kevan a cheddar burger, she thought ‘what the hell’ and went with her first choice.  It’s not like she could fast away her weight in a day, and she was on a vacation of sorts.  Still, Priscilla paid close attention as Kevan finished all of his burger and just some of his fries while Karen left a significant portion of her frittata untouched.  Priscilla easily finished every bite on her plate, sopping up the extra butter and syrup with the last bit of waffle.  Normally she wouldn’t notice such a thing- who ate what and how much- but she was feeling unusually self-conscious.  How much had her eating habits changed in three years?  Sometimes she didn’t realize just how much of a fat girl she’d become.  She had most of her meals with Thomas and these days felt comfortable enough around him that she never worried about what or how much she ate.  Her weight had recently surpassed his, but when she learned that he didn’t mind or maybe even liked it that way - or so it seemed - she began to accept it.  This also made it easier for her to accept that she sometimes ate more than him.  Of recent, her appetite had been of such a size that she sometimes ate all of her meal and then some of his.  Priscilla considered this as she eyed the leftover fries on her brother’s plate.  Thomas would have noticed her staking them out and pushed the plate in her direction.  Indeed, almost any time Priscilla felt a craving, Thomas encouraged her to satisfy it.  But today, Priscilla would satisfy herself only with the food she’d ordered.

      Back at the hotel, the siblings had time to relax briefly before meeting with their parents.  Priscilla took a short nap and changed clothes.  She pulled on a long, baggy, navy-blue sweater-shirt, then slipped on loose pant leggings that had red, pink and black patterns and stripes running from top to bottom.  It was a style she replicated most days of the week.  Priscilla knew she was a rather frumpy dresser, but her clothes were comfortable and comfort to her was key.  Her clothes did nothing to make her look smaller, but at least they masked her bulges, lumps, humps and rolls.  The only area where her sweater made any significant contact with her body was where it rested over her thick, rounded shoulders and upper arms; the outline of her bra was visible beneath the fabric just around her breasts, and the bottom seams stretched just slightly over her butt.  She wore her hair down and carefully applied makeup so as to enhance her appearance without overdoing it.

      As she got ready to leave, Priscilla grew increasingly aware of how anxious she felt about seeing her mother.  The minute approached, and she was so nervous that she felt perspiration on her palms as all the potential comments her mother might make came running through her head.  Kevan and Karen had arrived a day before her, so they had already had ample opportunity to reconnect with their mom and dad.  This, however, was Priscilla’s first time seeing them in person in over three years.

      Once they were ready, the siblings bounded into their parents’ room all at once.

      “Wow, you’re fat!” her mother exclaimed in Mandarin without a second to lose.  She motioned for Priscilla’s dad to examine their daughter himself.  “Look, look!  See how fat she is.”

      “I know,” Priscilla responded in her mother’s native tongue.  “I’m fat.”

      “Wow, really!” her mother went on, her astonishment unmissable as she began to pat Priscilla’s chubby frame.  “So fat!”

      Priscilla let out a great sigh of irritation.  “Mama, stop it!  I’m fat, okay?  I’ve put on weight.  I know!”

      “Why?  How have you gained so much?  You’re eating too much?  Have you been unhappy?”

      “I’m fine.  I’m fine.  I just have, okay?”  An unknowing observer might take her mother’s prying and blunt comments as caustic and hurtful.  They would miss the true nature of her speech.  And as hurtful and embarrassing as it was for Priscilla, she knew that her mother’s comments had only a little criticism in them.  In calling her daughter fat, Priscilla’s mother was merely making an observation.  There was nothing good or bad about it; fat was fat.  She had grown up in a time and place where the adjective “fat” was not so heavily loaded; when calling a person fat wasn’t too unlike saying they had brown hair or blue eyes.  The essential word missing from her mother’s statements was “too.”  She hadn’t said Priscilla was “too fat.”  As such, Priscilla’s mother wasn’t upset so much as shocked and amused.

      “Mom,” Kevan cut in, “Leave her alone.  She’s just put on some weight.  It’s not that bad.  There’s nothing wrong with her!”

      “Okay, okay,” she conceded, “No offense intended.  As you were.”  As usual, her father let his wife do the talking.  Her mother flew around to other subjects in rapid succession, flitting from her flight, her job, her living situation, her boyfriend.  All the while, Priscilla could feel her eyes examining her expanded figured hidden beneath the baggy sweater.  They gossiped at length about the rest of the family, covering every variety of detail, her mother lingering oftentimes on the least significant of facts and breezing over the important news.  At last she came back to the same dreaded topic.

      “Your cousin Kewei has gotten huge!” she exclaimed.  “And Stephanie, his wife, has gotten even fatter than him.”  Priscilla looked down and faked a smile.  What was she supposed to say?  Any talk of size or weight just drew attention back to her own.  Her mother quickly picked up on Priscilla’s discomfort.

      “Much bigger than you,” she continued.  “You look quite small compared to her.”  Her mother was trying to help, but it only made the situation more awkward.

      “What about your boyfriend?” she asked.  “Aren’t you worried about getting too fat for him?  Be careful.  He might not like it.”

      “He likes it,” returned Priscilla.  “He likes me.”

      “Really?  That’s great!  He’s happy that you’re fat?”

      “Mom!  Leave me alone.”  How was she supposed to answer that?  Was Thomas happy that she was fat?  He loved her and thought she was sexy despite the weight she’d gained since they’d been together.  But Priscilla did feel guilty about it.  Thomas was fit, slim, and relatively toned.  He exercised regularly.  All Priscilla did was eat and eat and let herself get bigger and bigger.  It seemed rather unfair to him.  He disciplined himself while she indulged.  She liked his thin, muscular frame, but did he like her soft, pudgy figure?

      Thomas said he did.  He squeezed her thick love handles, massaged her plump butt and kissed her chubby tummy.  He said she was sexy and that he couldn’t get enough of her.  It was true that his enthusiasm hadn’t lessened as her weight increased.  In fact, it rather seemed to have grown in proportion with her size.  Lately, he couldn’t keep his hands off her.  Still, she had to wonder, especially now under her mother’s prying scrutiny.  It was enough to make her doubt Thomas’ affections.  She wished he was here now.  He did think she was sexy, right?

      “He likes it,” she finally told her mother.

[Guest chefandfoodee]

*    *    *

The family, or at least half of all those who would be at the wedding reception tomorrow, was all crowded into her aunt and uncle’s house for a pre-reception gathering.  Priscilla almost tripped over her cousin’s two children playing in the doorway.  A third child, still a baby - Kewei and Stephanie’s son she guessed - was teetering in the hall, looking ready to topple over.  Priscilla crouched down to give him a hand and upright him again.  He couldn’t have been walking for more than a week or so now.  Loud chatter and murmuring rumbled from the adjacent room.  Priscilla stood up tall, took a deep breath, and plunged into the crowded living room.  Her heart was beating fast.

    Groups mingled in various pockets about the room, while in the next one over most of the family pressed in around a dining room, either seated or standing in the corners, and in the adjoining breakfast room four of her uncles sat silently, absorbed in a game of mahjong, oblivious to the noise and commotion around them.  As the family greeted Priscilla and her cousins, the excitement boosted her spirits and made her feel cheerful and gay.  She chatted eagerly with people she hadn’t seen in years.  Comments about her weight - and there were more than a few - phased her very little and she took them goodnaturedly.

    “Eh, is that Priscilla?” her eldest aunt looked directly at her.

    “Hi, Yima!” exclaimed Priscilla.  “How are you?”

    “Oh, you’ve gotten so fat!  You used to be thin.”

    “I know,” Priscilla blushed, “Too much good food.”  Her aunt threw back her head and laughed.

    “Meimei, come here,” her aunt shouted out for her sister.  “Have you seen Priscilla?”  It wasn’t just one aunt who came over but two.

    “What a pretty girl!” said the younger aunt.

    “You’ve put on so much weight!” the second one exclaimed.

    “Yes,” the younger aunt agreed, “But she’s still very beautiful.”

    “Thank you, Ayi,” Priscilla replied.

    “I remember you were always doing sports,” said the second aunt.  “What happened?”

    Priscilla chuckled awkwardly.

    “It’s been awhile,” she told them.

    “Oh,” her aunt shook her head as if to convey her understanding.  “Be sure to get exercise, and watch what you eat!”

    “Okay, Ayi.  I will.”

    “Aw, such a beautiful girl,” the younger aunt complimented again.  “Who cares if she’s gained weight.  She looks happy!  If Priscilla’s fat, then my son’s an elephant!”  Her aunt proceeded to ask all about her job and her boyfriend.

    What Priscilla’s mother said was true.  Her cousin Kewei, always a heavyset fellow, now had a grand, bulbous gut extending underneath his shirt.  His wife, Elizabeth, had undergone an even more dramatic transformation.  While it hadn’t been quite a year since she’d given birth to their son, Priscilla knew there was no way all of Elizabeth’s extra bulk was baby weight.  She’d ballooned to nearly twice her original size in the few short years since she and Kewei had gotten married.  Priscilla was admittedly comforted by the recognition that she wasn’t the only one who’d gained weight nor was she going to be the only fat person at the wedding.  She felt a little sorry for Stephanie, though.  Priscilla realized how uncomfortable she must feel being the big, fat white girl at a party full of skinny Asians.

    Not that they were all skinny.  Her other cousin, Qibing, although he had never been athletic or particularly fit, was looking more soft and doughy than ever before.  Huming, too, had lost the thick, muscular frame he maintained in high school and was now beginning to resemble a big teddy bear.  His girlfriend as well no longer had her thin, teenage figure, but had gotten rather thick, especially in her rear.  It was apparent, too, that even Priscilla’s mother, now that she was in an evening dress, was getting a little heavier in middle age.  A couple of uncles, of course, had their big, old bellies.  By and large, they were a thin bunch, though.  And Priscilla was indeed the heaviest female cousin in attendance.

    Priscilla had always gotten along well with Kewei.  She ended up spending the majority of her time at the party with him, his wife Stephanie, and their baby son.  The boy, Peter, was an absolute delight and never ceased to amuse.  He stumbled about the room in circles, occasionally toppling over, always amazed by some trinket, the fishtank, a ball, or any tiny object he could stick in his mouth.  He especially enjoyed running up as fast as his clumsy legs would take him to plant a kiss on your cheek.  Priscilla picked him up and carried him about the room to greet his various relatives.

    Dinner accorded more opportunity for Priscilla’s family to take stock of her new, chubby figure.  Never in her life, had she felt so self-conscious at a meal.  She picked at her food, serving herself small portions, eating slowly.  Her appetite had almost entirely departed her.

    “What’s the matter?” her aunt asked from just opposite her at the table.  “You’re not eating!”  Priscilla shrugged.

    “Here, this is delicious,” her aunt added.  “Have some.”  And she used her chopsticks to lift an entire soft shell crab from her plate to Priscilla’s.

    “Meimei,” another aunt two chairs down addressed her sister, “Maybe she’s trying to watch her weight.  She doesn’t need another crab.”

    “Ah, what does it matter if she likes to eat?” the first aunt shot back.  This was Kewei’s mother.

    “Ayi,” Kewei joined in from down the table, “Just give me the crab if nobody wants it.  It doesn’t matter if I get any fatter.”  Judging by their mother’s respective attitudes, it made sense now that Kewei was so big while the older aunt’s daughter was thin as a rail.  Now that the soft shell crab was on her plate, it was clear to Priscilla that pleasing everyone would be a fruitless endeavor.  She ate gingerly, taking only small bites.

Yet it wasn’t only her aunt who plied Priscilla with food.  Her mother came over to where Priscilla and her two siblings were seated.

    “These noodles are really good!” she exclaimed.  “Did you get some?  Here, I have some extra ribs I can’t finish.”  She set the ribs on Kevan’s plate.

    “Have you gotten enough to eat?” she asked Priscilla before setting the bowl of noodles next to her plate.  That was a Chinese mother for you - in one moment warning you that you’re getting too fat, in the next pushing food in your face saying, ‘Eat more!  Eat more!’

    Moment by moment, Priscilla’s little plate never seemed to have much food on it, nor did she remember eating very much, and yet eventually she felt as if she couldn’t get down another bite.

[Guest runeebsen]

This is an awesome story keep it up

[Guest chefandfoodee]

*      *      *

  The wedding ceremony was short and simple but the reception that followed was a lengthy banquet of much dining, chatting and photo-taking.  The groom’s side of the family was more than halfway across the country.  They would have a reception of their own next month.  Present tonight was the bride’s extended Taiwanese family, together with a few of her friends and their husbands.  Priscilla’s dress fit more snugly than she remembered two weeks ago.  But that wasn’t a big surprise considering that she’d been walking around perpetually stuffed all weekend.  Her stomach never had even a moment to be empty. 

    Except for one exception, there was hardly a morsel of food one could call Western at the banquet, aside maybe from the roasted peanuts on each table to snack on before dinner was served.  A two foot cake sat in the back corner, four-tiered and white, waiting for the bride and groom to make the first cut.  Each tier had its own flavor - the top was lemon, the second level white chocolate, the third strawberry, and the bottom almond.  After every dish had been served and eaten, and egg-custards passed around the room, the room stood to watch the newlyweds cut the first slice and push forkfuls of cake into each other’s face.  Following photos and meagre applause - the custom of cake at weddings was still somewhat alien to the Taiwanese immigrants - the couple began doling out thick slices on white paper plates.  Priscilla was lucky enough to get lemon, of which there was the least.  Then the room burst into new excitement when the first slice into the third layer revealed a pink interior - strawberry!  It was a popular flavor and Priscilla wondered if it would run about before she got to try some.  But there was plenty.  Everyone in the room had been served and they hadn’t even gotten down to the bottom layer.  The bride and groom carefully removed the third tier so that they could cut into the bottom, almond - the flavor the bride personally anticipated most.

    Having finished her slice of lemon cake, Priscilla snuck over to the table to snag a slice of strawberry cake before it was all gone.  It tasted even better than the first.  Along the outside edge was a thick layer of vanilla buttercream.  Each tier of cake was actually separated into three layers, a thin layer of extra icing in between each, and sweet jam spread between the bottommost layers.  The cake was moist, rather dense and heavy, yet nonetheless fluffy and soft.  Priscilla knew much of her family, not being accustomed to or very fond of sweets, would complain that the cake was both too sweet and too heavy, but Priscilla thought it was wonderful.  She loved cake, and couldn’t truly understand how anyone else would ever feel differently.  She worked her way from the bottom up, making sure to get a little frosting with every bite.  Like her first piece, it was cut straight rather than in angled pie slices, about an inch and half thick.  When she came to last bite - the section of upper corner surrounded on both sides by frosting - she felt a sense of loss.  This was joy departing.  It was a sensation she experienced at the last bite of anything sweet and delicious.  The ecstasy of the moment would be gone in a second and she’d be left with nothing but a sad, bare, empty plate.  Heaven was a slice of cake that, no matter how much or how long you ate it, never disappeared.

    Yet the reception went on a while longer, the final segment taken up mostly by aunts, uncles, sons, daughters, and cousins bunching together for photographs.  Nearly every possible combination was formed and photographed, often by a dozen cameras or cellphones all at once.  The next day, some thousand or more pictures would be circulating on the Internet, being passed back and forth through email or uploaded onto photo-sharing websites.  Some people would fly back home the very next day, others would linger for several days for a calmer, quieter, and more intimate visit.

    Priscilla saw Kewei, Elizabeth and their little son Peter seated alone at one of the large banquet tables.  She crossed the room over to the table and sat down next to her cousin, aware that the fabric of her dress was now straining against her tight, stuffed tummy

    “Priscilla!” Kewei exclaimed.  “Want to have a second piece of cake with us?”  Both he and Elizabeth had their own piece of cake sitting in front of them.  Peter clamored for another bite while his mother forked up a tiny sliver for him.

    “Sure!” Priscilla responded.  Kewei reached back behind him to grab a slice of the cake.  This piece was almond flavored with raspberry jam spread between each layer and amaretto buttercream encasing the edges.  He handed it to Priscilla.  Her eyes grew bright again as she dug in, taking her first bite, and neglecting to mention that this “second” piece of cake was actually her third.

[Guest chefandfoodee]

Okay.  That's that.

I'd love to know what you think.  Criticism, praise, anything you want to offer.

[lightgainlover]

Late answer : good realistic story and nice analyse of 2nd generation immigrants.