Chapter 22

[Erica] Early December

Genetics or environment? It is often very difficult to tell which is the primary cause. For a teenaged girl like Erica McCann, the cause did not matter. All she knew was that she was fat, she was a disgrace to her parents and her siblings, and she absolutely hated her life.

In the McCann family, style was everything. Both parents, her older sister, and her younger brother were examples of physical perfection, and that seemed to be the most important thing in their family life.

Erica had started out pudgy from birth, and had never been anything but. Puberty exacerbated the problem, and she became what she considered to be an outcast. The drumbeat of criticism and admonishment from her father, in particular, never eased up; not that the others did not do their share.

If Erica had an exceptional talent or skill, she had never had a chance to discover or develop it. Too much of her time was spent trying to be invisible, trying to avoid another lecture on how to improve her looks, trying to keep from breaking into tears every time one of her family threw her another disgusted look or scathing comment.

Part of the tragedy was that Erica was not really obese. Certainly, her thighs, buttocks, belly, upper arms, back, and breasts were larger than they should have been, and there was significant extra flesh all over her body. But from any angle, her general shape was still recognizable as female. Furthermore, she had the smallish, graceful hands, wrists, ankles, and feet that a number of heavy people are blessed with. She was just too far past her family's limit of acceptability.

Suicide is something that generally does not enter a young person's frame of reference until after puberty, and that was true of Erica. Having suffered through her sixteenth birthday, she had reached the point where she just had to decide how she could actually accomplish it.

For any troubled individual to be rescued, there first has to be at least one person who sees their distress and is willing to take some action. In Erica's case it was a cousin, a male cousin five years older than herself. In their overall narcissistic clan, Troy was an anomaly. A junior at Addison studying psychology, he seemed blessed with all of the people sensitivity that his relatives had been denied.

Over the years, Troy's family and Erica's had been together a lot. From a very young age, he had responded to her sad, beaten-down demeanor. He was the one person who had ever received any appreciable number of smiles from her, and if she was ever to cry for help, he was the only person she would ever have thought of.

At Thanksgiving, the families had been together again, and from everything Troy had learned in school and from what he knew from his own investigatingons, he reached the chilling conclusion that he was in real danger of losing his cousin Erica permanently.

Because Addison was local and because Gerald Magnuson was both a major donor to the university and the force behind Transformations, the Tee was a frequent topic of discussion in campus psychological circles. Of course, given the natural critical bent of academics, much of the discussion was less than supportive, but at least the name and some word of the results were known. The fact that the Tee had withstood the full onslaught of the Christian right won it a period of grudging approval in the heavily anti-religious campus community.

Troy immediately thought of Transformations when he became aware of Erica's critical state. In his anxiety and concern, he just went to the only name he knew - Gerald Magnuson. Gerald had chosen his support people wisely, and as soon as his admin assistant heard Troy mention concern about a suicide, she called Frank Waxman and arranged a meeting for Troy.

From then on, things happened in a hurry. It was decided that bringing Erica into Lindsey's would be the best move. Troy was almost panicked about suicide, and it took a long conversation with Julia to convince him that Lindsey's was a congenial, accepting environment that would remove much of the pressure on her.

Approval for acceptance was pushed through rapidly with the suicide threat cutting out a lot of discussion. Because of her successful efforts toward invisibility, Erica had never had contact with a school counsellor. When the counsellor summoned Erica, after Julia pushed all of the right buttons, the poor girl went into a minor panic. It took less than thirty minutes for the counsellor to agree that she was very much at risk. It took a lot longer than that for Julia to convince the counsellor not to activate the usual warning system and instead let her go to Lindsey's.

Getting Erica physically to Lindsey's was the next task. She was completely non-aggressive and for her to make any move toward leaving home was totally unimaginable. Troy was quite sure that he could persuade her, but Julia was not willing to risk that. In the worst case, Erica's trust in Troy might be damaged and that would just increase the suicide risk.

Julia decided it was time to haul out the heavy artillery. Erica received another summons to the counsellor's office, this time delivered by the assistant principal who escorted her back. Almost in tears when she was ushered into the office, she first saw Troy, which eased her mind a lot. Looking at the young woman with Troy, she very nearly fainted. Lindsey had donned one of her performing outfits, the one most seen on posters and album covers, and recognition was instantaneous and mind-blowing.

When Troy had helped Erica to a chair, Lindsey spoke. "Erica, I have set up a home for good kids stuck in intolerable home situations. Troy and I and some people who know about these things believe that you need to get out of your home before you suffer some serious problems. Right now, there are about a dozen really neat kids living at Lindsey's Place. There is nothing your parents can do about it if you decide to come. This has all been tested and proven legally. Will you come and join the other kids?"

"But ... but ... my stuff!"

"Erica, if you want to, you can just come in what you are wearing, and there is money to buy what you need. Otherwise, there is no one at your house right now, is there?"

"N ... no. Work ... and school."

"Well, there is a security person standing by to protect you if you want to go and get some clothes and things," Lindsey said.

"S ... security person?"

"Yes. Just in case your parents should return and try to keep you from leaving."

"Hummph. They'd probably help me pack."

"I suspect you are wrong about that, Erica," Lindsey said, "but I am truly sorry that you feel that way. Come to my place. You can just be yourself with good people who care about each other. Everyone there has some real hurts, and they all help each other."

"Who will pay?"

"You don't have to worry about that. It turns out that we can even bill your parents for part of your support. Erica, will you come? Please?"

Erica looked to Troy and saw that his eyes were moist. "Do you think I should, Troy?"

Lindsey answered instead. "Honey, at Thanksgiving, Troy came away terrified that you wanted to kill yourself." She paused as Erica gasped. "He is the reason I am here right now asking you to come with us."

"There are a few things at home that I would like to have," was Erica's only response.

On the way to her house, Erica was put on the phone with Julia. They agreed that Erica should leave with as little confrontation and upset as possible. She would leave a detailed note telling where she was, and even inviting her parents to visit.

Julia had taken most of the afternoon off because she thought that it was important to establish her presence with Erica. She had also called the school and had Missy picked up. "Missy, can I give you an assignment?"

"Silly question. Name it."

"A new girl is coming in, named Erica. She has been beaten down to nothing because she is overweight and her family can't tolerate that. She is borderline suicidal. Because of your 'ugly duckling' phase, I think you can relate to her best."

"I've got all my pictures here - the nude ones," Missy said with a giggle. Quickly turning serious, she said "Suicide, huh? As bad as it got for me, I never thought of that. I'm not sure I can help her that way."

"Don't even try," Julia said quickly. "Just be her friend. Make sure that every day she feels she has something to live for. I'm sure the other kids will treat her well, too."

"Yeah. I guess when you've been shit on big time, you're sensitive about doing it to anyone else."

"Hmmm," Julia responded. "I don't think I've ever seen it phrased that way in a psyche book, but that certainly is a founding principle of this place." She held out her arms and they shared a giggling hug.

Since she was the only resident home from school when Erica arrived, Missy worked like a trooper along with Troy and Muriel to get everything from the mini-van into Erica's little room. Their introduction was brief and casual, but Missy kept up a constant stream of quips and humorous descriptions about the place.

When everything had at least been unloaded, Troy had to leave and Missy said. "We'll get some of the other girls to help you put it away later. We've got a couple of hours until any of the others get home. I could use a hot tub. How about you?"

"I don't even own a swimming suit," Erica said glumly.

"Who needs a suit? Let's just skinny dip."

"Oh, I could never..."

"Don't worry, we'll be by ourselves," Missy said confidently. Turning to Muriel, she said "Will you lock the door and give us a good warning if anyone shows up? Oh, and bring a couple of robes over to the hot tub. Are you going to join us?" Missy gave a little negative head shake that only Muriel could see.

It was a real gamble, but Missy had the instinctive sense that it was important for Erica to understand what a completely different world she had entered. For some reason, she also sensed that Erica longed for a chance to just let her body be seen. Keeping up a constant chatter, she took the new girl by the hand and towed her to the hot tub. When Erica stopped in apparent panic near the tub, Missy put her arm around her and spoke seriously.

"Erica, I don't know very much about you, but I hear that you have been in a bad place because of your weight and your family's attitude about it. Well, I'm telling you that you are now in a whole different world. You could decide never to wear a stitch around here and not a single person would make fun of you or criticize you.

"I'm begging you to do something really courageous right now. I want you to get naked with me. I want you to tell the world from your first day here that your body is what it is and you are not going to be ashamed of it any more. You're not going to hide it away because of someone else's opinion of it. If you will do that with me, I just know that your life is going to change so fast that you won't believe it.

"Will you do it? Will you leave the old, beaten down, frightened Erica right there in a pile of clothes and forget her? Please?"

Missy had definitely touched a cord in Erica's psyche. It was a little act of rebellion the like of which she had often fantasized, but would never, ever really do. Actually, her private fantasies had gone far, far beyond just skinny dipping in private with another girl, but fantasies were just that, not something that ever happened.

"Erica, if you think about it, this isn't even as hard as showering with the girls at school, is it? Here. Let me help you." That was the riskiest move yet by Missy, but her instincts did not fail her. She pulled the baggy sweater over Erica's head and was working on the clasps of her bra before Erica even reacted.

"M ... Missy! Wait!"

"No, I won't wait. I'm am betting that a part of you really wants to do this, and I'm going to make sure that part wins. Think of how it would piss off your mom and dad if you did this. Doesn't that make it worth it?"

Erica went ramrod stiff for a long moment, then almost frantically kicked off her shoes and pushed down her slacks and panties. Missy had not even been able to get the bra off. Erica did that while hurrying into the tub. She seemed frantic to get hidden under the water, so frantic that she barely tossed away her bra in time to keep it dry.

Missy stripped as fast as she could, then sat beside Erica and took her hand. "Let's see: your pulse is about nine-hundred-fifty, right?" she teased. "I hope you'll forgive me, but I took unfair advantage of you. I'm used to being naked. Oh, here's Muriel with the robes. Muriel, could I ask one more favor, please?" Missy described where her folder of pictures was hidden and asked Muriel to bring them.

While Muriel was fetching the pictures, Missy gave a very abbreviated version of how she got to the Tee and the essentials of what it was like. Erica may not have believed some of what she heard, but when Muriel returned naked, the story gained a lot of credibility. "Just leave them on the table, Muriel. I don't want to take a chance on getting them wet."

Muriel got in the tub and gave her own brief version of how she got to be housemother. She verified what Missy had said about nudity.

"We've probably been in this hot water long enough," Missy said. "Let's dry off and I'll show you some pictures that will make you barf."

When they got out and dried on the ubiquitous towels, Erica reached for the robe that Muriel had brought. "Huh, uh!" Missy said quickly. "Let's keep pissing off your parents for a while longer. We'll put the robes on when the other kids get home."

Erica tried to protest, but she did not try very hard. Missy's 'before' pictures had the expected impact. "But, I've tried and tried to lose weight. I just can't," Erica complained.

"Maybe you never will lose it. I don't know. It doesn't really matter," Missy said. "I want to be your friend, but I am also going to be on your ass all the time. I want you get so comfortable with your body that you don't care if the weight is gone or not."

"Comfortable? With this?"

"Yup. You've got to learn that it's what you think about it that counts, not what your parents or anyone else thinks. With good food and the nutrition they use here and starting to work out, you'll probably be surprised how much different you can look. But it still doesn't matter. I'm going to be pushing you to just relax and be casual about how you dress or undress. Be like everyone else around here. It's really cool."

Muriel watched in amazement as Missy talked Erica into the pool, then over to the kitchen for a snack, still naked. It was easy to tell that Erica was terrified, but Missy seemed to have a hypnotic hold on her.

As time for the others to get home approached, Missy led them back to the hot tub, which is where they were when Muriel signaled that others were coming. Neither girl knew that Julia was intercepting the others outside and giving them a pep talk on dealing with the new girl.

Missy only allowed Erica to put on the robe, which was not very long. "Can't I at least put on my underwear?" Erica complained.

"Do you really want to?" Missy challenged.

Erica flushed and stammered, and finally could only say "You're awful!"

"And so are you. And I got you to admit it. Nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah nyeah!" Not willing to ease off, Missy reached out and pulled the top of Erica's robe open quite a bit farther. "Girlfriend, you may not like much about your body, but you have got BOOBS. If you let the guys see about a quarter acre of cleavage, just ... like ... that, they'll have no idea if your fat, skinny, short, or tall."

Erica actually shuddered at Missy's words and action. She had never purposely exposed any part of her body. That was totally backward to her. And the very idea that some boy might find part of her interesting or stimulating!

Julia stood back as all of the introductions were done. Muriel went over to her and they shared their wonder at what their ugly duckling had turned into. Even Julia had not seen the latent exhibitionist need that must have been obvious to Missy. As two carloads arrived from two different schools, Erica's fiery blush never receded, but neither did her smile. Standing there in only the fairly short robe must have been the erotic highlight of her life.

When the last resident had arrived and headed off to their room or the study area, Missy put her arm around Erica and teased. "I think there's an extra vibrator around. Do you need it right now?" Her ability to astonish the new girl did not seem to run out.

"Missy!"

"Well ... put your hand on your pussy and tell me it's dry."

"How can you say stuff like that?" Erica almost screeched.

"Come on, Erica! We're women. It's how we work. Why try to hide it? Have fun with it!"

When they got to Erica's room, Missy said "We have to think about if your parents show up tonight."

"Oh, no!"

"I know you're probably not ready for that. What would help you most? Having Troy here?"

"I don't want him to get in trouble for helping me leave," Erica insisted.

"Will you let me set up a little drama for if they come? Will you do what I tell you?"

"I ... I can't seem to say no to you."

"OK. You get dressed, and I expect to find you out there talking to some kids when I get done with a few phone calls.

When Erica's parents arrived at Lindsey's about 7:15 that evening, everything had been set up. The Plonske agent had watched the house and had followed them when they left to see if they were headed toward the Tee. Once it was certain they were on the way, the delayed dinner was started.

Every one of the resident kids had been through their parents' outraged first visit and they were more than willing to help Erica get through hers. The fact that Missy's devious mind turned it into a pool party cookout just made it that much better.

Erica's body was the issue that had driven her from her home, so having her in a swimsuit was the perfect slap in the face for her parents. Missy and Connie had hauled her off to a shopping center and had browbeat her into acquiring a two-piece suit. It could not qualify as a bikini because of the heavy-duty top needed to handle her breasts. The bottoms exposed most of her belly, but the others had argued correctly that no suit could truly hide it. Erica had cried a little at those words, but Missy handled it well.

"Look, Sweetie, there's nothing you can do about your belly in the next three hours. It's just wrong that you should be driven from your home just because of it, though. Just hang it out there in front of your folks and pretend you don't even notice it. I guarantee you that no one else there will pay any attention to it."

Once the swimsuit battle had been resolved, they got her a matching cover-up and headed back to rehearse. Every one of the kids wanted to make suggestions about what she should say in certain situations. The hardest part was convincing her that she could really say those things. She was in tears several times from the encouraging things that both girls and boys said to her.