Riki was kind of fat but she hid it well. She dressed well and did her makeup well. She’d wear these largish, fashionable black clothes that sheltered all of her secrets. But her secrets left obvious clues. She was always eating, always inviting me out for snacks, and then drinks, and then dinner, and then dessert, and then snacks. Once, in bed, I scooped her stomach and jiggled it and laughed at her face. She cried and ran away, her heavy footsteps shuddering through the whole house.

“SLOW DOWN!” I yelled.

Riki told me that girls eat lots of food when something’s bothering them. She told me that girls express themselves inwardly.

“What the hell’s bothering you?” She was beautiful, and she was always laughing, and she was much more of a person than I was.

She shrugged and kept eating.

_

Book I’m reading: The High Mountains of Portugal