chapter 1

In high school everyone called us Bettys. They called us Bettys because that was what we called ourselves. It started off as just a joke really. It was only Elizabeth B who shared that fateful name with me but we were so often mistaken for each other that it was bound to become a thing. It wasn't just that we were always together and dressed so alike. There was something in our superior attitudes, the judgemental glint in our bright eyes, the insolent turn of our pretty mouths that caused us so blur into one entity in people's minds.

When we watched Clueless and heard Cher Horowitz describe the pretty and popular girls as "total Bettys" it sealed the deal as the name of our little clique. Just like the Heathers in that Winona Ryder movie, we would be the Bettys. I guess we really thought we were hot shit in those days.

I was never a strong person, I know that now though I didn't then. I am a soft thing, malleable like putty. My sense of self, like my name, endlessly transmuteable. I was Elizabeth when my parents wanted me to know it was serious. I tried on Lisbeth for a while in college but it wasn't a good fit. I was Lizzie to Robert right up until the moment he left. I was mostly just plain old Beth to everyone these days. And with every day that passed I felt a little less like Betty.

After high school we went our separate ways and lost touch a little as high school friends often do. Ashley, Sarah and Elizabeth B. were living the lives that the girls in their smiling yearbook had envisioned for themselves. But things hadn't really worked out that way for me. I felt my own life to be a series of wasted opportunities, bad decisions and regrets. Each one piling more and more pounds of thick, heavy fat onto my body until the old "me" felt like it had been almost completely erased and replaced by a fat woman almost four times my size.

Despite the different directions that life had taken us, we still made a point of meeting up once a year around the 4th of July to go to our hometown carnival. The carnival was nothing special: the stalls were hokey, their once bright facades peeling and weather worn. The rides were outdated and rickety. But though we might cancel reunion dinners at the last minute and idley plan vacations we knew we would never go on together, we hadn't missed going to the carnival a single summer in 8 years.

"Remember when you kissed Daniel Hopkins behind the ferris wheel, Beth? You wore his letterman jacket all night." Sarah said.

Too out of breath with trying to keep pace with my friends, I only nodded but I wondered what Daniel Hopkins was doing now. I wondered what he would think if he could see all 412 lbs of me now.

No, it was not the fairground attractions that brought us back here year after year as inevitably as summer turns to fall. It was pure nostalgia, just as nostalgia was the only thing that bound me to the other Bettys. Every corner of the carnival was filled with memories, haunted by the laughter and melodramas of our teenage selves. I came back every year because I wanted to remember what it was like to be Betty. I wanted to feel what it was like once more to inhabit her skin before I had buried her beneath my enormous weight.

"Hey, look, they've still got that rollercoaster," Elizabeth B said.

"Of course they still have it," Ashley laughed. "This place has been the same since our parents were in junior high."

The last time I had tried to ride that rollercoaster it had taken two attendants to force the safety bar over my belly. I was easily 60 lbs up from then.

"You know, I think I'll sit this one out," I said, trying my best to sound casual. "I'll catch up with you later."

I thought about saying more, about making some elaborate excuse but I knew it was pointless. They might not say anything to my face but it wasn't like they hadn't noticed how fat I was. It was in the way Sarah side eyed me when I ordered dessert while everyone else politely demurred - like "should you really be eating that". It was in the way Ashley was always bringing up her aunt who had lost soooo much weight on Jenny Craig. It was in the way I had to pretend I hadn't heard Elizabeth B say "Is it just me or is she even bigger than last time?" when she thought I was out of earshot.

As soon as my friends left, I looked for somewhere to sit down. Eager to take my considerable weight off my feet, I soon saw an empty bench not too far away. I waddled towards it, my belly swaying and undulating and my ass shifting and wobbling behind me with every laboured step. I eased my obese body down onto the bench. Once you pass a certain weight threshold, being able to sit down without thinking, without worrying if a seat will give out under your bulk becomes another thing you never realised you would have to miss.

I sat there for a moment trying to get my breath back, trying to ignore the passersby who glanced my way or worse, turned back to get a second look. But then I couldn't blame them for staring at the fat woman, so wide that she took up more than half of the bench. I was used to turning heads for all the wrong reasons these days.

That's when I noticed that there was something different about the carnival this year. Usually there were only a couple of food stalls selling fries, hamburgers and hotdogs with a side of botulism. Now there was an entirely new area, just beyond a cluster of marquees, cut off from the rest of the carnival by a string of red and white bunting, full of brightly coloured food carts and cheerful little stalls.

I knew that it wouldn't be long before the other Bettys came to find me but I realised that I was unconsciously rubbing the sides of my huge belly and licking my greedy lips and I knew I wouldn't be able to resist indulging in some fattening little treat or another.

Beside the entrance there was a hand painted poster advertising a circus show. It depicted the most outrageously, obscenely obese woman I had ever seen. She wore a stars and stripes bikini that didn't leave a single bulge, roll or fold to the imagination while the poster declared: "Everything Is Bigger In America! Watch Big Betty Eat Her Way To Become The Fattest Woman In The USA!"

I shook my head in disgust. The woman had to be at least 200 lbs heavier than me. Maybe I wasn't too far gone afterall. Maybe there was still some hope that I could lose the weight and get my old figure back. But no sooner had the thought entered my head than I felt my belly rumble deeply, hungrily.

The air seemed to shimmer around me as I passed under the bunting but I was too distracted by the enticing scent of fried food and candy to notice.

The first stall sold pastel pink clouds of candyfloss. I didn't really care that much for the cloyingly sweet stuff but there was something  about the girl working on the stall that drew me in. She was so light and agile on her feet, her smile so relaxed and easy as she spun threads of sugar and chatted to customers. I realised that I had been watching her for so long that I had somehow ended up at the front of the queue.

The girl had a pretty, witty face with emerald green eyes that shone keenly when she looked at me. She wore a candy stripe dress and a pink hairband that clashed with the bright auburn of her hair.

"What can I get for you?" she said in a lightly European accent that I could not place. The traveller's accent of here, there and everywhere.

"The biggest one you have," I blurted out without knowing why.

"Sure thing," the girl said before presenting me with a puff of candyfloss almost as big as my head.

I took a bite and almost moaned at the flavour sensation. It was light as air but somehow bursting with the flavour summer fruits. It tasted so good that I had eaten the whole thing right there before I knew it.

"I - I ate it too fast," I said apologetically.

"No, no," the girl insisted. "Honestly, it's a pleasure to see someone enjoy food so freely."

She leaned forward, her elbows on the counter, her fingers fidgeted slightly, tracing invisible shapes on the hard surface. "Say, I've been working on a new flavour and I've been looking for just the right person to taste test it for me..."

"I shouldn't..."

"Come on," the girl coaxed. "It's free for my favourite customer."

I knew the girl was just being nice but it had been so long since someone had spoken to me like that that I couldn't help but blush at her openly flirtatious manner.

"OK, I'd love to," I said. "What's the flavour?"

The girl flashed me a sweetly devious smile. "Blueberry."

I took a bite, the flavour somehow even more intense and delicious than the pink candyfloss.

"Mmm, it's really good," I said, licking the sticky sugar from my plump lips.

"I'm glad you think so," the girl said. "Are you staying for the circus show tonight?"

"I don't think so," I said.

"Well, incase you change your mind, this will give you free entry. Just tell them I sent you." She pressed a gold token into my palm and closed my fingers around it as if it was something incredibly precious.

"I'll look out for you," she called to me as I walked away.

I realised I didn't even know her name but when I turned to ask she was already busy spinning cotton candy for someone else. I could hear her laughter, high and clear as a bell and suddenly I felt stupid making a big deal of it. Why should I think I was so special? She worked for the carnival, it wasn't that she wanted to see me again, it was just that it was part of her job to promote the shows.

I should have known that once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop eating. The candyfloss had done little to satisfy me and only left my gluttonous belly hungry for more. I followed my greed towards a stall selling fresh beignets.