Page 79 of Guy's Girl
“Oh? Go on.”
Adrian fishes his phone out of his pocket and types somethinginto Google. When the page loads, he turns the screen to face her. It’s open to aUSA Todayarticle titled, “Disney+ to Expand Streaming Service in Fourteen Countries.” She takes the phone out of his hand and scrolls through the text. Much of it is standard corporate jargon—the kind of thing she would write about Sofra-Moreno in her job—but in the fifth paragraph, there is a list of the countries in which the service would be launching: Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary...
“Hold up.” She raises her hand, palm flat. “Are you telling me that you helped launch a streaming service that will bring movies and TV to children growing up in Hungary?”
Adrian just grins.
Ginny whacks his shoulder. “Are you fucking kidding me, Adrian? This is amazing. How did I not know about this before?”
He shrugs. “It wasn’t announced publicly until last week. Plus, you know.” He raises one hand and scratches the back of his neck. “We haven’t really talked much since...”
They let the sentence trail off.
He clears his throat. “Anyway. Have you seen enough?”
“Down here? Absolutely.” She points to his phone. “About your project? Not even close. You better tell me everything.” She nudges his shoulder again. “I’m so proud of you, Adrian.”
When he smiles, it reaches the very tops of his ears.
Here’s what babies and bulimics have in common: we both love to spit up.
Unlike bulimics, babies are not trying to shrink. They are trying to grow, but they do not know how. They cannot feed themselves. So they eat, and they eat, and they eat; and they do not know when to stop, so they eat far too much and then burp half of it up.
Sometimes, I feel like a baby.
Sometimes, I soar up and out of my body; and when I do, I see myself for what I am: a human being who is not fully formed, who is trying to grow into an adult, but does not know how. Who cannot feed herself. Who needs someone to tell her when, how much, and how little, but who cannot actually ask for what she needs because she cannot speak. She can only cry and cry and cry and hope, eventually, someone will listen.
***
Ginny doesn’t want to go home yet. She still has two days in Hungary before she has to board a plane and head back to New York, but she’s already dreading it. She doesn’t want to go back to that apartment, where Finch lives a mere six feet away. She doesn’t want to go back to her job, no matter how good it feels when Kam nods in approval at how quickly she turns in her tasks. She wants...
She doesn’t know yet what she wants.
But she knows she can’t stay here any longer. Adrian might claim that she’s no burden, but that’s because he doesn’t notice the way Eszter glares at her, the noise of displeasure she makes when she strips the sheets from her bed and carries them to the laundry. Ginny tries to interrupt, to say she can do it herself, but Eszter shoos her away.
Four days have passed since she last purged. It’s crazy how quickly her body is expanding. An outsider would probably tell her that she’s being ridiculous, that there’s no way she could have gained weight already, but Ginny can tell. It’s like her body was desperate for it, for an extra pound, an extra ounce of fat. Her skin rumples in so many places now. Around the waist, the thighs, the back of the arms, beneath her chin. It almost mocks her with how easily it folds.
She feels like she’s drowning in her own insecurity. Given the choice, she would curl up into a little ball and sleep through the rest of her life.
***
Later that day, Ginny lies on the couch, journaling as always, while Imre reads quietly in his armchair. Just as she finishes her entry, Imre stands up and walks over to the bookshelf. She assumes he’s going to pick out another book, but after searching around for a minute, he pulls out a tome so large it could only be an encyclopedia. He turns around and starts to carry it toward Ginny. She thinks that maybe it’s a Hungarian-to-English dictionary, that he has something to tell her. It isn’t until he settles on the couch beside her and opens the book that she realizes it isn’t a book at all.
It’s a photo album.
Imre opens the first page and points at a picture. Ginny’s face splits into a huge grin, because captured in that photograph is a dark-haired, chubby-cheeked, unbearably adorable baby that could only be one person.
“Adrian?” she asks.
Imre nods, smiling. He points to another photo, this one of two toddlers waddling along the Danube—Adrian and Beatrix. They sit in silence for a few minutes as Imre turns the pages for Ginny. Whenever they come to an especially cute one of Adrian, they pause to grin at each other. About four turns in, Imre reaches up to flip to the next page, but she stops him. There, in the top corner of the page, is a faded photograph she wants to ask about.
She holds up a finger, then pulls out her phone and googles the translation she needs. When she finds it, she points at the photograph and asks,“Apa?” Father?
The photograph in question shows a pale, lanky man standing beside a yellow car, a stack of books under one elbow. He wears agrey overcoat and glasses perched on the end of his nose. But it’s the slight smile that gives it away. That smile belongs to Adrian.
Imre lays two fingers atop the lanky man’s face. His son’s face. His eyes crinkle at the edges as he says,“Igen.”
That word Ginny knows.Yes.
