Page 74 of The Life Experiment
‘They’re hardly toned, are they? No, I can’t wear this,’ Joanna replied, slipping into the fitting room once more. Layla and Maya exchanged a look, but neither said anything.
A few minutes later, Joanna emerged again to show her daughters the next outfit they had selected. This dress was prettily patterned and more structured, with a hemline that stopped above Joanna’s knees.
‘Another no,’ she said with a grimace.
‘What’s wrong this time?’ Maya asked.
‘A dress like this needs to be worn by someone who doesn’t have chubby legs. That’s definitely not me and my thunder thighs.’
It was the so-called joke that did it.
It made Layla recall every time her mother had put herself down because she was afraid that if she didn’t, others would get there first. Layla remembered it all so vividly: the diets, the starvation, the detoxes. The times Joanna skipped ice creams on hot days or said she was too busy to eat dinner, even though she had spent the last hour making it. The way Layla would catch her mother eying her reflection as if it was something she couldn’t stand.
Sometimes, Layla caught herself staring at her own reflection like that.
Before Joanna could return to her fitting room, Layla spoke. ‘We have the same legs, you know.’
‘What?’ Joanna asked, frozen midway through closing herself into the box of bad lighting and criticism.
‘We have the same legs,’ Layla repeated, louder this time.
‘Layla, we do not! My legs are three times the size of yours,’ Joanna dismissed, but before she could close the curtain on the conversation, Layla stood and opened it wider.
Joining her mother in the fitting room, Layla hitched up her own trouser leg until it reached her mid-thigh. ‘See how your knees stick out? Mine do the same. Our thighs are pretty much the same size too, and our calves.’
Joanna looked at her legs, then at Layla’s. ‘I don’t see it.’
‘Come on, Mum,’ Layla urged. ‘Look. They’re the same!’
‘I… I suppose now you’ve pointed it out, our knees do look a little similar. Only your skin’s much less rippled with cellulite than mine.’
‘Cellulite’s your issue?’ Maya said, bursting into the fitting room to join them. Pulling up her skirt, she showed her thighs, paved in dimples from her knees upwards. ‘Doesn’t stop me wearing a skirt, though.’
‘That’s because you dress well. Besides, your legs are lovely. They aren’t things to hide!’ Joanna cried.
‘Neither are yours,’ Layla said. ‘You always say you hate your legs, but that mine and Maya’s are lovely. How can you think ours are lovely when they’re the same as the ones you hate?’
The question struck Joanna across the chest. ‘What?’
‘It’s a genuine question, Mum,’ Layla replied. ‘You tell me I’m perfect and beautiful, but you don’t talk about yourself like that. In fact, you say the opposite, but we look the same. We have the same nose, see?’ Layla moved closer, pointing to Joanna’s nose. The same nose Layla had spent years wishing was smaller because she’d heard her mother say that about her own all her life. ‘My hair is thin like yours too. When I gain weight, it goes to my stomach, the same as it does with you.’
‘I… I guess we have similar traits,’ Joanna stammered, flustered.
‘We have more than that, Mum. We look alike. Everyone says so. I’m proud of that, but I don’t know if you are. I mean, all the things you hate about yourself are things I’ve inherited from you.’
‘Layla,’ Joanna breathed. ‘You’re beautiful, you know that, don’t you? You and Maya both are.’
Layla shook her head. ‘We’re not asking for compliments, Mum. We know you think we’re perfect, but we also know we look like you. Every time you say something bad about yourself, you might as well be saying it to one of us.’
Joanna opened her mouth to argue, but what could she say to that? As her chin dimpled, Maya reached for her.
‘We’re not saying this to upset you, Mum,’ she soothed.
‘I know, I just… It’s so hard. No one tells you how fast your body changes or how quickly you age. One minute you’re twenty-one and dancing with friends in bars, the next you’re caring for a husband who nearly died and worrying how you’ll care for two children if he does.’ Closing her eyes, Joanna breathed the memory away. ‘For so long I was fighting to keep our family afloat, then one day I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognise the person staring back at me.’
‘Mum,’ Layla whispered as she watched the first of many tears slide from Joanna’s eyes. ‘Mum, you’re so beautiful.’
‘But I don’t feel it, Layla. I don’t feel it in here.’ Joanna tapped her chest to prove her point. ‘I hate how I look, then I hate myself for feeling like this. I should be thinking of more important things than my appearance but I’m not. It’s always, always on my mind. Everywhere I look, I’m told I’m not good enough. Not thin enough. Not pretty enough.’
