Fruit by Brian Francis Page A

shehung up the phone. “Little Peter, I have not seen you in a very long time. Vhat grade are you in now? Five?”
    “Eight,” I said.
    “Oh yes. Vhy don’t I go and tell the doctor you are here?”
    When Dr. Luka came out to get me, I thought about a movie I saw once about an Egyptian mummy who comes back from the dead.
    “Valk this vay, young man,” Dr. Luka said. He turned to my parents. “You can vait out here. There are some magazines on the table if you like.”
    Once I got into Dr. Luka’s office and sat down on the examining table, I started to get a little nervous. What if he asked me to take off my jacket?
    “Now Peter, vhy don’t you take off your sweatshirt and your pants and lie back on the table?”
    I froze. Dr. Luka was shuffling around, looking for his stethoscope. “Why?” I asked. It was a stupid question, I know, but it was the only thing I could think of.
    Dr. Luka turned around to look at me. “So that I can examine you,” he said.
    “Oh. Can I keep my T-shirt on? I mean, it’s just a bit cold in here.”
    “Sure, sure,” Dr. Luka said. “Vhatever makes you happy.”
    I pulled off my sweatshirt, stepped out of my rugby pants, and laid back, resting my hands over my nipples.
    After tapping me on the knee a few times with his hammer and listening to my heartbeat, Dr. Luka told me to step onto his scales.
    “Pardon?” I asked. I was so worried about my nipples that I didn’t even think that Dr. Luka might want to weigh me. I couldn’t remember the last time I stepped on a scale, especially while there was another person in the room.
    “It vill only take a moment,” Dr. Luka said.
    I kept my eyes closed the whole time I was on.
    “Okay, Peter. Vhy don’t you put your clothes back on? I’m going to bring your parents in here for a minute.”
    When my mom and dad were sitting down in the room, Dr. Luka pulled out my file. “Peter is thirteen years old. And he veighs two hundred and four pounds. If you don’t change his eating habits, I guarantee you there vill be health problems in the future.”
    My mother laughed her fake laugh. “Dr. Luka, Peter is a teenager,” she said. “And you know how teenagers eat. I can’t monitor him at all hours of the day. Besides, it’s natural. Every other teenager I know eats French fries and fast food and hot dogs. Why should Peter be denied that? I don’t think it’s very fair to ask a teenage boy to live off yogurt and celery sticks, do you?”
    The more she went on, the higher her voice got. My dad sat there and said nothing. I wanted to disappear. Dr. Luka just kept looking at his papers.
    “Fatness runs on my side of the family,” my mom said. Her voice was hurting my ears. “Come to our family reunion, Dr. Luka! You’ll see!”
    Things got worse on the car ride home.
    “Why is everything my fault?” my mom asked my dad.
    “No one said it was anyone’s fault, Beth.”
    “The doctor didn’t have to. I could see it in his eyes. Blame the mother! Blame the mother! Why not? Everyone else always does. Look at how Nancy treats me now.”
    My mom said that because something’s different about Nancy. She broke up with André a few weeks after my mom’s birthday dinner at the Conch Shell and bought a Jane Fonda record. I watched the other day as she poured a packet of Sugar Twin into her tea.
    “Those chemicals aren’t good for you,” my mother had said.
    “Neither is obesity,” Nancy said and went back to her room.
    “It’s not my fault he doesn’t play sports,” my mom said to my dad. “You should take him golfing more often, Henry. That’s what a father does with his son.”
    I almost died when she said that. She turned to me in the back seat.
    “You just need to exercise more, dear,” she said. “That’s all. Less time in front of the TV and more time out playing with your friends.”
    “I’d have a boy friend right now if it wasn’t for you,” I felt like saying. But I didn’t want her to know about Andrew.