Curvy Girls Can't Date Soldiers
Chapter One
NADIRA
NOTHING LIKE GOING BACK to school after
winter break. I couldn’t wait for all the body
shaming in the hallways, school dances I wouldn’t
get invited to, and—you guessed it—subpar school
lunches I would be embarrassed to eat in front of
anyone because of my size.
By ten, I usually had my homework finished and
was sliding under the covers. Tonight, at eleven, I
was still wide awake. If I stayed up, that meant
tomorrow wouldn’t come, right? Maybe I could
somehow magically fast forward to graduation a
few months from now and be done with the
horrible social experiment people referred to as
“high school.”
And since everyone knows anxiety-induced
insomnia calls for extra food, I walked down the
stairs in search of a midnight snack. Luckily, the
light was already on—Mom must have forgotten it.
Then I saw her at the table, hunched over her
computer.
I stopped in the hallway, half-surprised, half-
worried to get scolded for being up too late. “You’re
still working?” I asked.
She looked at me from the screen, took off her
reading glasses, and rubbed her eyes. “What time
is it?”
I glanced at the clock over the stove. “Eleven. I
woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I thought
I’d get a snack.” Lies.
But she bought it. Nodding, she closed her
laptop. “Could you get me one too?”
“Of what?” I asked, stepping into the kitchen
and opening the pantry door.
She waved her hand before going back to
rubbing her temples. “Whatever you’re getting.”
Scanning the scant shelves, my eyes landed on a
box of chocolate cereal. I reached for it, but the box
was empty. Silently, I cursed my brothers. Were guys
seriously incapable of throwing away empty boxes?
I reached for another box of less chocolatey
cereal. It felt full, so I took it out. Dad usually did
the grocery shopping, but during Brentwood
University’s basketball season, he wasn’t the greatest
at keeping everything stocked. Coaching the team
kept him plenty busy.
I left the pantry and got a couple of clean bowls
and spoons from the dishwasher, then set them on
the counter.
“Can you make mine with almond milk?” Mom
asked.
I was pretty sure that was the only carton that
was left, but I said sure anyway. “What are you
working on?” I asked as I filled our bowls.
“A research project about ROTC students.” The
instant Mom talked about her work, she seemed to
brighten. Both she and Dad loved their jobs at the
local college—her as the dean of engineering and
Dad as the men’s basketball coach. “They’re some
of the brightest at the university, but for some
reason, the out-of-staters struggle more than their
peers who came from California.”
“Why?” I asked, passing her a bowl. I leaned
against the counter, taking a bite of my cereal.
The second she opened her mouth, I knew I’d
hit pay dirt. Mom could talk about work for hours,
which would be an excellent excuse to stay up even
later. “I think it’s a lack of connection caused by
moving away from home,” she said. “They get here,
and they don’t know a lot of people, and they can’t
get home easily to be around their support systems.
Plenty of my advisees have told me how difficult it
can be. I don’t even need a research project to know
it’s hard on them.”
“That makes sense.”
She nodded. “But proving causation could have
huge implications for program funding, and I have
everything in place to get my study started, but one
of my students just backed out!” She let out a heavy
sigh and set her spoon down. “Which means I have
to delay the project—yet again to look for another
volunteer.”
“Can’t you leave one of the soldiers without a
partner? Use them as a control?” I asked.
Growing up with a professor for a mother, I’d
learned to speak research right along with English.
Now, as the dean, she still took on research
projects she believed would help her students
succeed.
“The review board said because if we think
connection is going to help them succeed, it’s not
ethical to let one go without.” She rubbed her
temples again. “This sets us way back and totally
blows my schedule. Classes don’t start back until
next Monday, and the odds of finding another
volunteer to start tomorrow are iffy.”
“Why?” I asked. “Can’t you just email your
advisees?”
“I could. But open rates are low, and even if
they opened, no one wants to sign up for daily
emails. Even though it would take less than ten
minutes to send. It took us forever to find the volun‐
teers we do have.” She shook her head and took
another bite of cereal. “What a mess. Unless...”
Her eyes landed on me, and I instinctively backed
away from the counter, taking my bowl of cereal
with me.
“Oh no,” I said. “No, no, no. Do you remember
the time you had me volunteer as a taste tester for
the Food Science Department?” I shuddered. “I
smelled like garlic for weeks!”
“That was just one time!” she said.
I pursed my lips. “Uh-huh. What about the time
I volunteered for the Athletic Training Depart‐
ment? Huh? I thought I’d never walk without a
limp again!”
“You got extra money for that! And you walk
just fine now,” she said. “Plus, no chance of bodily
injury on this one.”
I raised my eyebrows.
“I’m telling the truth!” she said. “Besides,
having some humanitarian-type research on your
résumé would look really good to MIT.”
“I already got in!”
“But what about the internships you could get
once you’re there? You’ll be competing with the
best of the best from all over the world. It won’t be
like Emerson Academy.”
I bit my lip. She had a point. Emerson
Academy was one of the top-ranking high schools
in the country, but I was still a big fish in a small
pond here. College would dump me right into the
ocean.
“Plus, it would be a huge help to me,” Mom
said softly. “Please?”
If we stuck with the nautical references, it was
like I was a fish and she’d just jerked the line.
(Which was one of the reasons I didn’t go fishing
with my dad anymore. Cruel and unusual.) “Fine.”
I set my cereal down with a sigh. “Fine. What do I
need to do?”
Her lips spread into a relieved and slightly
manic smile, and she got up to hug me. “Thank
you, thank you!” She stepped back and rubbed my
shoulders. “All you have to do is maintain contact
with one of the soldiers for thirty days. One email a
day is all that’s required. I just have to get a screen‐
shot of the timestamps when you’re done!”
My cringing face relaxed slightly. “That’s it?
Emails? No word-count requirement or anything?”
She nodded.
“No smell testing? No taste testing? No workout
routines?”
She shook her head. “Easy as pie, right?”
I gave her a relieved smile. “Yes. Now I’m
taking my cereal to my room so I don’t get roped
into any other projects.”
She laughed quietly. “I’ll send you the email
tonight. Would you mind emailing your soldier
before you go to bed?
“Sure,” I said, my foot already on the first stair.
“Night, Mom.”
When I got to my room, I sat in bed with my
cereal and got my phone from my nightstand.
There was already an email waiting from my mom
with the ROTC student’s email address.
From: D.harris@bretnwoodu.edu
To: mitbound321@gmail.com
A.banks@brentwoodu.edu
Be sure to send before midnight.
Love you!
Mom
I glanced at the time on my phone and realized I
only had twenty minutes left. Without much time to
think, I began typing.
From: mitbound321@gmail.com
To: A.banks@brentwoodu.edu
Hi there,
I just learned about this research project a few minutes
ago, so I haven’t had a lot of time to think about what I
would tell a complete stranger about myself. Here goes
nothing.
I should probably get this out of the way first. I'm captain of the Mathletes at my school. Mostly because nooe else wanted to be captain, but also because I'm good at it. I got a 35 on the mat portion of my ACT and a 23 on the English part. My mom made me retake it, and I got the same score all over again. Writing bad, numbers good.
Despite my terrible writing skills, I still got into MIT, so
that’s good. I’m excited to get out of California. (Not
sure why you came here from out of state. Maybe you
could answer that question?)
My mom’s really smart, and everyone says I look like
her, but it’s hard to tell with all the pant suits she wears.
My dad’s a basketball coach, and my brothers are
really good. I think God gave me an extra scoop of
brains and forgot the brawn when She made me.
I’m sorry you have to spend the rest of the month
writing a high school student, but my mom sometimes
talks about students getting paid to participate in
research. I hope this is one of those times.
What are you majoring in? I’m planning to study aero‐
space engineering. Everyone tells me that major is hard
work, but they’ve never seen me try to make small talk.
Best wishes,
Nadira
I read the email over for typos, then added
A.Banks’s email address and hit send.
My cereal was somewhat soggy, but I finished it
up and still couldn’t get myself to go to sleep—or
stop thinking about my impending last semester at
Emerson Academy. The last three and a half years
had been...three and a half years.
There hadn’t been anything too special to mark
the passing time. Sure, there was the girl who’d
gotten covered in cupcakes at a homecoming game.
Or the time the school bully changed his ways to be
the kind of boyfriend my best friend deserved. Or
watching my brothers win the state championship
in basketball two years ago. But all of that had
happened to other people. I was only a spectator.
There were only four months—give or take—
left of high school, and what did I have to show for
it? I was a never-been-kissed Mathlete with a skin
condition and a one-way ticket to life as a perpetual
nerd. This research project might be the closest I
ever got to regular conversation with a male who
wasn’t in my family. If A.banks was a male...
Out of curiosity, I went to see if I could find
whoever he or she was on social media. Mom
insisted my brothers and I kept our accounts ultra-
private, so all anyone would find if they searched
my name was a faded blue avatar. But most people
didn’t have the privilege (liability?) of a parent so
involved in career placement.
That was evidenced by my search for “A
Banks.” Several people populated the search results,
but there were only five in California. One who
said they attended Brentwood University. Apollo
Banks. The small profile photo showed a guy in
front of an American flag. Below it, his location
information displayed Austin, Texas and Brent‐
wood, California.
I clicked through to enlarge his profile picture,
and my mouth fell open.
Apollo was in a uniform, looking into the
camera, with tan skin and mossy-green eyes and a
breathtaking smile with straight white teeth. A small
shiver of excitement raced through me, but I
quickly tamped it down. My tired mind was
messing with me. Guys like that did not date girls
like me. Even if their profile did say they were
single.
The fact that he was a million miles out of my
league and I had barely started emailing him did
nothing to deter me, though. In the next half hour,
I learned he had a younger sister, an older brother,
and looked incredible in hiking shorts. He had
several photos with him and his brother atop peaks
along the Pacific Crest Trail.
I drank in the information, poring over every
word until I noticed the clock telling me it was
nearly two in the morning. I might have hated
school, but I’d already done plenty to make sure
tomorrow would be miserable and require multiple
iced coffees. At least I’d be able to see my friends
again in the morning.
I clicked off my phone, thinking of handsome
smiles and everything I couldn’t wait to tell my
friends about my pen pal for the month.
