The Difference between Fat and Gorda

Heidi

A Quechua family sits in front of us, and I spend the better part of our train ride cooing at the pink-cheeked baby peeking out from a brightly woven blanket. My husband, Eduardo, makes a funny face at the little one, then shoots me a tight smile. I search my brain for a conversation starter; something to find our way back to where we were a week ago.

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.

“What did you say?” His Spanish accent makes it sound more like a line of music than a question.

“Nothing.” The word rings blunt and cold in my own ears compared to the roll of the romance language around us.

He squeezes my shoulder, and I resist the urge to shrug him off. Instead, I focus on the Andean mountains flashing by. The sky gleams the most beautiful shade of blue, the weather crisp and sunny. Sheep graze the hillsides as we pass between stops in adobe filled villages.

Peru is a beautiful country, with its rolling landscape and ancient architecture. The travel books were right about that. Of course, they would have trouble describing the smell of the market, but hey, nobody can blame them for leaving that part out.

Today is exactly what I need. A tourist day, just the two of us. I can speak English for the next eight hours and forget about a week’s worth of Spanish swimming around in my head. Only, that seems impossible at the moment. Because of all the words I learned in high school, only one matters right now.

Gorda.

That’s right. I may not be able to follow the crazy fast chatter of his family, and sure, my one-hundred-eighty-day streak on Duolingo did nothing to prepare me for this trip. But I know that word.

Fat.

Maybe his mom didn’t call me fat, per say. Perhaps it was in reference to their cat, which is about the gordiest creature I’ve ever seen. I played out every scenario in my head as we started our day over a plate of rice, beans, and chicken. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for a stack of pancakes or maybe sausage and biscuits. But that’s not what this is about. Because I’m pretty sure she was talking about me.

“Hey babe?”

“Yeah, mi vida.” He looks at me with a glint of hope in his eyes.

“What were you and your mom talking about at breakfast?”

He bites his bottom lip, which I’ve learned is his tell for lying. “Just how to get to the train station. Which is so funny because she still thinks I need a play-by-play of the directions—”

“Yeah, not that part. The part when she called me fat.” There. I said it.

He laughs but it’s one of those uncomfortable, how am I going to get out of this, laughs. “Oh, no, babe, it’s not like that.”

“But she did say it about me?”

Long silence. This answer should be interesting.

“It’s a good thing in Spanish.”

“In what way is it good?” Not only did he admit she said it about me, but he had the audacity to call it good? Is it just me or is the word good starting to sound weird?

“It’s more like describing. Like saying you’re tall or blonde or…”

“Fat?”

“Exactly.” He smiles like that puts an end to it.

All the heat in my body rises to my head, and I picture smoke coming out of my ears like in the cartoons.

I stare at him. “Eddy…,” I manage to get out. My family has taken to calling him Eddy over the last year. It’s just easier to say, my mom reasoned. But, here, now, as the train trudges us closer to the ancient city of Machu Picchu, he does not seem at all like an Eddy.

“Eduardo.” I curse my own tongue for not being able to roll that r, but I still manage to say it in a way that sounds like, you’ve got to be kidding me.

He’s quiet for so long I think he may have given up. He seems to search his brain and pulls this out. “Saying you’re gorda can mean you’re happy and content. Besides, if you think that’s bad, she called me skinny. Which is an insult.”

“Hold up. You’re telling me fat is a compliment and skinny is an insult? I don’t think so.”

The baby looks back and forth between us with concern.

“No, really. You’ve gotten” —again, with the lip bite— “fat-ter since we got married because you’re happy with me. But I’m skinny because moms always want their sons to eat more. It’s just a Latin mama thing.”

“So, she thinks I’m not feeding you enough?”

“That’s not what she’s saying, but you see how we eat here. It’s just…more.”

“I thought you liked my cooking. You said I made the best chicken nuggets you’d ever tasted.”

“You do. But…would it be so hard to learn some of our dishes while you’re here?”

My eyes fill as I focus on the Quechua baby who seems stressed out at this point. I’m sure you wouldn’t like my cooking either, little one.

“I’m sorry you’ve been suffering so much this past year,” I manage to get out before I turn to the window where I plan to stare for the rest of the ride.

Eduardo

I stretch my arm over Heidi’s shoulder and try to enjoy the view. Something is wrong. Maybe it all started when mom couldn’t pronounce her name. To be fair, English words sound nothing like they’re written. So many extra letters. I’m glad I provide comic relief when I say lasagna but come on. That word makes no sense! And don’t even get me started on later, ladder, letter. So different, yet so much alike.

I squeeze her shoulder and swear she tries to shrug me off.

“Hey babe?” she asks.

Gracias a Dios. Maybe we won’t spend the whole day in silence. “Yeah, mi vida.”

“What were you and your mom talking about at breakfast?”

A cold sweat creeps up my neck despite the chill in the train. Stall, stall, stall. I bite my bottom lip, willing a good explanation to emerge. I ramble about directions to the train station, but then she says the word I hope she’d missed. Gorda.

How could I possibly explain this? Of all the critical things my mother has said about her—out of love, of course—that one she meant in a nice way.

“It’s a good thing in Spanish.”

“In what way is it good?”

“It’s more like describing. Like saying you’re tall or blonde or…”

“Fat?”

“Exactly.” Get it?

Heidi’s face turns as red as the estofado de pollo we ate for lunch yesterday. Mmm, that was so delicious. Focus!

Now she’s calling me Eddy. Eddy! Why do they always have to shorten names like it takes too much effort to say the full one? Next time I see her mom, I’m going to ask her to please call me by my full name, Juan Eduardo Quispe Lima. Let’s hear her try to pronounce that one and then make fun of me about lasagna.

Okay, but now’s not the time to bring up the fact that I hate my American nickname. This is just what moms do around here. You need to engordar. You’re too flaco. Yes, that’s it! Skinny!

“Saying you’re gorda can mean you’re happy and content. Besides, if you think that’s bad, she called me skinny. Which is an insult.”

“Hold up. You’re telling me fat is a compliment and skinny is an insult? I don’t think so.”

“No, really. You’ve gotten” –I bite my lip to stall— “fat-ter since we got married because you’re happy with me. But I’m skinny because moms always want their sons to eat more. It’s just a Latin mama thing.”

Oh, por el amor de Dios, she’s talking about her cooking now. Food is an art around here, not a necessity. Surely, she sees the difference. “That’s not what she’s saying, but you see how we eat here. It’s just…more.”

I have somehow managed to make this worse and before I know it, she’s talking about her chicken nuggets. Her prize dish she makes every. Friday. night. That’s a snack, not a meal! I want to scream.

For years I’ve been the idiota. Eddy doesn’t know how to make hamburgers on a grill. Isn’t that cute? Eddy, you think donuts are for dinner? That’s so crazy! And she couldn’t even humble herself to learn how to make lomo saltado? Por favor.

Heidi’s eyes fill before she turns toward the window, forcing me to look at Quechua baby, who I’m pretty sure judges me. Chicken nuggets aren’t a meal, little baby, and you know it.

The silence lingers as the train zips in and out of tunnels. Over time the tension in my chest turns to regret. Or maybe that’s just hunger. All I know is, if I don’t fix this real fast, we’ll have to talk about it when we get off the train instead of going straight to get a snack.

I bite my lip. Weird how that helps me think. “Sweetie.” She loves it when I call her that. Heidi angles toward me filling me with courage. “My mom shouldn’t have called you gorda. I’m sorry I tried to defend her.”

Heidi lets out a breath. "You should be." Then a smile tugs at the corner of her mouth as she points to the baby, who, I swear, smiles. “Quechua baby judges you.”

“Of course she does.”

“But…” She leans into me.

I let out a breath of my own.

“…I came here to learn more about you, and I got overwhelmed. I promise to be more open for the rest of the trip.”

“Like, you’ll learn to make lomo saltado?” My stomach growls in anticipation.

“That is one delicious meal.”

I pull her in and between kisses say, “So are your chicken nuggets.”

She rolls her eyes. “Whatever. As long as I don’t have to make rice and beans for breakfast.”

“That would be ridiculous.” She never needs to know I get up before dawn and make them myself.