1269_UgliesFreeBook

UGLIES 199
“What the . . . ,” Tally said.
“Yeah.”
The woman looked like she was starving, her ribs
thrusting out from her sides, her legs so thin that Tally wondered
how they didn’t snap under her weight. Her elbows
and pelvic bones looked sharp as needles. But there she
was, smiling and proudly baring her body, as if she’d just
had the operation and didn’t realize they’d sucked out way
too much fat. The funny thing was, her face was closer to
being pretty than any of the rest. She had the big eyes,
smooth skin, and small nose, but her cheekbones were too
tight, the skull practically visible beneath her flesh. “What
on earth is she?”
“A model.”
“Which is what?”
“Kind of like a professional pretty. I guess when everyone
else is ugly, being pretty is sort of, like, your job.”
“And she’s in her underwear because . . . ?” Tally began,
and then a memory flashed into her mind. “She’s got that
disease! The one the teachers always told us about.”
“Probably. I always thought they made that up to
scare us.”
Back in the days before the operation, Tally remembered,
a lot of people, especially young girls, became so
ashamed at being fat that they stopped eating. They’d lose
weight too quickly, and some would get stuck and would
keep losing weight until they wound up like this “model.”