--Sweet Potatoes and a Fiddle--
"Tracy, eat your sweet potatoes." Edna Turnblad spoke across the table to her daughter.
"Mother, I hate sweet potatoes," Tracy said, wrinkling her nose as she pushed the orange mush around on her plate.
"Well eat them anyway; you're getting too skinny, I think I'm starting to see your collarbone." Tracy rolled her eyes. Since she had started dancing on the Corny Collins show, she had been steadily losing weight.
"Mom, I don't like sweet potatoes. If you would give me something fit for human consumption, I would eat it." She sat her fork down. "May I be excused?"
"…Go ahead," Edna said in a defeated tone. "But give me your sweet potatoes; there's no sense letting them go to waste." Tracy stood and scraped the sweet potatoes onto her mother's plate. She placed her own plate in the sink, and then went to her bedroom.
In her room, Tracy stood in front of the mirror. She turned to peer at the reflection of her deflating bottom, sighing heavily at the sight. She placed her hands on her buns, feeling the difference.
"How in the world am I supposed to shake my stuff if I don't have any stuff to shake?" She wondered allowed. She left the mirror, making her way to her bed. She reached under the pillow and pulled out a half eaten Baby Ruth. She took a bite as she returned to the mirror. She turned to the side and winced as she saw the size of her chest. "My God…I'm mutating into a Von Tussle," she said in quiet bewilderment. There was a knock on the door.
"Yeah?" Edna entered.
"What are you doing?"
"Weeping over my diminishing physique," Tracy said distractedly, placing her hands on her abdomen and sticking her chest out in an attempt to enlarge it; the attempt was futile.
"Mister Pinky called earlier today; he has an issue with your lack of fat," Edna said frankly, and Tracy's brow furrowed. "He says you better start eating éclairs and snowballs before you blow away in the wind. His clothes won't fit you soon." Tracy groaned.
"Mom, I eat five square meals a day and Baby Ruth's around the clock!" Tracy said miserably. "At lunch I eat everyone's leftovers. If someone holds something up and says "who wants this?' I take it!" Edna shook her head.
"You're dancing too much, you'll wear yourself out!" Well, that was half the truth; Tracy and Link had lost their virginity to each other not long after the Miss Hairspray Pageant. Needless to say, he kept her fit as a fiddle; and he played her at least twice a week.
"Maybe the doctor can give me something to slow my metabolism down?" She said hopefully.
"I'll make you an appointment. Meanwhile you are not doing any unnecessary exercise and you are taking it easy on the show. Is that clear?"
"Yeah…sure." Tracy took a bite of Baby Ruth, still gazing at her reflection.
"Good night, hun."
"'Night." Her mother closed the door behind her. "Link, no matter how skinny I get, I will never be even remotely similar to Amber," she said to the pictures of him around the mirror. "I promise." She sighed once again as she finished the Baby Ruth.