Nothing To Lose (A fat girl novel) (23 page)

As ten days passed, she didn’t need a scale to tell her the good news. Her clothes weren’t constricting. Even her shoes were loose. She saw things better and heard more clearly.

“That’s because you’re on the edge of starvation,” said Don triumphantly. “A hungry rat is a very alert rat. Sharp as a tack in case any food passes by.”

“Thanks a lot.”

The chronic fatigue that always plagued her lessened. She regularly walked home from the train because it was good daydreaming time. She had an insatiable need to daydream, as if there was a backlog of happy images that had been put in cold storage. She hadn’t daydreamed since before she married Harald. Many times her daydreams centered around Luis O’Neill. Why not? He was there, he was attractive and she had glimpses of him from time to time. It didn’t bother her that he wasn’t likely to fulfill any of her fantasies.

From time to time, she had sat behind him on the train home. A limousine brought him to the station but then he boarded the 6:03 from Philadelphia with two stops in Newark. She always sat behind him, staring at his tan, healthy neck. Occasionally he caressed his neck or ran his fingers quickly through his hair. She watched him read the New York Times. He folded it neatly, turning to the Op-Ed page, reading Lewis and Safire. She sometimes saw him clamp his lips together in annoyance. When he was finished with the editorials, he put the paper on the seat beside him and looked around at his fellow passengers. He never saw her. There was never a chance meeting, she made sure of that. She waited until he was safely off the train before she got up.

One evening, she got on the train first. It was very crowded and she knew it would be pointless to wait and see if he arrived. As they were pulling out, he slid into the seat beside her and she almost fainted with nervousness. Her heart felt like a cartoon heart, beating right out of her chest. If she put her hand over it, it would begin to push out somewhere else like the hearts on Tom and Jerry.

He was reading the Newark Evening News, looking at the Burdie’s ads, reading her ad for John Kloss nightgowns. So Beautiful –Dare you Wear Them Dancing?

What was she to do, poke him with her elbow? Betcha don’t know whom you’re sitting next to? He wouldn’t appreciate an opening like that and what would it accomplish? Would he ask her to dinner, pinch her bottom? Of course, not. He would be polite: I recognize you, how is everything? He would wish he were in another seat so he could read his paper in peace. Who wanted politeness?

After three weeks on the regime – an hour of serious exercise, 900 to 1000 calories a day, a half-gallon of water, plus at least two miles of incidental walking – she had not seriously cheated. Once she had chewed a handful of raisins but then spit them out before swallowing and brushed her teeth. Several Triscuits had been chewed briskly and swallowed, but then the box had been put in the sink and drowned.

One day on the way home, she entered a candy/tobacco shop and bought four Mounds bars. She ate two of them on the street and the other two sitting on the couch, her shoulder bag still strapped around her. She could have done a lot of things to keep herself from eating the candy: Jump rope, masturbated (Don said masturbation was the greatest aid to reducing. It took your mind off eating for that crucial moment.) But she didn’t want to distract herself. She wanted to eat. She went to the D’Agostino market around the corner and bought a half-gallon of Heavenly Hash ice cream, a package of pita bread, a pound of hamburger, a jar of Aunt Millie’s marinara sauce, Corona red pepper flakes and six ounces of mild cheddar cheese.

She browned the meat, added the marinara sauce and red pepper, stuffed three of the pita pockets, added a generous amount of the grated cheese and ate all three quickly and silently. After that she had the ice cream. Two bowls.

For about fifteen minutes, she felt as if she were going to suffocate. Nausea overtook her. She tried to quiet her stomach by lying down but it didn’t help and half an hour after her last spoonful of Heavenly Hash, the entire batch of food came up.

After that, she felt fine and brushed her teeth, took a long cool shower – sitting in the tub and letting the water beat on her head. She changed her sheets, put on a thin cotton nightgown and went to bed. She was happy that none of that god-awful stuff had stayed in her body. When she considered how carefully she had taken care of herself over the past weeks, the idea of going back to what she had been frightened her.

She though of all the things she was afraid of: being a quadriplegic and having to write with her mouth. Having her period oozing through her skirt and being unaware of it. Being finally caught after an exhausting chase by some man following her out of the subway. Losing her eyesight. Now she was also afraid of eating.

“God, everything’s wrong.” She was sitting with Don on the exercise mat looking at the little pouch on the inside of her leg, right above the knee.

“Not really. You could have angry pustules fighting for space on your cheeks.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Well, you could.” He looked her over, head to toe. “There’s nothing here that’s not fixable. At least I don’t think so,” he teased. “We’ll know more later. Now, come on, get a hold of a good hunk of your thigh. Right above your knee, there…where it bunches up. Take it in both hands and twist part of it one way and part of it the opposite way.” She did so and tears came to her eyes.

“What’s wrong?”

“It hurts.”

“Of course, it hurts. Life hurts. Love hurts. Don’t do it so hard. Bonnie Prudden says this is the only way to break down the hardest fat. Slabs of it. He held his hands apart to indicate how thick and hard the slabs above her knees were. “You’ve got to break that stuff down. Soften it up and it will pour right out of you…well, maybe it won’t pour exactly, but it’s a nice image.”

“You’re sure this is the way to do it?”

“Yes.” He was already doing push-ups, having no slabs of his own to twist and pull.

She had stopped asking how he knew so much. The things he said were true had proven to be true. Her skin had never looked so clear since she had begun with his three lemon cocktails each morning and five additional glasses of water during the day. Her skin had a finer texture, too, a beautiful opaqueness. He had also advised her to scrub every inch of her body with a forty-nine cent nylon Scrubee that housewives used to clean their precious Teflon cookware. He said the little rectangle of abrasive nylon was cheaper and better than a loofah. By increasing the pressure, you could peel away several layers of dead, useless cells while stimulating those that were still alive.

“You’re exercising your skin,” he exclaimed, as if the thought had just originated in his head.

As for her hair, he advised her to pull it. “You’ve got to get the blood up there. Blood, blood, blood,” he sing-songed, “three ways to a prettier you. Dangle your head over the side of the bed and pull your hair.”

“Pull it?”

“That’s right. Take little clumps of it tight in your fist, very close to the scalp and pull for all you’re worth. It should take at least twenty minutes. Take special care with the hair around your forehead. Most people’s foreheads are so tight, blood never visits.”

His final admonition was that she must consciously relax her forehead, her eyelids and the muscles around her lips at least ten times a day. “All that loathsome eagerness to please, the self-hate, it all shows up around the mouth. Relax your mouth and the world will kiss your ass.”

When she balked at the idea that her forehead, eyelids and mouth were tense, he told her to put them in what seemed to her a comfortable relaxed position. Then he told her to deliberately relax the muscles around her mouth in ever widening circles, beginning with her lips. She did so. “See. Did you feel how tight you had been holding them?” She did. It felt as if she had put down a burden. “Now relax your forehead muscles.” That, too, felt like a major undoing. The eyelids proved to be very taut as well.

“Now, tell me,” he said, “when you relax your forehead, eyelids and mouth, how do you feel about yourself?”

“Satisfied.”

“Precisely. You’re satisfied and that translates into excited.

Chapter Twenty-Three

It was June of 1980. The hostages were still in captivity although Ramsey Clark had defied the president and traveled to Iran, offering himself in exchange for ‘fifty-three innocent Americans.’ In a full-page Memorial Day ad, Burdies’s had assured the hostages that they were remembered. On television, the show “Dallas,” had left everyone with the hottest cliffhanger since the Perils of Pauline – who shot J.R.? In politics, Jimmy Carter won the Ohio Primary, clinching the Democratic nomination.

Dan and Pierre decided to take April’s measurements and found she had lost four inches from the bosom and waist, three around the hips, one and a half around the upper arms and two around the upper thigh. She had to buy a few new things to wear during the transition. Her hair had grown out and was grazing her shoulders. Don urged her to bleach ‘sun’ streaks into it, but she resisted.

Jason kept giving her looks during the Monday morning merchandise meetings. One day, in the corridor behind the selling floor, he took her arm and propelled her into the notions buyer’s office. “Well, if it isn’t Hemingway,” he said and put his arm around her shoulders. She tried to shrink out of his hold. There was no one in the room. The desk was littered with thimbles, shoulder pads and odd stuffed forms for ironing sleeves.

“Hey, don’t squirm away from me.” The palm of his body hand grazed her left breast and she went rigid with confusion and anger. “Take your hand off me or I’m going to scream!”

“You want a coat?” he asked impatiently.

“What?”

“A cashmere coat?”

“You’re crazy. He still had his hand on her arm.

“With a mink trim?”

“Just shut up and let go of me.” She slammed her elbow into his pathetic, hollow chest. Someone would burst in at any moment.

“They’re nice coats,” he said, ever the salesman and took his hand away.

She walked unsteadily out of the office and toward the advertising department. The whole beige/pink shipment of Jason’s budget cashmeres came to mind and all the tired, overweight women who would buy them. The cashmere clutch coat you’ve always wanted – a headline she’d written herself.

Would you believe cashmere this luxe?

Would you believe cashmere on sale?

Would you believe only $89.?

The first person she saw when she reached her desk was Susan Scott, cool and confident. “You’re just the person I’m looking for,” she said.

April didn’t want to be the person that Susan was looking for. She was still shaken and anxious to be left alone. “Yeah?”

“You want a share in a house at Fire Island for July and August?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been to Fire Island.”

“You’ll love it. There aren’t any cars, just beach and sun. The house we’re renting is right on the bay. We…you and I, would go out every other weekend, including Labor Day.”

“I don’t think so.”

“What’ll you do all summer? You’ll suffocate.”

“I’ve managed before.”

“It’ll be fun. Everyone just sort of…hangs out together.” She threw her hands wide from the center to simulate a human jumble of togetherness.

April wanted to ask exactly when all this hanging out took place. Did it, for instance, start right away, after breakfast? And would it start out for Susan before it started out for April? “Do I get a room alone?”

“You can room with me.”

“I’ll think about it.” Susan had men swarming over her. The overflow might spill over on her. It was something to consider.

“I have to know by Tuesday.”

“You’ll know by Tuesday.”

She sat at the typewriter to do an ad on a skirt that was hanging on the wall. It was made of polyester and would probably start pilling after one sitting. She was furious about Jason and wondered if she should tell someone. Don would kill him. Pierre would go berserk. Eight artful gores, she pounded on her Royal. Slim where you’re slim, flare where you flare. Maybe she could meet more decent men on Fire Island.

That night, she dreamt she lived in a very tiny house – so tiny, she could touch the walls with her arms outstretched. Then she could touch the walls with her arms at her sides. The idea of such close quarters scared her to death. In the morning, she decided to take the share in the house with Susan Scott. She needed a more wholesome life. She should be getting out into the world. Besides, she could wear a bathing suit. Almost. The swimming would be good exercise. She could jog on the beach.

At the end of June, she awoke early one morning and while contemplating the rise and fall of her chest, realized with a start that she had never had any adult-to-adult emotion with Harald. She had never revealed herself to him or he to her. They had had sex, talked, held hands, bought furniture and put up bookshelves. She had handed him the hammer and held the molly screws that puffed out in the hollow walls. They thought that was closeness when it was nothing but a skittish playacting.

That morning, Don put her on the Universal Gym. “Your stomach muscles – they’re orphaned children. No one has asked anything of them.” He could have been talking about some terrible, senseless crime. His voice was sad. She wanted to ask if anything was wrong, but felt too sad herself. She had gone through her marriage to Harald holding her breath. She couldn’t remember one thing about herself during those years.