Slim to None (3 page)

"Sorry, George. Mission aborted last night. But I didn’t want to leave you hanging, so I brought some of my specialty oatmeal cookies instead. Hope that’ll tide you over."

"You didn’t have to do that on my account!"

"I know that. But I also knew how hungry you’d be by now. It’s not filet mignon, but it beats nothin’." I give him a shrug.

"That’s why I call you Saint Abbie." George tips his hat at me as if we’d just finished a lovely dance together. Poor fellow. I don’t know why he’s without a home, but it doesn’t mean we should pretend he doesn’t exist.

"What’dya think about the mayoral race?" he asks.

I wave my hand dismissively. "Honestly, I haven’t given it much thought. I’ve been so busy with work that I don’t even seem to get around to paying attention to my own life, let alone worrying about things like politics."

"You should read the piece in last Sunday’s
Sentinel
," he says. "It’ll tell you all you need to know."

"Yeah, well, if I don’t get my butt into the
Sentinel
pronto, I’ll have a lot of free time on my hands to read every little article plus the want-ads in there, thanks." I give a little wave.

"Have a good one." He waves back at me as he bites into his egg sandwich, giving me a thumbs up.

"You bet!" I scurry off so I’m not late. Don’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I’ve already done.

I arrive at my mid-town office to the overly enthusiastic greeting of Julio, the security detail at the front desk.

"Good morning, Mrs. Jennings," he says with a nervous insinuation of something vaguely disconcerting—I can’t quite put my finger on it. Odd, as normally we just smile and wave. Don’t think I’ve ever heard him mention my name, for that matter. I return a quick hello and mount the elevator like a lamb headed to slaughter. Marinated with some rosemary and thyme. Maybe some balsamic vinegar. Grilled medium rare on rosemary skewers. Served over fresh pita with a simple yogurt sauce. Now that sounds divine...

I can’t help but notice people staring at me. I must have lipstick smeared above my lip or something. I avert each gaze and feign the need for something urgent in my purse. Far easier to rifle than drum up elevator chat.

Normally when I arrive at work, I join a few colleagues for a cup of coffee and a daily diet of gossip—delicious and calorie-free. Invariably someone’s read the other papers on the subway, and there’s always something to dish about in Manhattan. But today I get off at the forty-second floor and divert immediately to my desk, as I know I have guilt written all over my newly-recognized face.

* * *

I’m concentrating intently on finishing up my extensive notes on Puka when my intercom buzzes and I jump like a trigger-happy soldier to answer it.

"Abbie, I need you in here, now," Mortie growls, his gruff voice the end-result of an out-of-control-nicotine dependency.

I hope this doesn’t take long. I’m planning to check out Cheery-O, a new teahouse in midtown, in forty-five minutes. I heard the place serves real clotted cream. I have been loyal to the same teahouse for five years, but the truth is, while good service and customer allegiance are all fine and good, I’ll readily switch favorites for true clotted cream. Especially if served with house-made jams.

I pry myself out of my seat (when did this chair get to be so tight?), grab my purse and pull the pie from my mini-fridge. Scurrying through the office I bump into Barry Newman. Barry’s been working in the food section for years. I’ve heard he coveted the position that I landed, but he’s been absolutely gracious toward me nevertheless.

In fact, sometimes he can be so thoughtful, bringing me lovely pastries from an Austrian bakery across the street from his Queens apartment. At six foot three, Barry towers over my diminutive five foot four frame. His thick brown hair fluffs up like a chocolate soufflé atop his head, adding even more height. His pale blue eyes are tinged with red, something that I’ve noticed on him more and more lately. I hope everything’s all right with his personal life.

"Just the woman I want to see," Barry says with an incriminating smile as he drums his fingertips together in mid-air. "I’ve got a little treat for you."

He passes me a bag with something warm inside.

I open it, feel the rush of steam leaving the bag and smell the unmistakable aroma of Corfu.

Loukomades. Drizzled with honey and dusted with a flourish of cinnamon. Sugared perfection in the form of golf-ball sized fried dough. Brings me back to the days of William and me scootering up those long and winding roads past Corfu. When we discovered that perfect little mom and pop restaurant, where we went in the back and the stooped, gray-haired, watery-eyed yia-yia opened the lid on each of the pots of simmering stews so that we could choose our dinner. Life sure was simple and pleasurable back then, before the days of hiding behind my persona, and working crazy long hours in the name of my craft.

I extract a sticky chunk and taste, closing my eyes to savor the bite.

"Oh, Barry, you shouldn’t have," I say between mouthfuls, moaning just a little. "I knew this was my lucky day!"

"There’s a festival at Saint Sophia’s Greek Orthodox church on Fifty Second Street," he says. "I knew you’d enjoy them."

"You’re a doll to think of me." I beam at him and remember I’ve been summoned to Mortie’s office. "I wish I could stay and chat but I’ve gotta run—have to answer to the man."

Barry gives me a knowing wink. "Better not keep the boss man waiting."

I dash into Mortie’s office and immediately hand him the pie. Too late I realize I have loukomades crumbs on my face and discreetly brush them off.

"I brought you your favorite pi-ie," I sing, hoping to butter him up. That reminds me, I need to check out that new bodega two blocks from my place; they’re selling fresh butter three times a week, direct from a Mennonite farmer in Pennsylvania. And I can pick up a loaf of that yeasted jalapeno corn bread from the bakery. Maybe barbecue some ribs with it, in honor of spring. William loves those harbingers of summer-to-come, that sense of getting away from it all that comes with warm weather and fresh, local foods. He’d far rather flee the city for the quieter confines of the countryside or, better yet, the ocean. Just the two of us, walking hand-in-hand along the shoreline, Cognac ten steps ahead of us investigating the beached jellyfish and horseshoe crabs. But if I can’t give him that, at least I can offer it to him in the form of an escapist meal.

Mortie, who’s sporting a scowl, looks at the pie with tepid enthusiasm.

"Aw, Abbie, I wish you’d stop trying to fatten me up," he says. "My stomach might love this stuff but my arteries are going on strike." Nevertheless he grabs a spoon from a drawer and scoops it into the pie. After all, who can resist banana cream pie? Mission accomplished, I think confidently. Even if he did know about last night, he’ll have forgotten it with the pie.

"So what’s up?" I ask.

Mortie spears his spoon back into the pie and stands up.

"Abbie—we’ve got a real problem on our hands," he says. He picks up a copy of today’s
New York Post
and holds it up to my face. I blanch.

Staring back at me from the tabloid is a picture of me. A grainy picture of me looking like someone I don’t know. Someone fat and lumpy. Someone clearly in the throes of Flexee failure. Stuffing her face from the dessert sampler at Puka.

Oh, God, even worse than the truth-serum of a picture of my corpulent twin (it is, isn’t it? It simply can’t be me. I don’t look that bad, do I?) is the banner headline, which has obviously been screaming out from newsstands across Gotham this morning, up until now to my merciful oblivion:

"Well?" Mortie fixes his gaze on me, expecting a response.

"I can’t believe my girdle is that incompetent!" Maybe if I make a joke of this it’ll soften the blow.

"Abbie, you’ve been outed!" he snarls. With that he slaps the back of his hand across my grotesque photograph. "What the hell do you think we should do about it?"

"Welllllll..." I’m tap-dancing for time, trying to come up with a brilliant response. "Uh, I know when you hired me I said I wasn’t a big fan of disguises." And I’m not. They’re sticky and uncomfortable and my head itches with those wigs and I’d really rather go out to eat as me. I’m a food critic, not an actress. "How about we give that a try?"

I bat my eyes at Mortie in a lame attempt to charm him, but he’s shaking his head. "It’s too late for that, Abbie. It’s one thing to disguise a woman who’s a size twelve. But it’s another thing to try to hide someone whose appearance is, uh, how to put this delicately? Whose appearance is a foregone conclusion?"

"Maybe you can just spell it out for me, Mortie. You think I’m fat, don’t you? You think your top food critic has eaten her way out of being able to eat for a living."

This time Mortie locks his eyes on mine and nods almost imperceptibly, like he’s trying hard not to nod, his pursed lips set in a grimace, as if he’s disappointed in me. "I’m afraid so, Abbie. I can’t have my premier food critic being known all over town by dint of her girth. And right now, with this picture of you being blanketed across Manhattan, you have become the elephant in the corner of the room, forgive the insensitive cliché. You’ll never get an honest depiction of a restaurant’s food and service when everyone knows exactly what you look like."

My face must look dejected, because he tries to assuage my humiliation a bit.

"Think of it like this. Take the Queen. You think she could get a true idea of what it’s like to be served at some of the most exclusive restaurants in London? No, because everyone knows what the Queen looks like."

"Not to mention her entourage would give it away." I roll my eyes at him. I hardly think there’s much comparison between me and a stuffy old goat who looks and dresses like an aged governess and carries outmoded handbags. Though I bet her Flexees work better than mine. Hers are probably hand-woven of royal gossamer, and even if she got too fat for them, the damned things would fit by royal decree or something. No, wait, she’d have little puffy-sleeved minions sewing faux sizes in the waistband of the things, just to placate her regal sensibilities. Oh, if only I were a queen. Then my Flexees would gladly fit me, too. Instead, I’m only queen-sized. Actually, at this point, I’m probably more like empress-sized.

"Well, this is sort of like that. Only you can’t even disguise yourself. You’ve just gotten too, er, expansive."

"That’s not true, I don’t talk very openly," I say, but my joke falls flat because we both know exactly what he meant when he said that word.

Mortie perches both hands on his desk and leans forward, staring directly at me. "Abbie, it’s like this: I am responsible to this paper and to its readership. I can no longer continue to send you out to review restaurants right now, because everyone knows who you are and what you look like. No one will be able to trust a
Sentinel
restaurant review under the circumstances."

Whoa. He didn’t just say he was firing me, did he? Me? Is he honestly chucking me to the curb?

"You’re firing me? Giving me the old heave-ho? You’re booting me, like sending an old horse to the glue factory? After all I’ve done for you? Boosting your restaurant advertising revenue. Ensuring that the
Sentinel
is the go-to source for restaurant reviews. And the thanks I get is a swift kick in my—oversized—ass? Don’t you think that’s a pretty cheap—not to mention easy—target?"

"Calm down, Abbie, I’m not firing you. You’re our champion reviewer. I’d be crazy to get rid of you. Trust me, this whole thing will die down. In six months time there will be enough turnover at city restaurants that this will be a moot point. But until then, you are stepping away from the restaurant review duties—you’ll get a food column instead."

He couldn’t do this to me.

"How can you demote me like this?"

"Abbie, it’s not a demotion. It’s a lateral move."

"Lateral schmateral. Lateral moves are fine in a game of checkers, maybe, but not when one is happily ensconced in her dream job."

"Plus it’s only for a set period of time." As if that’ll sell me on the idea.

"Yeah, just long enough for you to realize you don’t need me. And for me to lose my reviewer’s edge. You know how bad that is? My palate will lose its touch. I’ll be barren. Barren-tongued. This is probably a known condition listed in the pages of Gray’s Anatomy, you know."

I pick up a dictionary, pretending it’s the medical compendium, and leaf to the middle of the book, as if I’m looking it up, and with flourish jam my finger on a page.

"See? ‘Barren tongue: An affliction particular to demoted food critics.’"

Mortie just waves both hands away from me, like he’s trying to get rid of an odor that’s lingering nearby. "Look at it this way: with this column, it will free up time for you. No more working dinners. Spend some time with William. Maybe you can join a gym. Research a book."

"Or why don’t I use the time to invent the cure to cancer? At least make good use of myself."

My face burns with shame. In one fell swoop I have gone from the pinnacle of my professional career to a fatso posting in food critic Siberia. Lateral move my ass. Make that fat ass. A column. Yeah, maybe I can write a column about being humiliated by being exposed in a major daily and then having my boss tell me I’m too fat to do my job.