by Penny Reid
For example, before I go to a new restaurant, I find the menu online and decide what I want to order, I figure out where the bathroom is either by calling or scrolling through interior pictures of the restaurant posted online, I check out the aerial-view map of the building and its surrounding areas on Google to ascertain the parking situation.
In short, I make a plan. I follow the plan. I do not deviate from the plan. I do not ask for help or speak to anyone unnecessarily. If I’m speaking to you, it’s because doing so could not be avoided. And believe me, if we’re speaking, I’ve systematically ruled out every other option.
But this is not wholly for my comfort. Honestly, this habitual avoidance of humans is for your comfort.
Being fat makes other people uncomfortable. Not all people, but enough. I know the truth of this intimately as I’ve been a fat human my entire life, except: a) as a baby and b) prior to just this last year. Ironically, I was not a chubby baby. As an infant, I was diagnosed with failure to thrive. I theorize that my mother overcompensated in my youth. As an only child, she constantly fussed over me and my eating habits, worried I wasn’t “getting enough.”
By my adolescence, I embraced my singular interests and curiosities—mechanics and aviation, statistics, ancient civilizations, Greek and Roman philosophy, economics, the structure of governance—and I’d eschewed the banal—to me—interests of most other children my age, like all facets of sports except sports statistics.
Perhaps it was the lack of social pressure to conform due to my marked disinterest in most other kids my age, and their opinions/passions, but I was (resignedly) morbidly obese by twelve. By twenty, I was over three hundred pounds, by twenty-five I was three hundred and fifty. I didn’t have any endocrine diseases or other disorders, my genetics were just fine, both of which can oftentimes be the culprit of excess weight gain.
I just really, really liked food, because food—unlike most humans I’d encountered—is fucking awesome.
Food never judges. Food is not made uncomfortable by my existence. Food does not whisper about me or make jokes about how I look. Food is necessary for survival, it is nourishing, it is comforting, it is inherently good. Food can be surprising, interesting, thought provoking in a way that humans seldom are. And aside from the rare case of food poisoning, food always, always makes me feel good.
Until it doesn’t.
But I digress.
Presently, I glanced up, scanning the elliptical machines on the second level. Again. Finding them empty, my eyes darted to Andy, an old acquaintance turned friend, a colleague at the airfield, and—more recently—my weightlifting buddy in the mornings. He’d caught me searching the second level. This was not the first time he caught me over the last six months. But usually I only looked for her once a week or so, not compulsively. Not like today.
He smirked. “You keep looking.” His attention lifted to the ellipticals. “There’s no one up there yet.”
I shrugged, lying on the horizontal black, padded bench and gripping the bar while he spotted me. Bench press. Not my favorite, but one I didn’t particularly mind. At least it wasn’t a leg day.
Andy grinned down at me, and then made a show of glancing up at the ellipticals again. “Is it that smokin’ redhead who keeps hitting on you?”
Without meaning to, I made a face. He was teasing me. He knew I had no interest in the redhead. I didn’t know the redhead, I didn’t want to know the redhead, and she’d never looked at me until I’d become slim and toned. Andy knew who I was looking for.
Well, he didn’t know who she was, but he knew I’d been distracted by the kind brunette who used the second elliptical from the left at the same time we worked out on the weight floor most mornings—except Thursdays. She was never here on Thursdays.
Interestingly—and for the record, I found it both interesting and mortifying—prior to the events of yesterday’s class, Emily Von was three distinct people in my mind: First, she was the nameless but exceptionally kind brunette at the campus gym. Second, she was Emily Von, a brilliant and poised student in my Monday/Wednesday research methods lecture this fall. Third, she was Lavender, a lingerie model I’d met just last Friday at the Pinkery, my father’s favorite place to waste time.
Even in retrospect, even knowing what I knew now—that the kind brunette at the gym and Emily Von were the same person—I was not at all surprised by my failure to make the connection until Lavender caught my attention.
I’d seen the kind brunette many times over the last two years, but I’d never spoken to her more than a passing “hi,” and always because she’d greeted me first (when she used to greet me). During my initial six months working out, she’d made eye contact and smiled. This was significant. When I was heavy, no one else at the gym had made eye contact and no one else had ever smiled. A few people laughed. A few people took photos of me working out, although they typically endeavored to feign secrecy when doing so.
It was the photos that ultimately made me switch to a personal trainer and private workout sessions for a year. Eighteen or so months ago, some anonymous person left a printout under my office door. It was me as a meme—about fat people using the gym, calling me cookie monster, or referencing that I ate other people in the showers, or some such nonsense—therefore, the decision was made.
I didn’t particularly care about being photographed. As an adult, jokes and jibes about my weight no longer fazed me, I’d come to expect them, they were an accepted part of my human existence.
But I didn’t like making other people uncomfortable. Best to avoid working out in public until my appearance inspired less attention. I didn’t wish to be a distraction.
Perhaps that’s why the kind brunette who’d made eye contact and smiled two years ago had made such an impact. My size hadn’t appeared to be an issue for her. She seemed genuinely comfortable around me and went out of her way to be kind, make conversation, and that had been significant only because it was so rare.
The stunning irony, however, was that when I returned—one hundred and thirty pounds lighter at the time—no one recognized me. The women who’d sent me distasteful glances months ago now asked for my number. The men who’d snapped surreptitious photos and laughed at the fat man using the treadmill months ago now asked me to spot them on the weight machines. Everyone who’d sneered now made eye contact and smiled, except the kind brunette I now knew was named Emily Von.
To her, when I returned to my early morning workouts, I’d become invisible. She still smiled and greeted anyone who had gray hair, or anyone heavier than average, or the pregnant woman who also used the elliptical. But not me. I was just another young fit guy in an ocean of young fit guys.
So, yes. I’d noticed the kind brunette. Only because she was an outlier.
“Ha! Okay, not the redhead. It’s the brunette again. The nice one who always smiles at everyone but guys like us.” Andy didn’t sound bitter about “the brunette’s” disinterest, and he shouldn’t. Unlike when we were the two “fat kids” growing up, nowadays he received plenty of positive attention.
Clearing my expression, I focused on the task at hand and glared unseeingly at the high ceiling. Once my set was finished, and as soon as Andy and I switched places, I looked to the muted TV over the weightlifting area. I checked the time in the bottom right corner of CNN’s scrolling news bar. It was almost 5:45 AM.
Emily was late.
It’s not that I tracked her schedule. I didn’t, not consciously. But since I’d come to the same gym at the same time on and off for over two years, I now recognized the faces of all the regulars.
I glanced up at the ellipticals again while Andy stood, taking the brief window while his back was turned to search the upper level for the fifth time in fifteen minutes. I saw her immediately. She’d just arrived. She was pressing the buttons of the machine, frowning at the console. She looked tired—probably my fault due to the lengthy email I’d sent last night—and her long brown hair was in a ponytail. She was biting her b
ottom lip. Today she wore dark-colored yoga pants and a white tank top.
I looked away. A hot, uncomfortable thickness filled my chest cavity, like I’d been shocked with a small electrical current. I tried to ignore it. I took a deep breath. It persisted.
“Hey. Your girlfriend is finally here.” Andy hit me on the shoulder in that way men do: oddly rough for the situation, yet completely normal and accepted for male interaction while working out or playing sports.
I glanced at him distractedly, feigning ignorance. Feigning ignorance was a reflex, a skill honed over two decades of overhearing people whisper about my body in disparaging terms. As I’ve stated, fat people’s existence tends to make other people—again, not all people—mildly uncomfortable. However, if a fat person also has good hearing, it seems to make them indignant as well.
“Come on, Victor. What’s going on?” Andy frowned at me. “You’re not talking.”
I lifted an eyebrow at that.
He rolled his eyes. “Right. I mean, you’re talking even less than usual.”
I scratched the back of my neck, stalling, and then resumed my place on the bench for another set. I could talk to Andy, I could trust Andy, and I’d even confided in him on occasion when the mood struck, mostly if I was drunk.
He and I had very little in common on the surface other than working out and our jobs at the airfield. But a shared lived experience is an unfathomable thing. It creates a bond, a trust, and explaining my thought process with him was seldom necessary. He just simply understood.
“The female brunette,” I said, not looking at my friend as I gripped the bar, prepared to lift, “I know her.”
“What? Don’t tell me . . . You know her?” He sounded surprised, on alert, likely because I didn’t know anyone, especially not beautiful women. “What do you mean you know her? You mean you finally talked to her?”
“She’s one of my students.” I grunted as I said this, pushing the weighted bar up while his hands followed my movements.
“What the?” He sounded frustrated on my behalf, disappointed. “Damn. Sorry.”
My lips curled into an automatic, rueful smile. “Don’t be. She’s brilliant in class, interested in the material, always has great thoughts and perspectives. It’s been an honor to teach her.”
As a student, Ms. Von was one of my favorites. I’d spoken to Emily Von many times over the last two months—she was my student, and therefore speaking to her could not be avoided—but I’d never looked at her for any length of time. I knew Ms. Von by name. However, prior to yesterday, I wouldn’t have been able to pick Emily Von out of a lineup. But such was the case with almost all my students.
As an aside, I’d emailed Ms. Von’s paper on experimental design analysis to my former thesis advisor and mentor last month. I suggested she reach out to Ms. Von about summer internships with the Epidemiology Center at the National Institutes of Health this coming summer. Ms. Von was exceptionally bright and seemed to genuinely enjoy research methods. Again, she was an outlier.
Currently, Andy seemed to be studying me. “You just figured this out? That the woman you’ve been eyeing for six months is one of your students?”
“I haven’t been eyeing her.” He made it sound so lurid. I’d noticed her because she was an outlier at the gym, that was all. And technically, it had been two years, not six months. “And yes, I just figured it out yesterday. I messaged Dr. Ford last night and asked that she consider giving Emily—Emily is her name—an advocate in my class, so I won’t be her professor of record.”
“You what?” His question was sharp. “Doesn’t that make you look bad? What—why would you do that?”
My heart thumped wildly, likely because thinking about this next part was difficult, so saying it was going to be a challenge. “Because I’m attracted to her and I can’t be objective where she’s concerned.”
That shut Andy up. Obviously, my statement shocked the hell out of him. Good. It shocked the hell out of me too.
He knew I’d never dated anyone seriously. I’d once explained that I’d never been attracted to anyone who’d shown interest in me, and that was mostly true. My assertion didn’t stop him from trying to set me up with women all the time. This never went well. Women on dates wanted to be desired for more than their minds and good deeds, which was all I had to offer.
The therapist I’d been seeing monthly to help me with my behavior modification therapy—for the weight loss—and I had discussed this often. He said it wasn’t typical, but perhaps it was just my normal. I knew myself well enough to recognize I was incapable of forcing a connection just to check a box, or gain worldly experience, or make a notch in my belt.
My father had experienced and exploited humans enough—both emotionally and physically—for the both of us.
Anyway, I’d lived without female physical attention all my life. I didn’t miss it. I didn’t need it. I had no problem with humans as students, respected colleagues, friends. But romance? I’d convinced myself I wasn’t built that way. No big deal.
And then, there was Lavender . . .
“Well, this all sucks a big pile of cow manure, but good for you,” Andy said thoughtfully as I stood, his tone tinged with confusion. “Maybe we should celebrate?”
“Celebrate?”
“Yeah. Celebrate. You just admitted that you like her. Out loud. You’re physically attracted to someone enough to make yourself look bad to your department chair. This is a big deal. A breakthrough.”
“This is not a breakthrough.”
“Said the thirty-year-old virgin.”
I glared at him.
“Who’s never been kissed.”
“Forget it. I’m not telling you anything anymore,” I said flatly, glancing around at nothing. I hadn’t meant to tell him those details, but we’d been drunk and, well, vodka makes me vociferous.
“It’s not a big deal.” I shrugged again, but my disloyal eyes strayed to the ellipticals and my body told me it was a big deal.
She—the kind brunette/Ms. Von/Lavender/Emily—was using a towel to wipe sweat from her forehead. Wholly focused on something in front of her, a book or a magazine, her eyes were bright. Perspiration dotted her skin. She was breathing hard and suddenly so was I.
Watching her, it felt like a big deal. It felt transformative. I didn’t like it.
My stomach tensed. I swallowed. Another shock of electrical current. I looked away, finding Andy watching me, making a face like he was experiencing secondhand discomfort on my behalf.
I gestured to the bench and cleared my throat. “Your turn.” My voice was rough.
He ignored me. “You know what I think your problem is?”
“My childhood friend, who—for a former marine—likes to talk about feelings a lot?”
“Marines talk about feelings, asshole. Just listen. I’ve been thinking about this.” He pointed to the side of his head, like I didn’t know where the brain was located. In all fairness, I sometimes wondered about his. “I’ve been thinking about when we were kids, how everything always came so easy to you.”
I scoffed. “What? What came easy?”
“Math, science, all the classes, everything in school. You’re the smartest fucker I know. You’re the best aviation mechanic, that’s for sure. You finally decide to lose the weight—” he snapped his fingers “—it falls right off.”
“Two years. It took me two years. Behavior modification therapy. That’s not falling right off.”
“Whatever. It’s off, right? Now you look like a movie star. Your face is too fucking pretty. Anything you set your mind to, it’s yours. You just have to work for it. And that’s the problem.” Andy claimed his position on the bench, his attention on the bar as he spoke, obviously timing his words to leave me in suspense.
I said nothing, unwilling to take the wisdom-bait. Unfortunately, he gave me his wisdom-fish for free.
“You could’ve dated someone before now. There were awesome girls who liked you in school. You were b
ig, yeah. So what? Being smart and witty goes a long way. But you never wanted to work for it.”
He and I fundamentally disagreed on this point. There was a girl I liked in middle school and high school. She was smart, funny, interesting, charismatic. She also asked me to freshman homecoming.
As a joke.
“It’s just too bad you didn’t talk to your brunette before the semester started. If you’d talked to her—if you’d put yourself out there instead of being a cowardly jerkoff—then maybe you’d be dating her instead of grading her.”
Irritated with this entire conversation, I spoke between clenched teeth. “She wouldn’t have talked to me then.” I knew this for a fact.
First, plenty of guys had hit on the brunette—Emily—at the gym, and she always, always turned them down. I’d watched this happen for two years.
Second, what had she said to me yesterday after class?
Why are you making this such a big deal? It’s not a big deal to me.
What I felt at that lingerie shop might’ve been important to me, but it was nothing to her. She wasn’t interested. I wasn’t going to bother her, and I definitely wasn’t going to make her uncomfortable by asking her out when I already knew what the answer would be.
“You don’t know that for sure.” Now he sounded ornery. “You just didn’t want to work for it. You want everything to be easy because that’s what you’re used to. And Victor, I hate to be the one to tell you, but we’re not the same guys we used to be. We have a really good chance with all kinds of women now. You’ve seen the women I date. Some are even hotter than your brunette girlfriend.”
There were so many things I wanted to correct about his last several statements, but I decided to focus on just one. “Student. Student.”
“No. Not student.” His voice was strained as he lifted the bar. “You’re getting her that advocate, right? So technically she’s not your student. Now she’s just someone you’re too chicken shit to make a move on.”
“She comes here to work out, not to pick up guys. I’m not going to be another douche who won’t leave her alone,” I said. It was a strong supporting argument. Meanwhile, a traitorous question occurred to me, Where does Emily go to pick up guys?