The F Word

by Liza Palmer

  The first rule of this new clique is that you can never, ever admit that you care about what you look like. It has to seem effortless. Natural. Oh, this old thing? Telling the truth about how single-minded and exhausting it is to look the way Caroline does equals being called a Joyless Ice Queen by a table of people who were friendly to you just an hour before. I’ve learned that what makes women truly beautiful is their own indifference to it, but no woman is beautiful and doesn’t know it.

  “I like kale,” Nanette says.

  “Awww, of course you do,” Jacob says, nuzzling his wife.

  “She can be off-putting, but—” Gregory allows.

  “Off-putting? She’s downright smug,” Leah interrupts.

  “She really is intelligent, though,” I say. Leah just stares at me.

  “I don’t mind women being smart,” Leah says, making sure to leave off the “as long as they’re fat, ugly, and old.”

  “Weren’t you saying that you love following the books she reads?” I ask.

  “She posts some really good stuff,” Leah allows. “But—”

  “And that one book you’ve read how many times? The one she said was her favorite of last year?”

  “Three times,” Leah says.

  “Didn’t you email her about it?” I coax.

  “I did,” Leah says.

  “And—”

  “She wrote back a lovely reply thanking me for the email, asked what I was reading next and I noticed that she mentioned the book later on one of those talk shows. Said a friend recommended it to her.” Leah clears her throat and sits back in her chair.

  “She told me she really loved that you emailed,” I say. Leah talked about that email for weeks and I’ve always held a soft spot for Caroline for taking the time to reach out to a friend of mine like that.

  “Which is why it stings all the more when I hear her going on about her raw food diet like that’s as hard as being a single mother holding down three jobs,” Leah says. I collect myself and try not to launch across the table at my dear hypocritical friend who spoke about her in-laws failing to offer a gluten-free option at their last Thanksgiving like it was her own personal Holocaust.

  “I know, I can totally see where you’re coming from. But, I’m always astounded at how cruel people can be. Especially on the Internet.”

  “You’re right about that,” Leah says.

  “And remember we were talking about how mind-boggling it was when those paparazzi shots of her and Max on the beach were released and people were going on about her thighs? And you were saying—”

  “No, I know.” Leah holds her hand up, conceding the point. Good. Because I can go on and on reminding Leah of all the millions of times she talked about Caroline like she was her savior, an infatuation that stopped just short of taping up a poster of Caroline in her bedroom.

  “Never read the comments. I’ve told you that,” Gregory says to Leah.

  “I don’t. I…”

  “Don’t look under the bridge and you won’t see the trolls,” Gregory says in an oddly singsong tone.

  “I didn’t look under the … how did we start talking about me?” Leah asks.

  “Aren’t we always talking about you?” Gregory says, laughing.

  “Oh, my sweet, sweet husband,” Leah says in a tone that I know means she has now focused her rage on Gregory. The rest of his night will be spent paying dearly for that one comment.

  “More wine?” I ask. Leah holds out her glass. I pour.

  “Thank you, pumpkin,” she says. It’s this endearment that catches me. I’m bent on defending Caroline because I think Leah is attacking me and that, despite my best efforts, I’ve been found out. But, she isn’t. Leah is taking me at face value, an attribute I’ve always appreciated in her. As far as Leah is concerned, we’re on the same team.

  “But, no one deserves to be cheated on,” Nanette says. She looks at Jacob like a baby startled by its own fart: Where did that come from?

  “Of course not.” Jacob sighs, looking at Leah as though Nanette’s pain is her fault.

  “I don’t know. It’s not like it matters to Caroline Lang anyway,” Leah says, shaking her head. “What we think of her.” Adam wraps his arm around the back of my chair.

  “Well, she seemed pleasant enough,” Adam says.

  “You just want us to stop talking about it,” Leah says, laughing.

  “And is it working?” Adam asks.

  “Oh, come on. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. Livvie must talk your ear off about Caroline Lang,” Leah says.

  “I try to keep the blood and guts to a bare minimum and—” Adam says.

  “And so do I,” I joke. Everyone laughs, happy to lighten the mood around the table.

  “It’s not like any of this matters,” Jacob says.

  “I’m sorry?” I ask.

  “Movie stars. Hollywood. I mean, it’s not like any of it matters,” Jacob says.

  “But it does,” I say.

  “To you maybe, hon. It’s your job, but I don’t give Caroline Whatever-Her-Name-Is a second thought,” Jacob says, taking a huge bite of the coq au vin. I can feel Adam shift in his chair.

  “But, that’s where you’re wrong,” I say. Jacob slides his gaze from his emptying plate to me. He slowly dabs at the corners of his mouth.

  “Enlighten me,” he says.

  “What was it that first drew you to Nanette?” I ask. Jacob looks warily from me to his wife. A wide smile.

  “She just glowed—that blond hair was like a halo. I couldn’t look away. I knew, in that moment, she was everything I wanted in a woman,” he says. Nanette beams.

  “But what I know is Nanette has her hair colored that exact blond because of a piece Vogue did on Caroline Lang back in … what was it?”

  “Two thousand eight,” Nanette says.

  “Whether we like it or not, women like Caroline Lang set trends we don’t even realize we’re internalizing. When I was a teenager, I read this article about Winona Ryder going to a flea market and paying for everything with hundred-dollar bills. It was a throwaway line, but to me? It was everything. From then on, it became the thing cool girls did and I set it as my personal North Star. Being a woman can be such a mystery sometimes, we unconsciously look to these celebrities as surrogate mentors for our own femininity. They appear—as you said earlier, Gregory—to be so natural, that we look to them to set the standard. So when Caroline came out last year and said that she was worthless without her big cup of coffee in the morning, that simple statement allowed women to admit that—like the perfect Caroline Lang—they don’t greet the day in full makeup and an unwrinkled silk nightgown like certain television shows would have us believe. Not only does this stuff matter, Jacob, I’d even go so far as to say that you owe your very marriage and current happiness to none other than Caroline Whatever-Her-Name-Is.”

  Silence. I take a sip of my wine. Jacob takes the napkin from his lap and tosses it on his now empty plate.

  “Do you think you can ask Caroline where that patchwork blanket coat thing she was wearing in those pictures came from?” Nanette asks, cutting through the tension. Jacob clears his throat. “I tried sitting in a wheat field like she did, but it was actually really uncomfortable.” Adam pours himself another glass of wine. Leah holds her glass up and Adam fills it as well.

  “I can ask her stylist,” I say.

  “Stylist,” Nanette repeats in a reverent whisper. I pass Adam the baguette. He tears off a portion and begins soaking up the coq au vin juices left over on his plate.

  “What I think everyone is dying to know is what you two have decided Asher and Tiger will be for their very first Halloween,” I say. As Leah and Gregory launch into the ins and outs of choosing their twins’ first Halloween costumes, Adam leans over and whispers in my ear.

  “I do so love watching you work.” He gives me a lingering kiss on my cheek. “Work … annihilate.” Adam gestures imbalanced scales with his hands, his face crumpled in faux confusion.


  “Tomato, tomahto,” I say. He laughs. The dinner party moves on in easy conversation as I nip away to the kitchen to ready tonight’s dessert of baked pears. I put the kettle on for tea and switch on the coffeemaker should anyone wish to partake. As the water boils and the coffee percolates, I catch up on Ellen’s texts along with one from Richard letting me know Caroline got home safely. We’re all set to take this thing head-on.

  As our guests enjoy dessert, I sip my tea and process the evening. I knew that Caroline was seen as icy. I knew people thought she could be tone-deaf at how rarified her life was, but I didn’t know the extent to which her own fans loved to hate her until tonight. Her divorce is all they’ll need to publically humiliate her. They knew it, they’ll joyfully exclaim on their social media. She deserved it, they’ll hiss to their girlfriends. She’s not even that pretty/talented, they’ll confess over SoulCycling.

  It won’t matter that Max is the one who’s cheating with Willa Lindholm. No, what the tabloids will run with is the Ice Queen drove poor Max Walsh into the Swedish Fish’s arms by being so damn unlikable.

  In short, Caroline Lang had this coming.

  I have two days to change the conversation. Two days before people are cooing over a “leaked” paparazzi photo of Max and Willa on some beach in Kenya.

  I replay the debate later on that night as I clean up. Adam is back at the hospital and the house is quiet. It’s Leah’s last words that are the most telling and make me the most nervous. That Leah believes it doesn’t matter to Caroline what The People think of her. That’s the interesting bit. I dry and place the last wineglass in the cupboard and gently close the glass-fronted door.

  Whatever flaws Leah will say Caroline has—She’s smug! She thinks she’s better than all of us!—Caroline’s true crime is she’s made Leah feel insignificant. She’s made Leah feel like her words and opinions are beneath Caroline’s notice. And if Caroline has made Leah feel this way, this will be the reaction from other women as well. Caroline Lang being cheated on will be like seeing a mean girl from high school finally get what’s coming to her.

  I drape the kitchen towel over the sink, unplug my phone from the charger, shut off the lights, and walk into the dining room. I straighten the table runner, snuff out the candles, and continue on toward our master bedroom.

  Caroline Lang had it coming. I shake my head, as I get dressed for bed. Muttering to myself as I brush my teeth and wash my face.

  The dark underbelly of being seen is that you threaten those who secretly fear they’re invisible. I switch off the bathroom light and crawl into bed, remembering to plug my phone into the charger. I pull the soft blankets up and just sit. Smooth the blankets. Fidget. Shake my head. How do I change the conversation? Caroline Lang has spent too many years cementing the Smug Ice Queen persona to undo it now. We’ve tried to defrost her, but that only lasted for a few months at a time. How do I convince women that Caroline is one of us? She’s human and of the two people getting divorced, she’s the one who deserves a bit of their compassion.

  How do I recast her as courageous, yet benign? Because that’s the ugly truth about women and gossip: We only talk shit about the women we’re afraid jeopardize the things we have and want. That’s why when I was fat, people made fun of me, but no one gossiped about me. Why? Because nothing of theirs was ever at risk of being taken by me, least of all their men. I could get great grades and get into Cal Berkeley and wear cute clothes and be from one of the wealthiest families in Pasadena and still never threaten their idea of themselves. I was never going to pull the attention away from them, because whatever I achieved would always be undercut by what I looked like. Admit it. You hear about some woman being successful and happily married and then you see a picture of her and she’s fat? You say to yourself, “Good for her.” Same criteria and you see the woman is thin and beautiful? “Ugh, what a bitch.”

  Last year, this UK tabloid took a poll on the most unlikable Hollywood stars. Caroline was fifth. But, that’s not what bothered me. What bothered me was that she was listed between the drug-addled actor who pulled a gun on his fiancée and the singer who beat his girlfriend. And she had made the list simply because women thought she was icy.

  I turn out the light and try to get comfortable, flipping onto my side, then my back. I see my phone light up and check it. It’s a text from Ellen. She can meet with me tomorrow night. We’ll come up with a plan.

  “Everything is going to be okay. I’ve got this,” I text back. Ellen texts back a set of emojis that would need the full power of the Bletchley Circle to decipher them. I reply with a simple “xo” and set the phone back down on my nightstand.

  Icy. The word women use to cut someone they feel to be smug down to size. Saying Caroline is icy is the way women get back at her for making them feel like shit about themselves. Fine. If you think Caroline is icy? I’ll give you something you can connect to. I’ll give you the best friend you never had.

  I’ll give you fucking sweet.

  ROOKIE MISTAKES

  “We’re not here to chat, ladies. We’re here to make it burn!” Barb yells.

  It’s 6:30 the next morning and instead of dealing with Caroline Lang’s impending divorce, I’m doing Swimtastics with my mother in the shallow end of a public pool to Dusty Springfield’s “Son of a Preacher Man.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call her icy, but I’m not so sure I’d want to be married to her either,” Mom says under her breath as Barb leaps out of the pool to show us HIGH KNEES! HIGH KNEES!

  Mom is now in her late sixties and has yet to slow down. She’s just as heavily involved in charity work as she was when I was in school, running a nonprofit empire out of that same Spanish home I grew up in by the Arroyo. Her small, powerful frame has weathered the years well enough that I can still be in denial that she’s getting older.

  “Big steps, ladies! Really push it!” Barb leaps back into the pool and lets out a yawp. “It’s good to be alive!”

  I am the youngest Swimtastician by approximately twelve to thirteen decades. Mom and I have been coming to Barb’s class ever since Mom had her hip replacement last year. In the beginning, I acted like I was so beyond Barb’s crazy sidestepping antics, but then I got slapped into submission by the wraparound-sunglasses-wearing, zinc-oxide-smearing ex-hippie who can leap in and out of pools faster than a speeding bullet.

  “I wouldn’t want to be married to her either, but—”

  “Olivia! I hear you!” Barb shushes me. “Arms out of the water! Punch the sky! Show ’em who’s boss, ladies!”

  “Sorry, Barb,” I say.

  “You should know better,” Mrs. Stanhope says in an easy drawl, as she bobs by in her giant pink sun hat, a huge bandage stretching down her cheek from a recent skin cancer surgery.

  “Yes, Mrs. Stanhope,” I say, lifting my arms out of the water and punching the sky as Barb instructed.

  “You need to stop getting me in trouble with Barb,” Mom says with a wink. She speeds past me and catches up to Mrs. Stanhope, arms high in the air.

  Ninety minutes later, Mom and I walk into the communal showers. My entire body is tired. I’m also the only one in here from Barb’s class still wearing my swimsuit. All different kinds of bodies, all different kinds of women, and I still can’t bring myself to join them in their collective nudity.

  As I set our shower caddy on a plastic chair closest to our chosen showers, I can only envy the freedom of these older women. The blushing perfect-bodied teenagers of the club swim team try not to look at the round, powerful nakedness of Mrs. Stanhope.

  I thought when I lost all the weight I’d be able to luxuriate in being naked. I’d finally be that carefree girl who flits around the house in nothing but a slightly open silk robe and a “come hither” look. First, those silk robes stick to your wet body and you have to peel them off like you’re a human banana. Second, if someone could clarify the difference between a “come hither” look and a “where’s your bathroom?” look, that’d be great
. And third, no matter how much weight I lost, I realized I never learned how to simply look at my naked body. Just look at it. Not glance at it, or wince at it. Not pick it apart or judge it. Not groan at it or berate it. Just simply look at it. I am an expert in focusing only on what I perceive to be grotesque and I can target a single flaw with the sterile ruthlessness of an assassin’s bullet. So, when I think about walking into those communal showers utterly nude, I can only laugh. Not even Adam has seen me naked. I know how bizarre that sounds. We’ve been married for ten years; of course he’s seen me naked. Nope. It’s been ten years of “romantic” candlelight and dim lighting, strategic sheet placement and zipping into the bathroom when his back is turned. I am a master at misdirection and will do anything to avoid having my own husband see me naked, to stand directly in front of him with all the lights on. Oh my god. Just thinking about that breaks me out in hives.

  Mom peels her swimsuit off and rinses it out in the luscious hot water of the communal shower. While she’s doing this, she’s carrying on a lively conversation with Mrs. Stanhope and Joyce Chen about where to get the best Caesar salad in Pasadena. They’ve battled about this hot topic several times before. As Mom lathers up her body, she speaks animatedly about Julienne, saying that even their to-go salads are crisp and amazing. Mrs. Stanhope is a Smitty’s woman. Always has been. Classic. Great croutons. Naked naked naked. And Joyce Chen argues for her favorite, Houston’s, as she laces her wet suit over the spigot of her shower. Laughing and familiar, they wend their way through the day’s schedule as I turn around, face the wall, and wash my hair, letting the hot water fall over my still-swimsuited “perfect” body.

  “How’s that husband of yours?” Joyce Chen asks, looking over at me.

  “Busy. Always busy,” I say.

  “They have a tendency to be quite busy at that age,” Joyce Chen says.

  “Makes me downright nostalgic. Clay doesn’t have anywhere to be, so guess where he always is?” Mrs. Stanhope asks.

  “In your way,” Joyce Chen and Mom say in unison.