My Fat Dad

by Dawn Lerman

  “We both have a zebra,” I said.

  “Can you make a zebra sound?” I shrugged my shoulders. “Of course you can.”

  “Nay,” I said softly.

  “Really let it out. The zebra communicates with high-pitched, loud noises. Let all the animals in the wild kingdom hear you.” I struggled to make the best animal noise that I could conjure. I began contorting my face and turning up my nose, and out of nowhere came a loud snort.

  “Bravo!”

  I kept snorting so hard that I become light-headed, falling off the chair in a mixture of giggles that turned to uncontrollable tears. I was so faint that I could barely breathe.

  “My, my. It looks as if you have just seen the Holy Ghost.” Miss Newburger rubbed my back to calm me down, but I continued to laugh, breathless, with tears rushing down my face and milk squirting out of my nose.

  “Why is my daughter hysterical? Did she fall? She is very fragile,” my mother screamed, storming into the classroom.

  My teacher assured her I was fine and calmly explained that my mom was several hours late and that pickup was supposed to be at eleven not at three. Irritated, my mom responded, “All this money and only a half day?” She started inspecting me for cuts and bruises, whisking me out of the bright nursery, unapologetic and annoyed, oblivious to Miss Newburger’s disapproving face.

  Totally shaken up, I begged never to go back—even though I really liked my teacher and all the fun activities we did. But that fearful feeling of being left overwhelmed me. Each morning my mother dropped me in the classroom, I was filled with butterflies wondering if she would return. Each morning, she nonchalantly vanished into the morning air, never looking back, never aware of the terror and the sadness that consumed me during those first several years of school. Eventually, I started taking the school bus home, and that feeling of fear was replaced by chatting with friends, reading books, and the birth of my sister—and the ache was dull, not overwhelming or sharp.

  But as all the boxes filled the halls of our apartment and my room was quickly being stripped of all the things that were familiar—all that brought me comfort—I had an old ache that ran through me like a current, causing me to feel nauseous, hot, and sweaty, like the time my mother forced me to eat McDonald’s and I protested that the greasy, salty meat from the forty-nine-cent menu would make me sick. I had spent the whole evening doubled over in pain. But today, I had not eaten anything bad. I had not given in to one my mom’s fits when she declared I was stuck up for not wanting to eat the contents of one of her surprise packages of aluminum-foil restaurant leftovers. I had not eaten the block of yellow Velveeta cheese that my mom had gotten on sale at the Jewel Market and that was now covered in green fuzz. I had not given in to the fried Oscar Mayer bologna with the funny smell. I had only eaten the delicious kosher food from school that was always fresh, always homemade—yet the nagging pain in my stomach continued to grow.

  “Should we take it or toss it?” my mother said, holding up my favorite Raggedy Ann doll that my bestest friend, Jenny Isenstark, gave me for my ninth birthday.

  “Take it, but I don’t want to pack it! I want to carry it with me on the plane.”

  “You are not going on the plane for weeks. You will forget about it by then. I need to get everything ready for the movers, so they can put all our belongings in storage. I am leaving for New York with Daddy tomorrow. He needs to move into his new offices, and I have to find us a place to live. You and April will stay with Beauty while I’m getting us situated.”

  My mom never did anything the way other moms did; there were never any lists and there was never any discussion of plans, just a whirlwind of energy. She was frantically tossing my rumpled shirts, unpaired socks, and my drawings from school into the cartons. I tried to slow her down so I could organize them, but she was getting annoyed with me.

  “Stop being so particular. You can fold and sort everything later.”

  “It’s my stuff. Stop just throwing everything around.”

  My world was being spun upside down, and no one bothered to ask me how I felt. Instead of consulting with me, my mother tried to distract me by telling me the story about the first day we rented the apartment. When she began talking, I sat on the bed and listened to the story of how I chose my room, the room I was now saying goodbye to. Many nights I yearned for my mom to sit on the edge of my bed and pull the covers over me and tell me a story. While I sat, she talked and dumped the contents of my room into the brown moving boxes—my journals, my puzzles, my fuzzy orange rug that was shaped like a foot, and my lava lamp with the blue and silver bubbles that used to keep me mesmerized for hours.

  “You were just three years old when we moved to this apartment,” she said in her theatrical voice, imitating the sophisticated charm of Sophia Loren. “We had just moved into this big six-room apartment from our teeny, tiny, cramped apartment on Berwyn Avenue. I thought you would be so happy to have all this space to run around. I said you could choose any room you like to be your special bedroom. Walking around together, you pulled me into this room, which was going to be used as a closet for all your dad’s hundreds of shirts.” We both chuckled because nobody had more shirts than my dad. “But you insisted that this was the room you wanted. When I asked why you liked it so much, you said, ‘I am a very little girl, so I only need a little room.’ You gravitated to that hot little room and there was no convincing you otherwise. I used to always find you curled up in a ball on that window seat.”

  I felt lost in my mom’s voice, remembering the day, remembering how cold I often was during the long Chicago winters; but somehow the insulation of the small space and the purr and the warmth of the radiator soothed me. I spent hours sitting on the burnt orange–colored cushion that separated the heat from my body, watching the neighborhood children playing hopscotch and riding bikes. I would often just sit there, hugging my knees, staring out the window. Eventually, my mom grew very concerned and dragged me outside to make friends with the kids in the neighborhood.

  While my mother and I were having this special moment, April came running in, leaping from box to box, jumping inside them, on top of them—flattening the ones I had so carefully built.

  “Look at my talented Baby Boom Boom go! Jump, Baby Boom Boom, jump!”

  Baby Boom Boom is what my mother called my sister because when she was in her belly, April would kick all day and all night. My mom was sure the baby would be a football star. But to her surprise, she was born a bouncing baby girl—full of spirit and spunk and void of all fear, which my mom admired. My mother was beaming, watching my sister jump and hop, wrinkling my crumpled clothes even further.

  “Please do not destroy my stuff.”

  “She is practicing her gymnastics,” my mom declared.

  “She won’t be practicing anymore if she bangs her head or cuts her toes on the corner of the boxes,” I said, scolding.

  My mother scoffed and reminded me that the only time my sister had ever been hurt was the time when I slammed her finger in the door. I had just come home from ice-skating with Jenny and her mother. It was my first time ice-skating, and I spent the whole afternoon on my bottom. When I arrived home, I was soaked and freezing, so I rushed into the bathroom to peel off my clothes and put a robe on. When I put my hand on the big, old, heavy door, it accidently slammed shut with April’s finger caught in the hinge. She was only eighteen months. She wailed, her finger dangling and blood covering the floor. I remember my mother crying so hard she could barely speak or drive, so we had to ride in an ambulance. My sister now held up her pointer finger that was significantly shorter than the rest of her fingers, with a big purple scar running across it, as if to confirm my mother’s story.

  Suddenly, I felt sick again. Not necessarily because of the memory of hurting April, although I will forever feel awful, but because we were leaving our home. All the chapters that had filled my life so far, both the good and
the bad, had started or ended in this apartment.

  I remembered the many afternoons spent with friends in my room; I remembered the time I accidentally cut my hand in the bathtub when I was carving a heart in the pink Dove soap bar with my dad’s razor blade, and how I charged all my friends to see my blood. I remember how the red water looked like cherry Hawaiian Punch, and I remember filling my piggy bank with all the change I collected. I remember not allowing my mother to drain the tub for twenty-four hours so we could have a second and third showing.

  I remembered begging my mother not to go out at night, and vomiting, screaming, and crying every time she left. Finally, Sister Ann would hold me down, and my mother would run out the door. If my father was home, he would slip me a candy bar from his secret hiding place before he followed her out. I remember how bad he felt, and how he would try to make it up to me by taking me with him to the swap meets he so loved on Sundays. We would spend hours together—just he and I—methodically digging through the piles of used stuff on the cluttered tables, rummaging, the way pirates would search for treasure, for some interesting items that would help inspire my dad to stay on a healthy eating plan. Each great find was the promise of a great new recipe: an ice pick for no-sugar Italian ices, a meat grinder for the leanest no-fat burgers, a hand-cranked dough mixer for the fluffiest low-calorie bread. Our kitchen counters were cluttered with possibility and hope.

  I remembered my mom making friends at the playground before my sister was born. I remembered my mom in bed for weeks when she was pregnant. I remembered all the nights I slept next to April’s crib, watching her sleep, listening to her breathe, pinching myself that G-d had heard my prayers. I remembered running up and down the hallways that connected our rooms as my sister learned to crawl, to walk. We played dress-up, made tea parties with miniature China tea sets—cups, saucers, sugar bowls, and dolls—and baked brownies in my Easy-Bake Oven. We spent hours in my room around my little old-fashioned tea table that used to be my grandmother Beauty’s when she was a child—the table that my mom was now giving back to her because she didn’t want us to take it to New York.

  I had friends throughout the building. Danielle lived upstairs; her mother was French and cooked the most delicious leg of lamb and green beans with garlic sauce. Tracy lived downstairs; her mother was a ballet teacher, and every Friday afternoon ten girls came over for dance classes. Becky lived next door with many brothers and sisters and would frequently invite me over for tuna casserole with a potato chip crust, and Hamburger Helper, minus the hamburger.

  I remembered Bubbe Mary and Beauty eating corned beef on rye with mustard and sauerkraut that they brought over from Ricky’s delicatessen on April’s first birthday, and talking about how they had both decided that they no longer were going to add sugar to their coffee since Bubbe Mary had recently been diagnosed with diabetes.

  I remembered brushing my hair with my friend Tamar in my room while we modeled the clothes we were allowed to keep after the Marshall Field’s fashion show that we were both selected for when a talent scout came to our school. We were each allowed to keep an outfit. I kept the red corduroy jumper with gold brass buckles that was paired with the rabbit fur coat and matching hat, and Tamar chose the patent leather knee-high boots, blue sailor dress, and tan pea coat. We both refused to take off our outfits for days, proudly modeling them in school even though it was the beginning of June and the temperatures were already well into the eighties. I remember how we practiced for weeks before the show—counting on our fingers who could balance the encyclopedia on her head the longest, each trying to outdo the other on poise and grace.

  But my most vivid memory was of the giant chocolate chip cookies from Old Town, the fat, chewy cookies with the bittersweet chunks that my mom used to bring me back in lieu of saying sorry when she hurt my feelings or when she stayed out extra late. My mom was never good with certain words, like “I love you” and “I am sorry,” but when she wanted to apologize, she would dash out in her red Mustang and appear shortly after with the massive chocolate chip cookie from Old Town. “The cookie that smelled and tasted like homemade,” she always said.

  My mom would hold the giant cookie up like a peace offering and say, “I can not believe how expensive they are.” Something about my mother buying something she thought was overpriced, and the true emotion in her voice when she presented the offering, made the cookie taste almost as delicious as my grandmother Beauty’s homemade ones, the ones that filled her house with sweetness when she baked them. My mother didn’t bake, but I smelled the sweetness, the familiarity, and the comfort of the cookie the moment she flashed the white waxed bag.

  One by one, the boxes were taped shut, and the memories were locked away as the movers loaded the boxes onto the moving van.

  The Ultimate Chocolate Chip Cookie with the Cream Cheese Dough

  Yield: 12–14 giant cookies

  Parchment paper for lining the baking sheets

  11⁄2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cubed

  1⁄4 cup cream cheese

  3⁄4 cup granulated sugar

  3⁄4 cup packed light brown sugar

  2 large eggs, beaten

  1 teaspoon vanilla extract

  21⁄4 cups all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon salt

  1 teaspoon baking powder

  1 teaspoon baking soda

  2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

  Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper.

  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, cream cheese, granulated sugar, and brown sugar on medium-high speed until well combined. Then add the beaten eggs, vanilla, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Beat on low speed until well combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

  Refrigerate the dough for at least 2 hours. Remove from the refrigerator and form into balls. Place the dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, spaced far apart. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the cookies are slightly browned at the edges. Remove from the oven and cool.

  Note: Bake longer for crispier, chewier cookies; bake less for ooey, gooey cookies. Serve warm or at room temperature.

  Lo-Carb Chocolate Crepes

  Yield: 2 crepes

  4 egg whites beaten

  11⁄2 scoops vanilla protein powder

  1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract

  1 level teaspoon of coco powder

  Cooking spray for pan

  1⁄2 cup sliced strawberries

  Put all the ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth. Spray an 11-inch nonstick pan with cooking spray and pour the batter, covering the whole surface. When the crepe bubbles, flip and cook until edges are brown. Remove from the skillet and fill with fresh strawberries. Fold over and serve.

  PART TWO

  5

  Taking a Bite from the Big Apple

  Lamb Stew with Sweet Potatoes, Beauty’s Baby Shell Kugel with Golden Raisins, Aranacini di Riso

  My best friend Jenny told me horror stories about New York City: murders, people living on the streets, and subways and buildings covered in graffiti. But far more horrible was leaving Beauty and all things familiar. In New York, there would be no more special weekends at my grandmother’s house, no more car rides on Lake Shore Drive, and no special noshes by the stove. It would be a latchkey, total independence, and self-survival.

  I was heartsick. My parents and sister were thrilled. April would be going to school for the first time, and I would be leaving the only school I knew.

  My mom boasted that with her ingenuity and a little bit of coercing, she had not only managed to enroll April in a wonderful preschool around the corner from our new house in Murray Hill, she had landed me a spot at the famous progressive West Village elementary school, the Little Red School House. She said they accepted me without even meeting me due to her brilliant power of persuasion. My mom believed she could talk any
one into anything, and since she never took no for an answer, she usually could.

  Even though I had to take two subways to school and walk a couple of blocks, my mother said I was extremely fortunate. “You will be going to school alongside the kids of famous artists, musicians, and playwrights. This environment is different than what you are used to, but I know you will thrive. And you were terrible at Hebrew anyway. Your teachers always said you were much more creative than you were academic. You have the soul of an artist! You will be happier in New York.”

  How did my mom think I was going to be happier? I was leaving the school I loved. I was leaving all my friends, and I wouldn’t be able to see my grandparents for months. Besides, Anshe Emet had the most delicious kosher lunches and Manischewitz Tam Tam crackers with grape juice every afternoon for a treat. Not only was I going to die of loneliness, I was probably going to starve to death, or get mugged, or fall onto the subway tracks.

  In the days before I left, I pleaded with my grandmother to let me live with her. “We can visit my parents during the holidays. We can take our first plane ride together.” Neither of us had ever been on a plane before. “Also, Mommy and my dad are always out, so I doubt they’ll even notice that I hadn’t moved with them!”

  Beauty felt my pain. “I am going to miss you so much,” she said. “But you need to go with your parents. Your daddy is going to be a big shot in advertising—he is going to be like Darrin in Bewitched.”

  I wanted to be like Samantha and be able to twitch my nose and land wherever I imagined, not where I was forced. Beauty reminded me that if I stayed in Chicago with her, who would look after April?

  “You are the best big sister I’ve ever seen. Every time you leave April even for just a few minutes, she starts weeping. You are the only one who could calm her down. I need you to be brave—both for April and me.” Beauty even shared that she thought my mother was a little scared, even though she would never admit to it. Vulnerability equaled weakness in my mom’s eyes.