B as in Beauty

by Alberto Ferreras

  I figured I would check with the headhunters on Monday and, in the meantime, sat down by my computer and wrote a letter that I’d been thinking about the whole night. After printing the letter, I went to sleep. I woke up the next morning feeling as if I had taken a huge weight off my shoulders.

  I had decided to start from scratch.

  CHAPTER 34

  I arrived half an hour late to the office, and I walked straight into Bonnie’s den. She was alone this time.

  “Hey, Bonnie.” She looked up at me with her Medusa eyes for a split second before I added, “Have a nice life!” I left my resignation letter and the audiotape of her rant against the Chicago Boss on the table, and walked out. I had decided that the wise thing to do was to let go. Getting my title through blackmail would turn me into another Bonnie, and I didn’t want to be one. Now that I believed in my talent, it was time to move on and choose my own boss.

  The day flew by as I made a few phone calls to the headhunters, and worked on some details of the UK Charms campaign, but I made a point of keeping the news of my departure to myself, secretly enjoying my newfound freedom.

  That afternoon, I went to the gym, with renewed enthusiasm. I changed my clothes and stepped on the treadmill, but before I could start walking, I looked through the windows into the dance studio across the street. When I saw the girls warming up for the ballet class, something dawned on me.

  Why couldn’t I cross the street? Why couldn’t I get into that ballet class and flaunt my extra pounds in front of whoever was there? Madame’s words resonated in my head: What other people think of you is none of your business.

  Before I knew it, I’d grabbed my bag, left the gym, and crossed the street to the dance studio. If I wasn’t embarrassed about having my feet sniffed by a British royal, or having my body massaged with chocolate by a Playgirl centerfold, I think I could stand the pressure of being the only fat girl in the ballet class, even if the floorboards collapsed under my feet. I could take it. I could take it all.

  I paid for the class at the front desk and walked down the corridor toward the ballet studio. That’s when I noticed that across the hallway from the ballet class there was a loud salsa class in progress. Two of the male students were hanging out outside.

  “Looks like a fun class. Why are you outside?” I asked.

  “There’s not enough girls to dance with. Do you want to join us?”

  “I’m not much of a salsa dancer.”

  “¿De dónde eres?” one of them asked in Spanish

  “I’m Cuban,” I replied.

  “Oh, come on!” said the other one. “All Cubans dance salsa! Step in!”

  I gave a quick glance at the ballet class, and then I gave another one to the salsa class. Ballet is about being with a mirror, salsa is about being with a partner. I was sick and tired of mirrors, and sick and tired of dancing by myself.

  Fuck ballet! I told myself.

  “Where do I have to sign?” I asked them as I entered their class.

  The salsa teacher was a fabulous lady called Caridad. Interestingly enough, she had been the prima ballerina of the Cuban National Ballet, but in spite of her classical training she preferred to teach salsa. According to her, the world needed more fun and less discipline. And fun we had.

  She started with an old-fashioned rumba called “Yayabo,” the kind of song that in a split second will make you join a conga line. Later, she played these great old songs by Rubén Blades and Willie Colón, some classic Johnny Pacheco, and to top it off “Besitos Pa’ Ti” by none other than La Lupe.

  Needless to say, I danced my ass off. The joy of dancing with a partner has no comparison. I would say that it’s as good as sex, but I suspect that it’s actually better. When you coordinate your moves to those of your counterpart, you feel in total harmony with the universe. I could swear that you develop some type of telepathy that allows you to guess what the next move is going to be. Every turn and twirl becomes an adventure and a confirmation that the magic is happening.

  “You have to come dancing with us,” one of the guys told me after the class. “Every Tuesday we go to a Dominican club on the Lower East Side to dance merengue. Can you make it?”

  I exchanged numbers with all of them and promised that I would join them. It’s so funny: when you feel strong and happy, everybody wants to hang out with you, but when you allow yourself to feel miserable and lonely nobody will touch you with a ten-foot pole.

  As I was strolling toward the subway, with a renewed sense of joy, I walked past the homeless guy who insults me every time I walk by. I braced myself, getting ready for the usual “Hey, fat ass, give me a dollar,” but I guess my detractor had been abducted and probed by aliens, because as I walked by he yelled something very different:

  “Nice ass, bitch.”

  Okay, I didn’t appreciate the “bitch” part—nor do I want to encourage that type of language—but he did make me smile, so—finally—I gave him a dollar.

  “Thanks for the dollar; how about your number?”

  I must have changed a lot, because, even though this guy was a filthy drunk, I ended up laughing like a silly geisha, accepting the second compliment with a blush, and walking away with a huge smile on my face. As I placed my wallet back into my bag, I noticed that my red cell phone—which I forgot to return to Madame—had a flashing light.

  I opened it and found a text message:

  PLEASE LET ME TALK 2 U. PLEASE. SIMON

  I would say that my heart skipped a beat, but it actually stopped completely for about five minutes, as I read the message over and over. I held the phone against my chest and felt confused and relieved at the same time. I hopped on the subway on my way downtown, trying to organize my thoughts.

  Part of me felt ashamed, and resentful; part of me never wanted to see Simon again. But another part of me—clearly—was moved by his persistence.

  Maybe he wanted to apologize, shake hands, and send me home with an “I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, I didn’t mean to insult you.” That would be nice, right? Wrong. That would be horrible. Why? Because, even if he acknowledged that it was inappropriate for him to pay me after that Friday night, from my perspective, I’d made love to the man I was falling in love with, but from his perspective, he’d had sex with a prostitute.

  There was also the possibility that he wanted to make peace with me so he could hire me again. After all, the guy couldn’t sleep without me. But if he tried to book me again, he would destroy my heart beyond repair.

  Maybe the right thing was to close the door on the whole thing before it got even worse.

  Maybe I should just ignore this message and move on—just like I did with Bonnie, I told myself. After all, this is a guy who paid me to sit sixteen and a half inches away from a pillow. Maybe he had other crazy fetishes, maybe this was just the tip of the iceberg.

  But what if he feels about me the same way I feel about him? I asked myself. How the hell could I know what he feels if I never talk to him again?

  As I was sitting in the subway car, tormented by these and other thoughts, I decided to clear my mind by listening to more of my despecho songs in my iPod. Coincidentally, the iPod started playing an old Mexican song by Linda Rondstadt that I hadn’t heard in many years. It’s called “Pena de los Amores.”

  In the middle of the madness of the crowded wagon, that old Mexican song got through to me, loud and clear, and every verse hit painfully close to home.

  How sad, those words that were not spoken,

  and those that were pronounced but got lost…

  How sad, those kisses that were not given,

  and those lips that were secretly expecting them…

  How sad, those lovers that parted,

  without even giving each other a good-bye kiss

  Should I leave Simon without giving him a goodbye kiss? Without telling him that he had been important to me? That, even if it wasn’t meant to be, he wasn’t just one more guy who went through my life. That he meant
something special to me.

  As I asked myself these questions, the old guy sitting next to me fell asleep on my shoulder. I laughed to myself. Here we go again. It seems like I was born with the gift of putting people to sleep in the subway.

  But then I noticed the strangest thing. Across the aisle from me, there was another girl my size, and a skinny woman next to her who had also fallen asleep on her shoulder. Then I noticed that, down the aisle, there was a big guy who had a teenager sleeping on his shoulder, and also a fat lady who had a skinny blonde with a little black dress snoozing by her side.

  I rushed through the things in my bag, looking for the measuring tape that I’d started carrying to position myself on Simon’s couch, and then I measured the width of one of the empty subway seats.

  It was sixteen and a half inches exactly.

  CHAPTER 35

  When I was in college, I had a photography teacher who was a concentration-camp survivor. One day in class, without any explanation, he started talking about his life in the concentration camp, and he made the most shocking confession I’ve ever heard: he told us that the day he was liberated from camp he felt sad, he didn’t want to leave.

  For a child like him, those horrible barracks were home, and he was sad to leave the only home that he knew. Maybe all human beings are the same. We develop feelings for everything, even for our jail cell. We feel trapped in it, we hate it, and yet—even if the door is open—we’re afraid to leave.

  I know my jail cell very well. It has been a place where I’m a victim, a place where my self-esteem is based on the comments of people who don’t like me. A place where everything I see and hear is a confirmation of my worst suspicions about myself.

  I wouldn’t be surprised if Simon’s cell is a place where he’s ashamed to reach out for love and warmth.

  We could come up with a million theories to explain Simon’s obsession with those sixteen and a half inches—a traumatic childhood, a bad heartbreak, an absent mother—but we might never know the truth. So, from this moment on, everything is going to be speculation. Okay?

  Cool, so let’s speculate:

  First and foremost, it’s pretty obvious that fat people are more huggable than skinny people. If you don’t believe me, go to a toy store, pick up a teddy bear and a Barbie doll, and tell me which one you’d rather snuggle up in bed with. So getting all relaxed, happy, and sleepy next to the heavy ones should not come as a surprise.

  Second, let’s be honest here, asking for love is embarrassing. Asking for sex might be abrupt, inappropriate, distasteful, but nevertheless acceptable. If a guy walks up to a woman and asks for a quickie, he might get slapped, or he might get lucky. Yet, if he asks for a hug because he feels lonely or depressed, he’ll be considered a mega-loser. In our world, asking for closeness or tenderness is embarrassing.

  So I wouldn’t be surprised if someone new to New York—where not even celebrities get a second look on the street—someone who just came in from a godforsaken town in Arizona—like, let’s say Miami-Globe—someone naturally shy and shut down, someone who has a low opinion of himself for stupid things like, I don’t know, growing hair on his back—would probably have a hard time connecting with and getting warmth from others.

  What would a person in that situation do to grant himself the human touch? Chances are that a guy like him would try to borrow that affection. It’s very likely that this person would put himself in a place where the human contact happens by accident, a place where warmth is provided—and no questions are asked. It’s very possible that a guy like him would end up in a place like—let’s say—a crowded subway car. It’s very possible that this guy would sit next to someone who spills over her seat. Someone who’ll touch you because she can’t help it, because that’s the way she was built: she was built for touch. She was built for tenderness. She was built for love.

  Maybe Simon—like so many others—discovered the warmth of fat people in the subway, and he started using it to sleep and relax. That’s why he took his Sleeping Beauties photos. Later—when he got money, and success—he was still in need of human touch, so he hired women like me, who could give him a little bit of that peace that he had found in the trains.

  I got off the subway feeling overwhelmed by these thoughts, but as I turned the corner of the Salmonella Deli to get to my apartment, everything stopped. I found a big surprise waiting outside my building: Alberto was there, standing outside his limo.

  “Hey, Alberto!” I smiled. “What’s going on?”

  “Madame asked me to bring you something,” he said as he opened the back door of the limo. And that’s when Simon stepped out of the car, holding a single red rose.

  “Oh, shit,” I said, taking two steps back that almost put me in the path of a killer taxi rushing down the street.

  “Would you talk to me, please?” Simon said with puppy eyes.

  I stood there for a second, looking at Simon, and then at Alberto, who smiled and stepped back into the car, either to give us privacy or to keep me from yelling at him for bringing Simon to my doorstep. But I wasn’t in the mood to yell, and—for once—I was unable to talk.

  “Please,” begged Simon.

  How could I say no? When a man of few words like him wants to talk, it’s wise to listen, even if it’s just to hear him say goodbye. I didn’t want to be like one of those sad lovers that parted without even giving each other a final kiss.

  We walked into my building in complete silence, climbed the three flights of stairs, entered my apartment, and sat on my couch—but no measurements were taken this time. I could tell that he was scared, but he dared grabbing my hand and spoke.

  “I need to explain…”

  “Yep, you need to.” I smiled.

  “B, I didn’t want to insult you. I just…I’m such an idiot…”

  He paused, and his eyes welled up with tears.

  “I don’t know…I…I just couldn’t believe that someone like you could care about someone like me.”

  I couldn’t say a word. In one sentence, he’d described the way I felt about him.

  “I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to see me again, but I just didn’t want you to leave thinking that I was that kind of guy.”

  I took a deep breath. “And I didn’t want you to think that I was that kind of girl,” I answered.

  We looked into each other’s eyes and smiled.

  “Could we start from scratch?” he asked.

  I nodded, and he extended his hand in a formal handshake: “Hi, my name is Simon,” he said, and smiled.

  I accepted his hand and replied, “Nice to meet you. My name is Beauty.”

  CHAPTER 36

  According to my friend Gaston, nothing compares to the sensation of being naked in public. I wouldn’t call him a nudist, but he is definitely the kind of guy who would only go to the beach if he could walk around in the buff.

  He says that the only thing more exciting than being naked in front of other people is getting up naked and walking up to other naked people at the beach to talk about the weather, the stock market, anything but the fact that they’re all nude. He says that that’s his biggest thrill.

  I’m not sure if I can top off Gaston’s adventures, but I can tell you that seeing pictures of yourself naked on the walls of a gallery is not chopped liver either. And seeing them sell like hotcakes is pretty exciting too.

  The pictures that Simon took of me were exhibited at an art gallery in Chelsea. Everybody and his mother was there: the artsy people, the fashion people, and more press than at a celebrity divorce trial.

  Simon is not much of a talker, but I know that it was an important night for him. After all these years taking fashion shots of gorgeous models, he was taking a risk, but he felt that he was back on the track of his subway pictures: following his intuition and breaking new ground. I’ve heard that art is “making the invisible visible.” If that is true, that’s what he did with my beauty. He made it visible to me and to everybody else.


  There were a lot of old and new friends at the gallery: Lillian, Mary Pringle, Myrna, Lorre, the “copettes”—Carol and Elaine. I even asked Madame to invite my former customers too. Every single one of them had helped to pave the road to this significant moment, so I wanted everyone there.

  The only person I didn’t invite was Bonnie. I didn’t hate her anymore, but if she couldn’t feel happy for me—and, guaranteed, she won’-t—what’s the point of having her around? I wish her the best. May she find it far away from me.

  It’s been six months since I met Simon, and things had changed a lot for me, and for almost everyone around me. Lillian got engaged to Aureliano, a short and cute guy from Ecuador who doesn’t look at all like the type of man that she’s been after all these years. He was a teacher, so he has no BMW convertible, and no house in the Hamptons, but I’d never seen Lillian so happy.

  Myrna started her own comfort-providing service for Plus Size Mamas. She showed up in a Mercedes with her husband, who looks a lot like Eddie Murphy. I understand that they’re picking a lot of former customers from Madame.

  Lord Arnfield looked like he had aged about a million years in the last six months. He’s so cute! I tried to explain to him that I wasn’t a working girl anymore, but he kept following me around, looking at my feet, and salivating.

  Guido came with his wife. She straightened all the pictures on the walls, and that kept her busy while Guido was trying to hit on Elaine and Carol.

  Elaine and Carol were living together now. Either Carol was a lesbian and she didn’t know it, or Elaine talked her into it. The truth is that Elaine could talk a fire hydrant into turning lesbian. Five more minutes with her and who knows where I would be now. Good for her—I wish I had that power.

  Richard Weber had a gorgeous girlfriend who agonized the whole night, while he talked and flirted with every woman in the room. She chased him around like a mother after a two-year-old. She has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.