Kindred Spirits: A Romantic Comedy About Love, Life, and the Afterlife . . .

by Whitney Dineen

  Still perplexed, I ask, “What am I doing with one then? I’m only thirty-four.”

  He says that by the atypical location of my bunion, he can deduce that I have the tendency to walk on the outsides of my feet. He explains that while some people walk on the insides of their feet, giving them a knock-kneed appearance, others, like myself, rotate their feet outward, causing a waddle, if you will. I have a look of horror on my face when he says the word “waddle.” I have never been accused of such a disgusting thing in my life. But before I can form a coherent response, he continues, “The extra . . . weight (and I’m sure he pauses to emphasize the word) that the outside of the foot is forced to endure by walking that way eventually causes it to grow an extra padding to help support the . . . load.” Am I wrong or does he pause again when he says that word?

  Playing dumb, I ask, “And I’m getting one so young, why?”

  Clearing his throat, Dr. Foster answers, “Well, a lot of it has to do with genetics and the structure of your foot.” Then adds, “And a lot of it has to do with the extra weight (pause and meaningful look) you’re placing on it.”

  I am so aghast by this whole conversation that I finally confess, “I have just lost forty pounds.” Which is a total lie by the way. In actuality I have just gained two. But I simply can’t bear the humiliation of him calling me fat, or what I perceive as him calling me fat.

  The doctor smiles and declares my previous poundage did not help the inflammation at all and announces it may have contributed to my bunion. He checks his chart and declares, “I see you’re a hundred and seventy pounds. At one hundred and fifty, you should be feeling a lot better.”

  “But I’m five-eleven,” I explain.

  “Yes?”

  “I’m big boned!”

  He looks at me closely and says, “Actually, you’re not.” Picking up my wrist, he concludes, “I would say medium, which means one hundred and fifty pounds would be ideal.” Of course the photo of the emaciated woman on his desk should have tipped me off as to what this guy considers ideal. She is wearing a swimsuit with no boobs or butt to fill it out and painfully sharp collar bones. She bears a striking resemblance to an prison camp survivor.

  All I can think is that I haven’t been one-hundred-and fifty-pounds since high school. There is simply no way I can lose twenty pounds. I want to tell him he has no idea how much I deprive myself to weigh one seventy. In order to actually lose weight, I’d only be able to ingest rice cakes and Metamucil. But I don’t say this because he’d think I’m weak and unmotivated and he’d be right, too. Plus, I just bragged that I lost a record forty pounds, so he already assumes I am capable of losing weight, which of course would be the truth if it weren’t such an out-and-out lie.

  The doctor writes a prescription for a special shoe insert that will help tip my foot into the correct walking position and then leaves, giving me privacy to cover my naked, misshapen appendage. As I put my sock back on I decide I am not going to go on a diet. I’m happy or happyish with the way I look and that’s all there is to it. When I leave the room, Dr. Foster tells me to come back in two months so he can recheck my bunion. In my head I respond, “Yeah right, buddy. Take a good look, this is the last time you’re ever going to see me or my growth.” I plan on wearing my shoe insert and never again speaking of my hideous deformity.

  The true cruelty of this whole bunion fiasco is that I am the one in my family with pretty feet. I have three sisters and we are all a year apart. Tell me that doesn’t make for a crazy upbringing. At any rate, the year we were all in high school at the same time, my sisters and I were sitting on my bed having a nice familial chat, which was a rare occurrence as I’m sure you know girls that age are abominable as a whole. But put them under the same roof fighting over bathroom time, make-up, and let’s not forget the all-important telephone. It was an ungodly ordeal to say the least.

  My sisters, to my undying disgust, are all gorgeous and talented. Renée, the oldest one of the group is the unparalleled beauty of the family. Lest you think I’m exaggerating and she’s not really all that and a bag of chips, let me ask if the name Renée Finnegan means anything to you. Yes, that’s right, “The” Renée Finnegan, the gorgeous Midwestern girl that won the coveted Cover Girl contract when she was only seventeen, fresh out of high school. Try surviving two whole years at Pipsy High with people asking, “You’re Renée’s sister? Really?” The tone of incredulity was more than I could bear.

  Next is Ginger. She’s the brain. But please, before you picture an unfortunate looking nerd with braces and braids, I should tell you that she is only marginally less gorgeous than Renée. She was also the recipient of a Rhodes scholarship, which funded her degree in the history of renaissance art, which she acquired at Oxford. Yes, Oxford, not the shoes, not the cloth, but the actual university in England.

  The youngest of our quartet is Muffy, born Margaret Fay, but abbreviated to Muffy when at the tender age of two she couldn’t pronounce Margaret Fay and began referring to herself as one might a forty-two-year-old socialite. Muffy is the jock. She plays tennis and even enjoyed a run on the pro-circuit before a knee injury forced her to retire. She did, however, play Wimbledon three years in a row and, while she never actually won, the experience allows her to start sentences with, “Yes, well, when I played Wimbledon . . .” And make pronouncements like, “There’s nothing like the courts at Wimbledon in the fall.” Muffy is now the tennis pro at The Langley Country Club. Her husband Tom is the men’s tennis pro, insuring they are the tannest, most fit couple on the entire planet. Their perfection is enough to make you barf.

  I am the third child in my family, christened Miriam May Finnegan which against my express consent got shortened to Mimi. For years I demanded, “It’s Miriam, call me Miriam!” No one listened, as is the way in my family.

  While sitting on my white quilted bedspread from JCPenneys, my sisters, in a moment of domestic harmony, decided we were all quite extraordinary. Renée was deemed the beautiful one, Ginger, the smart one, and Muffy, the athletic one. With those proclamations made, they appeared to be ready to switch topics when I demanded to know, “What am I?”

  It’s not that my sisters didn’t love me. I don’t think they thought I was troll-like or stupid, it’s just compared to them, I didn’t have any quality that outshone any one of theirs. So after much thoughtful consideration and examination, like a prized heifer at the state fair Renée announced, “You have the prettiest feet.” Ginger and Muffy readily agreed.

  Listen, I know you’re thinking “prettiest feet” isn’t something I should brag about. But in my family, I would have been thrilled to have the prettiest anything, and I am. They could have just as easily said I had the most blackheads, or the worst split ends. But they didn’t, they awarded me prettiest feet and I was proud of it. Until now. Now I have a bunion.

  As I sit in front of my car in front of the Chesterton Medical Center, I become undone by the horror of having lost my identity in my family. “Who will I be now?” I wonder. Oh wait, I know, I’ll be the spinster, or the one without naturally blonde hair, my true color hovering somewhere between bacon grease and baby poop. Hey wait, I know, I’ll be the one who needs to lose twenty pounds!

  I turn on the ignition in my Honda and hop on the freeway heading for the Mercer Street exit. Yet somehow, I miss my turnoff and I’ve hit Randolph before I know it. With a will of its own, my car takes the exit and drives itself to the Burger City a half mile down the road. I demand, “What did you do that for? This is no way to lose twenty pounds.” Not that I had agreed to do any such thing. But, I wasn’t looking to gain weight either.

  Typically, my car doesn’t answer back, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. It simply makes its wishes known by transporting me to destinations of its choosing: Burger City, The Yummy Freeze, Dairy Queen, Pizza Hut. I’ve actually thought about trading it in, in hopes of upgrading to a car that likes to go to the gym and health food stores. But, no, this is my car and as a faithful person
by nature, I realize I should do what it’s telling me.

  As the window automatically lowers and the car accelerates to the take-out speaker, I hear the disembodied voice of a teenager say, “Welcome to Burger City. What can I get you today?”

  Someone, who is surely not me, answers, “I’d like a double cheeseburger with grilled onions, two orders of fries and a root beer, large.”

  He asks, “Will that be all?”

  Still not sure who’s doing the answering, I hear someone sounding remarkably like me say, “I’d like an extra bun, too.”

  “What do you mean an extra bun?” He squeaks. “You mean with no burger on it or anything?”

  “That’s right.” He informs me that he’ll have to charge me for a whole other burger even though I just want the bun. I tell him that’s no problem and agree to pay the dollar seventy-five for it. I’m not sure what causes me to order the extra bread but I think it boils down to my need for carbohydrates. I have either been on The South Beach Diet or Atkins for the better part of two years and I’ve become desperate for empty calorie, high glycemic index white bread.

  You may be wondering how I could have been high protein dieting for two years and still need to lose twenty pounds. The truth is that I cheat, a lot. For two weeks I jump start the diet with the serious deprivation they encourage and then by week three when you’re allowed to start slowly adding carbs back into your life, I become the wildebeest of cheaters. They suggest you start with an apple or a quarter of a baked sweet potato. I start with an apple pie and three orders of french fries. I have been losing and gaining the same thirteen pounds for the last twenty-four months.

  As soon as my food arrives, I pull over on a side street and inhale the heavenly aroma of danger. The fries call to me, the double cheeseburger begs to be devoured in two bites, but the bun screams loudest, “I have no redeeming nutritional value at all!” So I start with it. And it’s pure pleasure. Soft and white, clean and bright . . . it looks at me and sings, “You look happy to meet me.” But wait, this isn’t Edelweiss, this is a hamburger bun.

  After the bun, I eat a bag of fries, then the burger, then the other bag of fries, all the while slurping down my non-diet root beer. My tummy is cheering me on, “You go, girl! That’s right, keep it coming . . . mmm hmm . . . faster . . . more.” From the floor boards I hear a small squeak, “Stop, you’re killing me!” It’s my bunion. I decide its voice isn’t nearly as powerful as my stomach’s. While I’m masticating away I start to think about the word bunion. It’s kind of like bun and onion. B-U-N-I-O-N. That’s when I notice I’ve just eaten a bun and a burger with onion. I start to feel nauseated. If you squish the words together, I’ve just eaten a bunion. Oh, no. I think that this may have possibly put me off Burger City forever.

  I have a long history of going off my food for various and sundry reasons. For instance in high school, Robby Blinken had the worst case of acne I’d ever seen. It was so bad that his whole face looked like an open, inflamed sore. I felt really sorry for him too because he was shy and awkward to begin with. Having bad skin did nothing for his popularity. Then one day, Mike Pinker shouts across algebra to Robby, “Hey, pizza face, that’s lots of pepperoni you’ve got!”

  I cringed in disgust, looked over at poor Robby whose face turned an even brighter shade of red due to the public humiliation and bam, I was off pizza for a whole year. And pizza was one of my favorite foods too. It’s just that every time I looked at it or smelled it, I thought about Robby’s complexion and there was no going back.

  Then there was the time I went off onions in college. A girl in my dorm was blind in one eye and there was this white kind of film covering her iris. Whenever I talked to her, I couldn’t help but stare right into the blind eye. I was drawn to it by a strange magnetic pull. Then one day it hits me, Ellen’s pupil looks like a small piece of onion. I went off onions for three years.

  Now at thirty-four, years since I’ve had a food repulsion, I realize that after my first bun in months I may have gone off them. The onions aren’t such a loss as I already have a history there, but buns? I love buns!

  Around the second bag of fries, I unbutton my jeans to let my stomach pop out of its confines. Sitting in my red Honda with my belly hanging out, sick at the thought that I just ate a bunion, I do what any reasonable person would do. I drive to the strip mall where the Weight Watchers sign flashes encouraging subliminal cheers to the masses. “Be thin, we’ll help!” “We love you!” “You can do it, you can do it . . .”

  So like the little engine that could, I squeeze into a compact spot and walk through the front door before I can come out of my trance. Twelve dollars later, I’ve received an information package and a weigh-in book. Marge, my group leader, takes me in the back to weigh me. “One seventy-two,” she declares. I want to tell her I was just one seventy at the doctor’s office but then I remember the bunion I just ate. Marge continues, “You know, you are right inside the acceptable weight for your height. Are you sure you want to lose twenty pounds?”

  I’m sure. After all, I’m single with a bunion. It feels like it’s time for some drastic measures. As I have shown up in between meeting times, Marge gives me the basics of the Weight Watchers program and encourages me to come to at least one meeting a week. She also suggests I get weighed at the same time every week as the weight of the human body can vacillate up to six pounds during a twenty-four-hour period. “Consistency of weigh-in times,” she claims, “is the answer.” I briefly wonder if Doctor Foster would have told me to lose weight if I was only one hundred and sixty-four pounds.

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  She Sins at Midnight

  Chapter 1

  Lila Montgomery sat at her desk dreaming about the two things that always brought her thoughts into sharper focus. Namely, piping hot carbs and soft melting fat. She drooled at the thought of grilled cheese on white bread, so perfectly gooey that the first bite would immediately transport her back to the innocent days of childhood. Back to a time before she gave a fig if the button on her size twelve skinny white jeans gave way and inadvertently took someone’s eye out. Of course, she wasn’t currently in her white jeans, so there was no imminent risk of rendering an unsuspecting co-worker blind.

  Absently, Lila patted the sleeve of her ever-so-stylish and sleek Armani suit. She always paired the elegant ensemble with the same white silk blouse. The neckline plunged so low it looked like her girls were trying to escape. That particular outfit was worn when she was feeling “that time of the monthish,” or in a word, bloated. Even though the suit cost an entire paycheck, it was more than worth it as it covered a multitude of sins. And, as Lila knew only too well, sins should always be covered, kept in the closet, or safely locked in one’s attic.

  The day she bought the blouse, Lila eyed her cleavage and laughingly declared, “With everyone’s eyes trained on ‘Team Montgomery,’ my big butt and poochy tummy are the last things that this skinny crazed town will notice.”

  Her friend Cynthia laughed, “Lila Montgomery, you’re gorgeous! I say good for you that you’re not a carrot stick away from certain death.”

  Lila raised an eyebrow, “Says the size two woman in front of me.”

  Cynthia interrupted, “Who is nearly nine inches shorter than you are.”

  Lila’s statuesque build of 5’9" and a size twelve would have been coveted by the majority of women in the country. But in La La Land it was deemed overweight, especially if you worked in “The Industry.” They (those alien creatures in the film business who held American women’s self-esteem in their grubby little hands) considered anything above a size four an emergency candidate for gastric bypass. If one more metro-sexual Hollywood type told Lila what a pretty face she had, she was going to smile graciously and kick the back-handed compliment giver right in the balls. Why didn’t these men understand that “you have such a pretty face” isn’t a compliment? Just because they don’t speak the rest of the thought out loud, too bad about the rest of you . . . d
oesn’t mean that it goes unheard.

  Lila moved to Los Angeles right after college in hopes of becoming the next Scarlett Johansson. Getting the assistant’s job at The Amalgamated Artists Agency was her first step in accomplishing that dream. Amalgamated, or the Triple A, as it was referred to by Hollywood insiders, was THE talent agency in Tinseltown. Lila’s plan had been to get her foot in the door of the posh establishment, casually announce that she graduated at the top of her class as a theater major, then POW, steal all of Scarlett’s work.

  That outcome didn’t occur for a variety of reasons, the first being that even at her skinniest, Lila was ordered to lose ten pounds, stat! In Hollywood’s rather minuscule attention span for young starlets (and as she was twenty-two at the time) she was clearly running out of time. After all, thousands of brand spanking new eighteen-year-olds got off the bus everyday with the same hopes and dreams of stardom.

  Sadly, the task of losing an unnecessary ten pounds was an impossibility as Lila’s love affair with the taboo carbs and seductive fats had already manifested in all its glory. Not to mention, she was told this back when a size six was deemed respectable. Now that the goal was to achieve a size zero or two, she realized she’d have to be dead for eighteen months before she had decomposed to the current standard of fashion. Letting out a depressed laugh, she imagined her first movie review would read, “Freshly dug up for the role, Lila Montgomery wows them as the heroine of Night of the Living Dead XXII!”

  The second, more dominant reason stardom wasn’t in her future, was that Lila had a deep-seated aversion to trading sexual favors for career advancement. She was aware that not all successful actresses got their start between the sheets (take Meryl Streep, for instance), but from what she witnessed first hand at the Triple A, quite a lot did. The sad truth was that when you weighed the odds of being discovered by virtue of your talent against your willingness to put out, there really was no contest. Putting out was the way to go.