by Theresa Alan
Maybe because Mom never kept any kind of snacks in the house—even low-fat pretzels or fresh fruit—potato chips and candy bars became my forbidden fruit. While other teenagers snuck alcohol in an effort at rebellion, I snuck junk food. The pounds added up slowly over the years, but I wore such baggie clothes, it took me awhile to notice. One day I noticed an unfortunate sprawl of my thigh and realized that I was not comfortable moving in my body (not that I ever had been). I thought, I’ve become a disgusting fat pig, how did this happen? So I’d starve myself in penance, then binge in an oh-screw-it-I’ll-just-be-fat moment of frustration.
I knew my body disappointed my mother, and I couldn’t blame her, it disappointed me, and no matter what I did, it always would. I learned that I would never be good enough from the first magazine I ever read with tips on how to find the right bathing suit to cover our “flaws”: short waist, long waist, a bust that’s too large or too small (they never say there is a size that’s just right because this isn’t Goldilock’s porridge; when it comes to women’s bodies, there are no just rights, just flaws and imperfections that need to be covered and hidden). I learned that my pores would never be small enough, my clothes would never be fashionable enough, my hair would never be shiny enough, and my house would never be homey enough. Somehow, I also managed to learn that stuff like that wouldn’t make me happy. It would, however, make seeing my mother for Christmas considerably less stressful.
There wasn’t much I could do about it now. An alcoholic or a drug addict can get wasted behind locked doors and still make it into the office or onto the movie set the next day. Being overweight meant I advertised my addiction every moment of every day. I publicized my sorrow in every angry stretch mark, in the ungainly, rolling heft of me that couldn’t be covered or hidden away.
AVERY
Widows and Orphans
Sunday morning, I awoke to a day that was gray and cold and as listless as I felt. I had to shake my mood. I’d been in a funk since I’d seen Dan’s face smiling back at me from the computer screen earlier in the week.
I lit aromatherapy candles and tried to do some yoga, but I just couldn’t concentrate.
I pulled my journal out from beneath my mattress, sat at the kitchen table, and waited for the words to come. Usually, struggling to get my thoughts on paper had a cathartic effect, but I couldn’t even begin to describe why I felt so hurt. I grabbed the phone from the end table and called Les.
“Hello?”
“Hey, you. How’s your weekend going?” I asked.
“Pretty uneventful. I squeezed a workout in yesterday, but otherwise I’ve pretty much been one with the couch all weekend. I just can’t seem to get motivated. How about you? You sound a little glum. Is it because of Dan? Are you disappointed?”
“I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in Dan. I thought he and Lydia had such a great marriage. I mean she’s pregnant with his child, and instead of Dan being supportive, he decides he’s not getting enough attention. It’s just so sad.” I close my eyes, trying to blink away the tears. “I really thought I had something real with Art. We didn’t even know what the other looked like; it was a relationship based purely on the fact that we seemed to really get each other. It seemed substantive and real. But maybe what makes something romantic are the details you don’t know, the imperfections you aren’t yet aware of or can overlook. In the missing details, you fill in your own, making him into what you want him to be.”
“What about in When Harry Met Sally? There, the only obstacle was that they didn’t realize they were meant to be together. They knew all of each others’ faults and it wasn’t until they were ready to see just how well they fit together that they were able to start living happily ever after.”
“Or maybe they just got sick of dating and settled for each other.”
“Maybe that’s what true love is: Giving up your illusions and loving the reality of an imperfect person.”
“I guess. It just doesn’t quite seem as exciting.”
“That’s why it’s so hard. Exciting takes no work whatsoever; it just carries you along. A serious relationship, one that keeps getting deeper and better, that’s hard work.”
The next morning, it took me a long time to drag myself out of bed. I went through the motions of showering and dressing and drove to the office on automatic pilot. I walked past the cubicles padded like the walls in an asylum, along the institutional gray carpet. The hum of the computers, the click of fingers tapping at the keyboards, the sound of voices on the phone fused with artificial enthusiasm, into my tiny office where I spent most of my waking hours.
I sat down, turned on my computer, and went to the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, ready to dutifully poison myself to be a productive employee.
I lingered in the kitchen, drinking my coffee until I was finished. I put the mug in the dishwasher. I was too restless to go back to my office, and I couldn’t exactly hang out in the kitchen all day. I went to Rette’s office instead.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m just great. Eleanore just yelled at me for half an hour about widows and orphans.”
“Which are?”
“Something no one but a fascist editor would care about. They’re when you have a column that begins with the last line of a paragraph or when you end a paragraph with a small word. We get rid of them to make copy look better, so I missed a paragraph that ended with a four-letter word when Eleanore has already told me never to end with anything fewer than five letters. Then, to help my day get even better, I got five e-mails in the last hour from marketing people who have copy for me to edit. They all mark their e-mails highest priority, with the subject line ‘Due today’ as if it’s my fault they waited till past their deadline to finish it and as if every other marketing person didn’t also just send me a high-priority e-mail. And do you think people thank me for changing their Illicit to Elicit? No, they don’t thank me for what I catch, they just blame me for what I miss. God forbid I don’t catch everything. I’m the fall guy for every mistake. I’ve made just a stellar career choice.”
“You like writing, don’t you? Maybe you could work in the marketing department writing releases and ad copy.”
“Yeah, but then I’d have to deal with Glenn. Eleanore’s a monster, but at least she’s a good editor. Glenn is shockingly talentless. You can deal with people who have egos all out of proportion to their talent, but I can’t. I do not get paid enough to put up with any of this.”
“I know. It’s almost Christmas. I need time off, not overtime. And it’s not helping that your sister is not pulling her weight on the Expert project. I mean I know she’s your sister and all, but I’m doing maybe ninety percent of the work and I just, gosh, I mean I need more help.”
“She’s probably too busy with Sharon’s stuff.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’s helping Sharon with the budget and some other stuff so she can take over for Sharon while she’s on maternity leave.”
I looked at her blankly for too long a moment. “Really. I didn’t realize she was going for that position. I wouldn’t think she’d want a more stressful job.”
“She doesn’t. She wants more money.”
“Don’t we all.” I tried without much success to keep my tone light. “Well, I guess I should probably get back to work.”
“See ya.”
I made my way unsteadily to the women’s bathroom and locked myself in a stall. I leaned against the stall wall, hugging myself, starring at the gray tile floor until the tears blurred my view.
Stop it! I told myself. You have too much work to take time out to have a breakdown.
This was my fault. I stupidly thought that my hard work would be rewarded even though none of my efforts had been rewarded in the past. Sharon and I had started working at McKenna at the same time. Even though I had a lot more people skills than Sharon did, she’d moved up the ladder faster. She knew how to brag about her hard work. Every bit of work she di
d she played up to seem like she was a workaholic who accomplished an amazing number of important tasks for the company. She knew what it took to succeed, while I waited quietly and patiently for someone to notice my work and reward me for it.
I dried my tears. It wasn’t too late. The announcement hadn’t been made yet; it wasn’t official. Even if I didn’t get Sharon’s job, I needed to let the higher-ups know I was ready to take on more challenges.
I emerged from the stall, thankful that no one else was in the bathroom. I patted my eyes dry, but I couldn’t get rid of the telltale red eyes. All I could do was hope no one saw me and ask what was wrong. If they did, I knew I’d burst into tears again.
I went back to my office. It was almost nine and Jen still wasn’t in, and I was grateful. I took a few deep breaths and composed an e-mail to Sharon.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Hi Sharon, I wondered if you would have some time available this week so you and I could meet. I’m interested in seeing if there are any additional challenges I can take on at McKenna, and I’d love your input on any ways I could enhance my skills while benefiting the company.
Thanks,
Avery
I waited eagerly all afternoon for her response. She never wrote back.
Holiday “Cheer”
What I wanted to do when I got home from work was hide under the covers and never come out. Unfortunately, I had to go to the company office party. I thought about skipping it, but this was a prime opportunity to rub elbows with the bigwigs. I was going to network and befriend and suck up—whatever I needed to do. I was going to try anyway.
At least I had Les to go with as my “date.”
“Avery, my god, you’re gorgeous,” he said when I opened the door to let him in. “I mean you’re always gorgeous, but you really look beautiful tonight.”
“Thanks, Les.” I had bought the dress almost a year ago during the post-holiday clearance sales, and I hadn’t had an opportunity to wear it until tonight. It wasn’t the typical sort of thing for me to buy; it was much too risqué, much too Halle-Berry-goes-to-the-Oscars. It was a gold silk dress, a color that matched well with my dark blond hair; sheer gold-colored fabric lined the scooped neck and plunging back like a thin, translucent scarf. The dress didn’t reveal cleavage but threatened to do so. It did show off my neck and back, and the silky fabric was very sensual and might have made me horny if I hadn’t been so damned depressed. “You mind if we stick around here for a little bit? I’d like to finish my glass of wine before we leave.”
“Is something wrong? Is the Dan thing still bothering you?”
“Les, there have just been so many things disappointing me lately, I hardly know where to begin. Let’s just say my coworkers are the last people on earth I want to spend the evening with. Do you want a glass of wine?”
“I’m good.”
While I finished my wine I told him about the Jen/ Sharon situation. He said all the right things about how I still had a good chance of getting that job or something even better, but I was in a bad mood and nothing anyone could say would get me out of it.
When we got to the banquet room of the hotel, Mary came up to Les and me to greet us.
“Here are your drink tickets,” she announced, handing us each two. Then, in a conspiratorial whisper she said, “Let me know if you need any more. I had them print up a couple hundred extra!”
Before I could even thank her, she was moving on to the next guests.
“Can I get you a drink?” Les asked.
“Yes. Please. Chablis.”
With Les waiting in line, I was by myself, feeling awkward and alone in a group of people I saw everyday. I looked around for someone to talk to and spotted Jim from sales crying in the corner. He gripped his drink close to his heart, like rosary beads he was praying over. I crossed the room to meet him.
“Jim, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My wife left me. She took everything. All my money, my stereo, my computer, my TV, my VCR, my microwave, most of my clothes.”
I hadn’t even known Jim was married, let alone long enough to have gotten a divorce. Then he said, “I don’t even know where she is, whether she’s still in the States or if she went back to the Philippines,” and I remembered our conversation over the coffee maker a few months earlier when he’d told me about his mail-order bride. As his tears started with a renewed vigor, I patted Jim on the shoulders and told him the usual stuff about how everything would be all right. I did feel bad for him. Part of me, however, wanted to high-five the bride and tell her, “You go, girl!”
After a few minutes, I saw Rette making a “come over here” gesture to me from across the room. She looked worried. Anyway, I was happy to have an excuse to get away from Jim. I parted ways as politely as I could and made my way through the crowd.
“What’s going on?” I asked Rette when I reached her table.
“It’s Jen. She just slammed two drinks in a row, and I think she’d been drinking before she came. She can hold her liquor pretty well, but I think we need to get her out of here before she does something she’s going to regret. Something that we’re going to regret, for that matter.”
“Is she upset about something?”
“She’d planned on coming here with Tom, but then he gave her some excuse about not wanting to go public with the whole interoffice romance thing, and she wasn’t sure if she should ask Mike in case that would mess things up with Tom, as if that relationship wasn’t already in shambles, but . . .”
I waited for Rette to continue, but when I looked to see what she was looking at, I understood why she shut up so quickly. Jen was walking toward us. She looked beautiful in a backless black dress. Her red hair was swept up in a dramatic, complicated style. She was a little unsteady, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the preposterously high heels or from having a drink or five too many. I was so focused on Jen, it took me a moment to notice someone was walking beside her. I caught my breath, unable to move.
“Hey girls, look who’s here,” Jen said, slurring her words. “Dan, I don’ think you’ve met my sister, Rette, yet. She started workin’ in our editorial department a couple’mosago. And you remember Avery. Of course, you may know her better as Dancinfool.”
Dan looked confused, then nervous.
“Rette, would you mind coming with me for a second?” Jen said.
Rette looked at me, slightly panicked. I was too stunned to send out a “Please don’t go!” signal, and she and Jen left Dan and me alone. At that moment, I hated Jen. Why had I ever confided in her?
“I think I missed something,” Dan said with a forced laugh. “I’m confused.”
All of my feelings of hurt and disappointment turned into anger. “I’m Dancinfool, Dan. I’m the one who’s been e-mailing you these last few months. When you sent your picture, and we learned who you were,” my voice faltered, “we wanted to know just how far you’d take it—we were looking out for Lydia—so we sent Rette in my place.”
“You didn’t say anything to Lydia, did you?”
What a weasel. “No, Dan.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t mean to cheat on her. It got out of hand. I would get lonely sometimes when she was on the road, and I just wanted someone to talk to.”
My face grew hot with anger. I knew that Lydia hadn’t been traveling as much in the past three months since Dan and I had started e-mailing each other, but even if she had—what kind of excuse was that?
“I mean nobody got hurt, right?” Dan’s childish whine grated my nerves.
“No, Dan, somebody did get hurt. When I responded to a stranger’s personal ad, I knew that I had to be careful, but somehow, I don’t know, you managed to hurt me anyway. Watching you lie to your wife, watching you lie to me . . . God, when I think about how many personal things I told you about myself, I mean, it’s just humiliating. I know you think these past few months have been harml
ess fun, but I think your behavior has been vile.”
I strode off in a fury. I didn’t know whether I felt like crying or screaming. I nearly knocked Les over I was so blind with rage.
“God, Les, I’m so sorry.”
“I’m fine. Are you okay?”
I straightened up and saw that Tom was standing next to Les.
“I—not really, I just bumped into Dan.” I was just about to say that I was going to call it a night when Jen stumbled drunkenly toward us.
“You told him, didn’ you?” Jen said to Les. She turned to Tom. “Tha’s why you haven’ called, isn’ it? Les told you we slept together, but it was before you and I were goin’ out. I was drunk, I was going through a rough time . . .”
“You slept with Les?” Tom said.
“You slept with Jen?” I said to Les.
“Are you a nymphomaniac or something?” Tom asked. “Is there anyone you won’t sleep with?”
At once, I was annoyed with Les, sad for Jen, and mad at Tom.
Then Jen said, much too loudly, “I’m not a nymphomaniac!” Then she ran crying into the bathroom. I ran after her.
Mary from marketing was in the bathroom touching up her makeup. Jen and I stumbled past her. Jen pushed open a stall door and vomited into the toilet. I pushed my way in after her, closing the door behind me.
“It’s okay, Jen,” I said.
“No, it’s not okay, I really like Tom and I blew it.”
“No, Jen, you don’t really like him. If you did, you wouldn’t be dating Mike. Obviously neither of them is right for you.”
“I don’ wanna be alone. I’ve never been alone before.”
“You’re a strong woman; you’re going to be fine. Hang on a second.” I opened the stall door and peeked out. I caught Mary looking directly at me. “Would you mind leaving us alone?” I asked nicely.