In the meantime, your mother is inexplicably losing weight. She’s so sad all the time. So what do you do? You take her out to eat. Eating is always fun, right? It’s what you’ve always done, you and Mama. You’re afraid that her melancholy is going to kill her. You try so hard, make a fine time of it, going to your old favorites—Klondike Kate’s, Deer Park, Margherita’s for pizza . . . and then, of course, Wendy’s, KFC, Dairy Queen.
Your father visits you from California—he hasn’t seen you for three years, because he has a new family—and is visibly shaken at how big you’ve become. He offers to pay for a gastric bypass. You tell him to fuck off (even though now you wish you’d taken him up on it). He’s never seen you angry; you’ve always been such a sweet girl.
But even though you’ve gone from fat to obese, you keep eating. You know what? You’re still pretty. You still have friends, kind of. You talk on the phone with Marley and Georgia; you even spend a weekend on the Jersey Shore with them, laughing, eating, gossiping, eating some more. Eating healthy food, even. You save the real crap for home. You have a couple friends from college, a couple of not-bad coworkers—Laura, your stick-insect boss, never mentions your weight but looks at you with kind, sad eyes. Erin, who really deserves a better boyfriend, and loves venting to you. Carlos, the superstar who’s about to be poached by Delaware’s senior senator, even flirts with you, though he has a girlfriend.
Then your father dies—a heart attack! He wasn’t even fat! Yes, it can happen to skinny people, too, Other Emerson. You are swamped with grief—you loved your daddy, even if he couldn’t really be bothered to see you more often. You also have to live with the fact that the last time you saw him, ugly things were said. That he was horrified by your appearance. That he wanted you surgically altered. That you loved him, but he didn’t love you enough to bring you out west for his court-granted summertime custody. He leaves you a chunk of his life insurance. At least he remembered you enough to put you in his will.
So you eat more, Other Emerson. You start calling out sick, because let’s face it—you are sick. You eat to the point of vomiting, you have stomach pains all night, you’re constipated and have gallbladder attacks and still you eat fried seafood with french fries. You’re no longer “just” obese; you’re morbidly obese. Such a nice phrase, isn’t it? You use up all your sick time, and your boss’s eyes aren’t so kind anymore. Carlos has left for Washington and Erin married her loser boyfriend. (You went to the wedding, and it was hell.) She doesn’t want to go out for drinks anymore, and your two college friends have moved away.
You get bigger and bigger and bigger.
And then your mom is diagnosed with pancreatic cancer—those back pains weren’t muscle spasms after all, like her stupid doctor said. His advice had been to lose weight. That wouldn’t cure CANCER, would it, Doc? Three months later, your mother, your favorite person on earth, the only one who truly understood you, is dead. You inherit all the rest of Grampy’s money, which Mama had barely touched. Good. That evil Grampy owed you.
You quit your job. You grieve. You eat. You diet. You binge. You diet harder. You fall off the wagon. You climb back on. You leap off the wagon. You purge. You go on phentermine and lose a hundred pounds. You start to feel hopeful and happy. Your heart does tend to convulse and flutter, since phentermine is essentially speed. So what? You take those chances! But when you end up in the ER because of chest pain, your doctor takes you off the wonder drug.
You cry. You plead. You beg. You don’t care that your father died of a heart attack—you want your drug! Your evil doctor doesn’t give in. “You can do this,” she says. “The drug was meant to be a boost, not a lifestyle.” The stupid sow. She herself could lose a few pounds, so what the hell does she know?
On the drive home from that appointment, you stop at Chick-fil-A and order two Spicy Deluxe sandwiches (540 calories each) with extra Polynesian sauce (110 calories each × 4), waffle fries (360 calories), superfood side (broccoli, 190 calories . . . so healthy) and a vanilla shake (500 calories). It’s two o’clock in the afternoon. YOU’VE ALREADY HAD LUNCH; but as you sit in the parking lot away from the other cars, stuffing your fat face full of fat-filled food, you feel calm for the first time in days. Weeks, maybe.
Food. Your old friend.
Within eight weeks, you’ve gained back the hundred pounds you lost. You gain some more. You diet. You purge. You take laxatives. You order online phentermine that doesn’t work as well as the real stuff. You eat more. You eat less. No matter what, the weight is not coming off. A pound here or four pounds there means nothing when you can gain ten pounds in a week.
You get another job, one for which you are overqualified, but it’s okay! This will help you lose weight: the schedule, the social interaction, the good eating modeled by some of the workers there. Well, a few of the workers. Has anyone noticed Americans don’t eat that well?
Then you meet a guy who thinks you’re beautiful. He loves nothing more than watching you eat. He feeds you. He brings you food. He loves your growing body.
You gain another forty pounds. You gain twenty more. He tells you that he loves you. It’s fine that you can’t get around easily—a relative term, believe me—because he loves taking care of you. You gain fifty more pounds, and he still wants you. You don’t mind quitting your job because, hey, you don’t need the money. Your boyfriend comes over every day, bringing you food gifts—ice cream cakes and thirty dollars’ worth of fast food and giant bags of chips from Costco, and everything is mm-mm-good.
Other Emerson, it took me a long time to realize that Mica was just as prejudiced as any fat-hater. That he wouldn’t have dated me if I’d been a normal-sized woman. He didn’t want me to lose weight. He didn’t care about my physical pain so long as it made me need him more. He didn’t want what was best for me.
I was his fetish.
By the time I found that out, I weighed 601 pounds. I was big enough to be on TV. I found a website that explained Mica was a “feeder,” a person who got off on my size, on watching me eat, on having me dependent on him.
My nasty cousin Ruth, who had gone three years without a job, called and asked if she could “rent” a room from me. By that, she meant live for free. I said yes, if she’d “help around the house.” By that, I meant do the things I could no longer do. Take the trash out. Get the mail. Do the laundry. Eventually, wash me. Help me wipe my ass.
It became a hostile dependency, but at least I felt a little in charge. Ruth cashed my checks. Oh, yes, she did. With Ruth as my paid help, I could hide some things from Mica. I could cling to my illusion that we were just an unconventional couple.
Still, I love him . . . or I did. These days, as he brings me pizza and Popeyes chicken and Big Macs, I have to wonder. I can’t stay alive much longer if I keep eating this way.
I know that fact to be true. I am eating myself to death.
No. I can’t think those thoughts, because they’re just too dark and painful. I’m just having a bad day, Other Emerson. Don’t mind what I said before about being a fetish. Mica feeds me because it makes me happy. His face lights up when he sees me. Sex has become a logistical impossibility, but we still kiss a lot. He tells me I’m beautiful; he says he loves me. I have to believe he does. He absolutely does. Why else would he be here?
I wanted to be loved, and here he is, feeding me, heart, soul, body. Especially body.
Here’s a confession, Other Emerson. Even in this huge, grotesque version of myself, I still love eating. Food never lets me down, even though I know it’s killing me. I love tasting and chewing, I love an enormous forkful of food filling my mouth, my stomach. I love swallowing and eating and eating and eating some more.
I know it’s an addiction. I know it’s a sickness. I know, and I don’t want to be like this, but the power of food, of wanting, of trying to be full is too great for me to resist. Food is the shield against every hurt and heartache I’ve eve
r suffered. The self-hatred, the disgust, the physical pain of bearing all this weight, the longing to do things I once took for granted—walking, fitting into a car, taking a shower—the disgust people show me . . . nothing measures up against the need to eat.
So that.
That’s how you get this way, Other Emerson.
Now leave me alone. I have to write a letter, and then it’ll be time for my lunch. You never know. I might even eat you.
I hate you, you skinny bitch.
CHAPTER 32
Marley
Hold hands with a cute guy in public.
(Or private. Baby steps.)
If you defined dating as “I go to his house with food and sometimes stay to watch a movie and also, we’re sleeping together,” Will and I were definitely dating.
It was very strange.
In the little bubble of his house, he was turning into a very respectable boyfriend. While he wasn’t a fantastic cook, he did cook for me, not wanting me to always be the one. One night he made a roast chicken, his mother’s specialty, he said. Served it with new potatoes (simple and delightful) and green beans (rather lackluster beans, but heck). No man had ever cooked for me, not counting my brother and Louis. So in that sense, Will’s were the best green beans ever.
He liked hearing stories about my family and childhood (though we steered clear of Frankie . . . I didn’t have a lot to say on that topic, after all, other than the Phantom Twin thing). While he didn’t come out and say, “I’d love to meet your family,” he remembered their names and asked after them.
But because he stood by his statement that crowds made him uncomfortable, we had yet to go out. At all. One Sunday morning after I’d stayed over, I said, “Let’s run down to the Blessed Bean for breakfast, what do you say?”
He was toweling off his hair, making it spike most adorably. He paused, then resumed. “No, thank you. I have coffee downstairs.”
“But do you have meltaways? Because the Blessed Bean does.”
“I have cereal. I can make you eggs and toast.”
“Come on,” I said. “The Bean is great. You won’t be sorry.”
“No, thank you. But if you really want to go, by all means.”
“No, Will! I want to go with you.” I paused. “It won’t be that crowded at this hour. It’s still early.”
He almost said something then. Rubbed his forehead. Whatever flush of relaxation he’d been sporting earlier, post-shag, was gone, and his jaw was starting to lock.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Coffee here is great.”
He didn’t like going to the movies, but he said that was unrelated to crowds—he had a whopping huge TV, every station known to mankind, Netflix, Hulu, HBO, STARZ, you name it. No need to go out, right?
I told him about my other clients—Rachel and her triplets, old Mrs. Ames of the Kit Kat addiction who ate like a horse and didn’t weigh more than a hundred and twenty pounds, the sloppy Putneys and my compulsion to clean their kitchen every time I dropped off food. I told him about catering a super-posh dinner party in the city, and my hope to open a storefront downtown.
In return, he told me about gardening. About the games he was designing. He mentioned a nephew who was now eight and lived in Santa Fe with Will’s sister and brother-in-law. He even smiled when he told me about the little guy. But anything deeply personal? No.
But he picked me some flowers from his garden—roses and chrysanthemums, and wrapped their stems in a wet paper towel so they’d survive the six-block journey to my house. He let me watch him dig a hole for a new tree in the garden one day, and when I told him it would be much more interesting if he took off his shirt, he laughed, pulled it off and then came over and gave me a sweaty hug, which turned into sweaty kisses, which graduated to sweaty sex.
Insert the sound of my purring.
And yet, he wasn’t an easy person to get to know. Most everyone I knew was an open book. If someone was asked a question, that someone usually answered. Not so with Will Harding.
But he was a good listener. He was smart. He could be funny. He was extremely invested in me having a good time in bed. Extremely. That quality was greatly appreciated, let me tell you.
Otherwise, I was well aware that I was making excuses, cutting him slack. Georgia had asked when she’d meet him, and I hadn’t been able to give her an answer.
The truth was, I was afraid to find out if he was the real deal. If we were. Because if not, then what? Back online, where my swipes rarely resulted in anything other than twenty-three-year-old guys wanting a quick bang? I wanted permanence. I wanted what my parents had, what Dante and Louis had. I wanted a guy who looked at me the way Rafael Santiago had once looked at Georgia.
Finally, I bit the bullet a few weeks into our thing. “Will,” I said as we were lying in bed, flushed and happy and holding hands, “I’d like you to come to my house and meet Georgia. And Mason.”
He didn’t answer right away, and my heart started to sink. It wasn’t a big request. If he didn’t make it, then I had to seriously doubt that he wanted anything more than this.
“Okay,” he said. He kissed my hand. “Sure.”
“Really?” I said. “Yay! That was easy! How about dinner on Saturday?”
“Um, I have a phone call with a company on the West Coast that evening.”
“On Saturday?”
“Yes.” He took a deep breath. “How about just dessert?”
I looked at his unsmiling, somewhat tense face and got the impression that this little request was bigger than I knew. “Just dessert is great. Thank you, Will.”
“It’ll be fun,” he said, the lie so obvious I had to laugh.
“My house is very adorable. You might not hate it.”
He smiled then. “I’ll bring some design programs for Mason.”
“I’m sure he’ll love that.”
On Saturday night, Georgia and Mason and Admiral all sat in my kitchen, the air rich with the smell of apple pie (whole-wheat crust made with coconut oil, apples, honey, all very nutritious and low cal and easy on the stomach for Georgia’s sake).
“He should be here any minute,” I said ten minutes after seven.
“We’re in no hurry,” Georgia said.
“Except I have to be back by eight thirty,” Mason said. “My father said I need more rest if I want to up my times in running.”
“I thought you hurt your Achilles,” Georgia said.
“I did. But still. Rest is good.” He bit a nail, poor thing.
At 7:23, my phone rang. “Well, shit,” I said, looking at the screen. “Mason, make sure you never do this.” I clicked to answer. “Hello, Will, we’re all here and there’s pie.”
“I can’t make it. I’m sorry. My call is going on longer than I thought. Maybe you can come here instead?”
“Uh . . . sure.”
“Great. Sorry. Thank you.” He sounded sincere, anyway.
We walked over. It was a cool night, the smell of autumn leaves sharp and lovely, mingling with the smell of the still-warm pie.
“Here we are,” I said as we approached Will’s house. Funny, how the front yard was so bland when the back was Eden. We trooped up onto his little front porch and before I could knock, he opened the door and kissed me. On the lips and everything. I felt my cheeks flare—he was kissing me! Almost in public! His shirt was damp with sweat, which was odd, because it was such a cool night.
When he pulled back, he looked at me and took a deep breath. Maybe his call hadn’t gone well. But we were here now, so let the good times roll.
“Will,” I said, “meet two of my favorite people. Georgia and Mason Sloane.”
“Hello. Nice to meet you,” he said. “Please come in.”
“Thank you for having us over,” Georgia said, her finishing school manners in fine show. “You have a lovely home.�
��
I coughed.
He looked at her—You call this lovely?—and didn’t answer, then turned to Mason. “Marley says you like computer games.”
“Yeah, who doesn’t?” Mason said. “Let me put this pie down. I almost ate it on the way over. So you make video games? Can I see any?”
“Sure,” Will answered. “If you’re interested in programming, I have some software you can have. Actually, a laptop, too. I get them for free.”
“Really? Thank you! That’s so nice of you,” Mason said.
Before we lost the two of them in GeekLand, I asked if it was okay if I showed Georgia the garden.
“Of course.” He looked at me, nodded once and went into the living room with Mason. It was kind of sweet, actually. He was nervous meeting my friends.
“Come through the so-called lovely house and see the best part,” I said to Georgia, leading her through the beige kitchen with its beige granite countertops and beige cupboards, through the beige den that contained nothing other than a desk and computer, and into the mudroom, which had exactly two pairs of boots (winter and rain) on the shelf and two jackets hanging on the hooks.
“Yeah, he needs to come shopping with us,” Georgia said. “I don’t see one picture on the wall. Is it possible this poor man doesn’t have even one dog statue?”
“You can see why I thought he was a serial killer.”
She laughed. Then she drew in a sharp breath at the sight of the garden. “Wow! This is amazing!”
Will had pulled out the stops. All the little Japanese lanterns were lit, and the Tibetan prayer flags fluttered in the breeze. There were subtle spotlights placed under the trees, along the fence and in the koi pond Will had just put in last week.
Good Luck with That Page 34