And thankfully, anorexia showed. I couldn’t hide the weight loss as I could the vomiting. After a few months, I was down to about ninety pounds, gaunt and boney. But like all anorexics, I still thought I was chubby. When I looked in the mirror, I saw a woman who could easily lose a few more pounds. I was running six to eight miles a day, and most of the time, I was so exhausted and dizzy that I felt faint. It wasn’t that I never ate. For months I ate exactly the same food at precisely the same time of the day, every day, seven days a week. I had an apple for breakfast, cut up into tiny pieces that I ate with a fork to make it last longer. I put a clock on the lunch table to make sure it took me at least forty-five minutes to an hour for me to finish a salad (without dressing, of course). Kurt got to the point where he couldn’t bear to eat with me, the meals were so nerve-racking. I chewed every morsel of my salad fifty times, putting down my fork for exactly one minute between each bite. Kurt anxiously watched the woman he loved shrink away, but I thought I was doing fine. After being bulimic for fifteen years, anorexia seemed like an achievement. Everything about food was now strictly controlled, and as long as I stayed obsessively within the limits of what I could eat and when I could eat it, I would be able to ward off the danger of binges.
I lost an acting job because I was too thin. I looked so bad that the casting director asked my agent if I had a terminal illness. I had no energy for anything but my early morning run. Kurt tried everything. Compassion, jokes, begging, even tough love. Nothing worked. I was starving myself and felt panicked by the thought of breaking the “food rules” that I’d made. My priorities were a mess—it was more important for me to eat my salad in fifty-chew increments than to be able to function. Kurt must have wished that he had never set foot in Williamstown.
Then one day, I collapsed. I was leaving our condo building and fainted outside the garage door. No one was around. I must have come to pretty quickly, but I was still too dizzy to stand up. I crawled from the garage to our unit, stood and held on to the door jamb as I unlocked the door. I staggered inside and lay down on the sofa. I was scared.
Everything spun slightly, and I had a terrible headache. I found the phone and tried calling Kurt, but he was working on a set somewhere. Then I tried Laura, a New York friend who had migrated to L.A. and who also suffered from an eating disorder.
“Laura, I just fainted downstairs.” I’m sure I sounded weak.
“Oh my God, Jessica, are you okay?”
“I am now,” but I didn’t sound like it.
Then she asked me the question all anorexics hate.
“Jessica, did you eat anything today?”
“I ate an apple this morning.”
I said this as if the apple were a full stack of pancakes with a side of sausage. “Jessica, you have got to see someone about this. You are going to die if you don’t.”
Yes, yes, of course, I told her, though as soon as I put the phone down, I made no effort to follow through. But Laura did. That evening, she called Kurt and told him she had spoken to the head of the eating disorders unit at a Los Angeles hospital. His name was Dr. Jason Shaffer, and he was expecting me to call to make an appointment. I didn’t want to, but I agreed to see him. I knew my marriage would be in serious danger if I didn’t.
I arrived at the hospital the next day. The eating disorders unit was in the psychiatric wing of the hospital, which already freaked me out. Worse, Dr. Shaffer’s office was adjacent to the in-patient unit for anorexia. As I got off the elevator, I saw a bunch of teenage girls talking in quiet, exhausted voices. All had rail-thin frames, sunken checks, and sagging clothes. Their hands had turned to claws, and their heads seemed disproportionate to the rest of their sunken, starved bodies. Kurt and I came to call them “the big headed girls,” and “big headed” became our euphemism for anorexia.
I walked down the hall to Dr. Shaffer’s office. The girls straggled back through the swinging doors and into the in-patient unit. Well, at least I’m not one of them! I thought defiantly. The office was locked, so I sat outside on a bench waiting for the doctor to arrive. I watched the swing doors of the unit to see if I could catch sight of any more anorexia patients. I was fascinated by these girls and their POW physiques. In some ludicrous way, I admired them. They were even better at anorexia than I was.
Then a small man with dark hair appeared and began opening the door. I got up and introduced myself. Dr. Shaffer and I shook hands and walked inside. The office had a dark brown sofa, matching brown chairs, and a desk. On a side table, tissues had been set out for patients. Around the room were photos of Dr. Shaffer’s adolescent daughters who, in my expert opinion, did not look like they had eating disorders. Books on anorexia and bulimia filled the shelves.
Dr. Shaffer and I went through the preliminaries—age, medical history, and, of course, weight. I stood 5-foot-5 and weighed 90.4 pounds. I pretended I didn’t know it; in fact, I knew to the ounce. It was 10:00 A.M., and I already had weighed myself three times that day. Dr. Shaffer took me into the unit, and my heart pounded as I stood on the scale, trying to see what it said. But Dr Shaffer knew better. He had me stand on the scale backwards.
The first two or three visits were spent getting to know each other. I told him some of my background, but not the most important things. I told him how I thought about food all the time, wondered what other people were eating, counted every calorie, and couldn’t stop weighing myself. Dr. Shaffer told me it was quite rare to have such a severe onset of anorexia at my age (I was then twenty-eight). And I explained that I had been bulimic for years and that I considered anorexia a step in the right direction. He looked unconvinced. Shaffer felt that I would do better out of the ward, but he warned that if my weight went down much more, he would admit me as a patient.
I liked Shaffer. He was easy to talk to without being patronizing, and he was understanding without being condescending. He also seemed completely unsentimental without being cold. He was reserved but had a sense of humor, and he knew or could anticipate every anorexic trick. He told me to add three Power Bars a day to my diet, knowing that I might add a half of one. He said I must get rid of the scale in our house and got me in touch with a nutritionist whom I was to see twice a week. And I thought often about what Kurt had said that night in Williamstown—that I needed to tell someone what had happened with my father.
Finally, I decided to do it—to tell him the whole story. All the details. Everything I had left out before. I was terrified that Dr. Shaffer, this objective psychiatrist, would blame me for what had happened. So I turned around on the couch, faced the wall and began to gather my story.
I remembered my life backward, from the last time I had confronted my father at Aunt Celia’s, back to my teenage years, when he slipped me some coke the night he told me he was leaving my mother. Back to the days when I first started bingeing and purging. Back to the night just before I turned seven. Back to the piece he had written for the Lampoon just a few months before. He had called it “How to Cook Your Daughter,” and it started this way: A recurrent problem facing the gourmet who wishes to prepare this excellent dish is the difficulty he experiences in obtaining a daughter.
“When I was really little, I remember one night in the country, in New Jersey, when I was sleeping in my bunk bed.” I paused for a moment to see what Dr. Shaffer might say. He said nothing, and I closed my eyes and saw it all again.
…People so often ask, “How do I tell when my daughter is ready for the table?” Well, there’s always some little variation, but generally the exact age falls somewhere between the fifth and sixth birthdays….
“It was just before my seventh birthday,” I continued, “and it was dark, except for some moonlight that was coming through the window.” I opened my eyes. I was still on the brown, cloth couch in his office. I closed them again and was back in the bunk.
“I thought I heard voices from my parents’ room.” I spoke to the wall in Dr. Shaffer’s office, my eyes still closed. “It was right next door to ours. The
re was just a door between our rooms, no hallway or anything. Then I saw my dad open the bedroom door and close it behind him. I remember his silhouette, but I could tell he was dressed even though it was late. I knew he was going out, maybe even all the way into the city, and that I’d spend the whole night worrying about him and wondering if he was okay, and that in the morning…in the morning I would ask my mom when he would be home. And she’d say she didn’t know.”
…During this period the daughter acquires a smooth firmness totally free of flab or muscle, especially in the shoulders, buttocks, and thighs, areas which are the gourmet’s delight…
“So I sat up in my bed and called out to him quietly.” I could see him stop and look toward my bed, then walk toward me. “He came and stood by the side of the bunk bed, and I said, ‘Where are you going, Daddy?’” I could hear myself say it in that little-girl’s voice. “And he said, ‘I’m just going out for a minute love.’ I told him I didn’t want him to go, and he said he would come lie down with me.” I stopped for a moment and took a deep breath.
“I snuggled into his arms, and he asked for a kiss,” I told Dr. Shaffer. “But then he kissed me again in a way that was…really hard.” My voice shook. “On my lips.”
I paused and breathed deeply again. “He undid his pants and pulled out his penis.” I began to cry as I sat on my therapist’s couch, and I closed my eyes so tightly I was scrunching them shut.
…Signs that the daughter has reached the ideal point are: The flesh will be soft but resist a pinch somewhat, returning to its full shape immediately upon release…
“He put his hand under my nightie, and I asked him not to because it made me feel so cold, his hand was so cold.” I paused again. The next part seemed the hardest, and I could feel my father next to me, even here on the couch. “Then he whispered into my ear, ‘Take off your nightie, Jessie.’ But I wouldn’t. I didn’t want to. So he said it again. ‘Take off your nightie, Jessie. Take it off or I won’t stay here. I’ll go out.’”
I remembered how confused I had felt, as though I knew he was doing something wrong. But it was Daddy. And if he told me things were okay, I believed him. I’d do almost anything to keep him from going out. I think he was counting on that.
…. An ancient and surprisingly accurate test of readiness is to hold the buttocks one in each hand and squeeze gently. If the daughter says “Grrrugchllllchlll,” she is not yet quite ready. If she slaps your face, you have missed your opportunity…
“I started whimpering, but I sat up and pulled off my nightie.” I was talking so low now that I wasn’t even sure Dr. Shaffer could hear me. “Then my dad told me to take off my underwear. I didn’t want to. I told him that. But he said he’d leave if I didn’t. So I pulled off my panties.”
…. Now turn your daughter on her tummy in a kneeling position so that her head rests on her hands…. If she giggles at this point, reprimand her. Then scatter the sliced papaya all over her and rub the liqueur wherever you like…
I took another breath, this time deeper than all the others, and went on. “My dad started…feeling around my body and then, then he put his finger in my vagina and pushed it up a little bit. And I remember he whispered, ‘You’re too small.’ So he took my hand and put it on his penis.”
…. Unless you’re really abnormal, you will find that during this preparation the daughter becomes increasingly appetizing…
As I told the story, I started to feel sick, like I was going to vomit. My body shook. “It was all hard and kind of sticky, and I was terrified. He moved my hand up and down it a bit. Then he took my head in his hands and pushed it toward his penis and whispered for me to put my mouth on it.” This time I sighed—a huge, painful sigh, as if I were breathing my last breath. “I said I didn’t want to, but he said it was okay because that’s what people do if they love each other. So I did what he said, I put it in my mouth. It tasted…strong, and I was so scared.”
The tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Then I tasted this sticky stuff, and it oozed out of my mouth and down my chin. I swallowed some of it and felt myself gag. And then I remember wiping my chin on my patchwork quilt.” I pulled a tissue from the box of Kleenex and wiped my eyes.
“My father pulled me back to him and held me. He hugged me and stroked my hair. I was crying, and he said it again; he said ‘It’s okay, love. That’s what people do when they love each other.’” As I spoke, I held my head in my hands and tried to wipe away tears that wouldn’t stop. “He kept telling me everything was okay, but even then, I knew that it wasn’t.”
…. At this point, the daughter will probably want to get up and go to the bathroom or play something else like prince and princess. If so, let her get up off the platter and give her some chocolate. If not, eat her.
“After awhile, we went downstairs to the kitchen together, and he got me some water. The kitchen was cold and dark, and I remember thinking that it must’ve been very late by then.” I sat up a little straighter on the couch, feeling as though the worst was over. “I remember my dad was just wearing a towel, and he made himself a drink, and I think I felt a little better. I wanted so much to believe him when he said it was what people did when they loved each other.”
I needed Dr. Shaffer to understand. “I loved him so much. Then I got tired and told him I wanted to go to bed. So he came and tucked me in.”
There. It was over. But my tears wouldn’t stop. I sat with my back to Dr. Shaffer, still facing the wall, crying and crying and crying. It had been so shocking for me to hear the story out loud, to hear myself telling it, to see it all again in my mind’s eye. And now, Dr. Shaffer would tell me what I always knew: that it had been my fault, that I had asked for it. I remember thinking, or maybe I said it aloud, Kathy never would have taken off her underwear. She would have just let him go out. She was always stronger than me. But I couldn’t stop sobbing, and Dr. Shaffer said nothing.
He just let me cry.
PART IV
JUNE 2004
THE DAY AFTER HE SENT MY PIECE TO THE NEW YORK Times, I heard back from Rudy. The opinion’s page editor said he was “absolutely shocked,” Rudy told me. And the editor, David Shipley, thought my letter merited a full-blown story. I knew what I had written could not have been published as an Op-Ed piece. It was just too incriminating (not to mention too long). Rudy had sent it to Shipley more as a place to start than because we thought he would consider publishing it as it was. I knew that claims such as mine would and should be investigated. I was scared about what might happen next. But I also was grateful. The New York Times was treating what happened to me more seriously than my father ever had.
It had been eleven years since I had recounted for Dr. Shaffer the details of what happened. Like Kurt, he had told me in the days and weeks after that it hadn’t been my fault. But much as I wished for one, I hadn’t had a miraculous recovery. In fact, I lost even more weight, and Dr. Shaffer threatened to hospitalize me. I called my mother and asked her to come to Los Angeles. She knew how sick I was. On the first of our joint visits to Dr. Shaffer, I told her that Daddy had molested me, but I didn’t offer any details. She took it in as she always had—quietly, soberly. Kurt also came with me to see Dr. Shaffer a few times. But the person who should have been there was not.
Dr. Shaffer thought it might be helpful to confront my father again. I had told him of my father’s Jekyll-and-Hyde reaction in England during the trip to Celia’s, but we decided I should write Dad a letter, if only to see how he responded. I did, and the reply was blistering. Just like the e-mails we exchanged after Father Joe was published, he didn’t deny what he had done. But in the letter, he launched into a tirade about how I wanted to see myself as a victim, how I longed to be part of the “Sally-Jessy-Raphael culture,” how my problems were not his fault, how I needed to conquer my disorders by myself. Dr. Shaffer and I read the letter together. After a moment, he looked at me. “I don’t think you will ever get the response you want from this man, Jessica,
” Dr. Shaffer said. “He is a true, textbook narcissist, not able to empathize with you or really take responsibility for anything. He is not capable of it.”
I knew Dr. Shaffer was right, but I refused to give up. I wrote back and so did Dad—this time with a response that essentially said I was making a big deal over nothing. Then he admonished me to never, ever say a word about it to his wife, Carla.
Finally, one last letter came. Kurt and I were set to travel to New York for my sister’s, Kathy, wedding. Dad would be there, as would Carla. The afternoon before we were to leave, FedEx delivered his latest missive, this one telling me once and for all that I was a failure, a pathetic whiner, and that he was blameless. I couldn’t stand to be there with everyone, so I cancelled our tickets and called Kathy to tell her I wasn’t able to come. I told her why, what had happened with Daddy, but again not in detail. Kathy tried to be sympathetic, but I could tell she was angry. As she reminded me, she had made a lot of effort to come to my wedding.
I realized that unless I relented, unless I simply did as my father suggested, I would always be the family spoiler. And so I tried to move on with my life, just as Daddy wanted, just as he had told me in England after Mass, in letters back and forth, in the tone that he took, in the words that he used.
With Dr. Shaffer’s reluctant permission, I took a part in a play in a regional theater in Sonora, a city five hours north of Dr. Shaffer, my husband, and L.A. I would be on my own, and unable to make our counseling sessions. But Dr. Shaffer acquiesced, as long as I agreed to drive back to Los Angeles now and then and to check in on the phone once a week. Kurt also would be coming to visit, and Dr. Shaffer trusted him to assess my situation.
How to Cook Your Daughter Page 21