Cupcake

by Mariah Jones

  We worked well into the next hour. By the time the workout was officially over, I knew that when I weighed in the next day I would have already lost ten pounds. Nobody could lose as much water from their body as I did that day and not lose weight.

  “Hit the showers kid,” Ryan said as I was toweling off my soaking forehead.

  “Will do,” I replied.

  I gathered my bag of clean clothes and shower supplies and headed off to the ladies shower room. I said hello to the janitor working in front of the door to the men’s showers on my way by. I was thrilled to see that the showers were all private stalls. They were even the type that doesn’t have the big crack in the side of the door. I hate that kind.

  I rifled around in my duffel bag searching for my shampoo and my clean clothes. I realized the stall I chose was missing the hook to hang your clothes on. “Oh well,” I said to no one in particular. I decided since I was the only one in the place I would fold up my clean clothes in a towel to keep them from direct contact with the wet floor and scoot them out a little ways past the door of the stall I was in. I got undressed, doing the same thing with my dirty clothes so I wouldn’t have to carry a soggy mess home with me in my bag.

  The shower spray was the best part of the day. The hot water felt like a true luxury after all the sweating and muscle pain. I heard the door to the shower room open and close as I stood unmoving under the direct spray. I ended up staying in the shower for a bit longer than I expected.

  “Male Janitor!” I heard a voice say.

  “No problem, I just got in,” I called back to the voice.

  “Only be a minute ma’am.”

  When my shower was over, I reached for the towel I had set on top of my clothes. It was gone. I felt around under the door of the stall, still unable to see well because of the steam. “Oh no,” I said. “Oh you have got to be kidding me.”

  I felt around once more just to be sure. “Why?” I asked nobody.

  The janitor had cleaned up all the used towels in the bathroom. My clothes, both the dirty and the clean ones were wrapped in towels lying on the ground. I realized then that I didn’t have my phone because it was in my purse locked up in the gym locker I was assigned earlier that day. There was no way for me to call Katie to come rescue me. I dug around my gym bag praying for anything I could find to cover myself with. Deodorant, a toothbrush, a tube of Chap Stick were all I found. Not going to cover me.

  I opened the door to the stall a crack and peered out. I could see the used towel bin about ten feet away in the corner of the room. My clothes were visible through the orange biohazard bag at the top of the bin. I looked one way and then the other. Not a soul around. The janitor was done already. I had managed to take an entire shower without anyone else coming in. The odds seemed excellent that I could make a dash for the bin and grab my clothes without discovery.

  I threw open the stall door and ran for the bin. I had to stretch a little to reach my pants as they somehow managed to end up at the bottom of the bin. “Got ‘em!” I said, victoriously.

  Just as I got hold of my pant leg the door to the shower room opened. There I was, bent over in the bin, my rear end up in the air like a new moon.

  I heard a gasp behind me. I tried to wrap my clothes around me as best I could; slowly I turned around to face my unfair destiny. It was the two orange ladies I had seen at lunch.

  The taller of the two said nothing. The shorter one informed me that they keep the ‘clean’ towels in the cabinet just to the left of the door.

  I never went back to that gym.

  Chapter four

  Waistline watchers

  I held my breath as I got on the scale the following morning. 327 pounds was the number on the scale before I had given up all forms of edible foods. 327 was the number the scale shot back at me before I had nearly killed myself at the gym. 327 on my five foot six inch frame was way too big of a number. This was the last time I would ever see the numbers 327 glaring at me from the scale, I told myself.

  I could hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears as I waited for my digital scale to settle on a number. I refused to open my eyes again until I heard the beep signaling that the scale was done calculating. Beeeeeeeeeeeep.

  Okay, the moment of truth. I opened one eye first, and then opened the other as I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t weigh 327 anymore. I weighed 329. Swearing at my lack of progress, I pushed my long auburn hair out of my face and looked in the mirror above my bathroom sink. “Why can’t you do this?” I asked myself.

  Katie answered her phone sounding groggy and half-asleep. I explained to her what happened and waited for what seemed like an eternity for a response.

  “You have to give it time,” she said. “It’s probably just your body trying to adjust to a new routine. If you stick with it, I’m sure you’ll start seeing results soon.”

  “I gained weight. I’ve been eating right. I literally worked my ass off, and I gained weight,” I said, still in disbelief.

  “Maybe you need to find a bigger support network. I mean, you know I’m here for you, but you live by yourself and I doubt whether Mr. Muffins has much time to listen with all his trips back and forth to the litter box. Have you considered signing up for one of those weight watching programs? You know; the ones where they have the meetings and stuff?” Katie asked sincerely.

  I thought for a moment before I responded. “Do you think those actually work?”

  “One of the women at Daniel’s daycare joined the Waistline Watcher’s group and has already lost fifty pounds in just over three months. She looks great,” my sister pointed out.

  Ahh, the glorious and ever-elusive fifty pounds, “I’ll look into it,” I promised half-heartedly.

  ***

  I must have tried on ten different outfits the morning of my first waistline watcher’s meeting. I was desperate to find something that would conceal how heavy I really was. Why, you may ask, was I so determined to look thinner when I was about to join a room full of other people struggling with a weight problem? The answer is simple. Nobody wants to be the fattest one. Being the smallest always feels great, although that rarely ever happened to me. Being somewhere in the middle was okay as well, but being the biggest was just awful.

  I first tried on one of those belly flattening shirts they sell on TV, the kind that are supposed to squish all your fat in so you appear thinner. I suddenly remembered why I never wore it. The fat has to go somewhere. When you mush your belly fat flat it pooches out somewhere else. I realized I had four boobs staring back at me when I looked in the mirror.

  After trying on half my wardrobe, I finally decided on a pair of jeans and a loose-fitting black blouse. I promised myself that when I reached my goal weight, I wouldn’t buy anything else that was all black. Never before had I realized how co-dependent I was on dark colors. I checked my appearance one last time before patting my cat on the head and ambling out the door into the unknown.

  ***

  The Waistline Watcher’s building was nestled right between an ice cream shop and a burger joint. Perhaps they did that on purpose. Maybe it was a way to test the commitment of their clients, or maybe life was just that cruel. Either way, there were a lot of cars parked in the parking lot, which increased the nervous feeling in my stomach.

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad, I told myself. There had to be at least one other person who’d had an underwear-related-incident in a group this size.

  Upon entering the building I first noticed all of the motivational signs hanging in cheap looking black frames. Honestly it looked like a hospital waiting room. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” I read as I waited for the receptionist to tell me which room to go to. Gonna take more than a single step to lose this weight, I thought sarcastically.

  “Room 2b is for beginners,” the very pretty, super-skinny receptionist told me, pointing in the general direction of a hallway to my left. “Good luck,” she added.

  Did I detect som
ething in her tone that sounded a lot like “You’re going to need it” or was it just my apprehension over the situation?

  It’s funny how you don’t see yourself the same way as you see other people. I had no illusions, I knew I was fat. Although I was not usually judgmental, I couldn’t help thinking as I glanced around that I would never wear some of the things I saw the other women wearing. I reminded myself that I had been judged unfairly and I would make a conscious effort to be nicer. Still, when I walked into the group meeting room, I was somewhat shocked to see just how many really, really fat people there were gathered in one place.

  I definitely didn’t have to worry about being the biggest person in the room, which made me happy in a sick and twisted sort of way.

  There was a podium with a microphone at the front of the room and further motivational posters lining the walls. I returned a smile to a woman who smiled at me, choosing a seat near the back of the room. There were rows and rows of uncomfortable blue plastic chairs. I took a quick count of the chairs and the heads in the room and figured there were enough people to fill about half of the seating.

  An elegantly dressed older woman with short gray hair and modest makeup walked in from a door behind the podium. “Is that the group leader?” the woman next to me asked, as if I knew more than she did.

  “It’s my first meeting,” I tried to explain as politely as I could.

  “Oh, Right. Mine too,” she agreed, seeming a little embarrassed. What a funny word I thought. Embarrassed, it sounded a lot like ‘am bare assed.’ Something I knew all too well after my incident at the Gym.

  “Hello and welcome to all of you. Congratulations on taking the first step toward a healthier you,” said the gray-haired lady. The microphone crackled and the speakers spit out an earsplitting spray of reverb. Adjusting a control, the woman began again.

  “My name is Sandy and I will be your group leader throughout stage one of this process,” she announced.

  I wondered how many stages there were going to be. A very tall, equally heavy man who smelled of Brut cologne took the seat to my immediate right. I have always hated the smell of that cologne. I found myself subconsciously holding my breath.

  “I have struggled with weight all my life,” Sandy announced. “At my highest weight, I was 294 pounds.” A general round of gasps and disbelieving awes passed through the room as people tried to imagine this thin woman standing before us ever having been fat. I had to admit, she looked pretty good, although I couldn’t help but wonder what she would look like in a bathing suit instead of a business suit. Terrible mind I have.

  After telling the story of escape from an abusive relationship where she had no support system and how finding herself faced with life-threatening diabetes forever changed her life and gave her the motivation to lose the weight, Sandy went on to explain the ins and outs of the program. I listened with half attention, thinking more about orders I needed to place for the bakery, and how I would like to strangle the Brut guy who apparently had a knee bouncing disorder. Then, something caught my attention.

  “Now I will turn the microphone over to you guys and gals and let you share your reason for being here. It’s okay to be nervous. Just remember that none of us are here to judge each other. This is a supportive environment of understanding people. Feel free to share any insight you have on why you believe you may have gained weight, or you can talk about your goals for the future. So let’s start with you,” Sandy said, pointing to a blonde woman in the front row.

  I was starting to panic a little. The smell of the cologne was making me sick to my stomach and the room suddenly seemed to be ten degrees hotter than Death Valley. Okay, relax. I can do this, I said in my head. At least it wouldn’t be my turn for a while as I was at the back of the room.

  The blonde woman didn’t look nervous at all. “My name is Marcy,” she said confidently.

  “Hello Marcy,” the collective room minus me answered in typical AA meeting fashion.

  “I started gaining weight when I was in high school.” Marcy admitted bravely. “It was just a snowball effect from there,” she said. There were nods of agreement and sympathetic groans throughout the room.

  After Marcy was finished speaking I had mostly calmed down. I figured I could get up there. I could survive the eyes watching me and the false sympathy. I just had one problem. I had no idea what I was going to say.

  The paranoia of having nothing to say when it was my turn grew worse as I listened to person after person give a brief history of why they gained weight.

  One woman lost her teenaged daughter to a drunk driver. Another woman had a thyroid issue that she didn’t know about until she hit the four-hundred pound mark. There was a man who started gaining weight after he finished his tour of duty in the military. Another man spoke who lost his wife to a rare blood disorder and had no other family.

  Everyone who stood up at the podium had some really great excuse for why they were fat. The participants were moving along quickly, each of them met with a small round of applause after they were finished sharing. It was the kind of applause you would have expected from a studio audience on some 80’s show. Three more seats and it would be my turn.

  Two more seats.

  One more seat.

  Crap.

  My legs were shaking slightly as I stood up. As I walked to the podium I nearly tripped over my own feet, adding to the severity of the situation. Facing the audience of other overweight people, my mind suddenly drew a blank. Everything I had been considering saying for the last hour suddenly vanished, leaving my mind a blank slate. “Uh…hi,” I began awkwardly. “My name is Darcy Miller.”

  “Hello Darcy,” the room blasted back at me. I hesitated, hearing my own breath coming from the speakers in the room. Come on think of something meaningful to say, I told myself. Make something up if you have to.

  The silence seemed to last forever. My heart was once again thundering just as it had on the scale a few days before. I was sweating profusely and my legs felt numb from the hip down. “I’m overweight because, because…” I stammered uncertainly. I let out a big sigh of exasperation that transferred too loudly through the speakers. Oh what the hell, I decided. The truth is easier. “My name is Darcy Miller and I’m fat because I like to eat. I was a fat baby. I was a fat kid and now I’m a fat adult. I hate working out. I like eating whatever I want. My underwear doesn’t fit right and that’s why I’m here.”

  There was a moment of silence as the audience waited to see if I was done speaking and then the biggest round of applause I had heard since I’d been in the room.

  Sandy approached the podium and put her hand on my shoulder as she leaned into the microphone. “That took so much courage!” she announced to the others. “I commend you all on your ability to share with the group today.”

  I took my former seat as the group leader told us all what to expect the following week. “Next week we will go over the eating plan and prepare all of you for what to expect in the upcoming weeks. We will also do our public weigh-ins.”

  The sick feeling in my stomach returned immediately. Did she say public weigh-in?

  Sandy glanced around the room. “I know many of you are reluctant to allow others to see your weight, but sharing is part of the process of healing. Once again, no one is here to judge you.”

  ***

  After the meeting I exchanged as few pleasantries with the other participants as possible, using my need to place orders for the bakery as my private excuse. In truth, I was in a hurry to get out of there as quick as possible. I was feeling a bit underwhelmed about the next week’s public weigh-in and didn’t want to get cornered by Sandy to talk about my ‘bravery’, in telling the simple truth.

  As I made my way outside, I noted that the weather had changed dramatically since I had come in. The gray skies were turning to blue and the temperature was considerably warmer. I breathed in some fresh air and finally felt myself start to relax a little. I pulled out my cell phone to call
Jenny and check in at Cupcake, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  I turned around to see the cologne guy with the bouncy knees standing before me, looking almost as nervous as I had been while on the podium. “I’m Dave,” he said, offering one meaty hand for me to shake. “I didn’t get much chance to talk to you while we were inside. You left so quickly,” he said.

  I shook his hand, wondering what it was that he wanted.

  “What did you think of the meeting?” he asked.

  I looked at the time on my phone. “It was great,” I lied.

  “Yeah, great,” he agreed. “Listen, I couldn’t help but notice that you don’t seem to have a ring. I find those green eyes of yours captivating, and even though I’m usually not this forward, I was wondering if you might consider letting me take you to dinner.”

  What to do now, I wondered? I didn’t want to offend him, but dating had been the farthest thing from my mind since a failed relationship two years prior. “I’m usually very busy. I’m not really at a place where…”