#TripleX

by Christine Zolendz

  I flung the Twinkie ceremoniously into the fire and let it burn, beginning our Farewell to Food Fire, fueling our future of being fit, fun, and fabulous.

  God, the scent of the charring Twinkie was tantalizing and titillating. Wow, I never thought to heat up a Twinkie. Oh well, can’t try it now. Those days are gone forever.

  “You’re up,” I said to Christine, sitting down on the ground next to her.

  “Okey doke,” she agreed, struggling to get up off the ground. Taking the apple pie out of the McDonald’s bag, Christine opened it and took a long-lasting, savory bite. Then she said to the apple pie, “I thought you had the power to make all my problems go away. But the reality is, you made my problems worse—you always have.” Christine chucked the apple pie into the fire, and sang “Bye bye delicious apple pie, made my ass so fat, I wish I could die.”

  I laughed and sang along as Christine came over and sat down next to me. “So we’re really going to do this? This is the final farewell to food? The end of all of it?” she wondered.

  “Nah, it’s just the beginning,” I said, opening an Oreo and licking the cream out. After one bite of the cookie part, I threw the entire bag into the fire. “This is for that damn seatbelt that didn’t fit me on the flight to Turks and Caicos.”

  I looked over, and Christine was throwing handfuls of M&Ms into the fire. “This is for Andy Baker saying my ass needed its own Wifi.”

  “Screw him! He just needs more Wifi for his porn addiction,” I consoled. “This is for Elisea Reynolds telling me that I was too fat to come to her boy/girl party in eighth grade,” I yelled, throwing a bag of Doritos into the flame.

  “Whoever she is—she’s a bitch. This is for that Bedazzled Bed-snatcher for calling me a fat-pig and stealing my husband,” Christine bellowed, throwing a gallon of chocolate ice cream into the fire.

  “Yeah, whore,” I said, tossing a dozen cream sticks into the pit of mourning. “This is for every single hot guy who called me over at a bar to ask me what my friend’s name was.”

  The ceremony of goodbye lasted over an hour with each of us recalling our most humiliating moments of indignity and self-destruction. As the embers began to dissipate and smolder into a smoky fog of the past, I felt a sense of sadness and regret. I didn’t regret what was about to happen, where we were going. I regretted that it took me so long to do this—to open my eyes and see the reality of the situation. My life didn’t suck. Actually, nothing at all sucked about my life. I, on the other hand, was single-handedly sucking the life right out of it.

  “Hey Chris, I didn’t do this for Elisea Reynolds from middle school or some old seatbelt on an airplane,” I admitted, resolvedly. “I’m doing this for… for Matt… and for the boys… and Chris, I’m doing it for me, too.”

  “Yeah Ang, I know. Me too. Me too.”

  Twitter: Sweating and crying would be a lot funnier if every drip and tear would come out screaming Wooowhoo! #TripleX #YogaNazi #SixteenCandles #Vagina

  “Old pick up trucks… shooting at ducks…”

  How could people listen to this crap?

  “Flush you down with tears in my beers…”

  And not bleed from their ears?

  “Skunk smelling, cheatin’, no good lovin,’ hog tie you down love…” The lyrics were accompanied by the chainsaw snoring that loudly belted out of Angelisa’s drooling mouth. Wish I could combine that oral chainsaw of hers with my ‘no good cheatin’ bastard. No! I was not going to allow myself to connect with this Honky-Tonk, Hillbilly bull crap.

  Looking over, I poked Angelisa in the head. Hard. She absently swatted my hand away. It’s quite possible that I might have experienced a momentary excursion into the dark side, there’s no other explanation for it, because I took what was left of the spray cheese in a can and gave her a makeover that only Picasso himself would admire. Not only was I impressed with my ability to wreak havoc on my friend’s head while she slept, but I also managed to squeeze every drop out of the can WITHOUT squirting one little bit into my mouth.

  SUCCESS.

  I had no remorse for the fact that I coated her in government cheese either, because I kind of… sort of… no… really… REALLY… hated my best friend at the moment. I wished she’d just wake up and realize how much her husband loved her. She was crazy for not seeing the way he looked at her. She was going to let him go, she said. The person who always brought her ice water… or… or a text of ice water. Who does that?

  I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The second she fell asleep, I grabbed her phone and looked. There it was: a big glass of ice water, just sitting on the nightstand waiting for someone to drink it. Was that “someone” going to drink it? No! She was going to piss and moan about how horrible her marriage was. How could she not turn this car around, go back to her husband, and jump on his water-bringing penis and ride him for all he was worth? It was beyond me. Angelisa’s husband was madly in love with her still. The only person who fell out of love with Angelisa was Angelisa.

  I took over driving the Jag after our campfire salute to all things sugary, letting her fall asleep listening to her God-awful, throat-slitting, country music and her incessant whining about her unbearable life with her horrible husband. My favorite thing she said was when she finally shut the Hell up about her no good perfect life. She was loads of fun to listen to complain when you’re in a confined space for so long. Add the horrible country music to the mix, and I had to keep talking myself out of opening the car door and flinging myself out onto the interstate. At least, I’d give new meaning to “road kill.”

  What I really wanted to do was scream at her. I was so jealous of the stories she relayed about her husband and so angry with her for not seeing what a really great guy she had. I’d have taken a little lull in my marriage over finding Scott in that nasty position that I didn’t want to think about anymore, even though every time I closed my eyes it took center stage in my mind. I was about as angry with Ang as I was with my husband. Ex-husband. Whatever. She was screwing up her marriage. And Scott was screwing everything outside of our marriage.

  I desperately needed to find a hotel. The Jag’s seat started to sodomize me in the most peculiar ways while the country music was making the grey matter of my brain leak right out of my ears into a pool of whiskey and wine. Oh Jesus, even my brain can’t stop the cheesy country metaphors.

  The millionaire Jakey-Poo’s GPS kept showing little dots of lodging on the screen, yet out the windshield, all I saw was corn. There was just corn everywhere. How much corn did this state need? Indiana sure was corny with all its country music and corn fields. God help me! I needed to pull over. I was getting delirious.

  Finally after a few hours of trying to find a place to sleep that didn’t remind me of the Bates Motel, I found a tiny hotel just off the interstate of who-knows-where. Hell, I didn’t even know if I was still in Indiana. All the corn was confusing. That must’ve been what all the Midwesterners talk about when they say they go through corn mazes in the fall. They must’ve just driven down Interstate 80.

  Leaving Angelisa snoring in the passenger seat with a crusty spray cheese goatee and eyebrows, I made my way into the front lobby.

  Cue in Idiotic Hotel Clerk #1 who was repeating everything I said, trying to nail down my accent. “Dude. What the Hell are you doing?”

  “You have an accent,” he smiled then realized he might have said something wrong. “I mean; it’s great. I love it. You’re from New Yawk, right?”

  I crossed my arms over my chest. “Yeah and…?”

  “Yeah and…”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, “Are you… making fun of me?”

  “Oh my word.” He leaned his head back into his little back office and called out, “You guys, come on out here. You gotta hear this.” He shook his head incredulously. “You just sounded exactly like Robert DeNiro in that movie. You know the scene? Where he’s asking the mirror ‘Are you tawkin’ to me?”

  I stared at him blan
kly.

  “And you speak so fast it’s… just…”

  “What are you talking about?” I asked, growing increasingly more agitated and impatient.

  “Whaddaya tawkin’ aboud?” he mimicked.

  I leaned closer to the little idiot and started growling—like full out growling, showing my teeth and all. I freaking growled. Growled.

  Can my life get any more mortifying? I wished I had a jackass-seeking missile I could launch at him. It’d find him faster than that bartender in that Tim McGraw song rode that “bull named Fu Manchu.”

  Holy crap, I was reciting the lyrics now. Christ. New rule: No country music permitted in the Jag again. Ever.

  Two other people rushed out of a back room and joined Clerky McMimic behind the desk and looked at me like I was some new shiny toy. I should warn them that I just gave up sweets, but they might not think that was a deadly threat. But it was. Very deadly.

  “Just give me the keys.” I gritted.

  “Jus-give-me-da-keys,” Clerky McMimic repeated.

  Clerky yelped out a cry when I snatched the keys out of his hands. “Have a good night, jackass.”

  “Do all New Yawkers carry shanks?” he called after me.

  Turning around, I stared into his doe-eyed face. “Yup. You got me there.” I arched an eyebrow up and started walking backward. “You don’t want to make me show you. Trust me.”

  “We have free Continental breakfast every morning at eight!” He called out after me as I walked away, shaking my head. I was surrounded by corn and idiots. This trip was going to Hell fast.

  Waking Angelisa was impossible, so I yanked her up and led her stumbling into the room where she immediately fell face-first on the nasty hotel comforter and continued snoring. Bright orange spray cheese everywhere. She looked like a scarecrow with that stringy, fake-cheese hair sprouting everywhere. I should’ve mounted her somewhere out in the cornfield, blaring country music in the background.

  I sat down on my bed and hung my head in my hands. I suddenly felt awkward and extremely alone. Adding to my despair and turmoil, there were no snacks left. Anywhere! Nothing to make me feel better. And the only thing on the motel television was sappy romance movies.

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight and began to sob, the sound desperate and loud against the stillness of the quiet room. I didn’t want to have to begin my life all over. I didn’t want to date or meet new people. I wanted to continue growing old with someone—someone who knew everything about me without having to say anything. I hated Scott for taking that away from me and giving it to someone else. I breathed in a deep breath and tried to stop the sobs—the sobs that always accompanied my loneliness. I felt so totally alone even when there was a crowd of people around me. It was as if I’d lost a piece of myself when I walked away from him. And it pissed me off that I’d made him such a huge part of my life—the only part of my life—other than my girls. How could I love him so much when he didn’t love me? I gave him so much. He gave me nothing. That pissed me off even more.

  Between the sniffles, I heard Ang’s cell phone buzz from where I placed it on the nightstand. Of course, I peeked over and again saw the tiny thumbnail picture of an icy cold glass of water sent in a message. Suddenly, I was thirsty and tears poured from my eyes faster than before.

  I laid back and stared at the ceiling, trying not to visualize all the nasty DNA I might be bedding down with when all I wanted to do was pound my best friend in the face with a pillow. I was so jealous; I could feel my skin turning green. I wish I had… no, I couldn’t go there. I was so damn angry I couldn’t even think straight. I am a horrible person for being jealous that she had a great husband, and I had no one. I never would have thought that I could feel so much pain from a broken heart, when there was no real physical damage to it.

  The broken vending machines outside our door made me hurt even worse.

  Worst time in the world to start a diet.

  Yeah, I know I have some weight to lose, but it’s more than losing weight that I needed to work on. Truly, I even kind of loved the curve of my belly. My gaining weight had a lot to do with a hysterectomy, but I knew, deep down in my soul that it had a lot more to do with being seen. The bigger me was about not wanting to be invisible anymore, because that’s what I was, invisible. To my husband, I was no longer the person he wanted. To my kids, I was a butt wiper, feeder, wallet, chauffeur, and to me, I was whatever they needed that day. But otherwise, I was just invisible.

  When you spend enough time being there for everyone else and away from yourself, you just lose yourself. Just like if you spend time away from each other as a married couple, you stop being a married couple. I think I ate, correction: overate, because I wanted to take up space, to be something more. Bigger. Visible. I wanted to matter. I had things I wanted to do and say and be and feel. Typically, I’d push them all aside to make everyone else happy.

  Now, nobody was.

  I pulled my laptop from my bag and once again stared at a blank, white screen. My eyes blurred with tears. Maybe I should just write this story, I thought. Maybe someone else out there felt not-so-great about herself—or himself, a little lost even. Maybe someone else would understand.

  Something ringing woke me up. It was loud. Annoying.

  The kids! I needed to get the kids ready. I had to make breakfast and pack lunches, iron shirts, bag up snacks, get everyone’s clothes, drive everyone to…

  My face was plastered to my keyboard, and I was momentarily confused as to where I was. Then, it hit me. The kids were at the sleep away camp they pleaded all year to go to. Scott was gone; he wasn’t my responsibility any longer. And Angelisa had string cheese all over her face and hair.

  And I needed to find me again.

  While Ang slept, (God that woman could sleep), I showered and dressed. I even walked down to the lobby for that Continental breakfast Clerky McMimic told me about the night before. Salivating over the muffins and bagels, I forced myself to swipe only two bananas off the table and grab a cup of coffee.

  Walking back to our room, I spotted a gym across the street.

  Oh I remember those.

  I waited until eight o’clock then jumped on Angelisa’s bed, screaming.

  “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” I squealed, bouncing and stomping around the rickety, old, creaking bed. Of course, I fell off when she sat straight up and shouted in response, kicking her legs wildly about. But let’s not go there. No, let’s go straight to the gym!

  Walking across the street toward the gym, we stuffed the bananas into our mouths as if we couldn’t be caught eating fruit in public.

  “Man, the last time I think I had fruit, it came in a baby jar and was pureed,” Ang said over a mouth full of monkey food.

  We both walked slower the closer we got to the front doors of the gym. To the right of us, an ambulance was parking in the gym’s lot. “If you called them for me, I’m a bit offended at your lack of faith,” I laughed.

  Two stunningly gorgeous men climbed out.

  “I feel faint already,” I said, waving my hands across my face.

  “If I throw myself on the ground right now, do you think I would get some mouth-to-mouth?” Ang asked, staring at them.

  “I think they use those mouth things now,” I said, disappointedly.

  The men smiled at us as they walked past. Well now. Hello there.

  “Morning, ladies.”

  Our pace quickened, and we walked in after them. They headed straight for the locker rooms as we bee-lined straight for the information desk, stumbling over our feet since we were still watching them walk the other way.

  Using the Cheater’s credit card, we signed up for a week’s pass. “Hey, let’s take a class of something,” I said, perusing the schedules on the wall.

  Ang smirked, “Yeah, just don’t sign me up for anything cardio. Let’s start easy like, walking… or sitting… do they have a sitting class?”

  “Yoga? How about yoga? Isn’t that like sitting in funny posi
tions and meditating?” I offered, eyeing the class descriptions. “Oh, look at that one! Hot yoga. Hot. Yoga. Sounds erotic. Let’s try it.”

  “Sure. It’s stretching right? How hard could that be?” she asked with an excited gleam in her eye.

  We were really going to do it! We were taking back control of our lives and doing healthy things!

  We registered for a class. Then we both sat on the bench with our rented neon pink yoga mats and waited eagerly, just outside the class until the doors opened. When they did open, we bounced in like two giddy cherubs. The strange thing was that I felt thinner already by just being there.

  The room filled. There were three people who were bigger than Angelisa and I. I looked over at my new calorie-deprived partner and smiled smugly.

  We got this.

  We each took a spot. The regulars snapped and snarled when we stood in their places, and we ended up dancing around like two idiots until we found two empty areas somewhere in the middle of the class. And wouldn’t you know it, we ended up behind the two gorgeous ambulance drivers, who were bare chested and wearing tight-ass hugging shorts. I winked at Ang. This was going to be fun.

  A sudden gush of fiery, hot air blasted into the room through the vents. It sounded like the room was going to blast off. The smell was questionably toxic. For a second, my heart thudded erratically in my chest.

  Did hot yoga mean hot yoga?

  My face was quickly consumed with sticky, sweet-smelling air that rivaled the humidity of the freaking Amazon. Instantly, I wasn’t so sure about this genius plan anymore. I’m a true believer in the air conditioner—something I never viewed as a luxury, but more of a necessity than a sink or a toilet. I couldn’t live without an air conditioner. I’d figure something out without a toilet or a sink. I’m pretty resourceful and creative.