I Never Promised You a Goodie Bag

by Jennifer Gilbert

  I didn’t always travel alone—I also took some epic trips with Deanna, and on those trips I would be in full-on fabulous mode. On those giddy, wonderful vacations I felt like I was reclaiming my lost years. We were young and broke and stayed in nasty pensiones, but that didn’t matter because we hardly spent any time in our rooms anyway. In Paris, we stayed with friends of friends on the outskirts of town. It was roughly the equivalent of visiting Manhattan but staying at LaGuardia Airport. We got all tarted up in tiny dresses and red lipstick and rode the metro at least an hour into the heart of Paris. Nicolette had given me a list of the hottest places to go for coffee, dinner, drinks, and dancing. Back then the nightclub was Le Bain Douche, and by the time we arrived, the line to get in was hundreds deep. I decided that if I didn’t wait on line in Manhattan, then I was not going to wait on line in Paris, so I grabbed Deanna and we trotted up to the front of the line. We were hand in hand in our sparkly party dresses, and the lesbian bouncer waved us right inside.

  It was already midnight, but the tiny disco was bizarrely empty and quiet. We got ourselves drinks at the bar, and soon Deanna was talking to one man, and I was chatting with another. At the exact same moment each man said, “So, are you here for the Prince concert?” Each of us nodded, mais oui, and then mumbled excusez-moi. Then we found each other and silently squealed our disbelief. We were in Paris, in an empty nightclub, and in a few hours Prince was going to give a private concert. This could not be happening.

  The club filled up, and Prince came on around three in the morning, in a space no bigger than my living room. I still remember the exhilarating feeling of walking out onto the streets of Paris at seven, sweaty from dancing all night, to the sound of street sweepers and the smell of croissants just coming out of boulangerie ovens. It was magical.

  Times like that, I didn’t feel like I was trying quite so hard. My joy was spontaneous and real, and there was nothing forced about it. The feeling wasn’t permanent—not by a long shot—but I embraced it body and soul. I was opening up to a colorful world full of possibility. I’d be back to reality soon enough, but until then, I seized the moment.

  Chapter Nine

  Bicycle Pants

  For many years after the attack I was convinced that everything in life was a bargain—to get one thing, you had to give up something else. The Jenny who’d walked into Andrea’s apartment building thought that she could have it all. The Jennifer who came out the other side of that horrible experience knew that nothing came without a price.

  I chose the perfect line of work to prove that theory. So often, no matter how hard I worked, something awful was bound to go wrong, and I’d have to pick up the pieces. Being hypervigilant in my line of work wasn’t paranoia—it was necessity. If anything was going to work out well, I reasoned, then it was because I’d worked my butt off, given twice my all, and still expected the absolute worst. Nothing could be taken for granted, because the second I got comfortable it could all come crashing down.

  Once we took on an important event for a private law firm headquartered in Europe. If events are disaster magnets, then planning an event on another continent is a disaster invitation. The margin of error becomes canyon-size when you factor in time changes and jet lag and customs and language barriers. The conference for two hundred guests was planned for a distinguished old hotel in Portugal. Two months prior to the event, the organizers decided to double the number of guests. However, this antique hotel didn’t have a banquet room large enough for twice the number, and it wasn’t possible to move the event elsewhere. The only solution was to build a temporary structure on the grounds of the hotel. Then, with just a few days to spare before the event, the local tent company informed us that they didn’t have the correct materials available. Luckily, private European law firms at that point in time didn’t lack for cash—this was a company that could afford to bring in the most famous opera star in the world as their entertainment—so when ingenuity failed us, we were able to throw some money at the problem. We paid triple the usual asking price for a company in Spain to truck the tent to us overnight, and to construct it in round-the-clock shifts.

  The temporary structure was gorgeous, and that evening, with just an hour left in the program, my staff began to silently celebrate. I, however, never celebrate until the last guest has headed home. Of course, with just forty-five minutes left, a storm descended in our area, and my staff and I, along with the triply paid Spanish construction workers, noticed that the wind had actually caused the back wall of the structure to buckle. We all bolted for the door—and in a wind that would have sent Dorothy flying to Oz, we physically held up that wall until the event was over and all the guests were tying one on in the hotel bar. It was truly insane, but that was my life. I never, ever took anything for granted.

  It was the same thing in my personal life. I was at a point where things were looking up in so many ways—I’d put the trial behind me, my business was growing, and every day I was allowing myself to enjoy life a little more. But still I could never let myself believe that I deserved any of it, or that it couldn’t all be taken away if I let my guard down for even a second. It was two steps forward and one step back. So, to push the odds in my favor, I started to make endless deals.

  I’d been obsessively running ever since I’d moved back to New York, but it wasn’t until sometime after the trial that my calorie vigilance became fanatical. When I lost weight during those anxiety-filled weeks before the hearing, I discovered two very powerful realities. One, I liked my new thin, lithe body; and two, while I could not control the outside world, I could control everything I put in my mouth.

  It was around this time that my relationship with food became complicated. Gone was the girl who’d made drunken trips to the campus baker and stuffed herself with cookies and brownies. I found a new outlet for all my inner fears and brokering: making food sacrifices. For several years after that, I cut out whole food groups, one at a time, carbs among them, until I regularly ate nothing but egg whites and turkey breast. Here I was an event planner, constantly surrounded by food—the most exquisite cakes and luscious hors d’oeuvres, homemade breads and pastas—and I walked by all of it as if it wasn’t there. I’d plan the most gorgeous wedding, I’d cry during the ceremony, I’d be just as giddy as the bride during all the festivities. But I wouldn’t allow myself a bite of the wedding cake at the reception. And it’s not as if I was the kind of person who’d never been much interested in sweets. I loved sugar. I could have happily lived on nothing but brownies and alcohol. But I denied all my natural cravings so successfully that eating only lean protein and undressed greens became a way of life.

  I now closely regulated everything that I ate. The experience of eating became another arena in which to prove myself. It was my next deal with the universe. If I deny myself this, my unconscious reasoning went, then maybe I’ll be able to keep these other things that I fought so hard for. It seems so contrary to logic—why would a person who had been through something so awful want to punish herself further? But anyone who’s been afraid to speak a wish aloud or uttered a kinehora (Yiddish for “knock on wood”) knows the fear of losing it all if you dare to get complacent. For the same reason, sacrificing and denying myself pleasure became my ways of inoculating myself against further disaster. The constant vigilance was exhausting, but I figured it was the price I had to pay for being alive, and being safe.

  My secret insurance policy was certainly a form of self-punishment. But there was also something about the knowledge that I could withhold food from myself—that I could abstain and resist—that gave me a feeling of power. I remember actually liking the feeling of hunger, and knowing that I could go without. When I’d go out to restaurants with friends or on dates, I didn’t even look at the menu. It was a minefield of things I wouldn’t allow myself—pasta, bread, butter, dessert. I’d order broiled fish, a steamed vegetable, and a salad with vinegar (no oil). Some people probably thought I was nu
ts. Others admired my discipline. For me it was just mind over matter. Not eating when I was hungry was like sprinting that extra mile. I did it even when it hurt. I did it especially when it hurt. I did it because I could.

  My body became a battleground in more ways than one. In addition to my exercise and food denial, I was also still deeply self-conscious about my scars. For years after the attack I refused to wear a bathing suit in public. The beach on a summer day became a terrifying gauntlet of exposure. Initially, I told myself that I had good reason to cover up at the beach—the scars would heal better and be less noticeable in time if I protected them from the sun. But even once the scars had faded to barely noticeable white lines on my thighs and butt, I couldn’t bear to reveal myself.

  Black, knee-length bicycle pants became my second skin and my perfect excuse. In the Hamptons, when everyone else in my summerhouse was headed to the beach, I’d head out running. Later, I’d meet my housemates on the beach on the way back from my run—still wearing the bike pants. I felt such potent shame and anxiety, and inside I died a little each time someone said, “What’s with the bike pants, Jen?” Or, “God, you’re making me hot just looking at you.” Or, “C’mon in the water with us, Jen.”

  I wanted to, but I just couldn’t. Those pants were my emotional girdle—they held me in—and I just wasn’t ready to lose them.

  I’d grown up fearlessly swimming in open water off my father’s sailboat, and I’d always adored the ocean. But once I started covering up, it became a compulsion to protect my secret. Here I was renting a share in a beach house, while the whole topic of the beach was traumatizing for me. I’d find excuses not to hang out with my housemates all day long because it gave me such angst.

  None of those people in my Hamptons share even knew I’d been attacked, and I’d always refused to be that girl who exposed her tragedy to everyone. When my housemates asked me about the bike pants, I’d say that I wasn’t hot, or that I was about to take a walk or go for a run. After a while the girls mostly stopped asking me about the pants. They realized that whatever my issues were, asking me questions about it wasn’t helping. The men never stopped asking, though. I’m sure they all thought I was just being sensitive about my body (I remember one of them saying, “What, do you think you’re fat or something?”)—and of course I was sensitive, but not for the reasons they might have expected.

  The bicycle pants imprisoned me as much as they protected me. I had the craziest tan lines from wearing them all the time. I’d wear a bikini underneath, so the top of me was bronzed, and then there was a white band of flesh that started at my waist and extended all the way to my knees. This meant that once I committed to the bicycle pants for a summer, I was stuck. If I took them off, I’d look like I just emerged from a body cast. I couldn’t even wear a short skirt for fear of exposing that weird line of demarcation.

  One horrendously hot day I went for a walk by myself over to the family beaches, where I didn’t know anyone. I walked as far as I could, dripping with sweat and looking longingly at the ocean. Women and men of all shapes and sizes were in the water, walking on the sand, playing with their kids, letting it all hang out. And here I was, young and thin and half encased in spandex.

  I looked around me to make sure that I didn’t know anyone, and I just thought, Screw it. I peeled off the bike pants, and I was fluorescent white underneath. I went into the ocean for the first time in years. I’m sure I cried from the shame and sadness. The whole charade was just so pathetic—and exhausting. I so badly wanted to be a normal person. I was surrounded by people who weren’t supermodels by any stretch, but they all seemed comfortable in their skin—or at least comfortable enough to wear a bathing suit in full view and jump in the water on the hottest day of the year. Why was I such a loser? Such a freak?

  That internal monologue of hate speech was familiar to me. Whenever I’d inevitably fall off my dieting wagon and binge on candy, I’d wake up the next morning with a headache and a sick feeling in my stomach. Then I’d be positively evil to myself. I’d tell myself that I was weak, gross, disgusting. For the next several days I would physically punish myself. I’d drink liters of water but wouldn’t eat until after 4:00 p.m., at which point I’d allow myself a head of lettuce. Then I’d go for an eight-mile run. It wasn’t just that I had a crazy notion that eating a bowl of ice cream would leave a literal, immediate imprint on my butt. That was insane enough. But my grip on my weight was about even more than that. One night of eating chocolate had the power to negate years of walking my tightrope of deal-making. Just one brief loss of discipline terrified me.

  That year in the Hamptons, I met someone who seemed (superficially, anyway) so unlike me that we never should have become friends. Bennett was one of the housemates in the new share I’d taken. The first time we ate in a restaurant together, he blew my mind by ordering chocolate soufflé as his first course. He said, “Why not eat the best part of the meal first?” He ordered steak with gorgonzola after that. I ate my dry salad and fish while experiencing total food envy. I kept myself on such a tight leash, and here was a man who had no leash. That was such an alien notion to me—I thought you had to work for everything in order to deserve it. He was the opposite—he didn’t question whether he deserved life’s pleasures. For me, running was far more about control than release; Bennett played racquetball because he enjoyed it, and that’s how he lived every day.

  Bennett completely intrigued me the first time we met. He was eight years older and seemed so secure—in his skin, his career, his family and circle of friends. He could be reserved and a little quiet at first—he liked to take things in and let other people do the talking. The son of a New York State Supreme Court judge, Bennett grew up in a highly intellectual family where the regular practice at dinner was to conduct a debate over a chosen policy subject. He was absolutely brilliant and destined to be a lawyer, but after his father died when he was in college—a memory that still haunted him, although he’d never let on as much—he took a different turn and ended up a successful executive at Bear Stearns.

  Bennett was stylish and sophisticated, with dark hair and eyes and skin that tanned deep brown in the sun. He always seemed to have his own plans, and he’d leave the rest of us in the middle of the day, all dressed up in a linen suit, and zip off in his convertible to a polo match, or to some fancy party on a yacht. He was a wild combination of stoic on the surface—you’d never know what he was thinking unless he told you—and charismatic, and given to the most grand and beautiful gestures. He cultivated orchids, owned about nine hundred bow ties, and was the only straight man I’d ever met who could confidently pair a pink polka-dot tie with a purple-striped shirt. And he only wrote in green ink.

  Bennett loved type A women, and he quickly adopted me. In the city we’d often have dinner. I’d talk a mile a minute, filling in any silence, but he never felt pressure to make small talk. Occasionally he’d call on the spur of the moment to see what I was up to. Once he called to see if I was busy and I told him I was shopping for a new suit, so he offered to come along. I tried something on and went out to see what he thought. He looked at me carefully and said, “You can do better.” He was right, and I was stunned. I’d never had a man be so honest with me about my appearance, and I could not get that suit off fast enough.

  I knew Bennett had another close friend named Jessica, and I was always curious about the attention he paid to her. Often he’d leave the Hamptons on Saturday afternoon, saying that he had promised to see a play with her. I thought, Okay, a friend doesn’t leave his share on a summer Saturday just to go hang out with another friend. So finally I asked him if she was his girlfriend. He said no. He was obsessed with her, but they were just friends. I didn’t blame Jessica for not wanting to lose Bennett as a friend, even though she wasn’t interested in him as a boyfriend. When he focused his energy on you, it was like a spotlight, and it was a wonderful place to be. And I found that I could live vicariously by making hi
m happy. I knew he loved chocolate, so I started bringing him special treats from my events. Every time, he ate it right there in front of me, and knowingly gave me the satisfaction of his pleasure. He knew I was insane about my own eating rules, but never judged me or ridiculed me. He just let me be. He was that familiar warm hug I always sought out. We became the absolute best of friends.

  Bennett had a direct hand in forcing the issue of the bike pants with me. I didn’t shed them right away after becoming friends with him, but he managed to make the first dent in the armor. He had a friend named Mark who had a very dry, sarcastic sense of humor, and weekend after weekend the two of them would harass me about the bicycle shorts. One day Mark said, “Here’s Jen in her bike shorts again. Are you going to be buried in them?”

  That was it, I’d had it. At an opportune moment I took the two of them aside, and I said, “Okay, you want to know why I wear bicycle shorts? Here you go.” I told them just the facts, and I didn’t get emotional. I said, “X years ago I was stabbed Y times with a screwdriver, and most of the wounds are on my legs. For years I didn’t want them to scar, but now covering them has become habit as well as self-consciousness.” I told them that whenever anyone asked me about the scars, it was an unwelcome reminder of what happened to me, and I just preferred not to share that part of me. When I’d finished, I asked them both to keep it to themselves. They were shocked and quiet, and they promised they would never speak of it. They were both true to their word.

  I’d never told anyone other than a boyfriend about what had happened to me—and even then it was only out of necessity. Now the circle of people who knew the real me had gotten a little bit wider. I was starting to test the waters of honesty about my past—gauging their reactions and my own comfort level. Bennett’s complete acceptance of both sides of me—the vulnerable and the tough—was a revelation, and it was the start of a new phase in my life.