Losing to Win

by Michele Grant

  “What was that, Carissa? Did you have a question?” Darcy asked.

  “Nope. Not at all.” I tried not to groan as I released the pose and rolled into downward facing dog.

  “Oh, this is totally not natural to be doing with clothes on,” Niecy said.

  “Girl, don’t even remind me,” I muttered.

  “Would you two shut up so we can get out of here?” Suzette bitched. Aggravated bitching was par for the course for Suzette. Where Niecy and I grumbled with as much good nature as we could muster, Suzette indulged in recurring bitch sessions where clearly the world had conspired to make her miserable. If not the world, me. She was convinced that I spent copious amounts of time thinking up ways to make her life miserable. I didn’t have to; she did fine all on her own. We were used to it by now. Constant bitch and moan from that one.

  My only source of entertainment today was watching Suzette struggle even harder than I was to contort her fleshy extremities into these positions.

  We huffed and strained through another forty minutes of yoga torture before collapsing onto the mats.

  “Hydrate, ladies!” Paul called out from the front of the room.

  I reached for the water bottle and drank deeply. Okay, so maybe I was pretending it was flavored vodka. A girl could dream.

  “Ladies, we’re going to have you meet with the therapist now. Suzette isn’t feeling well, so she’ll do her session later. Niecy and Carissa, you can meet Dr. Julie in the common room.” Suzette fled the room without a look back.

  “Dr. Julie?” I asked sardonically. “Are they serious with this?”

  “It’s very Hollywood,” Niecy agreed. “Is it me or does it seem that our dear Suzette is always under the weather when there’s an all-girl activity to do?”

  “Under the weather?” we both repeated with air quotes.

  “Is that what we’re calling it? And no, it’s not you.”

  “I mean, damn—she truly cannot stand you.”

  “The feeling is mutual. We competed for everything back in the day and I came out on top more often than not.” Truly I felt Suzette should be over it by now, but it seemed like wounded negativity was all she had to get her through these days.

  “I wonder why she even agreed to do the show if she hates being around you that much?”

  “Probably the same reason we’re stuck on this thing: more dollars than sense.”

  “Amen,” Niecy said as we climbed awkwardly off the floor and gathered our things to head for the common room.

  “Not that I’m not giddy to have you, but besides our brief catch-up convo, you never gave me the details on why you decided to do this show. What got you here?” I asked out of curiosity.

  “You know I went through that breakup with Finn. . . .”

  “I refer to him as Freakin’ Finn, but yes.” Niecy had been dating Finn Wilson for close to five years. Finn was a guy who had to be dragged into grown-up-ness kicking and screaming. Easy to look at, hard to live with. He always had some reason why the relationship could not be taken to the next level. Every step forward in their relationship had been the result of Niecy prodding and pushing and pleading. Personally, I didn’t think it was supposed to be that hard. Eventually, she agreed with me and broke it off. Then again, what did I know? I sat around with Malachi’s ring on my finger for about the same length of time without getting a Mrs. in front of my name. I was in no position to judge.

  “Anyway, I ran into him back in April and he said some things that got me thinking.”

  “What kinds of things?” We arrived in the common room.

  A whisper-thin blonde with a severely short haircut stood to greet us. She was dressed all in black and her lips were coated in a blood red lipstick. We both paused. It was a little much for a middle-of-the-day look in sleepy Belle Haven, Louisiana.

  “Hi, Carissa. Hi, Deniece.” She extended a hand to both of us. “I’m Dr. Julie. I’m here to talk through the psychological side of your weight gain.”

  Niecy and I exchanged glances and shook her hand. This would be yet another ride on the fun train. It seemed to never end around here.

  “When you walked in, you were talking about Deniece’s ex-boyfriend. Do you want to continue that conversation?”

  Were they bugging the hallways, the water bottles, the T-shirts we wore? We looked at each other with resignation. We could talk about it with her in a controlled environment or we could try to talk privately and have things we said taken out of context.

  We sat down on the sofa in front of Dr. Julie.

  “So anyway . . .” Niecy drawled with an exaggerated eye roll. “Finn said that one of the reasons he wouldn’t commit to me was because I was ‘overconfident’ about my appearance.” She used the air quotes on overconfident.

  I was appalled. “What was he trying to say?”

  “He was trying to say that my ass was big and he wanted a skinny bitch.”

  “Oh, Niecy, come on. You’ve been the same size for as long I’ve know you and you’ve always looked fabulous. You were the same size when you met him, so all of a sudden he didn’t like what he was hugged up on for months on end? That boy damn near begged to get with you.”

  She waggled her shoulders. “Who knows? Anyway, it occurred to me that I’m not getting any younger.”

  “True dat,” I agreed.

  “And would it kill me to, one: lose some weight; two: spend the summer with you; and three: get out of Finn’s reach for a few months?”

  “Good points all.” I nodded.

  “And so here I am in the middle of hot-ass Louisiana, sweating out my curls on nationwide TV.”

  “But we’re having so much fun, though?” I giggled.

  “Oodles.” She winked at me.

  Dr. Julie interjected, “Deniece, have you always been full figured?”

  “Nice wording.” She flashed a grin at the doctor to let her know it was okay. “Pretty much my entire life, but I’ve always been disgustingly healthy so it wasn’t a problem.”

  “But now that you’ve been rejected by a man, you consider your weight to be a problem?” Dr. Julie queried.

  We both frowned because that wasn’t even close to what Niecy had said. “I think it’s more a case of ‘if I’m going to do this, why not now’ more than anything else,” Niecy answered diplomatically.

  Dr. Julie turned to me. “Why do you think you’ve had such a drastic weight gain, Carissa?”

  I expelled a breath. “You know, one thing you guys on this show could work on is a little tact and sensitivity. Most people who are overweight know that they are overweight. Those of us who used to be teensy and aren’t anymore? It’s especially painful. It’s like fat is the last thing that people feel okay being rude and insensitive about.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be insensitive.”

  “You referred to my weight gain as drastic. Which, of course, it is. But surely I don’t need you to emphasize it,” I explained with as much Southern hospitality as I could muster.

  She nodded in acknowledgment. “Point taken. No one has ever told us this before.”

  “I can’t imagine why not. Fat people do not want to be told we are fat. Even if we’re just slightly overweight, we’d prefer not to be slapped around with it. Let us deal with our body issues as we see fit. No pun intended.”

  She sat back in surprise. “No offense, but you do not come across as sensitive about your weight.”

  “Okay, like what you did there: By saying I wasn’t sensitive about my weight, you imply that my weight is a problem. As if I’m not living a full life, in spite of not being a perfect size 6. Happy comes in all sizes. The things that have gone wrong in my life aren’t directly related to my weight. The opposite, in fact,” I informed Dr. Julie.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Self-esteem and self-confidence are often issues of plus-sized folks. You just stumbled across me and Niecy, who don’t really have problems in that area. We get that cute comes in all sizes, colors, and c
reeds.”

  “Okay.” She took some notes on her iPad.

  “Anyway, let me answer your question. My case is fairly classic. There were things missing in my life that I replaced with food. Unfortunately, the more things I lost, the more food I replaced them with, which coincided with me becoming less and less active. So more food, less movement, and here we are.”

  “Can you identify the things that you were missing so that it doesn’t happen again?”

  “I was missing me,” I answered directly. “I placed the needs of others before mine and somewhere inside I knew it. Then I lost one of the people whom I had considered integral to my continued happiness. Over the past few years, I kind of found myself again, but I decided the weight wasn’t that big of a thing.”

  “Do you think you will keep it off after this?” Dr. Julie asked.

  “I guess that depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On how much I lose and whether I’m healthy and what’s important to me along the way. I’m not losing weight for a man or for some bright shiny life that only skinny people achieve. I’m losing weight because it’s time and I’d be more comfortable in my own skin.”

  Dr. Julie scribbled furiously. “You two have a very healthy outlook. I’m optimistic that you are prepared to handle the psychological ramifications of rapid weight loss.”

  Niecy blinked. “What might those be?”

  “Well, a lot of times, you get more attention, you start obsessing over your looks, things like that. Your appearance becomes more important; other areas less so.”

  Niecy guffawed. “Did you miss the part where we talked about our cute? We’ve always spent more time worrying about how we look than we should. We’re vain, at any size. Welcome to the South. Yeah, I don’t think you really need to worry too much about us down the road.”

  “Carissa, would you like to talk specifically about Malachi and his impact on your mental well-being?” Dr. Julie asked out of the blue.

  “No. I absolutely do not.” I had to draw the line in the sand.

  “But you do know that he impacted and probably continues to impact how you feel about yourself?”

  “Malachi Knight impacts a lot of things, but what he can no longer do is change the way I feel about me. No, that’s not an option. If I learned nothing else from our split, I learned I needed to be okay with me, no matter what. And that’s not going to change whether I’m wearing an 8 or an 18.” Niecy high-fived me.

  “You’re very passionate about this,” Dr. Julie observed.

  “About me?” I smiled. “Why, yes. Yes, I am. As a matter of fact, I love me some me.”

  “Girl, you’re a hot mess,” Niecy said with an amused shake of her head.

  “If I don’t love me some me, who will?” I raised my arms to ask.

  Dr. Julie scribbled some more and then looked up. “I think we’re at a good stopping point. I’ll check back in with you from time to time. Feel free to give me a call if you have anything you want to talk about.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Julie,” we intoned at the same time.

  She gestured to the door. “You can head on over to lunch.”

  “Yummy. Carrot sticks and naked chicken,” I murmured to Niecy.

  “You know it.” We locked arms and walked in slow resignation.

  11

  Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

  Malachi—Friday, June 12—6:12 a.m.

  “What are you really asking me?” I responded to one of Meshach’s questions with a question of my own as I finished my last round of reps on the butterfly press. Shifting to the Nautilus machine for leg curls, I adjusted the weight and slid onto the bench. Double-checking that my knee brace, which I needed less and less, was secure, I depressed the weight with both legs and then brought it back up slowly. After the third rep, I glanced up at him.

  “I just want to make sure your head is on straight,” Meshach cautioned as he settled onto a bench across from me.

  Raising a brow, I had to needle him a little. “Are you going to work out or just sit in your pretty blue suit and lecture me?”

  Meshach had a thriving law practice based in New Orleans, at least a ninety-minute drive from here. Yet here he was at six in the morning dressed in his Armani suit, taking time out to talk to me. Shach wasn’t the kind to talk just to hear himself talk. If he had something important enough to track me down to say, I was going to listen.

  “I’m heading into New Orleans after I talk to you. No workout needed. In case you forgot, I’m the natural athlete in the family.”

  “You’re the natural bullshitter, that’s for damn sure.” I exhaled after the tenth rep. Some people actually liked strength training. I wasn’t one of those people. I did what I had to do and went on to the next thing.

  “Mal...” he started tentatively. Meshach was rarely tentative.

  “Shach, you know you don’t have to sugarcoat shit with me. We’ve never been that way. Just say it.”

  “Let’s start with the career. Do you want back in the NFL just to prove you can do it or because it’s what you really want?”

  “You know it’s what I’ve always wanted.”

  “Yes, but let’s be real. Football came easy. You never thought about doing anything else. You’ve invested here and there, you’ve got some lines on other fields. If football isn’t your passion anymore, don’t do it.”

  I looked at him in confusion. “I still love it. I was miserable when I couldn’t play. Even more because I had cut myself off from the sport.”

  “You were miserable without football or without Carissa?”

  “Football. I learned to live without Carissa.”

  “Because football and Carissa are mutually exclusive.”

  “I know that.”

  “Do you? Cuz it kinda seems like you want to get everything back jus’ the way it was. You can’t do that.”

  “I know that, Shach,” I repeated. “Just make your point.”

  He took a deep breath and unloaded. “I don’t want you to get tangled up with Carissa again if you’re going to leave her behind when you head back to the NFL.”

  “Tangled up?” I was looking for clarification.

  “You know what I’m saying here.”

  “I don’t know that I’m getting back to the NFL. No one knows that yet.”

  “C’mon, now. You damn well do know and it’s not like you to play coy.”

  I tilted my head and acknowledged his statement before moving to the next machine.

  He began again. “Listen, Mal, you weren’t here when she came back. She was . . .”

  I paused in the middle of a lift and met his gaze. “What? She was what?”

  He clasped his hands together and looked down. “She was broken, Mal. Carissa had always been a live wire, full of energy and sass. All that fire, all that spark—gone. She was just a shadow of her former self for a while. And you know you had to be heavily responsible for that.”

  I let go of the bar I was pulling on and exhaled. I’d forgotten that as much as Carissa had been a part of my life, she was a part of my family’s life as well. When she hurt, they hurt. The fact that I was responsible for that weighed heavily on me. “You know, it really kills me to hear that. I never meant to do that to her.”

  “I know you didn’t. But it took her a long time to come back. To find herself again. I wouldn’t want—”

  I got up and moved to the free weights, interrupting him as I moved past. “I know. I do know. I may be a little slow, but I’m not an idiot. I admit I didn’t realize what I was doing to her before. You know she always just... I don’t know.”

  “She always just did whatever you wanted. No questions asked,” Meshach explained.

  “Well, yeah. It didn’t occur to me that she didn’t want exactly what I wanted.”

  He huffed out a breath in frustration. “You’re still not getting it, Mal!”

  “What?” I was confused. What was I missing?

  “She
did want what you wanted for you, just not at the expense of what she wanted for the both of you and for her. She put you first. Every time. Your wants, your needs, your ambitions.”

  Okay. I had to set down the weights on that. It was like a lightning bolt struck me. I had never thought about it like that. Not at all. I was so focused on what I was doing and how to take the next step. I had been thinking about our relationship from my point of view. And then I thought about it from her point of view. But not until this moment had I considered our point of view—together, as a unit. Maybe I’d been too young when we met and got used to things a certain way. Maybe it took me a while to mature. Maybe being apart and alone and hurt and disillusioned made me see now what I didn’t then. It was now clear that my inability to move us forward as equal partners had been a major part of the problem all along.

  I sat down next to Meshach and stared unseeingly at the ground. “I don’t think I want to do without her. But I’m not sure how to get us there,” I admitted.

  “When you figure it out for sure and you know how to make it work? That’s when you make your move. Otherwise you’re being the same self-obsessed asshole she ran away from.”

  My head snapped up and I glared at my brother. “Whoa! What’s with the name-calling, bro?”

  “You earned it, bro.”

  “When?

  “Right around the time when you started believing your own press,” he said wryly.

  “Jesus, was I that bad?”

  He snorted. “Worse.”

  “Why didn’t someone say something?”

  “Carissa did. For all of us. Many times. You quit listening to any damn body.”

  I gave him a small shove. “You should have kicked my ass. Wouldn’t be the first time.”

  He leveled a solemn look at me. “Remember I tried?”

  “Oh yeah.” Vaguely, I remembered Meshach, Burke, and Pierre coming to see me in Houston shortly after Carissa bolted, but before I injured my knee. I was in an asshole phase at that time, I could admit it in retrospect. Shach had tried to tell me about myself, but I wasn’t hearing it. “I believe you referred to my attitude as ‘stank’?” I’d called him something worse in retaliation and he drew his arm back to throw a punch. Pierre stepped in between us and reminded Meshach that assault against a brother was still considered assault and did we really want to go there? I sighed as the scene came back to me. It wasn’t pretty. “My bad?” I put my fist up.