The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “They conceived a child with a gold and wax dildo?” Meg asks amused. “And I thought Ra was the God of the Sun,” she adds.

  “That was before,” Brit says. “Stop being so literal. Anyway, so now, because Isis had a child who would stop her being alone and unhappy, Osiris was allowed to die and he went on to become King of the Underworld where he was head honcho over the non-living. But he visited Isis, and their boy, who was called Horus. So Isis is the symbol of power over life and death. Even today, the flooding of the Nile is celebrated by Muslims with a festival called The Night of the Drop. It used to be called The Night of the Tear Drop because Isis cried so much over Osiris’ death that the Nile River overflowed.”

  Meg grunts in derision. Brit waves a hand at her and continues.

  “The pictures of Isis nursing Horus are the basis for a lot of Madonna and child images,” she explains. “Not Jesus and Mary as people often think. She is also the icon for a faithful wife and a loving mother, and she guides the dead to the Underworld. She is a great goddess.

  “But here’s what’s important,” she says and she taps us both on the knee so we’ll pay attention. I immediately wonder if she thinks I have a fat knee and wish she hadn’t touched me. But she turns to scrabble in her purse for her notebook, digging through all kinds of clutter. She whisks out a spiral-bound pad and flips through it, squinting at the notes she has scrawled on its pages.

  “Isis embodies the strengths of the feminine, the capacity to feel deeply about relationships, the art of creation and the source of sustenance and protection,” she quotes, putting emphasis on the words that were important to her. “She is the goddess who shows us how we can use our personal gifts to create the life we desire, rather than simply opposing that which we do not like.” She flicks the notepad shut, blinks brightly and smiles.

  “You’ve got a piece of green stuff in your teeth,” Meg says, brushing crumbs from her lap onto Pablo’s new carpet.

  Brit digs out a hand mirror, picks at her teeth and carries on chatting. “One of Isis’s most important skills was her ability to heal the sick,” she says. “I looked at lots of things online about her and you know, she is like a universal mother, she’ll protect us from harm and help us through the trials of life. I am very glad I turned out to be her in the quiz.”

  “Hmmm,” Meg sounds bored and glances back at the snack tables.

  I wonder if Isis can help me with my food issues.

  If I could stop my problems with food, the rest of my life would fall into place. Everything would be perfect. I’d be happy to give Isis a go but I feel embarrassed. Imagine going to a goddess with something as humiliating as an eating disorder. Half the world is starving, one is supposed to call upon Isis to help grow crops and generate food. And here I am, either throwing up or starving myself. I am sick by my own hand; I don’t deserve help from a goddess. I need to show some discipline; then I can ask her for help. It is up to me to create the life I desire – Isis said so herself – and all this dysfunction is my fault, therefore I have to be the one to fix it.

  I have drifted off into my own world and when I refocus, Brit is still talking.

  “What Isis and Osiris make us aware of,” she is saying, “with their love and then his death and then coming back to life and then his death again, is how it’s up to us to keep growing and learning. We must be like snakes, shedding the skins of dead relationships and defunct emotions; it’s up to us to connect with how we really feel underneath it all. Sometimes it’s hard to let ourselves acknowledge what we really feel, because it’s scary.”

  Meg gives a snort. “Or maybe there are people who just don’t feel anything,” she says. “I am just pissed off at my crappy stupid life and I’d love to see the expression on Jon’s face if I went home and said, hey honey, let’s shed the skins of all those fights and connect at a deeper level, baby. And I find it hard to believe every single woman is a goddess. That quiz is a scam if you ask me. The bottom line is that life’s a crappy ride, goddesses or not.”

  I am sure Brit will get angry at this response but her newfound goddessness has obviously imbued her with empathy. Either that or she’s popped some pills before the social.

  “Exactly.” She grabs hold of Meg’s arm. “Life is a crappy ride but when you become aware of your inner power, you can deal with the knocks better, you can use your tools to conquer, and become the fully realized woman you’re supposed to be. And you can understand your frailties better, so people can’t mess you around because once you’ve identified where you are vulnerable, you can guard against attack.” She finishes with excitement, certain she has convinced Meg, but Meg just gets up and shrugs.

  “So, are we supposed to call you Isis now and not Brit?” she asks, laughing her throaty laugh. “You’re as bad as Indira. I’m going to get more of those little sushi things and another beer,” she says. “I’ll leave you two to become fully realized whatevers. You can join me at the snacks table anytime you like.”

  She wanders off, miserable, her beauty dulled by the puffiness of her face, lines of worry etched into her forehead and around her mouth.

  We watch her.

  “Oh well, I had better be off anyway,” Brit says, looking at her watch. “Sorry if I bored you.”

  “You didn’t, in the least,” I say, and I mean it. “I really enjoyed it. So, if I call upon Isis to help protect and guide me, she’ll listen?”

  “Of course she will,” Brit says with conviction and gets up.

  “But won’t God be angry?” I ask, the Catholic worrier in me nervous.

  She laughs. “Who do you think created Isis, silly? Or maybe Isis created God, or maybe they’re the same thing. I don’t think the gods and goddesses are as territorial as we are. At least I hope not.”

  She leaves. I watch her go and think Chris must be going through a green phase; Brit is in green from head to toe, and looks like a tall, stout leprechaun. Green tights under a short, tight forest green skirt; green blouse with dark green sweater; and, a long two-tone green scarf that trails as she walks.

  I stand up, ready to go home, when Meg appears and pulls me aside.

  “Look,” she says huskily and grabs at my arm. “Sorry I’ve been such a bitch lately.” Her eyes fill with tears. “Jon and I got married the weekend before last and he doesn’t seem to be taking it all that well.”

  What can I say to that?

  “He doesn’t seem to be taking it well?” I echo. I wonder if she wants to talk about it.

  “Congratulations,” I say, in a slightly questioning way, in case she wants to tell me more, but she heads back to the snacks table, subject closed. She looks like she wished she hadn’t said anything; she probably just wanted to explain her moodiness and be left alone. I follow her, pat her awkwardly on the shoulder, say I’ll see her the next day, and leave.

  On the way to the elevator, I calculate the damage to stand at about a 100 calories and 5 grams of fat and think if I have a very careful supper I’ll be okay. I also think that Meg is darn stupid to have married a man who makes her so miserable all the time.

  I wonder why they did it. And where. Maybe they went to Vegas. I have no idea. I am sure it will all emerge eventually. I feel like I failed Meg with my feeble response but I didn’t know what to say. Besides, I don’t think anything I could have said would have made a difference.

  Well, there it is. My week. Miranda had phoned earlier to tell me the good news; she’s finally pregnant.

  “Are you sure it’s Nate’s?” I ask her.

  “Yes. Condoms always with Dr. Lit,” she said.

  She’s still seeing him, the lecturer, with no plans of breaking it off. She’s even trying to persuade him to leave his wife. She had left Nate before she had even married him, and the poor boy still didn’t have a clue. He thought everything was fine and was repainting the baby’s room a different yellow. The first yellow, Miranda said, had been too custard; she wanted something more lemon.

  “I am going to eat while
I am pregnant,” she said. “I have to, it’s not like I want to or anything but I can’t deny my child. I am even going to eat meat again. I have been craving it, how weird is that?”

  I agreed it was very weird.

  So, while I was feeling fat and awful watching Slick Mick’s pin-sharp abs, Miranda got pregnant, Meg married Jon, and Brit discovered she is the goddess Isis.

  I get into the elevator and find myself humming a song.

  “Isis, oh, Isis, you mystical child.

  What drives me to you is what drives me insane.

  I still can remember the way that you smiled

  On the fifth day of May in the drizzling rain.”

  I plug in my iPod, find the song by Bob Dylan and play it on repeat, the whole way home.

  Brit does her celeb homework

  BRIT SITS UP, A CLOUD of expectation spinning almost visibly above her head. I am not looking her way but I can feel her trying to get my attention. She has been quiet all morning, working away behind her computer, engrossed in a way I haven’t seen in a long time. In a way, come to think of it, I have never seen.

  She clears her throat.

  I sigh inwardly. More Isis I wonder?

  “Tell me what the following people have in common,” she says and reads a list off her screen. “Britney Spears, Paula Abdul, Jane Fonda, Michael Jackson, Elton John, Lindsay Lohan, Amy Winehouse, Paris Hilton, Ashlee Simpson, Geri Halliwell, Posh Spice (Victoria Beckham), Mary-Kate Olsen, Sharon Osborne, Margaux Hemingway, Justine Bateman, Joan Rivers, Nadia Comaneci, Susan Dey, Catherine Bell, Princess Diana, Sally Field, Felicity Huffman, Alanis Morissette, Thandie Newton, Yeardley Smith (who is Lisa Simpson’s voice in case you didn’t know), Sylvia Plath, Ally Sheedy, David Coulthard, and Terri Schiavo. And there are more. So, what do they all have in common?” she asks again, looking up at me with happy anticipation.

  So that’s what Brit has been doing with quiet intent – researching celebrities and eating disorders.

  “Who is Terri Schiavo?” I ask, buying time to sort out my emotions to deal with the topic.

  Brit looks aghast. “She’s that woman who was in a vegetative state and her husband fought her parents to have her taken off life support, don’t you remember? It was a huge thing. In the end she starved to death; it took her two weeks to die.”

  “Oh gosh,” I say. “Yes, of course I remember. Well, if I had to guess, I’d say all those people have eating disorders, one way or another although there are some surprising names in that list.”

  “Not just eating disorders,” Brit says. “Bulimic. They were all bulimic. Sharon Osborne says she still is. She says she’s been bulimic for thirty-five years and has managed to beat everything except that. It’s one of the hardest things to cure.”

  I sigh inwardly again. But, of course, I am curious too.

  “I am pretty sure Sylvia Path was never bulimic,” I argue. “She is one of my favourite poets ever and I can see her starving but not bingeing and purging. And I don’t think Britney Spears is bulimic either, are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” Brit says. “I triple-checked on a bunch of websites. Since she was sixteen. But it was a secret until she went into rehab for the hundredth time and the docs tried to treat her for being bi-polar and they couldn’t figure out why the meds weren’t working. So then she had to tell them, and they caught her doing it anyway. So that’s why she put on so much weight when she was derailing after she and K-Fat split, before the whole Circus tour cleanup; she wasn’t able to do it anymore. Apparently the people at the clinic said that after so many years of throwing up, it was nearly impossible to get her to keep a meal down.You know, I always suspected it. Bulimics just don’t have that same toned look as anorexics or naturally thin people. They have a bloated look to them, especially around their stomachs; they all look kind of flabby.”

  Sometimes, Brit, I think, you reveal just too much information.

  “Uh huh,” I say cautiously.

  “Have you seen that thing on YouTube of Britney on meth or something? It was weird to watch.”

  I tell Brit I haven’t.

  “I’ll try to find it for you again. She was totally out it. She was all jumpy and her arm kept twitching in this really weird way, like she couldn’t control it and then she’d get all spacey and look off into the distance and forget what she was saying and then she’d focus back and go huh? Huh? It was quite sad. And she said she thinks she’s ugly, ‘Ah’m errrgg-leee,’ she said, with her southern accent.”

  “Poor girl. I feel sorry for her,” I say.

  “Well, I don’t,” Brit states. “She’s got everything in life. And isn’t it interesting about David Coulthard? You see, it’s not just women. But he’s very tall to be in Formula One, so he says he had to do it. I don’t think he does it any more, especially now that he’s retired. And you know, Terri Schiavo only went into that coma because of her bulimia? Therefore, my friend, she actually died from an eating disorder. How terrible is that? And everybody knew how she struggled, even her doctors, and no one did anything. And Jane Fonda lived on apple peels and the crusts of bread; she said she was afraid that if she started eating she wouldn’t be able to stop, so she had to keep herself at the outer edge of food. She also said no one realizes how addictive it is, throwing up your food.”

  So that explains my eating Mathew’s crusts, I think. I am worried I’ll never stop once I start. I am eating at the edge. Thank you Jane, for explaining that one.

  I am desperate to find a way to stop this discussion.

  “Odd for a feminist like Jane Fonda, to be like that,” I say, as off-handedly as I can manage. “One would have thought she’d be more enlightened.” Of course I know all about Jane Fonda but I am currently furious with her because she managed to stop cold turkey but I haven’t. And I’ve really tried. So Jane is stronger than me, which makes me angry.

  “She was only doing all those exercise videos to raise money for politics,” Brit says. “And then, when she started to realize the impact of the message, of how she was making women feel that they should be thin like her, she felt very bad. She says she still feels so bad about it.”

  “How can you trust anything you read online?” I ask. “Anyone can say anything out there in cyber wonderland. For all you know, none of what you read today is even true.” I hesitate. “I have to say Brit – there is something, I don’t know, shameful to it really. There’s no glamour to an eating disorder; you just look weak. While drugs have a certain bad-girl cool to them, eating disorders are like grandma’s dirty laundry, who wants to see those big old bloomers anyway?”

  Brit laughs

  “I don’t think it’s shameful,” she says, “but what is true is that people with eating disorders are very selfish, self-involved people. They want to be in the limelight and they are very competitive; they always want to be the best.”

  “That’s a bit harsh, Brit,” I object, insulted. “They are just struggling, like the rest of the world.”

  “Well, if they weren’t so self-involved, they’d struggle less,” She asserts.

  I realize Brit no longer thinks of herself as having an eating disorder, if she ever did. She had told me she was very thin for a time but maybe in her mind, she was exempt from all the labels.

  “You know what I find odd?” I say, “The hierarchy of respect. It’s like being anorexic is admirable and yet being bulimic is disgusting. Anorexics look down on bulimics, like royalty versus trailer-trash.”

  “That’s easy to understand,” Brit says. “Anorexics have great strength of will, while bulimics are just weak and eat what they want and then, because they have a body that can throw up, they do. They have the easy way out, that’s why they are less respected. That’s why all the people who admit to being bulimic later say, oh no, they never said that, and yes they were a bit thin for a while that’s all. Or they say they threw up but they never admit to having an eating disorder.”

  “But,” she adds, “it’s very bad for your healt
h, being bulimic.”

  I freeze, wondering if she has figured me out and means my health personally. I duck down a little, behind my computer and sit very still.

  “Listen to this,” she reads out loud. “The pattern of binge and purge can result in ulcers, gastric and dental problems, acute disturbances in the chemical balances of the blood which can lead to heart attacks, sore throats, aching joints, and feelings of weakness, dizziness and apathy.”

  She looks up. “Meg should be more careful.”

  I wholeheartedly agree, delighted that the finger isn’t being pointed at me.

  “And so should Paris Hilton,” she says. “Listen to this list they found of hers.”

  “How do they know it’s her list?” I ask.

  Brit shrugs. “They just do,” she says. “So listen to the list:

  clean house, organize life, be sober, go 2 AA meetings at least twice a week, be honest with everyone even if it gets you into trouble, eat healthy, start working out at least 3x a week, write in journal, talk to someone if I feel like throwing up, trust those who you are close with, call someone if you feel like using, get a sponsor.

  “I don’t know,” I say. “That doesn’t sound very Paris Hilton at all to me.”

  “Oh, you know her, do you?” Brit asks, smiling.

  I laugh. “No, of course not, but you know what I mean. Anyway, Paris would never write a list telling herself to clean her own house. And I am sure she works out three times a day already, not three times a week. No, I would be very skeptical that’s her list. All the celebs should all just go and volunteer in Africa or something,” I say. “Get some perspective.”

  As if that had helped me. I had visited Africa, loved it, vowed to change and have I? My good intentions lasted a whole two weeks.

  “Did you know that Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon swear by the baby-food diet?” Brit changes topics. “They all eat only baby food. They say it’s nutritious and the portions are small, low calorie, and gluten-free.”