The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “I’m not sure if you remember me,” I begin with all the confidence of a person who has just been driven over by a ten-ton truck, “but…”

  “Course I remember you,” he says. “You worked for my father about eight years ago.” He is eating a huge chocolate muffin and swigging coffee.

  I am so relieved I nearly hug him. We chat for a bit and then it is time for the next bit of the seminar. I settle myself in my chair and think I have done well for only ten minutes of tea time and try to forget the snubs.

  Lunchtime finally comes and I bump into the newspaper guy again and he suggests we check out the food together.

  I have already calculated my morning’s intake to be higher than I’d like, what with the casual carrot muffin prop that I ended up eating by mistake, although thankfully it was only a half. I say a grateful thanks to whoever had cut them up like that. But I am already at 300 cals with 6.5 fat.

  So at lunch I take one small cube of feta cheese, a pile of lettuce and a few cherry tomatoes. The newspaper guy has lasagna and potato salad. For dessert he has chocolate mousse and I have fruit salad but I also take a tiny dollar-sized pie thing with a tiny piece of glazed kiwi fruit on the top. I eat the kiwi fruit off the top and leave the pie shell and custard filling which is the bit I really want.

  I am still hungry so I dig into my bag for an apple and am about halfway through eating it when I spot a worm inching its way up the inside of the core. I am sick with disgust but I can’t let it show. Quietly horrified, I wrap it in my napkin. I think of the other apples I have eaten and suddenly all I can see were are thousands of worms. I can never figure out why worms seem to have eyes; they live in the dark, what do they need to see? Are they really eyes anyway, or just a trick of nature? I try my best to stop thinking of all the worms and their eyes that I have no doubt eaten.

  After what seems to be an interminable time of mind-numbing socializing, we all file back into the auditorium. The newspaper guy and I agree it is nice to have met up again and that we should keep in touch.

  The next pit stop of the day is afternoon tea-time. I am now at 650/16.5 and I am beginning to get hungry in a real way, which alarms me. I am standing there drinking herbal tea when before I know what is happening, my hand shoots out and grabs a wafer biscuit with cream filling.

  I blame my hand but it is innocent, I am the one to blame. Then I have an Oreo cookie which sends me to heaven it is so delicious. I suppose I do well because I stop there when really, I could carry on.

  But all I feel is shattering guilt and despair at my growing lack of control.

  I see the icy editor and I go over to her, determined to score well this time. I push my way through her disdain and offer a small joke, which she takes with remarkably good humour.

  “Why isn’t Maia here?” she asks, as if I’d know.

  “I have no idea,” I say. “She’s probably in France or off doing a travel story.”

  “I heard they were going to fire her,” the editor probes. I guess she is after Maia’s job and I realize that is why she has decided to talk to me at all; she has forgotten I am no longer with Maia and thinks I could be useful.

  I laugh. “I don’t think they’d know how,” I say. “You’ve got to hand it to Maia, when she gets a grip on a thing, it’s very hard to dislodge her.”

  The editor gives a small bark and her version of a smile. “Very true,” she says.

  I spot Mr. Bullard’s Barbie doll assistant looking lost and I wave her over.

  “Any word about Shanda or Magda?” I ask her.

  “Magda remarried,” she says. “And she’s pregnant with her first baby. She met some guy on a beach in B.C. He’s got loads of money and she’s very happy. I haven’t heard from Shanda though, no one has.”

  “I heard she went back to stay with her mother,” the icy editor says, reaching for a raisin oatmeal cookie, “back in the heart of Dixie. But I don’t know how her health is. I don’t think it can be good if she’s gone back home. She always said the only way she’d go back was in a pine box.” The editor shrugs and walks off but not before she pats me lightly on the shoulder and tells me it is good to see me. She also tells me to give her regards to Mathew and Maia.

  “How’s Mr. Bullard?” I ask the assistant.

  “Oh, you know,” she says. “Flaking, peeling and saying disgusting things as always.”

  I begin to feel tired. It seems like no one has anything nice to say. Everyone is just bitching and whining. Even within the seminar itself, the presenters make snippy little comments about each other. The entire mood seems mean, as though they have piped anger through the air vents. I wish I wasn’t so hyper-sensitive and that I didn’t take everything so personally.

  My colleagues spend the whole day sleeping, moaning, eating, and collecting pamphlets. They collectively agree they are not having a good time at all.

  “Wake me up when it’s time to go home,” the creative director says. “These things are such a waste of time. Pablo needs his head read.”

  Halfway through the final debate, the creative director wakes up and announces he is leaving, that there is no way he can stay until the end. The rest of my colleagues immediately jump up and say they are going too. Karl asks me if I’d I’ll give him a ride but I tell him I am going to stay for the cocktail party. Leone, the CD’s assistant, sits straight back down and says, oh right, there are drinks.

  I sigh inwardly; all I tried to do was off-load Karl. I certainly hadn’t been looking to be lumbered with Leone who is young, pretty, quite stupid, and remarkably immature. I had planned a quick round in an effort to wow more power editors, then slip out and go home. I certainly don’t want to add any more calories to the day’s horrible count by actually having a drink.

  Finally, what feels like years later, the debate wraps up and we go to the party. Leone is one of those terrible people who talks at you nonstop with laser eye contact so intense it hurts to be on the receiving end, and by the time we reach the party, I am desperate and trapped.

  Before I notice what I am doing, I drink an entire glass of wine. I calculate I am up to 900 cals and have lost track of the horrendous fat. The icy editor wanders over, now happy to be friends, and she tops up my glass and seems content to chat for hours. I think she has a thing for Mathew; when she heard we were getting married she told me all the places she had “bumped” into him in our neighbourhood and it seemed like there were way too many for it to be a series of simple coincidences.

  I, by this time, have had enough. She is being finally nice, so I can leave on a good note and that’s all that counts. I’m only as good as my last exit and I do exits very well.

  I float away from her to say goodbye to Leone who has a group transfixed by the speed with which she is talking. As I pull her away, the scornful art director walks past us.

  “She’s such a bitch,” I mutter under my breath. I don’t think Leone can hear me. “She’s just been appointed art director of Chic,” Leone tells me, “and she’s up for a design award next week.”

  If I felt dismal before, I feel flattened now. I had also entered the awards and wasn’t even a finalist, a first for me. I try to console myself with the reminder that I have already worked for Chic and I wouldn’t have wanted the job if they had offered it to me, but they hadn’t offered it to me, and that hurt. I think it is unfair that she be given such a great position when she is so nasty. Is there no fairness in the universe? I am crushed.

  “I must go,” I say to Leone, the need to leave instantaneous and overwhelming. “Mathew will be worried if I am too late.” As if.

  “Stay and have another drink.” Leone is clearly having a great time.

  “No, I must go, now.” I am insistent. I feel like crying. It has been a long day. I walk over to the food table, eat three strawberries, and congratulate myself for not eating the cheese instead.

  Leone follows me and bleats about a new magazine Pablo is launching and if she isn’t made the art director, she is going to leav
e. She says she is much better than most of the art directors there and she is tired of being passed over.

  I am tired of her, tired of the day, tired of the industry, and most of all, tired of my life, tired of being afraid of tiny blocks of cheese.

  I am beginning to feel the sort of hazy confusion that preempts a binge. I suddenly remember I have a tiny, heart-shaped chocolate at the bottom of my handbag and all I want is to be alone in my car with my chocolate.

  “I am going,” I say to Leone who tosses back a final glass of wine and follows me out. She talks nonstop at me until she reaches her car. And I swear her lips are still moving as she drives off; she is talking to herself, rather than no one at all.

  I plug in my iPod, unwrap my chocolate, and spin out of the parking lot.

  This is how I deal

  POST-SEMINAR STRESS DISORDER. I have already eaten an entire day’s worth of food and night has yet to begin.

  I drive home from the seminar in a daze, filled with misery. I try to cheer myself up by telling myself I have done well. While my colleagues slept through the presentations and discussions, I networked, and I didn’t eat nearly as much as I could have. There was trifle pudding (which I love) and cupcakes with perfect icing, and all kinds of pies and pastries and I didn’t eat any of it.

  I finally make it home, exhausted and numb, and before I can stop myself, I eat a doorstep slice of crusty white baguette bread covered in peanut butter and blueberry jam. I am about to start in on the cookies but Mathew comes home and suggests we go out for dinner.

  I have never heard anyone say anything so wonderful. I decide that, as a rare occasion, I am going to eat whatever I want, and, as much of it as I want.

  The relief at the prospect of not being hungry is almost better than the idea of the food itself.

  Over dinner I tell Mathew about my day, not mentioning, of course, the struggles with food. He agrees I have done well and tells me not to worry about scornful art directors and uptight editors.

  I eat, and have dessert too. For once I am not hungry and I go to bed delighted that I don’t have to dream about food in a vain attempt to satisfy a hollow craving.

  The next day is Saturday and Mathew and I go to see a movie. I could kill for a bucket of popcorn, but I get gum instead and try to chew away yesterday’s calories. I think if I don’t eat anything else at all then I might be just okay but fat chance of that. These are the ravenous days of premenstrual hunger and there is an animal in my gut – mouth open wide, teeth bared.

  I remind myself how wonderfully I give out advice to other premenstrual bingers and wish I can take my own. But then I remember those bad old hormones have no jurisdiction over me; so no PMS wallowing allowed, thank you very much.

  When we get home, I have two slices of bread with peanut butter and jam, two apples, a high-fat yogurt (Mathew’s, the only kind in the fridge); and a bread roll with chilli sauce on it. No one can say those of us with eating disorders don’t have gourmet palates, eh? We certainly know how to combine the finest ingredients – not.

  I feel better. Well, not better but not hungry. I know I should be feeling guilty but I am so happy not to be hungry that I don’t care about the guilt.

  But I also know my relief is temporary. I know for sure I’ll feel pretty damn bad once the hands of fat take hold of my waist. You never feel the effects the day after you have eaten; it takes a while for the weight to get settled into those familiar hated areas and by that time the vicious hunger has passed and all you are left with is the incredulous disbelief of your complete stupidity.

  I tell myself that when that moment comes, I must try not to condemn myself. I must remember the PMS, disavowed or otherwise, the stress of work and networking, the disappointment of others getting the jobs I want and the humiliation of scorn one moment and friendliness the next.

  Then, self-help pep talk done, I try to take small comfort from knowing at least I do my angsting in private.

  Requesting an exorcism, please

  KENNETH TREATS US TO LUNCH on Thursday because he has been driving us so darn crazy with his histrionics. Going to lunch stresses us out more than if we just stayed in and tried to meet our deadline. We are so behind in our work it is frightening, but when Kenneth gets stressed he goes to lunch and he is determined to drag us all with him. He promises to stay and work through the night and have everything ready for us in the morning, and in the meantime, he says, we should all enjoy a free lunch.

  No such thing, I think, even lettuce and tomatoes have calories. None of it’s free, no matter what they say.

  Meg orders fish because she isn’t hungry, she says. She hasn’t mentioned her marriage since the drinks function and I haven’t brought it up either. I haven’t even told Brit, not wanting to betray a confidence of that magnitude, even though Brit is more of a friend to me than Meg. I don’t tell Brit because I am certain she won’t be able keep it to herself, and then the entire office will know and Meg would rightfully blame me.

  Brit orders a whole baby chicken and says she is starving.

  I order a vegetable platter and request no butter, definitely nothing fried please, chili sauce on the side, no chips, a small house salad, no cheese or dressing and I say I am pretty hungry.

  Brit also orders a side dish of garlic mushrooms, French fries, fried onions and eats two bread rolls smothered in butter. My salad arrives and I offer some to Meg who again says she isn’t hungry. Then she eats the whole thing, except for a cherry tomato and a slice of cucumber that I eat. Meg orders another beer.

  Our main course arrives and I examine mine. Cooks never think a vegetable is okay as it is; they always have to adulterate it with some fat or another.

  I carefully shovel the dubious suspects aside: the grilled Roma tomatoes that look suspiciously deep-fried, the hummus and pita bread with olive oil. Meg takes my discarded plate of fatty delights and eats them. She also picks at Brit’s French fries and orders another beer.

  Meg’s theory is weird; liquids don’t count, and if it comes off another person’s plate or off a snack table, it doesn’t contain calories. I don’t get it.

  When we finish eating, Brit says she wonders if she should have ice cream and hot chocolate sauce for dessert. Meg says, yes, for sure, great idea, although she herself of course will not. Brit’s dessert comes and she drizzles chocolate sauce over her ice cream and Meg eats the rest out of the jug. She also eats one of Brit’s scoops of ice cream. Then she excuses herself and goes to the washroom. I spot her coming back, blowing into her hand to check her breath.

  Brit and I exchange glances.

  Kenneth spends the entire lunch on his cellphone, noisily trying to convince advertisers to support our magazine. I don’t think he is making himself very popular with the rest of the diners who glare in his direction, particularly when he nearly knocks a full tray out of a waiter’s hand. Kenneth talks with his hands, even on the phone.

  “Fuck it,” he says and snaps his phone closed and signals wildly for the bill. “I’ve had it. Pablo must get us a sales guy, ’cause I’m not doing this anymore. There’s some new sales guy starting at Namaste. We need our own person too.”

  While Brit tries to cheer Kenneth up, Meg is absent from the conversation. She chews on her fingers, her gaze elsewhere. Indifferent to Kenneth’s woes, I catalogue our different eating modi operandi.

  When we go out Meg tries not to eat anything, ends up eating everything, then goes and throws it all up. Brit says she feels like eating everything and she does; she just plain pigs out. I try to keep quiet, order the safest foods, eat as little as possible, and then rush off to write it down, right to the tiniest garnish consumed. Then I add it all up and balance the books over the following few days. And, if I’ve had an emotionally bad day, I end up raiding the fridge, and throwing up, thereby managing to combine every dysfunctional eatingdisorder-related action in the book.

  It’s like I’m possessed by some kind of demon. I need an eating disorder exorcism or something. />
  If only it could be that easy.

  Barbie’s angry in pink

  THE NEXT DAY, FRIDAY. “I’ve been thinking about yesterday’s lunch, Brit suddenly announces across the desk to me. “And Meg is not anorexic. Well, she might be, but it would be more accurate to say she is a borderline anorexic/bulimic. I discussed her with a nurse friend of mine and also with my mother who is an ex-nurse.”

  I look up at her. Chris is now in a retro Barbie phase; Brit wears pink and white and even has pink polka dot barrettes in her hair. It’s all very ’50s.

  She continues. “My friend, the nurse, says she can’t stand people with eating disorders. She says they really get on her nerves. She says the bulimics are the worst; that after spending an entire week just getting them to eat a tiny bit, they just rush off and vomit again. She says they are really very clever devious people. She says they are the most manipulative people on the planet and she’s a psychiatric nurse so she should know.”

  I am not sure how to respond.

  “They never get thin, you know,” she says viciously, “because they can never get it all up again and that’s why they are a more normal weight than anorexics. I mean look at Meg; it’s not like she’s skeletal or anything.”

  I think of all the calories Meg drinks and I want to tell Brit this is why Meg isn’t skeletal. But I am trying not to get involved in the discussion. I am disconcerted by the haze of anger emanating from Brit. I feel sure that Brit hates bulimics because they get to eat all the food she so desperately wants but they have an out, an escape hatch. I would also bet the farm that Brit has tried more than once to throw up but found she can’t. Not everybody can throw up. I think Brit is probably also enraged by how much she ate for lunch and needs to vent.