The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “Anyway, bad body image, disordered eating, diet obsessions, they are all 15-82% heritable.”

  I suddenly feel exhausted. “So, if you have a mother who has an eating disorder those are the odds?”

  “No, those are the odds if there is something that sparks off the disordered genes. If you have that catalyst, then you will get the disorder, but genes have to be turned on; they could lie there dormant and never be turned on.”

  “What’s the catalyst?” I need to hear the answer.

  Brit flips through her notepad. “Hormones,” she states.

  I am relieved. I refuse to let hormones affect me.

  “Really?” I ask, feeling all nice and secure. Since I simply refuse to do hormones, I, therefore, do not have an eating disorder. If hormones are the problem, I am the solution.

  “The risky period is when you are fifteen to twenty-five years old. So this doctor looked at twins, identical and fraternal.” Brit looks excited. “My screenplay has taken a whole new turn; it’s going to be a twin thing….”

  “Brit,” I interrupt, “what else did you learn, factually?”

  “Well, it got a bit complicated,” she says and consults her notes again. “They studied 530 twins at ages eleven, fourteen, and seventeen.”

  “At age eleven, 530 twins had eating disorders?” I am skeptical.

  “Some had symptoms, some didn’t. They ranged from having a high level of symptoms to zero symptoms. The doc said you need people in a group you are studying to vary in their levels of disordered eating so that you can examine whether it’s genetics or environment that contributes to the variability.”

  While Brit is concentrating on the accuracy of her notes I am struck by something else. “My word,” I say. “A high level of symptoms at eleven. How sad is that?”

  She nods. “Anyway,” she adds, “when the twins were eleven, the study found that genes didn’t contribute to the variability of the symptoms, only environment did. But at later ages, genes and environment both did. At fourteen,” and she pauses for dramatic effect and reads carefully from her notes, “50% of the variance in disordered eating was due to genes and identical twins were twice as similar in symptoms as fraternal twins.”

  “Man, this is complicated,” I say. “I am a little confused but I think I am getting the gist. Something has to activate the inherited genes and it’s not environment since the un-identical twins are in the same environment but half are as affected….”

  “Yes, exactly,” Brit is interrupted by the phone. She grabs it, chats and looks happy. “Kenneth and Meg,” she tells me, hanging up, “are meeting some producer person or something and won’t be back for hours. So where was I?”

  “What triggers the identical twins if it’s not environment?” I remind her, only because I so desperately want to know.

  “Puberty,” she says triumphantly as though she has invented it. “There was no effect of genetics on prepubescent twins. Therefore, something activates the genes during puberty.”

  “And that thing would be what?” I can’t wait to hear. If I can find the cause, I can reverse it and be just fine.

  “She doesn’t know.”

  “I beg your pardon?” I am incredulous, not to mention utterly devastated with disappointment. “She studied 530 twins for God knows how long and she doesn’t know? What kind of researcher is she?”

  Brit gives me a look and I realize I need to back off a bit.

  “Well, it’s complicated,” she says. “These sorts of things are very hard to figure out. They think it might be some sort of hormone.”

  Ah, the hormones again. I sigh.

  Brit flips through her notebook. “Estrogen,” she says. “She said it could be estrogen and she stressed the could. The higher the estrogen, the higher the heritability of the symptoms.”

  Well, okay then. I may be okay because I know for certain I have low estrogen. Like I said, I refuse to do the hormonal thing; hormones are given no quarter in my world. I barely have two periods a year if I am not taking the pill, so clearly I am not jam-packed with old estrogen. I feel a bit better.

  “I guess the main thing is it proves that eating disorders can have a biological base,” Brit studies her notes. “ It’s like any kind of biological imbalance. So I must be nicer to Meg, maybe it’s not her fault. The doctor said it’s not a matter of wanting to look pretty or choosing to have this disorder, there is no choosing about it.” She pauses. “Interesting stuff, eh?” she continues. “But now that I think about it, hardly definitive. I don’t know if I can use it, really.” She taps her pen against her cheek. “They had all these speakers after the doctor; family members and friends telling stories from their perspectives. I should have stayed for that but I was meeting Chris at The Vinyl Emporium, have you been? It’s great. Chris’s new thing for me is the Tippi Hedren look, and we got some great shoes, just like the ones she wore in The Birds when she does that walk in the opening scene. But I will have to wear them on a day when I don’t have to walk much. They are killer. Never mind killer birds, the shoes are deadly.”

  I have lost Brit to Tippi.

  “Did you know Tippi is only five foot five? I am taller than her,” Brit is delighted.

  I, however, am officially depressed. “I had better get these pages done,” I say. Brit takes the hint and goes back to her desk.

  Later, when Brit goes down to the caf, I grab the opportunity to look up the national eating disorder place she mentioned. I find it and it looks interesting, but I panic and exit the site before I can really investigate.

  “I am not one of them. I don’t have real issues, I don’t, I don’t.” I carefully erase my online history so I leave no trace, no electronic breadcrumb trail.

  And anyway, I console myself with astounding irrationality, I’ll be okay. I’m not a twin, identical or otherwise and besides, I just don’t do hormones.

  Peace, out

  HE LOOKS UP AND SMILES his easy smile when I walk by. And I can’t help it, I smile back. My heart flips.

  And then nothing, for weeks.

  I don’t stop to chat; he doesn’t try to engage me.

  I sigh with relief. A narrow escape but I made it. Once more, I can rely on myself.

  I am strong.

  Heart-shaped, with silver writing

  MATHEW AND I WENT TO Fat Janet’s wedding last night. She did lose a fair bit of weight for the big event but she still looked like a puffy, creamy cloud. Pretty, make no mistake, but she is definitely still plump leaning toward solidly fat.

  I had wondered if Max and Miss July would be there but they weren’t. I am still very careful around him, still hating myself for strolling out to see if he is there in the mornings, and punctuating my days to wander past if he is. I have new earrings, I wash my hair more often, and I wear what I think are my most flattering flowing skirts even though this is clearly not his thing.

  I don’t think I am alone in my reaction to the nervy chemistry between us. Whenever I appear, I notice he stops what he was doing, pauses for a second and glances at me; then it’s like he presses the play button and continues as if I don’t exist.

  I was relieved he wasn’t at the wedding and I relaxed into it in a way I couldn’t have otherwise.

  When the master of ceremonies stood up to deliver his remarkably tasteless speech, he went to great lengths to explain that Janet had been known as “Booby” in her youth and he congratulated her new husband on being the lucky recipient of those large, soft pillows of flesh.

  Mathew said tasteless jokes are all part and parcel of a good old standard wedding.

  I tried to remember back to ours, to recall if we’d had any. But all I could remember was that I had tried not to eat anything. There was butternut squash soup and I spilled a tiny drop of it on the front of my rose-embossed, cream antique-lace gown, which was fashioned from thick brocade fabric and decorated with mother-of-pearl buttons carved like tiny roses. The dress hung like a tent, straight down. I could have been Twiggy or Ma
ma Cass underneath and no one would have known the difference.

  I was so happy when I found it. I was trying so hard not to do a traditional wedding, and yet, in the same breath, do one perfectly. And I had loved that dress at the time. I delighted in its detail, its 1920s style.

  I had felt foolish about the wedding, as if we were all play-acting. That it wasn’t a real wedding, but a facsimile, designed for two odd people who didn’t quite fit.

  And yet Mathew and I do fit together, everybody says so, and they also said it was the most beautiful wedding they had ever been to.

  When the photographs arrived, I cried for days. I had no idea why I was so upset. I told my Dad the photographer wasn’t any good but really, he was just fine. I didn’t know it then but it was because I looked so sad, so frightened, and so lost inside my dress. My expression upset me; it was startled and resolute and pleading all at the same time.

  I know I didn’t eat any cake. I cut it, with Mathew’s hand on mine, his touch making me feel slightly claustrophobic but I pushed that thought aside. I have wondered since – is it bad luck to not eat your own cake? I have kept a large piece in an ornate silver tin and by now it is hard as rock. I check it from time to time, as though it is some kind of long-term experiment and I am waiting to see what will happen, what it might become.

  Anyway. Back to Fat Janet’s wedding. All in all, despite the pillow jokes, it was a lot of fun. I felt particularly triumphant because I had a bona fide normal eating experience. I sat next to Meg and initially worried that I would be triggered by her, but I was okay.

  Meg got really drunk. Embarrassingly, badly drunk. She was laughing and falling down, crashing into tables. I have never seen her that bad. She didn’t even seem like the same person.

  Brit wasn’t able to attend. She’d been invited at the last minute. I don’t think she was entirely sure she was genuinely wanted or just a last minute add-on, and I think Brit’s sensitive to things like that.

  The creative director was in surprisingly good humour; he’s usually dour and withdrawn. He’s strikingly beautiful with gaunt features and strong facial structure. I noticed him and Thin Lisa exchanging glances and I made a note to tell Brit.

  The creative director said that Mathew and I are quite wonderful, how we dance together, have fun together. We are such a great pair, he says.

  So then, if it was such a rip-roaring success and if I know I actually did quite well, why am I sitting here, the day after, in spasms of torment? Because I calculate that I should cut down today by a solid 450 cals to make up for last night’s excesses, and excesses they were, because even though I had eaten normally, it adds up.

  I realize I tend to eat restrictively and that eating normally means an unthinkable 700 cals a day more, at the very least. So, while it was great that I ate normally at the wedding, it is also terrible I didn’t eat restrictively, which is usually how I go about my nutritive business.

  My body feels as though it is constructed out of huge cement blocks that have a damp feel to them, as though they haven’t been allowed to dry properly.

  I look at the chocolate I saved from the wedding.

  Thank you for sharing this special day with us, it says.

  Another day, another torment, even if it comes heart-shaped, with silver writing.

  Sunday, ravenous Sunday

  IT’S ANOTHER SUNDAY, bloody Sunday, and I am in a rage. I feel a degree of vicious fury I haven’t felt in a very long time.

  Only ten minutes before I set aside a pair of trousers and left to withdraw some money. When I come back, I ask for my trousers and the not-too-bright assistant assures me they have been put back on the shelf.

  I am so angry I come close to hitting her.

  “No,” I say carefully, then I spit words at her. “I specifically asked that they be put aside, not more than ten minutes ago. Surely that time span is not too long for the average memory?”

  She looks frightened and calls over another sales clerk who proves more capable. I grab the trousers and march off to the changing room to try them on again. I pull them on impatiently and look at myself with hatred. I am disgusted by my thick white thighs, my heavy calves, my lumpy stomach. My anger is entirely self-directed and I only have myself to blame.

  Another stupid, out of control binge. I am beginning to not trust myself anywhere at all.

  We’d gone to the horse races yesterday, another cursed catered box. Why couldn’t we just be with the other morons who had access to a hot dog at best?

  Mathew loves horse racing. If he isn’t going in person, he is racing at home, every Saturday, from the time he wakes up until late afternoon. He never misses a race.

  So I grocery shop during the week to get it out of the way, and then, on weekends, I go to the movies by myself. Because of Mathew’s job, I get in for free and I see everything. I sit in the quiet dark and watch three movies in a row. Movies are a great way to pass the time when you are trying not to eat. Unless, of course, there is food in the movie and then it is hard to concentrate on the plot.

  On Sundays, Mathew reads the newspapers, to prepare himself for the week. And, while he does that, I go antiquing by myself or I go and see more movies, or I putter around the house and polish things, or I take Freddo for walks, or sit in the backyard and read. Over time, I have turned the back garden into an explosion of wildflowers, and, because of the thick, leafy trees, it is like we are out in the country somewhere.

  So, I am on my own a lot, which is fine. It’s not like I don’t have friends. Of course I do. I just choose to be by myself. I am very social all day at work and it isn’t like I am really alone. I am a married woman. Mathew is with me; in my head we are a team.

  But, back to the inept assistant. “She’s not too bright is she?” I say in my most scathing tone to the sales clerk who nods, though she clearly thinks I am off my head. I am not mad at her but at myself.

  It is another ravenous bloody Sunday, and I am trying to pass the time until I can eat again. Nothing like a day of starvation to bring out the snarling animal in a woman.

  I am so ashamed. Because there is absolutely nothing noble about my preoccupations. My pursuit of getting as close as I can to the bones of my body is so horribly self-involved, self-obsessed.

  But if I can just feel the sharpness of bone it will be all right. I just have to get through today and I will be all right.

  I can do it. I must.

  Thin Lisa’s basement meltdown

  BRIT AND I LEAVE FOR the day and we bump into Thin Lisa, Miss World Contender Number One, at the elevator. We get to the underground parking and I take a look around to see if Max’s car is there but his spot is empty. We stop to chat for a bit before heading out, a traditional evening gossip session. It is unusual for Thin Lisa to join us here. Brit says her screenplay is coming along very well. While she is talking, I remind myself to never do anything food-related in front of her in case she is gathering anecdotes. Thin Lisa seems distracted. Eventually Brit has to leave, to go to her video store job, and she rushes off. I make a move for my car, thinking thank God the chatting bit is done for the day.

  But Thin Lisa just stands there and looks up at the concrete beams and babbles on about whether she should stay at the company or find a new job.

  She and I have had this discussion a couple of times already, and so I am not overly interested in having it again, particularly after a rough day like today. My contact lenses are aching to be out of my eyes, I have a headache that could fell an elephant, and all I want is to go home and have my nicely chopped and boiled dinner.

  I am wondering how to get a word in edgewise, to say that I really have to go when she suddenly blurts out, “And now Jamie is being really strange.” She goes beet red. I focus on the conversation with a previously absent interest. Jamie is the tall, angular creative director who, for the most part, tries to avoid any kind of contact with the various art departments. Which, of course, suits me fine.

  “Oh?” I say cautiously
, not wanting to startle her into leaving. I don’t work too closely with Jamie or Lisa and although I have seen them together a few times since Fat Janet’s wedding in Lisa’s car, and having lunch together, I haven’t given it much thought. I mean, she has a boyfriend in Germany who is on a Classics scholarship. She made a big point of telling us all about Justin when she started at Namaste.

  “I told Jamie not to do anything rash,” she said now. “It was, after all, only the fourth time we had ever spoken and I didn’t even know what his last name was. He had called me up at home one Saturday, where he got my number from I don’t know, and he asked me out to lunch. I was lonely, I admit it. Justin had left and I thought Jamie seemed like a nice sort of guy, you know, the strong silent creative type, which I know is such a cliché but it’s what I was looking for because it’s so the opposite of Justin. So I went to lunch with him but the last thing I said to him was not to do anything rash. And that was that.

  “Until Monday morning, when he came into work and told me he had broken up with his girlfriend of two years, the one he is living with, the one he bought the house with, and that he had moved out. He gave her everything he had put towards the house and he left. He said he couldn’t be dishonest to Dania, that’s his girlfriend. I had told him not to do anything rash, and what does he go and do?”

  Thin Lisa, I think, has the look of a highly-strung horse, the kind with super-thin skin and a glossy coat. She certainly has the eye-rolling, nostril-flaring look to her down pat. I inch back a bit. Even her neck muscles look ready to snap.

  “Next thing, I am standing in my pajamas in my house; it’s 10:30 at night and there’s a knock at my door. It’s Dania. She says can she come in, I say yes of course, and I offer her a drink, and she sits down, in my house, and tells me that she just wanted to get a look at the blonde bimbo slut who would do such a thing. She sat there and said she just wanted to look at me. She wanted to sit there and picture me and Jamie together. She came to visit three times after that, I had to let her in, it seemed too rude not to.”