The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  “Any kind of fruit and any veg that grows above the ground, fat-free yogurt and that’s it. No more than two potatoes a week and two carrots because they are so high in carbs and hard for the liver to digest.”

  “That’s not going to be easy to stick to,” I say.

  “Oh no, I am looking forward to it,” my sister says dismissively, but she is still full of bread and delicious cheese which makes it, I think, easy for her to say.

  “I need a good cleanse,” she says. “And that’s why it will be easy for to me to stick to it because it’s doctor’s orders. I have to get rid of all the toxins in my body. My doctor told me my liver is dormant because of all the diets and binges I have been on for all these years and he says I need to let my liver know it can trust me again. I must feed it regularly with good food. All those years of diet milkshakes and injections and stuff like that really haven’t done it any good.”

  I think back to the injections, which were made out of expensive goat urine or something. “I always told Mom and Dad I hated those injections and that they shouldn’t encourage you, much less pay. I hated the idea of what that stuff was doing to your body.” I am indignant but my sister interrupts me.

  “No, no,” she says quickly. “My doctor says he knows those injections and they are fine. He says it’s the binge and diet thing that’s got my liver into such a bad way.”

  I can’t help but wish my sister and I could be normal together around food. Right then the phone rings, and it is my father calling from the east coast, where my parents have been living for several years. He wants to pay for us all to go out for a deluxe dinner on Sunday night, anywhere we want to go. I thank my father and go to discuss with my sister which restaurant we should choose.

  “Let’s go to Aubergine,” my sister exclaims enthusiastically. “The food is wonderful there.”

  I call to book us a table and start ringing up food numbers in my head. I can almost hear the old-fashioned cash register sounds in my head as I punch in sums and ring up totals, kerching. I have been to the restaurant for various client dinners with Mathew and know the menu well, so I can plan in advance.

  “So that’s tomorrow night, where are we going tonight?” my sister asks and I tell her we thought we’d go to the local pizza/pasta place.

  “Excellent.” she says. “I love pasta.”

  Later, at the restaurant, I order an Italian salad, no cheese, no dressing, extra tomato. My sister has penne with a creamy salmon sauce, my favourite dish, while Mathew and Greg have pizza. Greg arrived in the late afternoon, all fired up with sales adrenalin from being at the sports fair. And a couple of drinks too, if you ask me.

  It’s the first time he and Mathew have met and they immediately bond over pre-dinner cocktails of beers and brandy. By the time we leave for dinner, I insist on driving.

  If you ask me, Greg is a stereotypical sales-guy jock and I am a bit surprised he and my sister are still an item just because I find him so tiring. He is always trying to sell you something. He and my sister were together in high school but they lost contact for a while when he was playing rugby in England. He married an English girl and brought her home to Toronto where she despised the cold. He moved her over to Vancouver but she said it was still too cold and she hated the rain and after a few years of constant complaining, she went back to the U.K. Greg decided he liked B.C. and he liked his sporting goods future. He found my sister on Facebook, they re-united, and he persuaded her to go and live in Vancouver when she got back from Greece. It wasn’t hard to persuade Madison since her best friend Tiffany was already there, having followed some dubious romantic prospect.

  “Is that all you’re having?” my sister asks me, of my dinner.

  “Well, I eat Mathew’s crusts too,” I say and it is getting harder for me to wait for him to eat the middle. Once he is done, I try to count for ten seconds and then reach over, very casually.

  My sister’s headache has not gone away, despite my ministrations. She has taken another handful of pills. “I’ll have another double vodka with cranberry juice,” she orders.

  “Oh, Madison, your liver,” I protest but she waves me off and tells me it is fine, that the cranberries negate the alcohol. I have been wondering how and where her drinking will feature in her new diet, and whether she has been honest with her doctor about that aspect of things.

  “Cranberries,” she says airily, downing her drink as soon as it arrives, “are the best thing for your liver.”

  Shortly after we eat, Madison is overcome by terrible claustrophobia and I have to help her out of the restaurant. Mathew and Greg are having a final round of drinks.

  “It’s all those pills you took and then that rich sauce and all that vodka,” I tell her, but I am kind, my arm around her, both of us sitting on a bench with snow falling softly in big fat flakes. It’s quite all right for snowflakes to be fat, I think with resentment, out of nowhere. I rub her back like she is a colicky baby.

  She groans. “I know,” she says, “don’t tell me again. It makes me feel even worse to hear it listed back. I feel so terrible.” She groans again. “I must get healthy,” she says, her head in her hands.

  I wonder if I should confide in her about Max but what would I say? There’s this married guy I long to touch, I think he’s attracted to me, what should I do? I think if I could kiss him once … just once. But then I make myself stop thinking like that. I know what I have to do. Nothing.

  The next morning, Sunday, Greg gets up and makes some dreadful concoction in the blender with raw eggs and various protein powders and goes for a run. Mathew is still asleep when Madison and I go shopping and I have my muffin as planned and it is all exactly like I had pictured and just as wonderful. But I know it’s going to be a terrible struggle not to eat for the rest of the day.

  “I might marry Greg,” my sister says. “What do you think?”

  “I assume he got his divorce from Lucy?” I say and Madison nods.

  “She gave him a quick one because she wants to remarry too. Greg and I have been together for over a year, if you count the time we were chatting online, when I was in Greece studying plus of course all that time when we were in high school. Although that was like a hundred years ago. But Greg is the real reason I got my degree because he made sure I was on track every day but don’t tell Dad that because he keeps saying he is so proud of my willpower but you know I am not famous in this family for willpower, you are. Greg said having a commerce degree is the only way to make real money in this world and he emailed me and phoned me every day. That’s how he got his idea to be a life coach, by helping me. He says I must do my MBA next.”

  “Oh, Dad will love him for saying that,” I say. The whole life coach thing reminds me of Tim Candy, the personal weight loss coach, and I tell Madison I don’t believe in any of this hand-holding, pseudo-psych stuff but there is money in it for sure. “I have no idea if you should marry Greg.” I say. “Do you love him?”

  “I think I do, who knows.” Madison shrugs. “He says before we get married I have to stop smoking and start running. But anyway, I must tell you something really funny. Well, it’s not so much funny as sad, but still, it is quite funny. So, Tiffany broke up with the male stripper, thank heavens, but now she’s living with this really strange guy. He’s about four foot tall and she’s about six foot and she’s totally into platform shoes on top of that – God knows where she finds them – and so he sort of hangs onto her, his hands stretched high up.”

  She laughs, thinking about it, her beautiful eyes wide. It is impossible how much I love my sister.

  “There’s something a bit sick about it,” she says. “Like a kid hanging onto his mother’s leg. Tiffany calls him Bambi. ‘Bambi,’ she says, ‘how many calories have I eaten today?’ ‘Bambi, how many calories in a gin and tonic?’”

  “Really?” I ask, intrigued. “He counts all her calories for her?”

  “When he’s not counting her money. She is terribly in debt from lending him money an
d he keeps telling her he has all these shares and that he’ll pay her back soon, he just has to sell the shares. I don’t believe him. He’s hilarious, he dances with a funny grinding pelvic motion. It’s hysterical to watch.”

  She is laughing so hard, it is hard for her to talk. “Tiffany’s so self-conscious and has so little self-esteem, she won’t dance at all. So she just sort of stands there, looking down at him, while he hangs onto her and does the pelvic grind against her leg, like a dog pole dancing.” She wipes tears of laughter from her eyes.

  I am laughing too. “And he counts her calories for her,” I add, still thinking about that.

  Madison nods. “Greg can’t cope with them at all. He said they need an action plan. He can’t stand people who he thinks are just not doing anything to make their lives better. He keeps telling Tiffany to carpe control. You know, like carpe diem, ‘seize the day,’ only seize control. He loves that … carpe control. I don’t really think it works as a catchphrase but he does.”

  “Carpe control,” I try it out. “Sounds a bit fishy to me.”

  My sister smacks me on the arm and vanishes to have a nap. The phone rings; it is our mother wanting an update, apparently my father forgot to ask the right questions.

  “How’s it going?” she asks and I tell her everything is perfect.

  “Now make sure you all enjoy your supper,” my mother tells me. “Your sister’s going on a wonderful new diet when she gets back to Vancouver and that’s why your father and I want to treat you to this dinner. All of you must order anything you like.” I thank her and we hang up.

  The phone rings again; it is Tiffany for my sister. I wake Madison up and they have a long chat while I think about how hungry I am. My mouth waters while I plan my meal and double-check my math.

  “I told her to break up with Bambi.” My sister comes to sit next to me and lights another cigarette. “He is stealing from her. I told her! Well, at least she isn’t eating, because of all the stress. She’s lost nearly forty pounds, can you believe that? She looks really good now but she says her body feels the same to her, she can’t tell the difference at all. So now she has gone to break up with Bambi. I am going to have a bowl of ice cream, do you want one?’

  I say no.

  “I have never seen you looking so thin,” she studies me critically. I am wearing leggings and a long old sweatshirt.

  “Please don’t say that,” I say to her nervously. There is a conspiracy among people who say that; they all want to make me fat.

  “I’m not saying it’s a good look,” she says, coming back and sitting down with her bowl of ice cream. “Your face is a funny, grey colour, and look at the skin around your neck, you look like a turkey or something, all bony and wrinkly.”

  I can always rely on Madison for brutal honesty.

  “I’m fine,” I say, rubbing my neck.

  “Your hair looks thin too,” she says, not looking at me.

  “I really wish you’d stop saying things like that,” I say. “I am going to have a nap before I start getting ready for dinner.”

  “Me too,” she says, “Tiffany interrupted me, I had just fallen asleep.” She puts her bowl in the kitchen sink, and we both go and lie down on the big bed I had made up for her and Greg. Their room is the coziest in the house and as we lie there dozing in the warm afternoon sun, I think that we are about as close as we have ever been, or are ever likely to get. In the quiet of the afternoon rest, I can simply be near her and be happy she is there and not be caught up in some whirlwind of conversation.

  Later that night we are at our special finale dinner at Aubergine, funded by my parents. While Madison had been talking to Tiffany earlier, I had been planning my menu. I was going to start with the rocket salad with grilled tempeh and sesame carrot dressing on the side. While I waited for my salad to arrive, I would have two flax crackers with half a teaspoon of the avocado dip. I would allow myself one large glass of wine. Then I would have the Moroccan Stew but I wouldn’t eat the chickpeas, sweet potatoes or carrots, just the broth and safe vegetables. I had ordered the stew on a previous visit and I knew there was no cream or alarming oil.

  My mouth had watered while I planned my meal. I figured that all in all, I could get it in under 700 calories, if I was very sparing with the salad dressing, only dipped the edges of my fork prongs in once or twice. The fat grams wouldn’t be too bad either, although that darn wine, metabolizing like fat, well, that made me very anxious but I had worked hard and I was sure my numbers could cope. That I could cope. I was in fact, really looking forward to the dinner. I only had the muffin for breakfast and I had timed Madison’s and my walk around the mall, leading us at a brisk pace for a good hour, thereby burning calories that I could bank.

  So when Mathew says his seared roast lamb with candied orange yams tastes like oven cleaner and Madison and Greg race through their food, hardly seeming to taste any of it, I feel badly let down. Madison has the deep-fried crusted portabello mushrooms to start, followed by the sweet potato ravioli with creamed cashew butter but she could have been spooning in cornflakes for all the attention she gave her food. Mathew and Greg, meanwhile, seem to be trying to out-drink each other while talking at the top of their lungs about self-promotion within a changing workplace.

  “So you see,” Madison says to me, the meal over, another Princess Isis discussion in progress, “I am old and wise and I have lived before. Oh, I am so full,” she sighs. “But I am starting my diet soon, so that will be good.”

  Dessert is out of the question for me. Mathew and Greg order a final snifter of brandy and Madison loads up on sweet liqueur. I have run out of calories and can’t have another thing.

  We get back home and Mathew and Greg disappear into Mathew’s study to continue their discussion.

  My sister and I go into the TV room.

  “What does Greg think of your new diet?” I ask.

  “He says it’s okay as a way for me to kick-start my life into a healthier gear, as he puts it. But he says I have to make fundamental philosophical changes at a deep root level, in order for me to sustain personal growth. And, I must start running and do hot yoga three times a week.”

  I look at her and we both burst out laughing. “Okey dokey,” I say, picking up the TV controls. “So, what do you want to watch?”

  We flick through the channels and I can’t help feeling denied and angry about the evening. I put so much work into calculating for the outing, and I feel like no one made any effort to savour the evening in the way I had hoped they would. I feel like my treat was ruined and I am resentful and tired.

  Monday morning, Mathew wakes early and leaves to drop Greg at the airport on his way to work. Tiffany phones at 7:00 a.m, and tells my sister she has had a nervous breakdown overnight and she needs to have a proper talk to her.

  “Okay,” my sister says. “Let me get my breakfast and I’ll phone you right back.’

  She cuts a large slice of the carrot cake she has bought, and phones Tiffany back, chatting, swallowing huge mouthfuls of cake, and counseling her friend. She finally hangs up, comes outside to join me on the porch, and lights a cigarette.

  “Tiffany is going to try to kill herself again,” she says. “She’s so thin and she looks so good but she’s overwhelmed. All she can talk about is the puppy she wants to get and in the end all I could say was, good idea Tiffany, yes, when all else fails, get a puppy.”

  She draws hard on her cigarette. “I think it all went wrong for her after her stepmother ordered that hit on her father. They never could prove it,” she says, “but everybody knew she did it, even the police. But they couldn’t prove a thing. So all that money Tiffany was supposed to inherit? She didn’t get a cent in the end. And she’s used to having money. Her mother says she won’t bail her out anymore, enough is enough, she said.”

  She sighs. I know what she says about Tiffany’s stepmother and the murder is true, I remember reading about it in the papers. I feel sorry for Tiffany, I really do. I have tried to b
efriend her a couple of times to see if I could help but she is too tiring; a vortex of teenage angst even though she is nearly thirty.

  “I get tired of it too,” my sister says as if she can read my mind. “But what can I do? We’ve been friends since we were fourteen. She knows all my stuff too, and I’m not easy either. I think Tiffany’s never got over the shock of her parents splitting up. She was such a beautiful teenager, do you remember?”

  I say I do. Tiffany had been tall and lovely, with skin like honey and long pure blonde hair down to her waist. She was a tennis star, all set to be the next Venus Williams but her mother had an affair with her coach, and her father left. So Tiffany started eating and stopped playing tennis, thinking, with the naïve arrogance of youth, that she could return to it whenever she felt like it. She packed on the pounds, and her fame-destined son-of-a-great-actor boyfriend left her, while she sat at home and ate and ballooned. Then her stepmother had her father killed and Tiffany realized there was no way of getting her sunshine-enriched, convertible hair-blown life back.

  “I am going to lie down again.” My sister gets up, and rubs my back briefly. “Oh, your back is too thin. I feel so tired. I wish I could eat more since it’s my last day but I feel too full.” She goes and lies down.

  I sense our long weekend is drawing to a close and soon my sister goes to pack her bag.

  “You can take me to the airport now,” she says. “I don’t mind being early. I love airports. I can buy something nice to eat on the plane and get a book and all that.”

  “Would you like some chocolate for the plane?” I ask. I am still trying to off-load Christmas chocolate.

  “No thanks,” she says.

  I have the uncharitable thought that she’ll say no to me and buy some for herself anyway.

  But so what if she does?

  We say goodbye, both of us sad.

  “You should phone me more,” she says.

  “You know I hate the phone,” I tell her, hugging her tight. Then I watch her walk away.