The Hungry Mirror

by Lisa de Nikolits

  We eat, we drink

  AT WORK, ALL BRIT DOES is eat. Samosas, chocolates, muffins, chips, anything, everything. They all eat: the Miss Worlds, Kenneth, Fat Janet, all of them. Except for Meg who seems to subsist from one social snacks table to the next.

  We have another one of those hated work events, and, as usual, Meg eats everything in sight. And this time she drinks until she crashes into the furniture.

  I am planning on not going if Max is, but he hasn’t been at work all day and I doubt he is going to come in just for boring drinks. I decide to brave it and go.

  “I am going to eat like a fiend,” one woman announces loudly. “I broke my diet today, so I may as well go whole hog and eat whatever I want here. I’ll be back on the starvation wagon tomorrow.”

  I stand around and think about Madison who phoned earlier to tell me she has managed ten successful days on her diet and she is hanging in there. Greg is being really supportive and got her new running shoes. Work is fine, her cat is really cute, and Tiffany has lost her mind.

  I look up and see Max walk through the doorway, go over to Pablo, laugh and give him a high five. And I see that the whole time, Max is watching me.

  Pablo guides him over to a group of men in suits and I take the opportunity to slip out. Out the corner of my eye, I watch Max watch me go.

  Hello, mommy

  SO NOW MY PARENTS ARE coming from the east coast to see me. They’re coming because Madison has told them that I am thin. “Excruciatingly thin” is what my sister has said, to be exact.

  So now they are coming, to see how thin I really am.

  Of course I am not thin. I am exactly the same as I was the last time they saw me and so they’re going to be disappointed. Well, actually, maybe my mother will be happy because then she can win the thin stakes, which is so important to her and my father.

  I wish I could get thin, excruciatingly thin. I usually starve myself for a week or two before I see them but they are coming in two days and there’s not enough time to do it. I will have to wear a tent.

  I am so tired and I feel run down. All I want to do is lie down and sleep and then slope off to the kitchen and eat a hundred kilograms of free veggies.

  I will certainly not be the sparkling vision of thin my mother would like me to be; the vision she has been led to believe is finally reality due to my sister’s cavalier exaggerations.

  “She is so thin,” my sister emphasized to her.

  “Not anorexic?” my mother asked and I imagined a note of hope in her voice. But I know that may be my voice, not hers. Because then I would finally, really be thin. Indisputably thin.

  Maybe I have nothing to worry about. Every time I have seen my mother over the past few years, she claims I have lost weight. If she was correct, by now I would be beyond skeletal so of course she’s been wrong.

  The only explanation I can think of is that her vision of me, her mind’s eye memory, is of such a fat person that I always surprise her. But this time she’s going to be very disappointed. She’s coming all this way and my sister exaggerated.

  I will eat nothing until she arrives.

  I wish it doesn’t matter so much to my mother that I am thin. I try to tell her on the phone that I am not thin, that I am just the same as I have always been but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

  “No,” she says firmly. “Your sister said you are incredibly thin.”

  “I don’t want you to say that,” I tell her. “I don’t even want you to think it. I am trying to be healthy, not thin.”

  “Which is why I am so proud of you,” my mother says. “Because you are being healthy as well.”

  Yeah, right. That’s why I am leaning over the toilet bowl, vomiting quickly and efficiently, the sound drowned out by my running bath water. Very healthy. That’s me.

  Ghostland

  ACOUPLE OF MONTHS BEFORE I LEFT HOME, I heard the sound of my mother’s footsteps on the stairs that led down to my basement apartment. I sat up in bed.

  “Why aren’t you answering your cell phone?” she asked me.

  “Because it hasn’t been ringing,” I told her.

  “Well, one of your friends just called on the upstairs line to ask why you aren’t answering your phone.”

  I got up and stumbled around and looked for my phone under piles of clothes, handbags, and shoes.

  “I had better come and use the phone upstairs,” I said.

  “I told you, your friend’s already on the line for you,” my mother said, clearly annoyed.

  I ran upstairs, grabbed the phone and apologized to my friend for keeping her waiting. Then I asked her how she was, which was always a mistake.

  “What can I tell you?” she said slowly. “I feel very depressed and I have no idea why.”

  We talked for about an hour and I could tell I wasn’t much help in lifting her spirits.

  I put the phone down and it immediately rang again. It was my sister. “How are you?” I asked, thinking I must try to stop asking that.

  “Fine,” she said. “How are Mom and Dad? They both sounded a bit stressed last time I talked to them.”

  “They are fine I guess,” I said, and wondered if they were.

  We chatted for a bit and then rang off.

  “Your father took your phone because the battery died in his,” my mother announced, appearing in the doorway. “He is very tense, don’t upset him.”

  “Why is he tense?” I asked.

  “Because of … everything,” my mother said. “How can you even ask? You are so selfish.”

  I went back to bed since it seemed the safest thing to do.

  My father came in. “Come to the store to buy some junk food with me,” he said.

  My father, a good-looking man, is six foot with a perfect build, and has a full head of hair that he watches carefully. “The economy is a mess,” he said during the drive to the store. “You picked a very poor time to buy a condo.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “Is there ever really a good time?”

  He looked at me. “Well, it’s a poor time now,” he said.

  We got home.

  “You have lost weight,” my mother proclaimed after I dropped the shopping bags of junk food on the kitchen counter. “Thank God. It’s because I have been praying so hard.” My mother is a short, slightly pear-shaped woman with a beautiful face and an air of sensuality that attracts men like flies. She is deeply religious and prays with equal fervour for an open parking spot and my sister’s and my happiness.

  I stared at her. “I don’t eat much,” I said. “It’s because of that. How can it be your praying?”

  “Because you’ve dieted for years but it never worked before. I remember putting you on diets when you were twelve and I used to get so upset when you’d break them, and I’ve prayed all this time.”

  A white rage filled my head. I felt blind and impotent with fury.

  “Oh, I remember,” I spat the words. “I remember all those diets. I remember how at a time when you should have loved me and made me feel attractive and loved that I felt ugly and fat instead, and I still feel ugly and fat now, thanks to you. It shouldn’t matter what I weigh, it shouldn’t matter.” By the end I was shouting.

  “Well, it does matter,” Dad said calmly, opening a bag of smart popcorn. “And you know why it matters. I’ve explained it to you again and again. And look, you lost weight and you got a promotion. You see.”

  “And God led you to this diet,” my mother said, somehow confusing the nutritional coach I was seeing, the one who was helping me work on the small bites theory, with a weight-loss program.

  I left them and stormed downstairs, angry beyond words.

  I lay back on my bed and wished the voice in my head would just SHUT UP.

  The voice said: you’re fat and lazy and you eat too much, you’re fat and lazy and you eat too much. I couldn’t make it go away, be quiet, leave me alone.

  I am not lazy, I protested to the voice.

  And t
hat’s how my life was shortly before I moved into my exquisite tiny loft that my father thought I had bought at a bad time.

  Setting the record straight

  I PHONE MY MOTHER BEFORE SHE comes up from the east coast. I want to set the record straight. I tell her I am not thin.

  “There is something I want to discuss with you,” I say. “It’s not a big deal or anything but I’m worried you are expecting to see a thin person when you get here and I am not thin. I am exactly the same as I was the last time you saw me. I don’t know what Madison was going on about. All I know is that I am the same, and I am not thin.”

  My mother reassures me it is fine, and that it doesn’t matter. She is just glad I am eating healthily and that I don’t have an eating disorder anymore more and that I mustn’t worry.

  I put the phone down, and I feel worse than I did before the call.

  What does she mean she is glad I don’t have an eating disorder any more? I have never had an eating disorder, not officially. No one has ever said anything like that to me before.

  I don’t want to think about it so I force my thoughts elsewhere.

  Prince Charming

  WE HAVE ANOTHER DREADFUL SOCIAL at work. Max is there and it takes all my willpower to stop myself from going over to him, and also to stop him from getting close to me, which I can see he is trying to do. I work very hard at keeping a safe distance between us and as soon as I feel my resolve weakening, I leave.

  I want to touch him so badly and I am certain he feels the same way.

  It’s like there’s an electrical connection reaching across the room, joining us. I watch him all the time, the way he laughs, the way he moves his hands when he speaks, the way he takes a drink, how he chews when he eats. I want him so badly that I have to leave before I do something incredibly stupid. Why is this happening to me? I am a happily married woman, right?

  I get home and manage to stop myself from bingeing. I don’t let my hand reach for the kettle, which is my number one trigger. I stand very still in my perfectly tidy house and I breathe in and out and say it is okay. I can just take a moment, a little moment.

  I ignore Freddo’s whimpers for attention and I struggle to not let a binge take over. I very carefully call to mind all the little things I have tried to learn, all those things that sometimes, but not always, help. I remember the importance of arranging my food neatly on my plate, of getting a knife and fork and sitting down at the table; no standing and snacking, that is enemy number two, after kettle number one.

  Why the kettle? Oatmeal, you see, is my most favourite binge food. It’s so warm and comforting and so easy to get rid of. There is a reason Goldilocks went for the porridge and there’s a reason she ate it all. Of course if I had been Goldilocks, I would have eaten all three bowls – too hot, too cold, whatever. I would have covered them in maple syrup, margarine, and loads of milk, and I would have inhaled them all, the bowl close to my mouth, eating greedily, as fast as I could.

  But, I’m not Goldilocks and I don’t reach for the kettle and in that way, I hold at bay what would doubtlessly follow – that frightening loss of control.

  No, instead I breathe and move with slow deliberation, steam some vegetables, arrange all my food nicely on a plate, and then sit down at the dining room table for supper and it is all okay.

  Mathew is out at another business function. I guess he’ll be home late again. I was so angry with him the other night. He’d been outside the front door, so drunk he couldn’t even find the front door key and I tiptoed downstairs and locked the door from the inside, all the chain bolts.

  He had to phone me and ask to be let in, which took him a while, and even then I didn’t hurry to open the door.

  Later he fell over trying to get out of his trousers and I made no move to help him.

  When I met Mathew, everybody told me how no one would ever think of having a party without him and it seems they never do.

  My fairytale life is proving to be a long rocky road. I have thought that maybe it is just rough patch but things haven’t been good in a while. I keep waiting for Prince Mathew the Charming to reappear but hey, maybe he thinks he put the glass slipper on the wrong girl and who could blame him there?

  I squeeze lemon juice over my broccoli and look around the quiet house and wonder what to do with myself for the night. I have watched just about every movie released, even ones way in advance, since we get the pre-release DVDs at work to review.

  Everything is clean and tidy and since the housekeeper is coming the next day there is no point in my cleaning more. I sigh and decide I’ll watch some mindless TV. I will not think about Max.

  Considering bulimic housekeepers

  THE NEXT MORNING I MAKE a sandwich for Mathew. I still do that every day, in lieu of making one for myself. He never eats his and every week I search his car for squashed squares of plastic wrap filled with rotting stuff. I know I should stop making them but I love licking the knife and if I don’t make his sandwich, I won’t get even that. So I don’t care if he never eats them; I really make them for me.

  I remember that the housekeeper is coming to give our place the good old monthly once-over. Mathew pays for her; he says I never get things really clean the way he likes it, especially with the dog and cat shedding like they do.

  I stand there and make Mathew’s sandwich, and I am struck by a sudden, curious thought. I imagine I am a travelling housecleaner and I am all alone in a stranger’s kitchen with all their food. What would happen if I lost control and went on a binge?

  First of all, I would have to get rid of everything I eat. But talk about overstepping the boundaries; the transgression of throwing up in their washroom would be worse than taking a nap in the master bed. And then, what about all the food I had eaten? How could I possibly replace every item exactly as I found it? What if I couldn’t find the same brands? The owners might realize the blueberry jam is not the right kind and wasn’t there more in the jar, and surely there is less milk and where is the apple pie?

  Given my attention to detail, I would need to put everything back just the way it was, the logistics of which would be very hard.

  I stand there, quite frozen with terror, trying to figure out how to fix it all and get the house cleaned too.

  But I am not the house cleaner, I think, mentally exhausted. I don’t have to worry; it isn’t real. I am just imagining it.

  But I can see myself so clearly, alone in a stranger’s house, in a terrible predicament. I break out in a cold sweat and feel trapped and awful. I come to a conclusion; if I have a binge, I would have to leave a note:

  I am sorry. I can’t work for you any more. I am moving far away.

  PS: I am sorry I ate all your food.

  And then I would lose my job and have no money and be poor and lose my house too.

  I decide I must stop my disturbed imaginings. The housekeeper is not like me; she is quite normal and not a half-crazed starved person with uncontrollable urges.

  I feel shaken though and it takes a while to reassure myself that it all is okay. Everything is fine, right?

  They came, they destroyed, they left

  MY PARENTS COME UP FROM the east coast, just like they said they would. I meet them for dinner. Mathew says he will join us later.

  I don’t think Mathew likes my parents very much, a feeling shared by them for him. They say he is boring, one-dimensional, and only likes to talk about himself. Come to think of it, Mathew doesn’t bother too much with being the life and soul of the party with them either. And he never enjoys himself because he can’t drink as much as he likes since my parents don’t drink at all.

  I try to feel less tense about us all being together. I am wearing my favourite flowing skirt with a long top. We sit down.

  “Mathew’s joining us later,” I explain and my mother purses her mouth and exchanges a look with my father.

  She flags down a passing waiter. “I would like a cappuccino with cream, not steamed foam.”

 
“Mom,” I interrupt, half-smiling at the waiter. “I bet you haven’t eaten all day, you guys have just arrived, so that might be a bit rich for your stomach. Eat a proper dinner first, then have your cappuccino. They’re just a combination of cream and acid which explains why you feel so nauseous when you go out for supper and have one to start.”

  “Quite right,” my father says. “That is why she’s always ill after supper. She has a very weak stomach, your mother, and it’s very hard for her to keep anything down really.”

  “Okay,” my mother agrees with reluctance, shooing the waiter away. “If you say so. You are so sensible and disciplined and I am so proud of you. And you are looking so lovely. Well, I only wanted to have a few cappuccinos tonight because they are my favourite thing and then, from tomorrow on, no caffeine or cream for me. Caffeine makes you fat and nervous, did you know that? So, from tomorrow on, only fruit and vegetables, just like you and your sister, who is doing very well by the way. Your father is going to buy her a nice wardrobe once all the weight is gone.”

  “Mom,” I say, wondering why I even try, “you are always telling me you are cutting out sugar and caffeine. And here you are saying ‘tomorrow’ yet again. You’d be better off making a vow to keep to a diet that’s more realistic and allows you coffee now and again; not something so rigid you can’t stick to it.”

  “I know I said I was stopping all sugars before,” she says, “but this time I mean it. Once you get going, you feel so good that you really don’t even want sugar anymore. Illegal foods just lose their appeal.”

  “That’s not realistic, Mom,” I say. “Illegal foods are lovely, which is why we want them and no matter what anybody says, fruit and their natural sugars just do not satisfy cravings for ice cream and chocolate. That’s why I think it’s better to try and incorporate them into one’s diet rather than banishing them forever.”

  Since I try to avoid eating just about everything, I don’t practice what I preach, but I do believe in the theory. For other people anyway.

  “Well, I don’t agree and I certainly don’t want you telling your sister that,” my mother says stubbornly. “I want her to stick to this diet to the letter.”