“Oh, she won’t stick to it no matter what I say,” I add. “She will for a while yes, but her lifestyle doesn’t lend itself to it because she socializes too much. And all her friends eat and drink too much. So while she will be able to do it for a while, she won’t stick to it and all the weight she will have lost will be quickly gained back again, plus some more. And all the good she tried to do with setting her metabolism straight will have been lost.”
“Once she feels what it’s like to be thin, she’ll want to stay that way forever,” my mother is emphatic. “And she will be proud of the way she looks and she won’t want to eat anymore. You know what they say, nothing tastes as good as thin feels.”
I hate that stupid saying. “I think you are wrong, Mom,” I say. “The thing is, Madison doesn’t feel fat now. She never has. She’s never understood why anybody feels she has to lose weight. She sort of gets it but she thinks and feels like a thin person. She never feels overweight.”
My mother looks at me with horror. “Oh my God,” she says, “you are so right. I have even had the same thought myself and I must admit I was aghast. Madison has often told me she only needs to lose a bit, not much at all. And I have wondered how on earth she can think that. That she must surely feel the weight but she doesn’t. Yes, dear, you are quite right. Oh, dear me, how very worrying.”
My father, meanwhile, is studying the menu as if it were the Dead Sea Scrolls. He’s the referee, he’ll sense when it’s getting nasty (which it will) and then he’ll deflect us – towards the food.
“But Mom,” I say, “what’s really so bad about how she looks now? I mean, what if this is just the way she is? She’s pretty much been this way all her life, so shouldn’t we accept her instead of waiting for her to change by putting pressure on her to lose weight?”
“What? Give up? Never.” My father looks up, shocked into joining the discussion. “We never give up the fight to win.”
“Your father is quite right,” my mother asserts with equal firmness. “She is not happy at that weight. She would be a much happier person if she lost the weight and all I want is for her to be happy.”
There it is. To be thin is to be happy. Thinner people are more successful, they are richer, they are more likely to inspire respect when met for the first time, they have better jobs, they are better-looking. Being thin makes life golden.
“Anyway,” my father says, putting down his menu, “I have high hopes for Greg and he’ll keep her on track. He’s ambitious, that boy, and focused too. He knows the value of a marketable wife.”
I try to object to this unspeakable statement but Mathew arrives and we decide to order our food and my mother changes the subject from my sister because she and my father have a firm policy about not washing dirty linen in public (as they put it) and they have always been very careful around Mathew, making it clear he is still a stranger who needs to prove himself as one of us. But Mathew could care less. I think he knows how they think and works hard at maintaining his “stranger” status so as to not get too involved.
We order and eat and leave.
“I am so proud of you,” my mother says as we walk to find our cars. “You are so healthy and that’s great. But I do wish you would exercise more. You don’t do any kind of exercise and that’s the only thing missing from your life. Look at Madison; she’s running every day now with Greg.”
“Mom, I do a lot of walking.”
“That’s not real exercise,” she says. “I mean a real workout.”
“But Dad told me I put on muscle when I exercise and that I don’t look feminine. Remember? That’s why I stopped karate when I was only months away from my black belt.”
“That’s quite right,” my father agrees. “She shouldn’t exercise, it makes her look too big.”
“Well, then you are right not to,” my mother says. “Dear,” she says to my father, “I do feel quite nauseous. I shouldn’t have had that second cappuccino. I don’t think I am going to be able to keep my dinner down. I am so sorry, I waste your money all the time.”
“No, you don’t,” my father objects. “Not as long as you enjoy the food while you are eating it.” He takes her by the arm. “Well, I had better get her back to the hotel quickly or she’ll have her head in a plant along the way. Goodnight, it was lovely to see you.”
I watch my father lead my mother way. She is bent over and hurrying. He has his hand on her back.
I drive home alone. Mathew has come in his car and is going to drop in on a function before coming home. I try not to think of my mother throwing up in her hotel room, with my father lying on the bed reading his newspaper and all things as per usual in their world.
The next evening my mother phones to tell me they are home safely. “I ate everything on the plane though,” she says. “And we had bought nice treats and I ate them all. I am going to have to do a big cleanse tomorrow. And then I am never having another thing with sugar, or caffeine, or preservatives, or anything bad at all.”
I sigh. “Okay, Mom,” I say.
“And I spoke to your sister and she asked me if I thought you looked any thinner and I said you were the same as the last time I saw you but that you were looking really good, that you have been looking consistently good for a while now. Then I told her if she eats like you, she can look like you too. It’s all a matter of self-control and discipline and your sister and I could both do with a bit more of that. Anyway, I love you. I’ll let you go and we’ll talk soon.”
I put the phone down and sit there, looking at myself in the mirror.
Mathew tries to be kind
THE NEXT NIGHT I MIX Freddo’s food and prepare our dinner. Mathew is home for once, sitting at the dining room table, reading a newspaper, waiting for supper.
I feed the dog and dish up our supper.
Boiled broccoli, a slice of tomato, and half a boiled potato for me. Kraft Dinner for Mathew with extra cheddar cheese on top, and salad smothered with Italian dressing.
I place the food down, and watch Mathew start eating, one eye on his newspaper.
“Mathew,” I say tiredly, “don’t you ever wonder why I eat so little? Don’t you care? I am so tired. I am so hungry. I am so tired of being so hungry and so tired.”
I look at him and tears well up in my eyes. I can immediately tell he regrets not being in a pub somewhere with his colleagues.
“I hate it when you look at me like that,” I say. “Sometimes I feel like you don’t give me any support at all.”
“That’s absolutely untrue,” he shoots back, his green eyes angry. “All I do is tell the people at work how well you’re doing, how sales always go up when you are art directing a mag, and how they always look better, and how everybody loves what you do. I am the best PR person you could ever have.”
“It’s not that,” I say, my food untouched. “You never think about the stresses I might be under or what I might be feeling or thinking. You always wait for me to lay it out for you and half the time you never understand what I am trying to say. You get uncomfortable and try to change the subject.”
Mathew looks really confused. “What on earth are you talking about?” he asks.
“You see,” I say, “I have to spell everything out for you. Well, one of the things I feel so stressed about, since you haven’t figured it out yourself, is having to be thin, having to watch what I eat all the time and trying to get it right from a calorie and fat point of view. I am also so tired of the fear of getting fat. And I was fat child. When I was twelve years old, I weighed 135 pounds and I am a short person and so that was a lot of weight and I still feel like I am that person.”
“But I know you,” Mathew says. “You would never let that happen again.”
“You see,” I exclaim. “There you go again, saying exactly the wrong thing. This is what I fear, that I will let it happen again. It happened once so it can happen again, very easily. And I can’t keep such a strong grip on it, like I do now, because I am so tired and I’ll slip sooner or
later simply because I am so totally exhausted from trying to not let it happen. And I ate too much today but I was so hungry, I couldn’t help it.”
“I think you are too thin anyway,” Mathew says. “You could easily put on some weight and it wouldn’t matter. I don’t understand why you are so worried. It’s just your usual reaction after we see your family. You go on this food rant and start saying all these things I don’t understand. Why is your family so obsessed by all this anyway?”
Once again I try to explain the statistics and correlation of thin success versus fat failure, of control versus weakness and of presentation being everything, how all books are judged by their covers, but I can see he just doesn’t get it.
So then I start shouting that he is insensitive and I rush into the kitchen and sit on the plastic container of dog food and cry.
Why can’t he get it? It is so easy to understand. I had been a fat child and was punished for it. I was bribed to change, encouraged to do anything that would help me get thinner. And I had done well. But it doesn’t mean anything because my success isn’t here to stay and I am so tired of trying to make it stay. I am so tired of being haunted by my fat self. I can feel her catching up with me; she is hunting me down, looking to expose me for the fat, weak, lazy coward I really am. Me: the unlovable blob.
Mathew opens the kitchen door and comes hesitantly into the room.
“I love you,” he says and squats down next to me. “It’s your family who does this. Every time we see them this happens, and it will pass, it always does. You just need to stop worrying about it.”
I cry harder, feeling stupid.
“I can’t talk to you,” I say. “Every time I try to talk to you about this I just end up feeling like I am some kind of neurotic idiot and I am not a neurotic idiot, I am an intelligent, resourceful, wonderful woman. But you make me feel so ashamed and so stupid.”
“I am not trying to do that,” he says. “Come and eat your supper now.”
As if that will help.
After supper, we go to see a movie and I am quiet and withdrawn. I can’t warm to Mathew even though he has tried his best to be kind. I feel he has seen the blotchy, uncontrolled, unattractive side to me that he should never see.
The next morning, Sunday, I feel inexplicably more cheerful. I plan my menu for the day and I work it all out so I can even have an ice cream.
Mathew comes into the kitchen, and eyes me warily.
“Here’s your coffee,” I say, pushing it towards him. “You are right, I feel much better. I am so sorry about last night. It was so stupid of me to lose it like that. I am really sorry. I let my family and their food issues get to me but you are right; I’ve got it all under control again. It’s fine.”
He smiles and pats me on the back.
“Glad to hear it little girl,” he says. “I’m going to read the papers in the sun room. You can come and sit with me if you like.”
I thank him and start to clean the kitchen with bleach, Lysol, and Vim. The harsh odours invigorate me, the scrubbing and the scouring reassures. I can make it all clean, tidy and nice. I have it all under control.
So, it’s not just me
MONDAY. I AM BACK AT WORK, safe behind the sanctuary of my computer, grateful the weekend is over, and hoping Mathew has forgotten my emotional meltdown. But I feel desperate. Sunday’s fleeting moment of optimistic control has vanished; I can’t seem to get a grip on the situation. I open my Hotmail account and there, not once but three times, is the same newsletter from a website I recall coming across a while back, but don’t remember subscribing to. The newsletter is filled with prayers of various kinds, and there, right at the top, is this one:
Why Doesn’t Anybody Notice That I Don’t Eat?
Dear Jesus, please help me.
Something isn’t right. I don’t understand why no one notices that I don’t eat. I live on diet Coke and tiny blocks of cheese.
I always feel so close to fainting or wishing I could hit and attack the people around me. I’m exhausted. I don’t know how to carry on. I can’t keep up the pretense. My life is held together like a net that’s going to break. Every day is the same torture.
Dear Jesus, I heard of a prayer to You on the radio. It’s called the five-finger prayer. They said that all I have to do is close my fist then open my fingers one at a time.
Dear. Jesus. Help. Me. Now.
This is my prayer; please, let someone notice that I don’t eat.
Maybe if I say this five-finger prayer more times, You’ll help me faster.
There, exactly, is what I had said to Mathew on Saturday night. I just wanted him to notice that I don’t eat.
And now, this email. There is no such thing as a meaningless coincidence, not in my world anyway.
I stare at the message for a long time and wonder if I am supposed to do something and if so, what? I am not sure why, but I decide the email is an omen, that it’s time to do some homework, get this problem under control, once and for all. It’s time to find out what Google has to say about all of this.
Cleopatra & Isis, goddess & princess
I KNOW THAT IF I REALLY want to address my problems, I should look at the website Brit mentioned, the national eating disorder one, but I can’t quite bring myself to make that admission. So I decide to Google Isis instead – princess and goddess. I have been meaning to do this for ages and following the omen of the Dear Jesus newsletter, I am in a seeking frame of mind. I am hoping to find help the easy way, you know, a healing crumb from the table of an ancient goddess.
My investigations reveal that my sister, like Brit, is talking about the goddess Isis, unless Madison is referring to an obscure Egyptian Princess who was named after the goddess. But that particular princess had been involved an incestuous relationship with her father. I am not sure if my sister would want to be a reincarnation of her; if one is given a choice in the matter of reincarnation, that is.
I read that Princess Isis was the second or third daughter of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and Queen Tiye and was also called Aset or Iset. She was named after the Goddess Isis, who was also called the “Mistress of Magic.” Like her sisters Sitamen and Henut-Taneb, Princess Isis was one of the wives of her father. Unlike her sisters, however, she was specifically referred to as a “King’s Wife.” After the death of Amenhotep III, she faded from view, and it is not known what happened to her.
I move on to the captivating Cleopatra who was not the goddess Isis either, nor was she Princess Isis, but she did believe that the goddess Isis communicated to humans through her, and as a result, she dressed in the manner of Isis and adopted her look.
It’s reported that Cleopatra was not particularly beautiful. But she was charming, sensual, intelligent, and a renowned seducer.
Cleopatra was a great ruler, famous not only for her charm and love affairs but for for her wisdom and fairness. She went to great lengths to observe Egyptian religious rites, and increasingly portrayed herself as the earthly representative of Isis and was often called, “New Isis.”
My sister also had it wrong when she said that Cleopatra had ordered the death of Mark Anthony; in a daring and necessary political move, she faked her own suicide, the rumours of which led the distraught Anthony to take his own life. Upon hearing this, Cleopatra clasped a poisonous snake to her breast and died. It was all very Romeo and Juliet.
I am happy that Cleopatra had not been considered beautiful. One of the most famous women in the history of our world was not beautiful. Or slender and willowy.
Brit arrives and I quickly close all the windows on my screen. Brit says she is still half-asleep and wishes Mondays were banned. Meanwhile I feel exhausted, the work day has yet to begin, and I have already tried to unravel the mystery of the Dear Jesus message and understand ancient history.
I decide I am going to channel the energy and power of the curvaceous Cleopatra and get on with the day. Perhaps the message from all this is simple: if Cleopatra didn’t need to be thin, then neither do
I.
War games
IN ANOTHER LIFE, PABLO, THE PUBLISHER, is a Roman who throws Christian martyrs to the lions. There is no other way to explain the instinctive sadism with which he comes up with ideas to unite the company employees.
This time, instead of the usual shenanigans under the dolphin-domed boardroom, we are all going off-site to engage in a group activity: War Games.
“No really I can’t,” I say. “I just don’t do stuff like that.”
Kenneth sighs. “Believe me, neither do I. But we have to. We are the Showbiz Buff Crew.”
“Don’t you mean the Showbiz Butt Crew?” Brit asks, one eyebrow raised.
Kenneth sighs again. “No, buffs, like film buffs, get it? Anyway, we are up against the Psychic Yoga Masters from Namaste and we are going to try to ‘kick ass,’ as they say.”
He sighs a third time. His attempts at getting us all fired up and enthused sound half-hearted and tired at best. I don’t think “kicking ass” is something he says very often and so I decide to grit my teeth and just be supportive.
Meg emerges from her office. She looks like a haunted wraith with bruised eyes. “I’m game,” she says. “I like things like that. Is it outside?”
“No,” Kenneth sighs a fourth time. “It’s in some underground bunker or something.”
“Oh no,” I say. “I have dreadful claustrophobia. Seriously Kenneth, I don’t know if I can be underground.”
“Well, see how you feel when we get there,” he says. “If you really can’t do it, you can’t. Don’t worry about it. It’s really not that important anyway.”
Sometimes Kenneth isn’t all that bad really. I smile at him.
He reaches into a box. “Here are your Tshirts,” he says.
“Tshirts,” we all exclaim in horror. He gives another faux-laugh that sounds exhausted and hands out the Tshirts.
“This is too small,” I say. “No way I am wearing this. No way!”
“I am begging you,” Kenneth says, “on bended knee, all of you, to please, please just go along with this. Too big, too small, please just wear them. I am so tired of all this crap I can’t even begin to tell you. And where is our sales person I ask you? Where? I am exhausted from trying to keep this ship afloat.”
The Hungry Mirror Page 26