“Jim! Talk to your daughter. She’s already complaining. This is your doing, you know. If you hadn’t been so indecisive with the whole Jesus-versus-Jewish thing she’d be a doctor or a lawyer by now. You said you’d convert to Judaism for me. But did you? No!”
Penelope sat down on her living room sofa and turned her TV on mute, silently watching reruns of The Dukes of Hazzard on Country Music Television while her parents bickered. Bo was so much cuter than Luke. She couldn’t believe she once thought Luke was the hottie. Maybe it was like Star Wars. Everyone always thought Luke Skywalker was the stud until they grew up and realized he was totally gay and that Han Solo was the hunkalicious one.
Penelope’s thoughts were interrupted by her father.
“Penelope, it’s your dad,” Jim, who had finally succeeded in wresting the phone away from Susan, said. “Just wanna say, I love you, your mother loves you, and Jesus loves you. Now, what channel you on?”
“You can’t watch me, Dad,” Penelope said. “I work at a local cable access in New York and you live in Cincinnati, Ohio. And besides, I’m not on air, I’m an assistant producer.”
“An assistant producer. Wow, that sounds neat. But be careful, those liberal TV folks will try and warp your mind. I’ll pray for you,” Jim said. “Jesus rules, baby!”
“Thanks, Dad—I’ll keep that in mind,” Penelope said, “Love you. Tell Ma I said ’bye.”
As Jim and Susan were shouting their good-byes, Penelope hung up the phone and turned the volume on the TV up just as Bo and Luke Duke jumped in the General Lee for the thousandth time and fishtailed out of Uncle Jesse’s farm.
8
SAGITTARIUS:
Inertia weighs in during Uranus’s cycle, and you must pay extra attention to the scales.
Dana was mortified. How could she have gained five pounds? She had been sticking to the Weight Watchers diet, cheating only mildly, and doing her yoga group twice a week with the girls from her building for the last month. But when she stepped on the weigh-in scale before the Weight Watchers meeting in Tribeca, there it was in electronic numbers: 158. It would have been fine had she been five foot eleven inches instead of five foot four—or five foot four and pregnant. Alas, she was neither.
“The scales don’t lie,” the weigh-in nurse said when Dana suggested that perhaps she was mistaken.
May you burn in the seventh circle of Dante’s hell with my legal brethren. “Yes, but do they negotiate?” Dana inquired politely.
The nurse gave her a blank stare. “Just kidding!” Dana said, but the nurse didn’t laugh. Dana collected her things and went into the meeting and breathed a sigh of relief. They were all there. And they were all still fatter than she had ever been. In order of fatness: Corynne, the airline check-in desk manager (five foot three, 175 pounds); Annie, the human resources director (five foot seven, 196 pounds); Helen the cashier (five foot five, 228 pounds); and Marjorie, the i-banker (five foot six, 301 pounds).
“Dana,” Marjorie said, looking at her with annoyance, “why are you here?”
“I’m here because I’m fat,” Dana said.
“You are not fat,” Annie said. “I’m fat. Helen is fat; Corynne is fat. Marjorie, you’re obese.” Marjorie nodded gravely. “You, Dana,” Annie continued, “are not fat. You are chubby.”
“Well, I used to be fat,” Dana said.
“And now you’re not,” Helen countered.
“I don’t want to argue the issue,” Dana said, pinching the roll of flesh hanging over her suit pants. “But may I present the evidence?”
“That’s flab, but it ain’t fat,” Helen grumbled.
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I’m gaining. I’m five pounds more than I was last week. And I’m still thirty pounds over my target weight. And who are you all to be criticizing me? I was fat, then I wasn’t, then I was fat again and lost it, and now I’m gaining again. This is supposed to be a support group!”
“Sorry, Dana,” Marjorie said, “it’s been a rough week for all of us. I got pushed out of all the photos from the Go Green event at work because the photographer said they didn’t have a wide-angle lens.”
“I put out the candy bowl by my desk and this bitch who sits next to me accused me of trying to make everyone in the office as fat I as I am,” Annie said. “She called me the Candy Enabler.”
“Well, my boss told me that if I gain any more weight I won’t be able to fit in the uniform and they’ll have to suspend me,” Corynne said, nibbling on a low-calorie snack bar.
“I hooked up with a guy and when I took my shirt off he screamed, ‘Flabulanche!’ and laughed,” Helen whispered, sitting on her hands and looking at an invisible spot on her lap.
“That’s just actionable,” Dana said. “Marjorie and Corynne, you two should file a harassment suit and Helen, you should’ve punched the guy. Let me know if you need help. But don’t get angry with me for wanting to be skinny.”
But the truth was, the girls had a point. As much as Dana hated to admit it, although she had gained weight, she knew she didn’t need to be going to the meetings anymore. Dana, who’d gained forty pounds during the first year of her marriage, had begun them at Noah’s insistence. So she’d gone to the meetings and lost some of the weight over a period of a year.
But then he’d left her for Evya and the weight had come back. Walking home after the meeting, Dana quietly admitted to herself that perhaps she didn’t need the meetings—she needed a shrink. The meetings were basically Dana’s sole social contact with the rest of the world outside of work. She had become a shut-in who was obsessed with her weight.
The only other people she had semiregular contact with were the (skinny) yoga girls, Penelope and Lipstick and sometimes their friend Neal who, upon setting foot in her loft for the first time, announced, “Oh! So chic! So fabulous! So…Philippe Starck!”
The group was a funny one. At first Dana had resented the intrusion, but after the second week, she looked forward to it.
She loved living vicariously through them.
Lipstick was a glamourous Barbie-like figure—if Barbie were almost six-feet-tall and semicracked out on Klonopins. She’d been cut off by her parents and was living her life like Kabuki theater, but was trying her best to keep up appearances—and always looked good doing it. Dana was also intrigued with Lipstick’s side gig as a seamstress—who knew socialites could sew?—of which Dana was benefiting from as well. If Lipstick screwed up on sizing and constructed something too big, she’d sometimes give it to Dana—like the bias-cut dress she’d created from some cashmere sweaters last week. It didn’t fit Lipstick properly so she had donated it to Dana, who loved it, even though she didn’t have anywhere to wear it to.
Dana knew it was Lipstick’s way of encouraging her to stop being a recluse. Every time she proffered something, Lipstick would say, “So, you know, if you’d like to come to dinner sometime, you can wear this,” or “Hey, there’s a big party for this new artist at the Deitch Gallery. You could wear that skirt I made.” If something was too small, she’d give it to Penelope, who was always eager for more clothing—and invitations. “I’ll go, sure!” Penelope would squeal eagerly when Lipstick asked her out somewhere. “What else do I have going on? Nothing, that’s what! Count me in!”
Lipstick was one of those people who seemed to think more of others—and their opinions of her—than of herself. And it was funny to watch what seemed to be Lipstick’s first experience with actually working. And working hard. Lipstick had established a routine: she went to her day job at Y, covered the events for the magazine in the evenings, and then late at night she came home to whip up another creation, sometimes staying up until the early hours of the morning. But, as Lipstick admitted to the girls, Neal was right: “I do love sewing. And there’s something so satisfying about manual labor.”
The only drawback was that it ravaged her hands. Lipstick had had a hard time readjusting to the needles, pins, and sewing machine and had taken to wearing small ladylike kid
gloves at all times to cover up her battle-scarred fingers. Even during yoga. Lipstick removed her gloves during the third week at Penelope’s insistence, and Dana gasped at Lipstick’s once beautifully manicured fingers, with raw and angry-looking cuticles, covered in pinpricks and Band-Aids.
“Sewing is hazardous to one’s facade,” Lipstick shrugged as she put her gloves back on.
Then there was Penelope, who always looked like she had just escaped a close encounter with a twister. Which, in a way, was appropriate; her life seemed like a tornado. Dana always looked forward to hearing about Penelope’s crazy new job at NY Access, which would have crippled lesser people with its daily humiliations. But Penelope had a strange optimism. While events didn’t always seem to go her way, at least they were moving forward—or backward or sideways. Either way, they were still moving. Dana felt that just by being in her proximity, she too could pick up some momentum.
SCORPIO:
A very active and effective career phase has commenced, even if you don’t recognize the opportunities presented to you.
And things were indeed happening to Penelope.
For starters, she was semipromoted. It wasn’t a case of wowing anyone with her work ethic (which was fine), seeing an opening and going for it (she’d had enough of that), or impressing the powers that be with her amazing gofering/bald-spot-covering skills. It was more that she bothered to show up and, by virtue of that, found herself, as they say, “in the right place at the right time,” even if she had to dodge Trace’s hands and knees while doing so.
That morning, the entire staff of NY Access was crammed into Marge’s office for a particularly hellish story meeting. Nobody dared move. The faces of the producers, crew, and talent wore a uniform look of sheer terror. Even the office cockroaches were in hiding.
Marge was on the warpath. Her fourth face-lift hadn’t been as successful as she’d thought it would be, leaving her not “refreshed,” as she had hoped, but instead, a little…tight. Her surgeon, the renowned Dr. Dick Barnes, MD, told her during her post-op checkup the day before, “It’s the swelling, Marge. It will go down. It’s just taking a little longer to heal this time…. Yes, I know Marge, I owe you a lot…. I have thanked you for your pieces on me and my work—which I assure you, is spectacular in this instance—many times…. But you have to understand…even though you tell people you’re fifty, you’re not. And the body takes more time to heal as it gets older.”
“How dare you!” Marge had screeched as she stormed out of the office. “I’m forty-two!”
In addition to being terrified of looking like Barbara Walters in a wind tunnel (with what David had termed the Iraq look of constant shock and awe) for the rest of her life, Marge’s meds weren’t working as well. Apparently, if you take the Blues (Percocet), the Pinks (Klonopin), and the Greens (Valium) on a regular basis, their effectiveness wears off—a fact Marge had overlooked for the past nine years as she popped her handful of pills daily, in a combination and amount that would have long since killed individuals of lesser constitutions.
“It’s like a big bowl of Good ’n Plentys at her house,” David once mused to Penelope. “It’s insane. You walk in her bedroom and there’s a glass vase full of the pills, like a party bowl from the seventies. She says she likes the way the colors meld. They match her Beverly Hills Hotel–meets-rabid-birds-of-paradise décor.”
This morning, having run out of all three color pills simultaneously, nothing was mollifying Marge’s anger.
And corporate had called. The numbers were down.
“What? Doesn’t anyone have any ideas?” she screeched, pounding her fist onto her desk, spilling her ninth cup of coffee. “What the hell do I pay you all for? Are you on strike? Did your paychecks bounce and I wasn’t aware of it? Have you all been licking the lead paint off your walls? I want to hear some ideas here, people! Something new…something fresh! Start talking or someone’s getting fired!”
A young, naïve assistant producer who had just been hired a week earlier raised her hand and said, “Um, excuse me, we could do an exposé on the fine dining establishments that have large rodent problems and multiple health violations—the latest restaurant health report just came out and—”
“God, that’s so boring and tired!” Marge roared as the young woman’s mouth slammed closed. “Channel Five did that two years ago. I mean, it’s always okay to revisit, but that’s something that should have been done three weeks ago—before the damned health report came out! What’s your name?”
The woman, who was just out of college and had been hired for her inexperience and willingness to work for next to nothing, froze. “Kelly James, ma’am…”
The room went silent.
“Uh-oh,” David murmured to Penelope, who was clutching a tray of office supplies Marge had asked for at the meeting’s outset. “Mount Saint Marge is gonna blow.”
Marge’s new face went from red to purple, the vein in her forehead began to throb, and her eyes bulged like a rare Madagascar monkey. For a second it was almost peaceful—the calm before a hurricane.
And then the storm hit.
“Ma’am?!” Marge said, throwing a magazine that had been in front of her in Kelly’s general direction. “Ma’am? Who do you think I am, Kelly James? A geriatric? Do you think I’ve lost my faculties and shit my Depends like someone’s grandparents in a nursing home?!”
“I…I didn’t mean anything by it—” Kelly said.
“Get…out…of…here,” Marge seethed.
“But—” Kelly protested, her eyes watering.
“Now!”
Kelly (who ended up not being permanently banished due to a Blues-induced change of heart two hours later, but was forced to do the Rolodex for three days straight) burst into tears and fled the room, as Marge roared, “Who’s next? Are you people retarded? Did a short bus drop you all off at work today? Give me ideas now…NOW!”
Terrified, the office crowd started shouting out ideas all at once. There was safety in numbers, and if several ideas were thrown at Marge, she would not be able to match an idea to one person, so the chances of another public humiliation were minimum.
“High-wire jobs—New York’s most dangerous jobs—send someone up the Empire State Building in a window-washer rig!”
“Billionaire speed dating—why do rich guys need dates and who are the hookers who show up?”
“Heart-healthy meals—be a Calorie Commando!”
“Runway fashion—who really wears that shit?”
“Sexy Easter bunny outfits that will make your man hop into bed!”
“Wait!” Marge roared, slamming down her coffee cup so hard it chipped on the edge. “What was that about bunnies and sex?”
“Ah…” a voice in the back said, “it was, ah, sexy Easter outfits that will make your man hop into bed—you know, kind of like board shorts for guys—you can wear board shorts on land or in the ocean. Dual functions…a sexy bunny outfit that can be worn to hide eggs and host Easter parties but is hot enough to wear in the boudoir.”
“Who said that?” Marge demanded.
The William Hurt look-alike raised his hand and said, “Me.”
Penelope turned toward the voice. Her heart skipped a beat. He was hot supreme.
“ME? What kind of name is that?” Marge demanded.
“Fine, Marge, I will play your crazy game. I, Thomas Howard, had the hot bunny idea.”
“How long have you worked here?”
“Four years, Marge, you know that. I’ve been producing the evening news for you for three years.”
“Well, where the hell have you been hiding, Thomas Howard? That is the most genius idea I have heard all week! It’s sexy—sex sells, people! And it has bunnies in it—people absolutely adore animals! Especially cute fuzzy ones! Fabulous! Where’s Lopez?”
“Laura’s out today,” David piped up. “She’s interviewing Sam Dwain for his new movie Monster Men at the Regency. The junket runs all day. She won’t be back till late aftern
oon.”
“Who the hell are we going to get on such short notice?” Marge roared. “You! Blondie!” She pointed at Penelope, who promptly dropped the tray of office supplies she was holding. “Get into makeup and put on something colorful! You’re doing the hot bunny story. NOW!! But clean up that mess first. God! Can’t we get any good help around here?”
And that is how Penelope ended up later that day at Walt’s World of Curios, a “novelty” (read: sex) store on Seventh Avenue South and Charles Street, in the only “sexy bunny” outfit they could find—a skintight fuzzy X-rated Bugs Bunny costume that smelled like someone had worn it before, with her “Smile, It’s Monday!” grandma underwear peeking through the outfit’s cutout crotch. The effect was more silly than sexy, but none of that mattered to Marge, who upon hearing a detailed description of the outfit barked, “Love it!” before slamming down the phone.
Standing in aisle four, Thomas got off the phone. “Marge wants to make the piece a feature, so we have to do some promos,” he excitedly told Penelope, who was breaking out in a rash on her neck from the polyester suit that had a heart-shaped cutout to show bunny cleavage; large, oversized bunny paws and feet; as well as a hole for her face to stick through what would have been the costume’s mouth, with two large rabbit teeth hanging menacingly just above her forehead, obstructing her view.
“Oh, God, no.”
“Sorry, Marge said we had to.”
“Are we shooting from inside the…Easter paradise?” Penelope asked, sweeping her large rabbit paw hand over a wall of shiny, pastel-colored “marital aids.”
“No, there’s a bakery with a good Easter display two blocks away. We can do it there.”
“I have to go out in public like this?” Penelope moaned. “I can barely move with these feet. I had to do a weird fascist march just to get out of the changing room.”
“Hey,” Walt, the store’s owner, said, “you only paid for an hour—take it wherever you want, but I want this back by five. Comic-Con is in town next week and this is one of the more popular outfits.”
Mercury in Retrograde Page 12