“You know, this is really cosmic.” He puts down his sushi—finally!—wipes his mouth, and faces me. “It must have been fate that you were waiting for a guy named Chip. I had no knowledge of that, by the way. I just saw you standing there and thought you looked forlorn and cute.”
Forlorn and cute? Me?
“So I gave you a ride. And you were pretty funny. Started talking about how much hot water you were in at work and, you know, my interest was piqued, especially when I ran into you in the gym and found you had bet the toughest guy there into a weightlifting contest.”
Yes, that would be me. Petite and delicate.
“Most women I meet come on to me. I’m not bragging, it’s just a fact. Anyway, you’re right. Their interest probably has more to do with my money than my baby blues, sadly.” He picks at some grass, thinking about this. “Then again, maybe you would have been more like them if you hadn’t assumed I worked in computers.”
You know, he might be right. I am, admittedly, a geek snob, though I have nothing against computer geeks, personally. What they do with their spare time is their business.
Still, I must stay on track. “What I don’t get,” I say, with such blatant hypocrisy it is shameful, “is why you don’t just come out and tell me your full name, rank, and serial number.”
He leans back on his elbows, squinting into the setting sun. It is several minutes before he says, “No, I don’t think I will.”
“What? Why?” I scream, eying his pocket and debating whether to make a go for his wallet to check his driver’s license.
“Because I really enjoy you, Nola. I like your neat uppercut. I like how you keep setting things on fire and how you’re apparently in big trouble at work. Very intriguing. I like the way you’ve formed a pact with your friends to lose weight. That’s very cool. And I especially like your killer cat. If I come out and give you my name, rank, and serial number—as you put it—we might not have a chance. And I’d never see Otis again.”
I keep my face straight as I mull these words over. We might not have a chance. We might not have a chance. This is like music that is so rarely heard by my ears that I have trouble hearing it. Perhaps I am akin to one of those brain-damaged people who can still read, technically, though sentences have no meaning.
How is it, I want to ask him, that you are sitting next to me, sipping a superb Bordeaux on a glorious summer evening under a willow tree? Why would you, who women such as Angie apparently adore, want to be with me, a hulking jealous spinster? At least, according to Eileen.
But those questions are the kinds of questions fat girls ask themselves, and I catch myself. Changes in the body start with the mind, and I’m taking a new path, remember? So I deflect my wonder to the new Mercedes convertible SLK230 perched above us. “Thanks for finding my dream car. I can’t tell you how much it means. Makes me feel a little bit like Cinderella.”
Chip frowns. “I don’t get that at all.”
“But I do.” And for now, that’s all that’s important.
Chapter Nineteen
That was six weeks ago.
Nearly two months and the only words from Chip since then have been those he wrote on a note slipped into my mailbox a few days after our Mercedes date.
Dear Nola:
I had a blast with you the other night. Thanks for being such a good sport while I was in town. That car was made for you. Enjoy. Look forward to seeing you again. I’ll call you when I’m back.
Love, “Chip”
P.S. Say hi to Otis.
“Love.” I’ve analyzed, calculated, accepted, and rejected every nuance of that word in this context and still I don’t know what to make of it.
Worse, every day I wait for him to call. I check my messages with the degree of vigilance more akin to a nuclear monitoring facility than a girl who enjoyed one and a half dates with a guy. I even swung by the Mercedes dealership and casually engaged Maurice in conversation in an effort to extract more information about my mystery man. But Chip was right. Maurice’s middle name really is Discreet. MDS. I saw it on his briefcase too.
During my early morning walk/runs around the cemetery I have taken to hashing and rehashing what could have gone wrong in the Chip department. The best-case scenario is this: Shortly after our parting at the park, Chip—actually an agent for the CIA—was kidnapped by terrorists and taken to a remote desert area where he is being held in a cave with no access to a cell phone.
Reasonable.
Worst-case scenario is that he was so repulsed by the way I chewed my sushi that he whipped out his Sharpie and ran a black line through my name in his address book.
Or was it something—possibly someone—else?
Angie comes to mind, along with all the women who know who Chip really is and who are desperate to have him while I continue to labor in ignorance. Me, a mere experiment. A whim, if you will. Could it be that Chip was curious to see what it was like to date a “big-boned woman,” as Nigel would say?
Then again, there’s the basic societal problem. Simply that good, honest, funny, decent, single men in my age group are hard to find and keep. It’s true! Consider these Sass! headlines we’ve run in just the past six months:
SO, YOU’VE FOUND MR. RIGHT: IS HE HERE TOSTAY?
TEN TIPS TOKEEP HIM BEGGING FOR MORE
ARE YOU SEXUALLY SATISFYING HIM?
SIGNS THAT HE’S “JUST NOT THAT INTOYOU”
IS HE GONE FOR GOOD?OR CAN YOU GET HIM BACK? TAKE OUR QUIZ
FIND YOUR NEXT MR. RIGHT. HINT—IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK!
Or maybe, just maybe, there was no romantic intent to begin with. I helped Chip out of a sticky situation at the Annex; he returned the favor by arranging for the Mercedes. Done and done. That he plied me with French wine, took me to a secluded park, put his arm around me in the car as the sun set—these were nothing but niceties. Courtly love mannerisms to which he gave little thought, being that he is a worldly, wealthy heir from free-love California.
And what am I? I am a pedantic Jersey girl with an out-of-control imagination that consistently gets me into trouble. Like my third-grade teacher warned me, daydreaming would do me no good. Especially when I daydream about being in love.
What I’ve decided is that now is certainly not the time to be entering into a serious relationship anyway. I mean, I need to focus all my energy on sticking with this Cinderella Pact and losing weight. I can’t be going out on dates—beer, hamburgers, movie popcorn—when there are pounds to be shed.
And the good news. Scratch that. The terrific news is that I am losing weight. In two months I have lost fifteen and a half pounds. I know this because I summoned my courage and asked the weigher at Weight Watchers to tell me the truth. I was so thrilled when she showed me my stats. I burst into tears when our leader gave me the coveted fifteen-pound gold star.
Actually, it took me a while to start losing weight. After dropping five pounds the first week, I stalled. The numbers on the scale wouldn’t move. I even gained a pound or two. The leader at our meetings told me to find the “golden spot”—eating enough points to keep my metabolism stoked, yet not eating so many that my body isn’t dipping into fat reserves. Turned out I wasn’t eating enough and I needed to eat more fruits and vegetables. One Friday—my weigh-in day—I stepped on the scale and found that four pounds were gone.
Are there days when I’m hungry? You bet. There are days when I long for a grilled ham-and-cheese sandwich or a Reuben with sauerkraut, fatty corned beef, and Russian dressing. Black-forest cake. Unlimited numbers of chocolate-chip cookies. Onion dip and a bag of Ruffles. There are days when I long to just not give a damn.
But then I think of Nancy with her expensive, ruthless personal trainer and nutritionist and Deb slicing her body open, and I am filled with resolve.
We are going to do this. Once and for all. What started out as a whim is now my mission.
Deb now takes a walk with me every Saturday, our long day when we try to hit seven miles. I can’t de
scribe the change in her. She says she feels as though the fat’s just melting off, and I think she’s right. She can weigh one thing in the morning and a pound less by that night. Already she’s dropped the maternal jumpers and is wearing skirts and tops. OK, they came from Goodwill, but still.
There have been some downsides, like losing her hair. Not all of it, just some. Then she upped her vitamin intake and it all grew back, though straighter.
Deb eats teeny tiny portions. Doll portions. At first it was Jell-O—don’t get me started—and then she moved to smoothies. After that it was pureed food. That was gross. Then soft food—scrambled eggs, chicken noodle soup, sweet potatoes, and cottage cheese—and now she’s moving on to regular food, albeit tentatively. Peas that might have gone down fine on Tuesday can make you barf on Wednesday, she tells me.
More information than I need to know.
Going out to dinner with Deb is a joke. It’s not even worth it. She’ll order chicken breast and barely nibble it. Then she’ll try some salad, three grains of rice, and that’s it. Two points total in Weight Watchers currency. I can remember when that was what Deb mindlessly ate while waiting for the waiter to take away her plate. For her the best part of going out to dinner is knowing that she won’t have to do the dishes. It’s no longer the Snickers pie at the end.
Of course learning to eat this way hasn’t been a snap. In the beginning, Deb got very depressed and Paul was no help at all. Her complaint that she had lost her “best friend,” i.e. food, had no meaning to him.
One day he said to me, “I thought you and Nancy were her best friends. Now Deb tells me it’s food.”
I tried to explain about how food is there even at two a.m., how it triggers comfort responses in our brains, a holdover from infancy. But he just shook his head and said something about football.
Nancy, as usual, has approached weight loss like a trial lawyer gearing up for the big case. In other words, she’s gone into overdrive.
Her trainer is at her doorstep by five a.m., six days a week, and they work out for an hour and a half. In addition, she bought an elliptical machine and measures everything. Uh, did I mention that Ron bought her a used treadmill that seems to need an awful lot of repairs? Just Nancy’s luck, Ron happens to have the right tools.
Ahem.
Last week we were at the Alchemist and Barrister restaurant and Nancy kept eyeing the table next to us.
“What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “You’re being rude.”
“It’s just so disgusting. I can’t imagine that I ever ate that much.”
At first glance I didn’t know what she was talking about. A large cheeseburger on a Kaiser roll and fries. Then, comparing that to what we had just eaten—half a filet of fish and salad—I could understand. For the first time I saw the restaurant portions for what they are, which is to say, obscene.
That’s when I knew we’d leaped a major hurdle. Maybe we really were going to make it this time. We were going to lose the weight and keep it off. We are transforming ourselves into healthy creatures—stronger, more energetic, and more beautiful than we’d ever imagined.
At least that’s what I keep telling myself. Because if there’s anything I’ve learned as Belinda, it’s that lies are like magic. What you believe, most often becomes true.
Chapter Twenty
“Belinda! You are sooo hard to get a hold of. Between the time difference, which is sooo terribly inconvenient, and that simpleton you have for an editor, it’s amazing we can connect at all.”
“Excuse me?” I am driving in my Mercedes, top down in the September sun, talking in a faux British accent to Belinda’s high-powered agent, Charlotte, on a cell phone. I should feel glamorous. I should have a silk Chanel scarf around my head and big Jackie O sunglasses. Instead, my thighs are spreading like quicksand over the hot leather, my hair is beating my face, and I keep accidentally getting pieces of it in my mouth. “Which editor are you talking about?”
“Nora.”
“Do you mean Nola?”
“Whatever. They’re all the same. A dime a dozen. I’ve been in the business soooo long, I can’t be expected to keep these paper pushers straight.”
My hands clutch the wheel as I nearly rear-end a plumber’s van in front of me. For the record I, as Nola the paper pusher, do not remember receiving one phone call from Charlotte Dawson, which raises questions about what other lies she’s been spreading.
Chip. Eileen. Jim. Lori. Me. Now Charlotte. We all lie. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone tells the truth these days.
“Here I’ve been in Italy all summer, and I come back to find that you are under some sort of investigation at work. It’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard of.”
I could think of a few more absurd things, if she’s interested.
“I told them it can’t be true that you’re an imposter. Tell me I’m right.”
“Of course you’re right.” The lie rolls easily from my lips as I find the first quiet street and pull into it. This conversation is too nerve-wracking to conduct while shifting lanes. “I’m absolutely real.”
“Good!” She lets out a sigh. “That’s exactly what I’ll tell your managing editor, then.”
“Excellent,” I say, happy that Charlotte will finally put Lori in her place.
“When I meet her today for lunch.”
Hold on. “For lunch?”
“Yes. In Jersey, of all horrible spots. You don’t think I’d let something this serious wait, do you? I demanded an immediate, face-to-face meeting.”
“But . . . today?”
“We need to get this issue resolved, Belinda. That producer in L.A. is dying to meet you. Sweet Dream Productions is really eager to get started on this project, but rumors that your publisher has doubts about your authenticity might put a damper on that. Studios have to be very careful these days, especially after that whole Jim Frey and Oprah mess. If he gets one whiff that you’re a fraud, it could kill our film deal.”
The movie deal. I’d completely forgotten about it. “I didn’t know there’s a deal.”
“Well there might not be. Not if Sass! fires you. But don’t worry. I’ll handle everything. I’m sure this DiGrigio person is on your side. After all, you’re their bestselling columnist.”
Ha! Bestselling columnist or not, Lori DiGrigio will never be on my side, unless she’s pushing me into an early grave.
I hang up and rapidly assess the situation. This is the worst ever. I don’t even know what street I’m on, I’m so panicked. Whatever happens, I must not let Charlotte meet with Lori. That would be the end of everything. I’d kept my fingers crossed that silence from management meant that they’d backed off the investigation, but I was wrong. They were just waiting for more evidence.
Damn. I bite a nail (0 points) and mull over my options. There’s only one. I must intercept the lunch meeting.
I call up Charlotte right away—on my cell phone, not Belinda’s.
“Yes!” Charlotte always answers sounding ultraimpatient.
“This is Nola Devlin. I’m Belinda’s editor at Sass!”
“Nola!” Charlotte exclaims. “Your ears must be burning. Belinda and I were just discussing what a fabulous editor you are and how lucky Belinda is to have you.”
Yeah, right, paper pusher.
“I’m calling because Miss DiGrigio won’t be able to make your lunch meeting.”
“Oh?”
“Though I’ll be taking her place.”
Silence. Charlotte is not pleased. She is not accustomed to dealing with management as far down the totem pole as I.
“I’m afraid there’s no other choice. Miss DiGrigio’s awfully sorry but she”—I think of something that would assure Charlotte there was no disrespect—“she broke her leg.”
“My! Is she OK?”
“She’s fine. It was a thong injury, I’m afraid. Apparently her foot got caught in one of the straps and, well, you know how elastic those things are.”
“Yes,
yes of course. Well then. Lunch with you it is.”
“Great. Shall we meet at one? How about at the Rainforest Café?”
“I’ve never heard of it,” says Charlotte, who lives in the bubble that is called Manhattan. “Why don’t you talk to my driver and give him directions. As long as this Rainforest Café is quiet and child-free, it should be fine. I’m afraid I can’t stand children. My doctor says I’m allergic.”
The Rainforest Café in the Menlo Park Mall offers a superb dining experience, along with recorded and real parrots squawking constantly and plastic volcanoes erupting every fifteen minutes between ear-splitting outbursts of rain-foresty lightning and thunder.
Children love it.
So do I.
“Has a woman arrived looking stricken and confused?” I ask the hostess, who is wearing a safari outfit, natch. “Oh, and she’ll be in all black.”
“Is she stick thin with big, big glasses?” Momsai, the hostess, holds up her index finger.
“I’m guessing.”
“Right this way,” she grabs a plastic menu. “I already got her a martini. I guess the macaws make her nervous or something.”
Something, I think, following Momsai through the jungle of tables and palm trees and paper kid-menus with crayons, hunting, as we are, for the elusive New York agent, trapped outside of her concrete and power-laden natural habitat of Manhattan.
Charlotte stands out among the young mothers and shouting toddlers like a British soldier surrounded by spear-wielding Zulu warriors. Her hand is shaking as she carefully sips her martini, eyeing her surroundings in horror.
She is white, very white, though being in her fifties, maybe mid-sixties, not really old. Her bleached hair is pulled back severely from her forehead and clasped in place by a thick black hairband. It is the only color on her face besides the sloppy smear of bright pink on her lips. Her eyes are hidden behind the largest pair of black-framed glasses I’ve ever seen. It’s a mystery how the sales clerk sold them to her. What could have been the pitch?
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