“But Joyce, you’ve never even been married.”
“I know that, but you were the one who told me to make up an identity. Can I help it if the identity I made up is getting a divorce? Anyway, she had to talk to somebody and it’s part of my job to be a good listener. But you should be the one down here listening to her, not me.”
“O.K., O.K. I’ll think it over. You just get on with the story.” He paused for a minute. “Did she say anything about me, y’know, personal?”
Joyce was torn between truth and loyalty. “Nothing. Just that you were always a good husband and a good provider but that.… Oh, never mind.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Look, I think there’s a plane on Saturday. Think about it, O.K.? And check out that name for me.”
“Yeah. O.K.” He hung up.
Joyce stood clutching the receiver a moment longer, before settling it back into the cradle.
Chapter 24
Later that evening, Regina was sitting cross-legged on the floor and Mariette was stretched out full-length on her stomach on the bed. They had finished listening to music, found nothing that they considered worth watching on the hundred-odd channels that the doctor’s satellite dish made available, and so were engaging in that other favorite pastime of teenage girls—talking.
“I heard your mother was really pissed off about you going out on the patio with Cliff Eastman.”
“‘Pissed’ isn’t the word. You should have seen her. She was turning purple.”
“What happened?” Mariette rolled over and slid closer to the end of the bed, letting her head hang backward over the edge.
“Well, she came to my room afterward and …”
“Not that. What happened when you were out there with him? Did he, y’know, try anything?”
“No!” said Regina, sounding shocked.
“No? But you wanted him to, didn’t you?” Mariette continued to dig. The kernel of an idea was taking root.
“I don’t think so. I don’t know. Maybe. We just talked. He asked me what it was like, living in New York. That kind of stuff.” She shrugged.
“That’s ALL?” Mariette sounded incredulous.
“Well he is old enough to be my father.”
“So? Anyway, I think he’s awesome. Totally awesome! Have you seen those eyes? The way he kind of narrows them down and then looks at you from underneath those long black lashes—his eyelashes are even longer than yours! God, I would kill for eyelashes like that—and he didn’t try anything?” She was skillfully adding fuel to the fire now.
“No.”
“Hmmm. Maybe he’s gay.” She crossed her legs, resting her right ankle on her left knee.
“He is not!” Regina took the bait and sprang to his defense.
“Maybe you’re not his type, then.”
“I just don’t think he’s the grab-and-run kind,” countered Regina defensively. “My mother does, though. Boy, that really rattled her cage. You should have seen her, pacing up and down puffing on those disgusting cigarettes. Yuck!” She pulled a face to show her distaste. “Anyway, she told me to stay away from him while we’re here. Says that being associated with him would ruin my reputation as little goody-two-shoes. Actually, I think she’s afraid he’s after my bod.”
“God, I wish he was after mine. Can you imagine what it would be like to go to bed with him. Wow. Heaven!” Mariette paused, giving the other girl a chance to get caught up in the vision for a moment.
“Have you ever been to bed with anybody?” asked Regina matter-of-factly, as she twirled a piece of hair that hung down from her pony tail.
“Of course I have. I’m seventeen. What do you think? That I’m still a virgin?” Mariette stopped short. Even upside down, she could tell from the expression on Regina’s face that she was now on tender turf. “You’re not, are you? Still a virgin, I mean.”
Regina nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Mariette thought for a moment. “I take it that this condition is not exactly voluntary. I mean you’re not saving it for Mr. Right or anything?”
“No.”
“Well, hasn’t there ever been anybody you wanted to do it with?”
“Once. When I was sixteen there was this guy I met at a party in Newport. He was tall and had these incredible blue eyes and wavy blond hair. He was in first year at Harvard and he invited me to come up for a weekend and.…” Regina was pulling carpet fibers now, still embarrassed at the memory.
“And?”
“And I went. But my mother came with me and we stayed in a hotel and she never let us out of her sight. And I never saw him again. After that, I decided What was the point?”
“Yeah, I can see what you mean. What a drag! Parents just don’t understand that their kids have the same biological urges they do. It’s like they think they invented sex and so they’re the only ones entitled to use it.”
Regina nodded in agreement. “That’s the way it always is with me. If a guy gets within ten paces of me, Mother’s alarm goes off and the drawbridge goes up.”
“That’s hypocrisy for you. I mean, what do you think your mother and the doctor are probably doing right at this very minute—playing backgammon?”
“Please, the mind boggles.” Regina made a face.
“Look, why don’t you ask your father to tell ‘the warden’ to ease up a little. After all, you are nineteen and sex is normal?”
“I don’t have a father,” said Regina wistfully.
“Everybody has a father.”
“I mean, I never knew him. Mother never talks about him. I think he died before I was born.”
“Oh. That’s tough. Kinda like me.”
“What happened to yours?”
“My father was a Grand Prix racer. You know, like Danny Sullivan. But he got killed in a car accident in Sweden—that’s where he met my mother. Some Volvo ran a light, and boom!” She clapped her hands together. “I was only a baby, so I never really knew him. But I’m supposed to look just like him.”
“What about your mother?”
“My ‘mother’ was a boarding school. Oh, it was a very good boarding school. It cost my old lady a mint to keep me there. Keep me out of the way, more like it.” Mariette’s small, fine features grew hard for a moment, and then she changed the subject. “But that’s history. The problem is, what are we going to do about you?”
“Do?”
“You know—about your ‘condition’. If you don’t find someone to do the dirty deed soon, you’re going to die of frustration. I can tell.”
“I don’t exactly have a lot of alternatives. As soon as we go back to New York, I’m going to Egypt to do a layout for Vogue, and then after that to Switzerland to do one for Elle and then.…”
“Please, spare me the itinerary.” Mariette thought for a minute. “Your mother’s pretty busy with the doctor, so that will keep her out of your hair for the moment.” And vice versa, she thought.
“So it’s obvious that it has to be now or never. And that leaves you only one very gorgeous choice.”
“You mean Cliff?” Regina shook her head. “I couldn’t. I’m too young. He’s too experienced. What if I did something really dumb?”
“Don’t be silly, youth and experience make a perfect combination. You don’t want to do it the first time with someone who knows as little as you do. Some awful, fumbling, spotty undergraduate who wants to get it over with as fast as possible so he can rush back and tell his friends he screwed Regina Taylor.”
“You’re soooo romantic.”
“Just realistic. You want someone who knows what he’s doing and can keep his mouth shut. Take it from a girl with experience, if you do it with Cliff Eastman he’ll be expecting you to do the bragging, not the other way around. And don’t worry about doing anything dumb. Just let nature take its course. It’s not like learning to ride a bike, you know. It does come naturally, in spite of what you read in all those stupid women’s magazines.”
“I really don’t.…”
“Look, if I give you three good reasons why, will you at least think about it?”
“Well.…”
“Right. Number one. You are nineteen and you’ve never done it. If you don’t do it soon, whoever finally gets the go-ahead from your mother is going to have to blast his way in.”
“Ouch!”
“Exactly. Two. Cliff Eastman is totally gorgeous and is also in the immediate vicinity, and, with the right amount of encouragement on your part, he could be interested.”
“O.K., what’s the third reason?”
“Your mother told you not to. If you want her to get the message that you’re not her little girl anymore, this will do the trick.”
Regina started to protest, but Mariette held up her hand.
“Just think it over. That’s all. It seems like the perfect solution to both of your problems, to me. You get laid by a pro and you get your mother off your back.”
She rolled off the edge of the bed and landed on both feet on the floor, like a gymnast coming out of a perfect round. Then she picked up the TV guide and thumbed through the pages.
“You wanna try the TV again? Hey, look, they’re showing one of his old movies on Channel 67.” She pushed the ON button on the remote, and a younger Cliff flickered onto the screen.
Halfway through the movie, Regina decided that the least she could do was think it over. Mariette had made a certain amount of sense and besides, it was true, he really was totally awesome.
After Regina had gone back to her own room, Mariette lay awake in her bed, staring into the darkness. She was waiting for him. She knew he would come. It was just a matter of time.
Suddenly, in the darkness, a muffled knock came at the door, and she reached over and flipped on the bedside lamp.
“It’s open.” She called out softly.
The door to the hallway eased open and the doctor slipped quietly into the room, closing the door softly behind him.
“I thought you’d never get here.” she reprimanded him.
“Sorry I’m so late but, well, you know how these things are.”
“That good, was she?” She sounded cross. He knew she was jealous, so he changed the subject.
“How did it go with you?” He crossed the room and sat on the side of her bed.
“Fine. I think I’ve come up with a way to keep Regina busy for the duration of her stay. And a good thing, too. I’m getting sick and tired of baby-sitting her.”
“Good. I knew I could count on you. I need as much time with the mother as possible. The lady’s no pushover.” He paused.
“Did you know that the sous chef and the three maids all quit today? Not only that, but Gretel the esthetician is talking about leaving, too?”
Mariette nodded. “I know. The kitchen help left yesterday. Adolpho was having a fit. Says he can’t cook for the guests with no help and no supplies.”
“Speaking of supplies, did the shipment come from Barbados today?”
“It came, alright—C.O.D.—I had to send it back.”
“Damn!” the doctor clenched his fists. “What is going on?”
“We’ll just have to try and manage, that’s all,” said Mariette soothingly.
“You don’t know the worst of it yet. We had a visitor yesterday. I didn’t want to tell you, because you’ll only get upset.…”
She sat up. “A visitor, who?”
“Mittlehoff.”
“Mittlehoff! What did the little shit do—fly in on Daniella’s broomstick?”
“No, he sailed in on her yacht. She’s anchored off the north cove.”
Mariette looked shocked. “Oh my god! What did you tell him?”
“I told him to tell her to go fuck herself.”
The girl grinned, then. “He’ll be lucky if she lets him live, if he gives it to her verbatim.”
“That’ll be no great loss, believe me. Not that I think it’ll do much good, but it might buy us a little more time.”
“You can do a lot in a little time, if I remember rightly.”
He ruffled her hair. “That’s my girl.” And then he yawned. “God, I’m tired. That woman has more energy.…”
Mariette frowned.
“Well, never mind. You don’t need to know all the details, just the final result.” He walked back to the door.
“By the way, keep your eye on that magazine woman for me. I caught her coming out of my office yesterday. I think she was having herself a good look around. Not that there’s anything for her to find, but it won’t hurt to know exactly what she’s up to.”
Mariette nodded.
He opened the door. “Don’t worry. Everything’ll be alright. I promise.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter 25
The next morning, Cathy Stewart finally gave up waiting for the maid to arrive with breakfast and went and stood in front of the full-length mirror. It was the moment of truth. With her eyes tightly closed, she slowly pulled her nightgown over her head. Then, still squinching her eyes shut, she dropped it in a flannel heap on the floor.
“I’m going to count to three, and then I’m going to look.” She said it out loud, even though she was all alone.
But she had counted to five before she finally opened her eyes and saw herself, naked. Ever since the twins had been born, she had avoided observing the sight of herself undressed whenever possible. “No wonder,” she thought, turning sideways. I look like a pink elephant. A pregnant pink elephant—with stretch marks. Oh god!”
Dr. Voight had told her at the counselling session the day before that the first thing she had to do if she wanted to lose weight was to confront herself as she was. Knowing you were fat and seeing you were fat were two different things, according to him. He went on to say that not until she saw what she was doing to herself and stopped hiding the truth behind yards of cloth, could they begin to work on her problems. But, first, she had to accept her condition for what it was. Obesity.
She turned once more in front of the mirror, watching the cellulite, which made her thighs look like twin servings of cottage cheese, pucker and de-pucker, as she shifted her weight from one chubby foot to the other. Finally, with a sigh of relief, she reached for the sweat suit that lay over the chair beside the bed.
“Enough truth for one morning,” she crabbed to herself, struggling into the pants and letting the cord at the waist out almost as far as it would go. Then she pulled on the top, stretching it way down, and went into the bathroom.
Picking up the toothbrush, she caught sight of her scrubbed moon-face in the mirror. “Fatty-fatty two by four,” she chided, blowing out her cheeks until she looked like a squinty-eyed sow. “Pig-face,” she said out loud, and stuck her tongue out at the image in the mirror as she spread the toothpaste on the brush. Then she heard the doctor’s voice. “The reason why you are so overweight, Mrs. Stewart, is because you do not like yourself very much.”
“No kidding,” she said, spurting a spray of Crest as she tilted the toothbrush to reach the backs of her front teeth.
“I do not think you eat because you are hungry, only because you have poor self-esteem. You do not think that Cathy Stewart is worth very much. Your weight is not really a problem of appetite.”
“But I’m always hungry, doctor,” she had complained. “I eat because I feel hungry.”
“No,” he corrected her, “you eat because food alleviates your depression about being fat. Food is a way for you to cope with your life. But, at the same time, it is food that makes your life so difficult to cope with. Do you understand, Mrs. Stewart? It is like a circle where both ends come together, until you cannot decide where it begins.” He made a demonstration with the index fingers and thumbs of both huge hands.
She had nodded Yes, but she really didn’t understand. She just knew that he thought she should understand, and that she must try to please him, because he was the doctor.
She finished brushing her teeth, held the brush under the running water until all the Crest
was gone, took a swig of Listerine, spat it out, and went back into the bedroom to put on her running shoes.
Sitting on the end of the bed and bending over, she grunted with the effort of reaching her feet, wishing, not for the first time, that her arms were longer.
“Do you want to be fat for the rest of your life?” The doctor’s question echoed in her mind.
She shook her head. “Of course not. That’s why I came here—to lose some weight.”
“And you will, Mrs. Stewart. You will. I can guarantee that, if you stay on your diet while you are here, you will lose seven of eight pounds.”
“Really?” She mentally calculated her new weight. “Then I’ll only have fifty-three pounds to go.”
“Ach, but losing weight here is not the answer to your problem, I’m afraid. You will go home again, spend your days with the babies and the hotdogs and the cookies and the soap operas, and in no time, you will be back just as you are now. In order to keep the weight off, we must discover why you gained the weight in the first place, and what is making you so unhappy in your life that the only thing that eases your pain is food. We must find out why Cathy Stewart does not like herself. So, I am going to schedule you two more sessions of counselling with me and we will talk until we find out, Yes?”
“If you say so, doctor, but I really don’t think that I have a problem with anything but my appetite. Couldn’t you just give me some appetite suppressants so I won’t be so hungry all the time?”
He shook his head. “Drugs are not the answer. You are using food the way an alcoholic uses liquor. Experts in the area of obesity call it the three C’s of fatness—comfort, control, and coping. Eating gives you comfort and helps you cope. It is the only way you can feel in control of your life. It is the reverse, really, of the state of anorexia—you are familiar with the term?”
Cathy nodded. She had come to envy people who could refuse food, and didn’t see why everybody thought it was such a terrible thing not to eat.
“Young women with that disease are like you. They often fail to eat because they are frustrated with life, and not eating is the only way they feel some measure of control. You overeat for the same reason.”
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