by Anne Penketh
Susan opened hers before leaving the office. There were twelve little Guilty Secrets tucked inside. There was no flavour guide because DeKripps had decided to add to the mystery, teasing the consumer.
The first one she picked was strawberry. She ate it in one bite. Heaven. She had never tasted a boxed chocolate so exquisite. Next came mandarin, the flavour she’d first been given. By the time she left work, she’d already devoured half the box. Usually, if she ate so many chocolates in a row she’d feel sick, but she convinced herself she was really eating fruit, real fruit. Customers might even think it’s good for them.
She was lifting the lid of the golden box again as she crossed the street to the entrance of her apartment building. A swishing noise made her look up.
“Watch out, dude! Coming through!” It was the leader of one of those annoying Segway tours, shouting out as the group swung past, forcing her to halt in the middle of the road.
“Look where you’re going!” she screamed. They swarmed around her, laughing, and she was surrounded by the giant scooters and their upright riders. Their sudden appearance, and the speed at which they moved, could have easily knocked her off her feet. Reaching the safety of the curb, she shouted, “And I’m not a dude!” to their helmeted heads disappearing down the street towards the National Mall.
*
Susan’s resolution to spend more time at the gym had somehow petered out. She needed a new trim figure to go with a new boyfriend, she said to herself, and Pilates wasn’t producing results. She waved Barney away when he offered her a lift in his black SUV one evening just as she’d changed into her running shoes and was setting out with her rucksack for Rock Creek Park, pulling in her tummy and straightening her spine.
She’d mentioned what she called her ‘social outreach’ project to Ellen, who laughed, and said she had several friends who met their partners online. But she hadn’t heard of Partners 4 U.
“In the end, it all comes down to chemistry,” Ellen said. “That’s all that counts, and you will know in an instant when you meet someone whether you’re compatible or not. Never mind all those algorithms, never mind star signs, never mind judging a man by his shoes.”
“I know, but how can you trust what you see? How do I know the guy calling himself ‘Switchblade’ on Partners 4 U isn’t a knife-wielding serial killer even though he looks charming and lives in Old Town Alexandria, or at least says he does?”
“I guess you just have to be careful before you get an idea what makes them tick.”
They lowered their voices as they chatted by the water fountain in the corridor, within earshot of the receptionist.
She asked how Ellen had met Jed. “Oh, the old fashioned way,” she said. “We were sitting next to each other at a bar in Georgetown, and started chatting. Boring really. What about you and Serge?”
“He was sitting in my seat on a flight to Paris.”
“Neat.” Ellen began drifting down the corridor back to her office.
Susan called after her. “Do you think I’m putting on weight?” She smoothed down her pencil skirt and gave a half-twirl.
“It’s hard to say,” Ellen said. “You’re tall, so if you were it wouldn’t be noticeable really. Then again, maybe a tad? But voluptuous is good. Some guys like it.”
That evening, Susan emptied the fridge of the remaining DeKripps chocolate bars that had provided her comfort over the last few months. They would have to make way for the new supply of Guilty Secrets anyway.
The fridge was always stocked with DeKripps products by the invisible housekeeper, paid by her employer, who also ensured that her carpets were never dirty and her bed linen always clean.
Every time she logged on to Partners 4 U, she was overwhelmed by the number of men who wanted to interact. After the first week, she learned that 100 candidates for her affections had viewed her profile, had looked at her face and clicked on her goals and interests. And then came the comments.
“You look attractive and I think we would have a lot in common,” said one, who identified himself as WorldTraveler77. Deleted! A couple of Brits messaged her after she admitted she was a foreigner in these parts. Some professed to like redheads. Were they fetishists?
Then there were the widowers. Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned Serge’s death after all, they all seemed so wretched. And they were fixated with pets. One volunteered that he was looking for another mother for his children. Another, whose profile she viewed after he visited hers, offered ‘long, nostalgic chats’ about their dead partners. She might not feel as cheerful as she sounded, but she couldn’t imagine drowning her sorrows with any of them. And finally, there were the cigar smokers. She’d already had one smoker in her life, and look what had happened to him.
Eventually she took the plunge, contacting a mysterious ‘Lamartine’ with thin lips and possibly a wig, who appeared to have a French connection. After a desultory exchange about Catherine Deneuve and how hard it was to see French films in Washington, the dialogue dried up.
She called Jessica. “Look, nothing’s happening.”
“Be patient, you can’t expect a miracle overnight. It’s like buses, first none then three in a row, right?”
The dating site started to feel like homework, checking in as night fell and numbly dashing off the required text.
Then, one evening, Peek-a-boo received a message from Warlord.
“Self-deprecating humor is my favorite thing,” he wrote, obviously an American by the spelling. Warlord didn’t look like his username. He was trim, slightly balding with grey hair and according to his profile was 6 feet tall and a lawyer from Chevy Chase. He was apparently divorced and admitted to two grown children. “I’m not looking for a soulmate, just someone who lets the good times roll,” he said, signing his message Paul. He was 45, two years older than she.
I used to have a sense of humour and a zest for life, she thought. But what a cliché about letting the good times roll. She could add ‘fun-loving’, ‘free-wheeling’ and ‘laid back’ to the most overused adjectives on the site.
What caught her attention about Paul was that he too had an obsessive interest in supermarket labels. Hers was a perfectly legitimate professional curiosity, but what about him? A health nut with OCD?
She scrutinized Paul’s photo, which she found strangely compelling. She was reminded of something friends had said when adopting, that a remarkable bonding occurred as soon as they saw a picture of the child who was to be theirs.
But Warlord—really? He wanted to come across as commanding, confident, bellicose even. Would he sweep her off her feet? She’d never gone for that self-assertive kind of guy – and there was no shortage of them at work. But there was always a first time. Maybe it’s time to break the mould, she said to herself.
Susan felt self-conscious as she walked to their date at a bar near Dupont Circle. Partners 4 U advised subscribers to stick to public places for a first meeting.
“Go for a drink,” Jessica had instructed. It was preferable to a restaurant – all that food to get through, and wasted time and calories if it didn’t work out.
She wore trousers rather than jeans, so she wasn’t too casual for the encounter. She decided against lipstick, in case he got the wrong impression. Her moss-green jacket highlighted her eyes. Paul was sitting by the fireplace when she walked in and recognized him instantly from his photo. He was actually better looking than his picture, although he seemed older. He definitely didn’t look like a warlord.
When she reached him and stretched out her hand, he stood and planted a peck on each cheek. “The European way,” he said. She breathed his heady aftershave and took in his slightly high-pitched voice. Not a promising start. But it was only when he moved to sit again that she noticed the limp. All of a sudden, she was no longer interested in his theories about supermarket labelling.
“So, tell me about yourself.”
She was glad the bar was empty and nobody could eavesdrop on their getting-to-know-yous.
> “Okay,” he pipped. “I do patents for a law firm.”
Did her disappointment show?
“Business dropped off a bit in the recession. Law firms are always the first hit as you probably know. But we’re bouncing back again now, thank God.”
“Hmm, patents,” she said, “that sounds interesting.”
She clutched at another straw. “And children?”
“Two boys. One was in the army, the other a writer, though he’s focusing on his career now. He’s a hairdresser. “What about yourself?”
It was her turn. She ticked off the social CV: Degree in psychology, focus groups, American food multinational, poisoning the world, alienating the daughter, husband dead, moved to America.
“The rest is history,” she added with a smile.
“Escaping your troubles?”
She didn’t reply. “And were you also in the army? It’s often the way, I suppose, in families.”
“I was indeed an army brat. My father moved all over the place with the military.” So that was the military background explained. “But I managed to escape Vietnam because of my childhood polio. I had office duties.”
Childhood polio? How old was this guy?
And there it was. How could she ever contemplate being intimate with someone so removed from her?
Their conversation faltered towards best wishes for the future and within the hour she was heading home.
That night, she dreamed she was running through a field of eye-level corn. But was she being chased or was she chasing someone? Too late, she realised she was on a cliff edge. Somehow the coastline of Brittany had been transported to the American Midwest.
She saw Serge climbing down over the edge. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came. She was wearing a blue dress with a full skirt, and as she fell, it lifted like a parachute. Her stomach lurched. She pedalled frantically as she dropped.
In the split second before she woke up, her heart thumping, she looked down to the waves, expecting to see Serge’s body floating there, expecting to join him, expecting peace. But instead of him, Barney was looking up at her, grinning like the demented gnome from Don’t Look Now. She lay there in the darkness, unable to shake off the notion that he’d tried to lure her to her death.
CHAPTER TEN
Susan was making her way down the chocolate aisle at a P Street supermarket. It was lunch hour and she was pushing an empty trolley, pretending to shop but hovering a pencil over a red notebook.
She liked to compare the processed foods on display, to see how the DeKripps products were placed, and to note what the competition was up to. Sometimes after her inspections she would report back to her staff for follow-up action. Sometimes she would go upstairs for a cupcake.
She picked up a bar of Chewers’ Ecuadorian chocolate and checked the sugar content. The DeKripps bars, which even she found suspiciously tasty, were at eye-level. That was good. But she noticed a new so-called organic brand alongside. She picked up one of the orange bars and noted the facts: Only 11 grams of sugar. That was far less than the DeKripps version, and her company was the brand leader. We’re giving the customer what they want, she thought, remembering Frank’s words, as she pushed her trolley back to the entrance, noticing the Buried Treasure bars at the checkout. DeKripps’ marketing studies showed invariably that most people actually don’t like healthy food.
She’d persuaded Jessica to accompany her that night to the Politics and Prose bookstore to hear Bill Kramer promote Sickly Sweet: How We Fell In Love with Toxic Sugars. Jessica, who was interested in what she put inside her shiny little body only up to a point, had reluctantly agreed. She’d never heard of Kramer.
When they arrived it was standing room only at the back of the store, rows of folding chairs laid out in front. Was there so much interest in this issue? She scanned the room, hoping none of her colleagues had shown up. The audience was mainly young, students probably, which set her mind at ease. Hardly anyone in the audience was overweight. If any of them asked the author about DeKripps, it certainly wasn’t going to be her.
But Kramer stuck to generalities in his pitch. He was a small guy in his late 50s with a slight stammer, which might make him a less than compelling speaker. But his audience was riveted. They looked as though they were hearing this stuff for the first time. Kramer said he was interested in taking questions, so he raced through his theories on how added sugars in sufficient quantities are toxic because of the way they are metabolized by the liver, essentially poisoning the blood. He threw in his usual shtick comparing sugar to cocaine.
“Two white powders, but which one’s addictive? They both are,” he said, pausing. “They’re both mind-altering drugs. Does anyone know how many names for added sugar there are?”
He stuttered on shh-shh-sugar. Nobody spoke.
“Twenty one! And they’re all on the FDA website. Take a look one day. Check the Food Facts on what you eat. Particularly the real villain, High Fructose Corn Syrup. Thanks to the slippery food corporations, the list is getting longer all the time.”
As he warmed to his theme, the stammer disappeared. It must have been nervousness, she realised, noticing that he was sweating. He concluded with a crescendo, raising his voice when he talked about the obesity epidemic: “Sugars aren’t just empty calories. They’re vicious and vile. They’re cancer’s favourite environment. They’re killing us.”
She glanced at Jessica. Although she was moving from one foot to another in her stilettos, she was hooked.
Susan was relieved that Kramer had stopped short of accusing added sugars of actually causing obesity and diabetes. Nevertheless it was an indictment of her industry, and the book must be even more virulent. Of course Kramer wasn’t the first to identify sugars as the culprit – poor Yudkin had done that in the 70s, the first on the DeKripps hit-list – but she had to admit he rolled out a convincing argument.
The questions came swiftly. There were queries about diet, about legislation, about what should be done. He wanted the FDA to be more proactive, but he also called for more effective self-regulation by the food manufacturers. She noticed one of the audience was typing on his laptop. Was that Alex Levy, the food blogger? There used to be a picture of him pasted on a toilet brush holder in the staff loos at DeKripps London.
Know thy enemy. She picked up a copy of the book before she and Jessica left the store and headed across the street for a pizza. She didn’t join the queue for Kramer to sign it.
*
The sun was sinking behind the apartment block, warming the fringes of the supermarket sign across the street. But this time she walked past the store entrance and took a piece of paper from her bag to check the address, before mounting a short run of steps. She looked down the list of names until she found Jenny Holland. Nervously, she pushed the buzzer and the door swung open.
“Hi, I’m Susie,” she told the middle-aged woman who let her in.
“Hi. Jenny. Come in and meet the others.”
It felt like Alcoholics Anonymous. A group of six or seven women was standing in the living room where light poured in through large windows. “Everyone, this is Susie. Now we can get started,” said Jenny, gesturing to the chairs she’d placed in a circle.
“You all know why you’re here, but your own experience of grief will be different from the person next to you. You’ve got one thing in common, though – you’re all young widows. Why don’t you each tell me a bit about what happened?”
She listened to the familiar stories about death and loss from Planet Grief. There was so much with which she could identify. Every one of them was otherwise happy, healthy, lively. There were professional women like her but more recently bereaved. One had watched her spouse die a protracted and agonizing death from cancer.
Another, Lori, said her husband had dropped dead from a ruptured brain aneurysm as they walked to the car together. “Nobody tells you that you don’t need to reply to every letter of condolence,” she said. Susan glanced at Jenny. You me
an you didn’t have to write to everyone? That had been one of her most stressful tasks when Serge had died. Lori also mentioned that she used the services of a bereavement company which had sorted out all of her late husband’s papers. If only she’d known. Nobody tells you how to grieve.
When her turn came, she prefaced her remarks by saying that her husband had been French. “Well, nobody’s perfect,” said one of the women, and they all laughed gently.
“I thought I was okay, but I’m definitely not okay,” she said, “and he’s been dead for eighteen months.”
She spoke about her guilt over not being there when Serge had driven to his death, so close to their home. She talked about the despair that had torn her apart after the initial period when everything seemed completely pointless.
“I have a psychology degree, so I kind of knew what to expect. We were taught all about the five stages of grief, but I hadn’t expected that after denial and anger and negotiation and depression and oh God, what was the other one?”
“Acceptance,” somebody called out.
“Thanks, yes, acceptance, they begin to blur and mingle and hit you all at once. I did think I would get through this by myself, but I suppose I’m here because I’ve changed my mind.”
“Don’t worry,” said Jenny, who kept quiet during much of the session, “there’s no right way to handle grief. Everyone’s experience is different.”
It was what her mother had said after her father was killed. “I know,” she went on, “but I just want to know when it will end. If someone had told me eighteen months ago that I would still be crying at night, I would never have believed them.”
“That’s perfectly normal,” Jenny said. “It will take time, believe me. You will heal, but you’ll do it slowly. And it will get easier.”
She went on to explain how she had decided to come to Washington to reinvent herself, how she no longer trusted her instinct. “My boss said I was impulsive, crazy to extract myself from my support network. Here, nobody knew Serge, which I thought would help, but it also means I don’t have anyone to confide in. It’s almost as though he never existed, which makes me feel even worse.”