Manuela Pigna
TRAINING IN LOVE
Translated by Carol J. Coller
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Summary
Title
Disclaimer
Dedication
Citation
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Acknowledgment, notes, contacts
To Isa,
and
To all those who have or have had a tormented relationship with food.
When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide
Don’t get too close
It’s dark inside
It’s where my demons hide
It’s where my demons hide
~Demons (Imagine Dragons)
1.
It’s two in the morning, the rain is beating down on the window sill of my bedroom and I’ve just made a momentous decision. I must, or better, I want, to lose weight.
Not that I haven’t ever tried. No, I’ve tried more than once over the course of my life. “More than once” is perhaps a bit reductive. Let’s say I’ve tried several times. Ok, at least a hundred, and without any real success but I’ve never before had the revelation that I had this evening.
I have lived my whole life, to date, overweight. I’ve tried everything to take off these accursed extra kilos. It’s not that I have some top-model fantasy in mind, no. I don’t even dream of reaching that. For me it would be enough to be “normal”. Yes, normal. It would be enough to go out of the house wearing something that didn’t resemble a Tuareg tent, or a garbage bag, with all due respect to the Tuaregs. It would be enough to go into a clothing shop, choose something I liked, look over the sizes and find the one right for me, just like that, immediately, without problems. Without asking the salesgirl – obviously reed thin – if by any chance they had the next size up (actually, even two sizes up) and hear her say that they only have sizes up to 12. It would be enough to not shake with fear and terror when someone suggests going “to the pool” or “to the seaside”, and not have to rack my brain to find some new and credible excuse for not going. It would be enough to not feel uncomfortable when people look at me. It would be enough to not, always and everywhere, feel like the classic bull in the china shop.
But this evening I discovered – or maybe just admitted to myself for the first time – that there is something else that I’d like, beyond buying clothes and going to the beach with relative ease. The famous above mentioned revelation.
It happened at Marco and Nic’s house. Marco is my best friend Linda’s boyfriend and Nic is his twin brother. Linda and I have been friends our whole lives. We’re neighbors and we grew up together. She, however, is gorgeous. She’s blond with blue eyes, has a practically perfect face and has never had weight problems. It wasn’t any surprise she snagged Marco, one of the famous “twins” a good six years ago. Nic, short for Nicola, on the other hand, isn’t remotely interested in settling down. On the contrary, in the last few years I think he’s busy racking up love affairs, enough for himself and his brother. The twins went to different high-schools – Marco to the classics one like Linda and I, while Nic attended the science high-school. Despite this, at both schools they were known as “The Bona Twins” or just “The Bonas”, short for their last name – Bonaventura – but understood by the girls as short for “hot”.
I didn’t meet them until Linda paired up with Marco, who from that moment on has been forced to put up with my continuous presence. As a frequent visitor of the Bona twins’ home – something that, if someone had told me, I would never have believed – I’ve gotten to know Nic a little better. Nic and I, over time, have established a superficial friendship - let’s say a cordial relationship. I think he thinks I’m nice, but he certainly doesn’t see me as a potential “thing”. This doesn’t bother me at all, because even though Nic is beautiful, his face really is too identical to that of my best friend’s boyfriend…
In fact, my revelation was not inspired by him, even though it was caused by a boy who is just as handsome. Yes, because this isn’t just about clothes or vacations. “Normalness” is also having a boyfriend, a lover, a fiancé. If it’s a temporary fling or a serious relationship it doesn’t matter. It’s enough to have the semblance of a love and sex life. Not normal is your grandmother having more going on at the community ballrooms in this respect than you - a twenty-five year old woman, just out of college.
So this evening, when Nic showed up with Giancarlo, I genuinely felt the strong need for something romantic. Giancarlo is dark, with blue eyes so intense they seem electric. Dark hair, blue eyes – my perfect combination. When he arrived and we were introduced, despite him making the comment I detest the most in this world, “Olivia? Like the lady in Popeye?” – and I hate it because the Olive in Popeye is the opposite of me and because in elementary school they teased me endlessly because of her size and my size – I forgave him because he said it with a heart-stopping smile. During the remainder of the night I discovered that he’s doing mechanical engineering (with graduation still a ways off) that he’s into snowboarding (which he does often) and that he has a small part-time job in a call center Monday through Friday. Around suppertime Nic and Giancarlo, nicknamed “Gianca”, went to pick up pizzas which we ate at home. This weekend the twins’ parents aren’t around, in fact Linda stayed the night at their house. We were seated beside each other and joked all evening, because he isn’t just handsome, Gianca is nice too.
Anyway, the revelation came after supper. After the pizza was finished, Marco and Linda went into the living room to pick a movie to watch. I stayed alone with Nic and Gianca in the kitchen, all three of us talking while I tidied up (I didn’t have to, the twins always tell me not to do it, but I feel like it and at times do it because I feel a little embarrassed to always be underfoot) until Nic’s phone rang, and he, with a little smile said, “Excuse me a minute,” and went to talk in the other room. It was undoubtedly one of his girlfriends. Gianca and I exchanged knowing glances while Nic left the kitchen and, I mean, if exchanging glances with a guy that you’ve met less than three hours before isn’t a good sign… When I began to wash the plates in the sink with my back to him, a strange silence fell over the room. I began to think, and to day dream. I imagined him getting up from his chair and coming to me, circling my waist with his arms, that he brushed my hair from my neck and left a line of soft kisses there, creating an invisible necklace of sweetness. I pictured his hands moving along my body, that he touched me, really. And it was at that moment that I had my revelation, because I imagined it so well. So well it was as though it were about to happen from one moment to the next, I almost felt shivers of anticipation in my arms. It’s just that instead of f
eeling pleasure, I felt fear and discomfort. And right there I understood that, in truth, I didn’t really want him to get up from his chair and put his hands on me because he would have felt all my rolls of fat. He would have felt the folds of flesh on my back, the flab which spilled out of my too tight jeans, covered up by an extra-large T-shirt, the thighs which touched each other with no space in between. And I understood that I didn’t want his hands on me, even though I liked him and would have wanted his hands on me. It seems like a contradiction, a crazy line of reasoning, but it isn’t.
I’ve always thought I wanted a love story just like all the other girls in this world, but the truth, the simplest and deepest truth, is that I don’t. I don’t want it now, not like that. The truth is that I don’t want anyone to touch me, and maybe this is one of the reasons why, in reality, no-one has ever touched me. I’m certainly not the only overweight person in the world, I know, and I’ve seen girls who are, let’s say ‘ample’, who easily have relationships. And even when I’ve seen these unknown couples in the street I’ve always thought to myself, “Why not me? I want that too!”
It was pretty shocking to me this evening to realize that I, in reality, did not want that. How the hell is the human mind constructed? I mean, I am inside my head, how is it possible that I thought something without consciously realizing that I thought it? In any case, leaving behind the philosophical-scientific ponderings, after the plates and the revelation we started watching the movie. If someone asked me what we watched I wouldn’t know what to tell them because the only thing I did was reflect and ask myself questions about myself and my life up to now. I asked myself, “What do I really want? To be happy. What do you do to be happy? Have a full life. Do I want a relationship?” Yes, I want a relationship. Happiness isn’t complete if it isn’t shared, someone said. But I don’t want it now. I don’t want my guy, who shares my happiness, to also share my rolls of fat. And that’s how I came to the conclusion that, if I really want to change my life for the better, I have to lose weight. It is imperative that I lose weight. And then I can seriously begin my life. I’ll do everything that I haven’t done up to now and I’ll have everything that I haven’t had.
And I’ll go out with Gianca. So wait for me Gianca, don’t fall in love in the next few months, please, wait for me, and then, fall in love with me.
2.
The next day, Sunday, I wake up with a burst of energy. At noon… ok… but still with a burst of energy and convinced of moving right away in the right direction to achieve my goals. For the first time in my life I will ask for help, since I have never managed to accomplish anything on my own.
I go into the kitchen and find a plate of salad in my place at table, while my mother is finishing hers. Right… I sure won’t be asking her for help.
“Hi honey.”
I’d like to laugh in her face, but I check myself.
“Hi Mom,” I begin in a flat voice.
As usual, when my mother is at home - that is on Sunday - she cooks the most low-cal things she can think of, in hopes of slimming me down with the two meals a week she prepares.
My mother, who is the director of a weekly magazine dedicated to fashion, thinks that she is a model herself. And the worst thing that could happen to her is to have a fat daughter. All my life she has never made a secret of wanting to see me lose weight, and if the decision I made last night weren’t extremely solid and epochal, in this moment, standing before her gaunt cheeks and the undressed salad she offers me every Sunday, that decision would be thrown into the sea, just to spite her, just to annoy her. The problem, however, is that I’m not fifteen anymore, I’m twenty-five and I cannot not live my life to the fullest - or at least the way I want to - just to tick off my mother.
“How did the week go?” She asks me to play the part of the concerned mother, when really, Monday through Saturday we hardly ever see each other. At best we cross paths.
“Fine,” I answer, trying to keep my tone indifferent, but which conveys my total lack of desire to make conversation.
“You came back early last night.”
After the movie I came right home because my head was boiling with ideas and I wanted to get busy immediately with my new project, organizing in the silence of the night and the solitude of my room a plan of attack. I shrug my shoulders, without participating in the conversation in any useful way.
“Who was that boy who brought you home?”
I look up quickly, surprised.
My mother shrugs her shoulders and, taking the last forkful of salad adds, “I couldn’t sleep last night, and when I heard a car in the driveway I looked out the window.”
I had gone to the twins’ house with Linda, then, stupidly, we only remembered once we were there that she was going to stay over. We wanted to come right back to get my car, but Marco said it wasn’t a problem for him to take me home. Then Nic and Gianca showed up and Gianca ended up taking me home, for practical reasons. Needless to say, nothing happened, but he was sweet and friendly the whole way. “No one. A friend of the twins,” I answer, a little on the defensive. Not only do I not want to ask her for any kind of help, I don’t want her to even know anything about it - not about Gianca, not about my plans. She’ll already be happy enough when she sees me lose weight.
She puts the fork down in the plate, leans back against the chair and lifts both eyebrows. “I know it was no-one Olly. No boy would go out with you in that sense. At least not while you continue to keep that sort of fleshy armor on you.” She observes me coldly. “I only wanted to know who accompanied my daughter home. The world is full of crazies.”
I grit my teeth and look at my plate. I take the oil and the salt and start to dress my salad. I don’t answer.
“If, by any chance, you decided to lose a few kilos, going to that house all the time maybe you could manage to attract the attention of the other twin, the free one. The Bonaventuras are full of money.”
I drop my fork and glare at her.
“As it is, it’s obviously impossible,” she continues as though she were carrying on a conversation which was pleasant for both of us. “You can tell by the fact that… How long is it you’ve been spending more time at their house than at your own? Four years? Five?”
I don’t answer.
“And in all these years nothing has happened, so… Not that it’s a given that you’d manage to catch someone like that even slimming down. That’s another whole level. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him show up in the newsroom one day, with one of my girls.”
“Have you finished?” I say indifferently, but inside I’m bleeding. I instantly have the desire to eat an entire ox, but I have to think of my life, of my life. I have to think of Gianca. Of when we’ll go snowboarding together. Maybe we’ll even go to live together someday, so I don’t have to put up with this kind of conversation on a Sunday morning.
“I still have to drink my coffee,” she answers calmly.
I get up and walk towards the door. “Call me when you’ve finished.”
“I never get to speak with you!” She yells after me as I walk towards my bedroom.
***
Around six in the afternoon I go to the twins’ house. I know, again! But Linda is still there and I absolutely want to talk with her.
When I arrive, Marco opens the door. “She’s in the bedroom. She’s all yours for the next twenty minutes. I’m going to take a shower.”
I gaze at him, trying to communicate with my eyes just how sorry I feel to always be underfoot. “By the time you get out I’ll already be gone, I promise!”
He chuckles and ruffles my hair. “You have to quit it Olly! You are not bothering me! And you’re the most discreet best friend that I’ve ever met.”
I look at him astonished. “Really? There’s someone who bugged you more than me?”
He laughs. “You don’t bug me silly girl!”
“But I’m always here!” I answer uncertain. Over the years I have noticed more and more just how k
ind and what a really good guy Marco is, something I never would have thought when I saw him from afar in high school, with his aura of the dark and brooding type. But seriously, I figured that he felt a certain amount of irritation seeing my face almost continually.
He chuckles. “You leave when you should, if you know what I mean, and you don’t get mad when Linda dumps you to do something with me. That’s paradise for me.”
“Yeah…” I say, not particularly convinced, but smiling at him. I hope they never break up. Linda deserves someone like him. I walk towards his room and hear him going in the direction of the downstairs bathroom. The twins’ house would make one of those people from MTV Cribs go pale. It’s no wonder we’re always at their house.
I climb the stairs to the next floor, the floor where the bedrooms are (there are around ten, and I’m not exaggerating) following the path that by now I know well towards the room all the way to the right, Marco’s. Nic’s room is opposite, despite there being something like another eight bedrooms empty they decided to be close together. There’s a bathroom between the two rooms which they share. Their parents’ bedroom is all the way to the left coming up the stairs and the house is simply so large that it really seems as though they live alone.
I knock a couple of times on the open door. “May I?” I ask brightly.
Linda is at the desk, doing something on Marco’s computer. At the sound of my voice she turns suddenly, smiling, with rosy cheeks and shining eyes. “Hi Olly!”
Linda has been my best friend forever, not only because being neighbors we grew up together, but because we just clicked. We have the same tastes in almost everything, we think the same things about almost everything, we have fun with the same things and love doing the same things. We have the same concept of friendship, that is, we are sincere and loyal towards each other. We’re tied by a deep and lasting affection, an affection solidified by all the years we’ve spent side by side. We also went to the same schools and were, miraculously, in the same classrooms from the first grade to the last year of high school. We took different roads only with regards to college. I chose modern literature, she chose languages. I finished last December, she’s finishing now and plans on graduating in July of this year.
Training in Love Page 1