Candy and Me

by Hilary Liftin

  As my love-hate relationship with candy has evolved, I have contemplated whether my insatiable desire comes from sugar’s nefarious insulin game—the energy-jolt-and-crash that demands more fuel—or from a misplaced urge for the missing “sweetness” in life. If it is the latter, then the greater satisfaction I find in life, the less I should desire candy. But if I am simply under sugar’s spell, there is some hope that eating enough candy will lead to permanent disgust—the way people say, “I can’t drink tequila. I had a very bad night in Cancún.” If I could just have my last hurrah with candy after candy, I could eliminate them one by one until all hunger for sugar was gone. Then the battle between health and desire would be resolved, not through deprivation but through exhaustion.

  I never see those pastel mints without remembering that track meet. One down, hundreds to go.

  Skor

  It was a short affair, and no one ever knew about it. I have no idea how we were introduced. One day you were just there. We met every day for three brief months after school, in private. You didn’t last long, but I didn’t expect you to.

  Jelly Belly Jellybeans

  I have a fondness for cheap drugstore jellybeans, the kind that come in two-for-a-dollar bags alongside butterscotch disks and spice drops. The sugar shell of the cheap beans is thicker, so there’s a better ratio of shell to bean. But Jelly Belly jellybeans have their merits, particularly the freedom they give you to select from fifty official flavors plus new “rookie” flavors. The Goelitz Confectionery Company, which survived two world wars on its candy corn business, renamed itself Jelly Belly after striking it rich with the flavored beans. At last count, they were manufacturing about 40 million beans per day.

  When I was a junior in high school, Lucy invited me to join her family on a trip to Hilton Head, South Carolina. We hadn’t had a falling out exactly, but I had recently made some new friends, and so had she, and we were spending less time together. The exclusivity (whether by fate or design) of our earlier friendship was eroding, and there was some tension because of it. But there hadn’t been any grand teenage scene, with accusations and tears, so it looked like we might weather the change. Hilton Head sounded fun, and I liked her family too, so I said yes.

  The whole island was a resort, or maybe this was only true as far as we explored. For some reason there were few people around. Maybe we were in a private area of the island; maybe it was always like that. Small alligators lumbered across our paths as we biked down narrow walkways. We went to the beach every day in glorious beach weather. We lay on towels to bake ourselves, determined to get as dark as we could. I listened to “Born in the U.S.A.” on my Walkman, again and again, and every time I flipped from one side of the cassette to the next, I rolled over on my beach towel, keeping an even tan. After some hours of this we would go to the ice-cream store. I would buy a scoop of mint chip and a quarter pound of Jelly Belly beans. At first, we bought assorted flavors. But after a day or two we knew what we liked and were selective. I only bought root beer and lime. Lucy chose pink grapefruit and cherry. As we biked home, I kept the bag crunched in my hand, eating two or three at a time when we stopped at street corners.

  At some point near the end of this theoretically blissful week, Lucy decided that she was angry with me and stopped speaking to me. I was indignant. We had been doing exactly the same thing every day—lounging by the beach. There simply hadn’t been any opportunity to make a stir. Certain that I had done nothing in particular to incur her wrath, I was annoyed by her irrationality. A day passed. At dinner her parents noticed our silence and teased us. I shrugged at them and rolled my eyes.

  “I have no idea what my latest offense was,” I told them, embarrassed at our youth and hoping for allies.

  The next day I went to the beach alone. When I closed my eyes, I could make my teenage troubles disappear. The world turned and remade itself with a newfound exuberance. I was suddenly free of tanning oils and self-consciousness, free of being a teenager. The earth’s solidity and timelessness came rolling forward on the ocean. I was reading junky philosophy and imagining that it had changed the way I saw the world. I made notes on my observations and identified my own weaknesses and how I thought life was properly lived. There had been slaves on this island once. I wanted to immerse myself in plantations and spirits and history. Leaving the beach, I biked deep into the woods, got myself lost, felt heroic and wild.

  It was for the camp counselor of my obsession that I wanted to be complicated. For him, I would propel my thoughts onto higher ground, keep silent in hope of appearing enigmatic. Two days before leaving on the trip I had gotten a surprise visit from Finn. I replayed the vision of him on my doorstep in my head, how he had winked at my mother when he told her I was safe with him. How he claimed that he had lost my phone number so he’d had to drive all night from New Hampshire to find me. What in heaven’s name was a high school girl supposed to do with that but fall for it, hook, line and sinker?

  We had spent the day together, visiting the national monuments and wandering into bookstores. My wish had come true. My love had come to me. Because my fantasies had never gone beyond imagining this sudden appearance, I had no plan for how to behave. It was overwhelming, and I was mute with disbelief. Although I steered us to romantic settings, I was incapable of revealing my devotion to him. All I could do was stare into his eyes, hoping to communicate the depths of my emotion.

  I was much better at remembering the visit than I had been at conducting it. Hoarding time by myself, I mooned; I sighed; I felt insignificant; I was all about being in love. This was where I found real pleasure—not in vacation, but in the romantic reveries that Finn fed, and would continue to feed.

  On the way home I bought jellybeans for myself and for Lucy. No matter how over-romanticized my visions were, I wouldn’t forget my dose. My boy of choice was elusive, but at least I could select the bean of choice from the Jelly Belly canisters.

  Apparently, Lucy had been seething all day. She accused me of “using” her to come to Hilton Head. I responded coldly. I couldn’t be bothered to summon respect for her position.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said. “I’m really not in the habit of going on vacations with people I don’t like.” I handed her the jellybeans and read my book until she gave up.

  I Know What You’re Thinking…

  What about tooth decay, weight gain, acne, diabetes? I don’t want to talk about any of those things.

  Fruit Slices

  When I got my first job, I shot the moon. During my junior year of high school I began working at an ice-cream store in Georgetown, behind the chocolate counter. The poor, unsuspecting guy who hired me didn’t even bother to instruct me not to sample the goods. It did not occur to me to try to control myself. Au contraire. Here, finally, was the unending chocolate fountain of my fantasies.

  The merits of chocolate are well documented. None of them passed me by. Chocolate is a no-brainer. Cheap or expensive, alone or with filling, chocolate has such a full range of executions that it suits any occasion. Many of the candies I exalt are unique combinations of texture and sweetness, with flavor as an afterthought. Chocolate stands alone. It is a flavor and a candy, which is more than a peanut can say for itself. Chocolate is universal. Rivers of chocolate flow in every child’s dreams.

  At the ice-cream parlor I had limitless plain chocolate, caramels, turtles, white chocolate, mint chocolate, cream-filled chocolate. I only excluded dark chocolate (too bitter) and chocolate-covered strawberries (since I hadn’t yet come around to fruit as edible). I sampled in unquantifiable amounts. It was a lot of chocolate.

  Every day I began with a robust hunger for the contents of the chocolate counter, but the longer I worked in the store, the lower my daily chocolate tolerance fell. Ultimately, what could I do but turn to candy fruit slices? The yellow, green, red, and orange jelly fruit slices, dusted in sugar, were fruity and refreshing. I ate them ceaselessly, restocking them when necessary. Under my watch, the tray need
ed to be refilled at least once a week. Nobody ever bought them. I may have had no lunch break, but I was eating fruit all day long.

  I was just beginning to see that my candy consumption wasn’t ideal, and I thought that by working in a candy store, one of two things would happen to me. Either I would tire of candy, or I would get fat. There was always an undercurrent of hope that one or the other would happen, driving me away from the compulsion of the habit, and leaving me with a more refined candy-eating style. Instead of getting bored with candy, however, I just got bored with the job (and was forever terrified that I would give someone the wrong change). And instead of getting fat, I hovered at a weight that my mother thought was a problem, but she was a size zero.

  I wasn’t entirely happy with my body, and I was worried about gaining weight. I was aware that the fruit slices were almost entirely sugar, and therefore potentially less fattening than chocolate. This knowledge may have even contributed to the development of my candy tastes. I always went for the most sugary selections, which tended to have almost no fat. But I made up for that in sheer caloric content. I knew, because my mother had ingrained fundamental diet principles early on: Excess calories convert to fat. My mother had told me that I should have three diamonds of space between my legs when I stood with my feet together: one above my ankles, one between my calves and my knees, and one between my thighs. As far back as I could remember, I had never had the thigh diamond. My mother was certain that it was mine to gain. But I wasn’t motivated to diet or exercise. I was a teenager, and my metabolism was still doing me a few favors. My stomach was flat. My clothes fit me. I was neither thrilled with my body nor unhappy enough to sacrifice candy.

  So I snacked through my work hours, and even brought home boxes of candy for after dinner, when my sugar appetite reawakened. I was not the best hire the sweet shop had ever made. When they failed to send my last paycheck, I couldn’t bring myself to complain. It had been idyllic. I owed them.

  Fudge

  Lauren and I were close friends, and had both won an essay contest that sent us to Oxford for six weeks the summer before our last year of high school. We arrived at New College in Oxford in a daze of excitement. Our rooms were next door to each other, like real college students. Lauren was already collegiate. She carried a Filofax in which she kept meticulous track of all her expenses. She was intelligent and studious, with varied interests and talents. She was tall and slender, with glossy brown hair and alert brown eyes. The preppy clothes that were popular then suited her, while their tailored lines went to war with my curves. No question about it, Lauren had her act together. On the other hand, when I imagined my trip to England, I fantasized about taking advantage of the drinking age (sixteen), and finding a college-age boyfriend with whom I would make out on narrow, charming streets and in the dorm room where I would have unprecedented independence.

  I was still mousy. I had been at an all-girls school for many years, and couldn’t talk to men. Not a single word. After lunch in the dining hall Lauren would go to the library to study, and I would wander through town, in and out of bookstores. Every day I bought homemade fudge at the “tuck-shop.” The origins of fudge, invented at the turn of the twentieth century in the United States, are debated. Most fudge historians agree that it was the result of an error in making another candy, probably caramel. I saw no evidence of error.

  I would eat the chocolate fudge in my drab room, or in the library, summoning as much inspiration as I could to study for my Shakespeare class. When the tuck-shop ran out of fudge, overwhelmed by the sudden run on their supply, I checked in on a daily basis until they restocked. Alone in my room, I broke off small pieces of fudge with my fingers, staring out at the impeccable summer lawns in disbelief at the untapped romance of my life. Every night I went to pubs with Lauren and others on our program, and after several drinks I would gradually join the conversation. I had a crush on one of the college boys, Tory, who was the stretched-out version of a dashing soap star. After some time Lauren and Tory began to date. This I accepted. Sure, she had a boyfriend at home and I had no one in the world. But a person who couldn’t communicate in daylight hours had no business expecting her friends to honor her crushes. Lauren and Tory were kind to me. They let me entertain them with imitations of the others on the program, then excused themselves for “naps.” More fudge.

  While at Oxford I never really saw that I was purposeless and lonely. All I knew was that I was disappointed that drunk young men weren’t climbing through my bedroom window, and that the only men I was friendly with were not romantically interested in me. This was all that mattered at the time.

  The details of that trip became irrelevant. A week after Lauren and I flew home, she traveled to a Montana ranch to visit the boyfriend she had left behind. I went to the Maryland shore with a family as a babysitter. Two days before my seventeenth birthday I got a call from a friend. On a highway somewhere in Montana, Lauren had been in a fatal car accident. I stayed calm. There were kids in the room. I called my mother, cried quietly, and made plans to go home for a memorial service. My mother told me that there was a birthday card that Lauren had sent waiting for me at home. That was very like her—to send a card right on time. I was strangely glad to know that it was there, to know that I would receive some last words from her.

  The family I was staying with at the beach was going on a boat ride. They convinced me to come along, telling me it would be better than sitting at home alone. On the boat I made a list of every single thing I could remember about Lauren and what we had done together. The significance of the pieces of our trip that were mine alone curled in on themselves like old leaves. There had been no crush on Tory that had evaporated into silence. There had been no long, empty days interrupted only by the short-lived thrill of the tuck-shop. My solitude evaporated into nothing. In my efforts to preserve my lost friend, I polished everything we had shared to its shiniest.

  When my senior year of high school started a few weeks later, I was somewhat in the spotlight. A member of our small graduating class was missing, and I had the cachet of having spent half the summer with her. But I was determined to mourn Lauren privately. I wasn’t interested in sharing my memories, or in how much my classmates might miss her, or in anyone’s support. I didn’t want to wear black, slam doors, and have people feel sorry for me. Instead, I felt a surprising lightness. All the trivialities of high school, all my insecurities, self-consciousness, and dread, had dissolved overnight. Not only had I stopped caring what anyone thought of me, but I felt warmly disposed toward all of my classmates. For the first time I understood what it was to feel simply open and friendly without worrying about who my friends were and who they might be the next day. Now, when I thought about the tuck-shop, and those long hours spent eating fudge and pretending to read, the loneliness was insignificant. That was the life before, and now I knew what it was worth.

  Snickers

  It was end of high school, and before I started my summer job I went on a school-organized canoeing trip. We spent two weeks in the Southeast, driving a van from river to river. It rained on and off most of the time, but I got claustrophobic sharing a tent, so instead I would pitch a tarp and pretend I wasn’t getting wet. One of the group leaders, whom we called Muck, shared my dislike for tents. We would lie under the tarp and, as drops of rain angled in under its sides, tell each other that it was just yesterday’s rain shaking down off the trees.

  This itinerant interlude suited me. My parents were packing up our house in D.C. and preparing to move to a tiny apartment in New York City, where their marriage would soon unravel. I was starting college in the fall and would spend the rest of the summer earning as much money as I possibly could. Paddling whitewater for two weeks was my last chance to be a kid. I wasn’t strikingly good in a canoe, but I loved it more than any activity I had ever experienced. The rivers were alternately calm and rapid, essing through southern landscapes then dropping precipitously as we paddled for our lives. I was dirty, tired, and jubilant.


  Somehow I had missed the critical piece of information that food was not included in the trip. I just assumed that we would be camping out, cooking spaghetti and eating gorp. Instead, we were alternately camping and eating fast food wherever we could grab it on the road. I had about forty dollars with me, which I made last a week, but then I was broke. My fast-food choices had been less than nutritious before I ran out of money (milkshakes and cheeseburgers—in that order), but they fell even further when I started to borrow money.

  Snickers was the answer. I skipped breakfast. Lunch was usually a group-sponsored carbohydrate-heavy picnic on the riverbank. But after we came off the river, when I was starving from a full day of canoeing, Snickers fulfilled the promise of its ads. It was the candy that ate like a meal. Strong enough for a man but made for a woman. Now, I am not overly fond of nuts in chocolate. Nuts are a whole other food. But Snickers gets it right. Nougat is a staple. Just as bread rounds out any meal, nougat softens the impact of the peanuts in Snickers. Caramel moistens the nougat. The chocolate coating pulls it all together. In Texas, in 2000, a jury sentenced a man named Kenneth Payne to jail for sixteen years. His crime: the theft of one Snickers bar. Apparently, it was a king-size Snickers. Oh, and also the guy was a previously convicted felon. I was glad when I heard that his conviction had been overturned and he would only face a maximum of two years at retrial. Still, Kenneth, my heart goes out to you.