The Thousand Pound Christmas

by Victoria Burgess

  We step into the town hall meeting room and my optimism is promptly smashed to bits. Normally the council sessions draw an audience of maybe a dozen hardcore professional citizens. People who don’t have anything better to do on Tuesday night. But not tonight. Tonight the room is packed. Every chair taken, standing room only. Even Myra Kushner and her cameraman, who film the sessions and subsequently broadcast them on a local cable channel nobody watches, have resorted to squatting atop an enormous oak desk in order to make room for themselves and their equipment.

  And the mood. Whirling, writhing agitation, coupled with a spectator’s gleeful anticipation of imminent carnage. Think Colosseum moments before the lions are released.

  Audrey and I exchange a look. All right. Maybe a two percent property tax increase is a bit aggressive. But surely this reaction is over the top? It has to be something else.

  New rule: do not send incoming calls directly to voicemail on town meeting days. I’m about to be completely blindsided by whatever is going on. Not that there’s anything I can do about it now. Steeling my nerves, I step to the speaker’s podium and call the meeting to order.

  TWO

  “Welcome, everyone. First item on the agenda, approval of the minutes—”

  “What’s the mayor going to do about what they posted online?” shouts a voice from the back of the room.

  I’m so rattled I actually glance over my shoulder. It takes a couple of seconds to realize he’s talking about me. Rachel Presley. I’m the mayor now. I peer into the crowd and find Fred Stone leaning against a back wall. He’s dressed in his usual Carhartt work pants and muddy Muck boots, gray hair peeking out from beneath his ballcap.

  He crosses his arms over his belly and demands, “You gonna let them get away with that?”

  “If you have something to say, Fred, I suggest you add your name to the speaker’s list and—”

  A clamor of raised voices drowns out the rest of my words. I force a smile and raise my hands for quiet. “Wow. Now I know how Dr. Frankenstein’s monster felt. Let me just say I’m glad nobody brought burning pitchforks with them.”

  My joke falls so flat I can almost hear it splat on the floor.

  I’m greeted with silence. Bleak, uncomfortable silence.

  Clearly I need some help here. My gaze travels to the dais, where the town’s six councilmen and three councilwomen are seated, the evening’s agenda spread out on the table before them. Rather than meet my eyes, they deliberately busy themselves with their paperwork. The only exception is Councilman Brett Alper, who watches me with a look of smug satisfaction.

  Oh, boy. Not good. Not good at all. To say that Alper and I are enemies feels overreaching. This is a small town after all, not Washington, D.C. But the truth is, we disagree on nearly every matter put before the council. He is the yin to my political yang. My civic foe. Or as Audrey puts it, a slimy, underhanded creep who would sell his own dog by the pound if there was enough percentage in it for him.

  Councilman Alper leans into his mic. “It appears Mayor Presley is unaware of what was posted online today. I suggest we bring her up to speed so we can properly deal with the issue.”

  Murmurs of approval ring through the room. Before I can wrest back control, someone dims the lights and Alper links his laptop to an online site. Patriotic music blares from the speakers as the screen at the front of the room fills with the kind of images generally reserved for the most saccharine of Fourth of July celebrations. A revolutionary war drummer boy walking beside a limping fife player. Soaring eagles. Apple pie and fireworks. And finally, the ol’ stars and stripes waving in the breeze, over which are superimposed the words: AMERICA’S BEST.

  What follows are glossy shots of towns which have been awarded some specific attribute. The Wealthiest. The Smartest. Most Scenic. Most Artistic. And so on and so forth. Okay, I think, as Alper skims through the images. Not bad. No reason for alarm here.

  Until Alper stops skimming. The words AMERICA’S CHUBBIEST TOWN flash on-screen. A shot of Eaton’s town hall. Three morbidly obese people head inside as the camera goes widescreen on their rear ends. That delightful image is followed by shots of jolly fatties careening downhill on a sled. Bellies jiggling as locals frolic at the lake. Jaws chomping at the diner. Flabby arms swinging and striking out at the ballfield. Plump hands clasped together as they stroll down the street. Friends, family, colleagues.

  For a long moment, I stand frozen at the podium, too stunned and appalled to move.

  Somehow Audrey appears at my side. “Bastards fat-shamed us,” she swears. “They fat-shamed the entire town and put it online. I can’t believe it. I cannot believe it.”

  I put my hand over the mic and turn. “When was it posted?”

  “Noon today.”

  Damn. If I’d known, I would have handled it hours ago. “What’s the site?”

  “Something called, oh geez, get this: BestOfMyCountry.com. What a piece of—”

  Audrey breaks off abruptly and stares in horror at the screen at the front of the room.

  I turn to see a video clip of a previous town hall meeting. Big Jim presiding, fan whirring overhead. I remember that meeting. Late last August. Something had come up and Audrey and I hadn’t been able to grab the power salads we usually ate before a session. So when someone ordered pizza, I helped myself to a slice. Why not? It was late, I was hungry… The camera captures the exact moment the pepperoni slid off my slice and plopped onto my starched white blouse, smearing a trail of orange grease across my chest. I watch in horror as I blot the stain, then good-naturedly shrug and pop the offending pepperoni back in my mouth.

  I stride to Alper’s computer and slam his laptop shut.

  “Lights, please.”

  The lights flicker back on. Heart thrumming wildly against my ribs, I make my way back to the podium. My hands are shaking and my throat feels clogged with shame. I’m certain my face is flushed. My neck, too. Stained deep raspberry red.

  “Thank you for bringing this matter to my attention, Councilman Alper.”

  In front of the entire town, you smirking, conniving snake. But I will deal with that particular detail later.

  “Obviously my first order of business tomorrow morning will be to have the town attorney draft a letter demanding the site and all its content be taken down, or we will pursue immediate litigation.”

  I give the townspeople a few minutes to vent their anger, then bang my gavel to call the meeting—my first as acting mayor—back to order. Despite my carefully laid plans, the night has gone too badly off-course for me to redirect the room’s energy into something productive. The townspeople are furious over the site and the budget I’m presenting doesn’t lift the mood. As it turns out, no one is excited at the prospect of paying more property taxes. Imagine that.

  Two hours into what is rapidly becoming the worst council session on record, Mike Capella, the new school board member, steps up to the floor mic. A glimmer of hope flickers within me. We haven’t met, but Capella looks reasonable. Early-forties, nice face, sports jacket and jeans. Maybe an accountant. Maybe the kind of guy who understands that the town budget can only be stretched so far, particularly when the downtown water main should have been replaced a decade ago and is in serious danger of bursting at the next heavy freeze. Maybe he’s the one person in the whole room who understands the kind of fiscal pressure I’m under.

  Capella looks at me and says, “I hope the mayor is willing to reconsider her suggestion that the $100,000 allocated for the school district’s recreation equipment be removed from next year’s budget.”

  Then again, maybe not.

  He goes on to cite the numerous studies that prove routine exercise actually helps improve student concentration. Boosts test scores. Raises self-esteem. Sets healthy habits for life. As if I don’t know any of that. Of course I know that. So what? I’m not against exercise. I simply can’t magic the money out of a budget that’s already overspent.

  “Look,” I interrupt. “Mr. Capella.
I’m all for exercise. But until Eaton has the funds to pay for new recreation equipment, our students will have to find other ways to amuse themselves.”

  “Such as?”

  “I don’t know… Kick a ball around a field. Run laps. Play freeze tag. Duck, duck, goose. There are lots of ways to get kids moving that don’t cost a dime.”

  “My boys are sixteen and seventeen,” Capella says. “They play football in the fall and lacrosse in the spring. I don’t think a rousing game of duck, duck, goose is going to cut it for them.”

  A smattering of laughter greets his words. The high school football team is mediocre. But last year the lacrosse team won the state championship. According to Matthew, members of the team call themselves X-men. They bump fists and strut around campus with that cocky swagger only seventeen-year-old boys who excel at sports can truly master. Matthew is not an X-man. Matthew has never been good at organized sports.

  I press my lips together, give Capella his fifteen minutes, and send him on his way.

  Finally the evening draws to a close. The last scheduled speaker is Jym Granger. He’s medium height, lean and rangy, a face like Abe Lincoln’s. Long and gaunt. He’s dressed in a nylon sweatsuit that makes a swishy noise when he moves. Which he does a lot. It seems he can’t stop moving. Swish, swish, swish. Ignoring the mic stand, he paces back and forth, turning his back on the council to face the crowd.

  “Look, folks, I want to talk about that website. And no offense to the mayor here, but I’m gonna talk plain.” He sends me a brief, apologetic shrug. “Fact is, you can have your attorney send all the fancy letters you want. Make demands. Try to shut that site down. Good luck with that. This is a free speech issue, and that site’s not going anywhere. But I tell you what will work.” He hits a key on his laptop and launches his own personal slideshow.

  I grind my teeth. My first order of business tomorrow won’t be instructing the town attorney to write that letter. My first order of business will be to instruct the maintenance men to remove the damned screen from the town council meeting room.

  “This is what I do,” says Jym, his voice ratcheted up with excitement as he begins his pitch. “I’ve made millions turning people like you,”—images lifted off the Chubbiest Town site—“into people like this.” Shots of beautiful bodies working out on the latest, most up-to-date exercise equipment follow. The last slide reads SlymJymTrymFyt.

  He says, “I’m here to help. And I’m someone you can trust. My fitness plan does not fail.”

  I barely restrain a guffaw. That doesn’t look like a fitness plan. It looks like a bunch of stock photos pasted together and a man who desperately needs to repair the letter ‘I’ on his keyboard.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Granger,” I say, “but we do not use this forum for commercial purposes. You may step down.”

  Granger ignores me and continues speaking to the crowd. “This isn’t about weight. It’s about self-respect. It’s about the people of this town pushing back, showing everyone in the U. S. of A. who they’re messing with. I’ll show you how to do it. In fact, I am so confident my system works, I’ll pay you to try it.” He lifts a piece of paper and waves it in the air. “I have a check here for $100,000, written to the town of Eaton. Use the money to cover the school budget deficit, or whatever else you want. All you have to do is try my system.”

  Ridiculous. A carnival barker, that’s what he is. I will not allow him to turn my town into an infomercial—or ynfomercial, in Granger’s case.

  “Mr. Granger, your time is up. Please remove yourself from—”

  “Wait a minute,” Councilman Alper interrupts. “Now wait just a minute, Mayor Presley. If Mr. Granger wants to pay for Eaton’s recreation equipment, I for one am happy to let him.”

  Several other councilpersons nod in agreement.

  “So tell us, Mr. Granger,” Alper pauses to wink at the audience, as if he’s in on the joke, not some simple country rube, “what’s the catch?”

  “No catch at all. Two hundred people agree to try my system for four weeks—say, between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Lose five pounds each. No tricks. No gimmicks. It’s that simple. This town loses one thousand pounds by Christmas Day and you’ll have $100,000 in hand.”

  No one moves. No one speaks. Relief pours through me. Thank God. The people of Eaton aren’t as easily mislead as I’d feared.

  “All right, then.” Granger shrugs. “I guess you folks don’t need the money. I guess your kids don’t need a new playground or gym equipment. You want to stay some nothing little town people snicker at, that’s fine, too. Long as you’re comfortable with that.”

  Oh, for the love of— I shift toward my mic, eager to shoo Granger away.

  “Where do I sign up?” Fred Stone calls out. He strides to the front of the room, turns around and hitches up his belt, which promptly falls back into position cradled beneath his belly. “Not that I need to lose any weight,” he drawls, drawing rounds of gentle laughter. “But I guess for the kids’ sake, I’ll do it.”

  “I guess I’ll do it, too,” says someone else.

  “Yeah, why not? Me, too.”

  I watch in appalled disbelief as another person crowds forward, and then another, including Alper and most of the town council. It takes a full thirty minutes before the excitement dies down and I’m able to bring the meeting back under control.

  Only one item remains on the agenda. I would love to pretend not to see it. But Councilwoman Marguerite Flores, a retired schoolteacher, shoots me one of those grandmotherly smiles of encouragement that usually proceed the kind of staggeringly awful advice only loving old women can give. ‘Of course you should ask the most popular boy in school to the dance. Who wouldn’t be honored to be seen with the girl who just won the state math championship?’

  Councilwoman Flores says, “I see there’s some exciting news on the agenda, Mayor.”

  Damn.

  I bite back a grimace and say, “Final matter of the evening. I’ve turned in all required documents and am running for re-election for the position of Mayor of Eaton. I hope to have your support. Thank you.”

  There. Done. No applause greets my announcement, but neither do I receive boos. After the council session we’ve just endured, I suppose that’s good enough.

  Before I can close the session, Brett Alper raises his hand and leans into his mic.

  “Let the record show Mayor Presley misspoke. Mayor Presley might be running for the office of mayor, but she is not running for re-election, as she was never actually elected by the people of this town in the first place. Just wanted to point that out.”

  “Thank you for that correction, Councilman Alper.” I bring down my gavel. Hard. “Meeting adjourned.”

  THREE

  I step inside my foyer, slam the front door, and lean against it.

  From his position sprawled across the living room sofa, Matthew raises his head and looks at me. “What? They’re a pack of wolves chasing you?”

  “Something like that.”

  Actually, nothing like that. In the first place, I don’t really expect any of the townspeople who attended the council meeting to trail me home, howl at my door, and demand I do something. (Though I wouldn’t put it past some of them.) Secondly, likening my constituency to a pack of wolves isn’t exactly the healthiest mindset for someone who’s just announced she’s running for mayor. And finally, my behavior is ridiculously adolescent. Tough to pull that off with any shred of dignity, particularly when an actual adolescent is watching me.

  But now that I’m home, at least I can get comfortable. I kick off my shoes, reach under my skirt and yank off my pantyhose. My Spanx shapewear follows. I drop both in a pile at my feet.

  Matthew jerks out his earbuds and grimaces. “Oh, my god. What’s that smell?”

  “My day.”

  The dogs come to investigate, but the stench radiating from my stockings is so bad even they back away.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  I shrug off my
coat and hang it in the closet. Tuck away my purse and smooth back my hair. Take a minute to compose myself.

  “Sure,” I say. “Everything’s fine. Just catching my breath.”

  “Uh-huh. So what are you gonna do?”

  “Do?”

  “About this Granger guy.”

  I blink. “You already heard what’s going on?”

  He holds up his phone. Shorthand that tells me one or several of his friends have texted. A softly expelled sigh accompanies the gesture, making my transgression clear. The biggest insult to someone of my son’s generation is an insinuation that they aren’t in the know. Out of the loop. Not intimately connected to everything that happens the moment it occurs.

  Even now Matthew lounges on the sofa with his cell phone on the cushion beside him, laptop balanced on his thighs, headphone cord resting on his shoulders. I’m convinced his generation shares one gigantic pulsing brain, transmitting electrical impulses and instantaneous knowledge. They’ve made a huge Darwinian leap forward, effectively leaving the rest of us in the dust. I’m only thirty-nine but I already feel technologically obsolete, struggling through my days with the equivalent of two tin cans and a string.

  Matthew tilts his chin toward the TV, which is set to mute.

  “They’ve been streaming the council session all night. Just replaying it over and over in one big loop.”

  Damn. Myra Kushner. Although I saw Myra and her cameraman at the council session, I hadn’t considered the ramifications of the cable broadcast until now. The council room had been packed to capacity, but even so I only faced a live audience of maybe two hundred people. The town of Eaton’s population numbers just under ten thousand. This means the reaction I received at the council session is just a tiny taste of what I can expect once I arrive at my office tomorrow morning.

  I edge into the room and look at the screen. The picture shows Jym Granger pacing back and forth in front of the audience, then cuts to a shot of me as I respond to what he said.