Waisted

by Randy Susan Meyers

  He tried pulling her back to him, but she resisted, sour resentment rising. “Do you have to ruin this? Do you have to be the scientist every minute?”

  Sam shrugged. “I have to be truthful. Watching out for you includes honesty.”

  “I did this for you!” Daphne heard herself lie, and, nonsensically, it made her angry at her husband. Why couldn’t he have just said she looked beautiful?

  “For me? No. Not me. I wish you had done it for you, but all the work was for your mother.”

  Daphne tried to pull herself back, to rescue the night. She struck another seductive pose. “Did I put on this nightgown for Sunny?”

  He placed a tentative hand on her back. “You look like a princess.”

  “I want to know that you can see me. The new me. And that you appreciate her.”

  “Honey. Of course, I appreciate her. You. But I can’t deny my wife of twenty years. I love and value her just as much. And I don’t want you to be devastated if you can’t keep this up.”

  She let him lead her to the bed without another word, vowing never to revert to her old self again.

  TIP:There’s nothing wrong with dropping pounds quickly—as long as you’re doing it smartly. Losing weight more quickly may give you more motivation to keep going, though it doesn’t really matter how many pounds you lose a week. The only thing that matters is the method you’re using to experience weight loss and how well you follow your maintenance plan.

  —Jillian Michaels

  TAKEAWAY: Fuck you, Sam.

  CHAPTER 22

  * * *

  ALICE

  “So, how’s he doing?” Bebe combined cooked cauliflower, pepper, salt, and hand-grated parmesan with the masher she’d been using since anyone could remember, while Alice folded cloth napkins into perfect rectangles. “This is almost calorie free, you know, by the way. Chewing burns more calories than you get. So, can I put in a little butter?”

  “Mom, you know I don’t live inside your brain, right? Who is he? And you can put in anything you like. I won’t blow up like a float from the parade. I can manage what I put in my mouth just fine.”

  “He is your husband.” She lowered her voice and tipped her head to the right, indicating the crowd of men around the television—the testosterone of football and beer broken only by the sounds of Libby urging her stuffed dog to jump over Uncle Macon’s feet.

  Twenty-five people would crowd around the table that Thanksgiving, accommodated by adding a folding table to the dining room table. Her mother gathered up the family-less orphans from her work, widowed neighbors, and at least one of her father’s former students.

  “Don’t jump down my throat. I know how much this weight loss thing means to you. I’m trying to be respectful.”

  “Watching my health isn’t a ‘thing.’ It’s not a religion, Mom. Demeaning words don’t help, but respect isn’t required. Nor is preparing special meals. I can titrate my own calories. And he’s fine.”

  “Titrate, eh?” Her mother laughed. “Better living through chemistry.”

  Alice stepped back and held her arms out straight. Her mother’s red apron, astoundingly, wrapped around Alice’s waist and tied in the back with room to spare. “But really, do you see how I changed?”

  “I’m not blind.”

  “Sometimes you are. When it comes to me.” Alice chopped a green pepper into thin, even slices. “Sometimes the needs of mine that you’ll attend to are limited to the ones with which you agree.”

  “Your fight isn’t with me, hon. We took care of Libby. We kept an eye out for Clancy.” Her mother got the tight expression that came before a tart tone. “So I’d say that I took care of some needs with which I didn’t agree.”

  With this, her mother raised her eyebrows.

  Alice raised hers back higher and with more emphasis.

  “Let’s forget all that.” Bebe scraped the cauliflower mix into a bowl and topped it with wheat germ. The unappealing dish was for her? She wanted the massive bowl of corn bread dressing that steamed on the counter—a recipe from Zeke’s relatives down South. Bebe mixed crumbled corn bread with broken bits of buttermilk biscuits. The scent of butter, onions, celery, and the secret ingredients not yet revealed to Alice added up to heaven. Right this moment, Alice wanted to scarf an overflowing spoonful before Bebe placed it on the table. Which would probably make her mother happy. But Alice resisted.

  “So?” Again, her mother lifted her eyebrows. “Clancy?”

  Smart talk and jokey comebacks rose, but instead, Alice spoke the truth. “Clancy thinks I look great.”

  “So that’s what’s important. Right?”

  “I guess.” Alice popped a slice of pepper in her mouth. The watery crunch provided some relief from the need to grab one of the biscuits warming on a covered hot tray. “Are you asking like you agree, or are you asking like I’m being a jerk?”

  “Isn’t he the reason you went, to begin with?”

  “I guess.” She grabbed a second slice of pepper.

  “Baby.” Her mother took Alice’s hand that held the knife, removed it with a motherly gangster grip, and forced her face-to-face. “Stop with the ‘I guess.’ Clancy was the reason you went, right? Didn’t you tell us he didn’t like the supposed weight gain? Which we, of course, thought was insane. And mean. But Daddy and I would never interfere in your marriage.”

  “Maybe you should have.” Eff it. One biscuit wouldn’t mess her up. Did she have to maintain her newly hatched 90–10 plan every minute? Nine or ninety green peppers—how many did she need to eat to resist one biscuit?

  Alice simultaneously sliced angels on the head of a pin and tormented her mother. Very holiday-like.

  “How ‘should’ we interfere?” Her mother looked so serious. As though Alice expected her to run into the living room and smarten Clancy up this minute.

  If asked, she would.

  “I’m being horrid,” Alice said. “This is on me. I knew who he was when I married him.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Someone for whom the form is the function.”

  “So your only function is your appearance?”

  “He’d never describe it with those words. I meant Clancy sees the world through his aesthetics. He measures everything—even me and Libby—by how much we please the eye.”

  “Sounds damn cold, hon.”

  “He obviously cares about much more. You know that, Mom. But have you met your son-in-law? He can be kind of a cyborg.” Alice wanted to say that Clancy could be kind of a dick—but if he was a dick, who was the fool? Who had married that dick?

  “Here, try this. Auntie Mimi sent it.” Bebe, reverting to knee-jerk mothering upon seeing Alice’s sad face, reached for a large flower-covered tin, one that Auntie Mimi, still in Brooklyn, and Bebe, from Boston, had used for years to send surprise treats back and forth. With the tin, her mother became more the quintessential Jewish mother and less the hybrid of faux black and hip that Bebe reached for and longed to be. “I’ll break off a little piece if you want. Bring a smile to your face.”

  The chocolate chip cookies would tip over her mother’s groaning board—one of the few times of the year Bebe eschewed health. The turkey and dressing would be surrounded by sweet potato pie, and macaroni and cheese, broccoli and rice casserole, corn bread, and all the surprises guests brought. But even with all that, chocolate chip cookies called Alice like Circe’s feast.

  If chocolate chip cookies were Alice’s weakness, Aunt Mimi’s version of them was her kryptonite. Elephant ears, she called them. Magic batter made them spread thin and crispy. Each bite brought a snap of buttery goodness, broken up with bittersweet chips of chocolate. Aunt Mimi, so kitchen proud, not only baked from scratch everything she served but also shunned store-bought chips. Broken pieces of the finest darkest chocolate her aunt could find studded every batch.

  Alice could practically taste the cookie. Her mouth watered.

  Ninety–ten.

  Her new mantra. Eat abstemi
ously 90 percent of the time and cram anything she wanted into her mouth 10 percent.

  Easy. Until.

  Her tiny mother wore an inviting smile as she held out temptation.

  That cookie. How many calories per bite? Just a nibble would be okay.

  This is what Alice hated: the constant chattering in her head, weighing every option.

  Yes to this. No to that.

  “Just take it, sweetheart. Treat yourself.” Her mother wiggled the cookie and grinned. “You know you want it.”

  “Damn it, of course I want it!” Alice batted away the cookie so hard that it fell to the floor and broke into pieces. “I wanted every cookie you ever offered. Even the stupid ones sweetened with applesauce.”

  A slight quiver appeared in the corner of her mother’s lips, which enraged Alice more than any of Bebe’s other habits. Strong and steady as she presented herself, everyone in the family lived more in fear of Bebe’s softhearted tears than her occasional tirades. God save the child who made Zeke’s wife weep.

  However, Daddy was in the other room watching football.

  “Mom, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. You know I never want to make you sad.” A desire to hug and smack her mother at the same time overpowered Alice. “But I can’t live my life to make you happy or fit into this insane script you wrote of the strong black feminist woman you want me—expect me—to be every minute.”

  “I never wanted to fit you into a mold, baby.” Her mother blinked away any tears that threatened. “But I understood how hard it would be to have a white mother and a black father. We did everything to put the cards in your and Macon’s favor. Living here. Mission Hill might be the most mixed neighborhood in Boston!”

  “I know, Mom. But you and Daddy chose it because you love it here. It wasn’t some sacrifice.”

  Bebe shot her a hurt look that begged for appreciation and understanding. “Of course we love it here. But we also did it for you, even though part of us would have enjoyed a greener space. We wanted to give you plays, concerts, sports, the Unitarian church—everything Daddy and I did was in service of making you and your brother strong black citizens.”

  “But you forgot a few things,” Alice said. “Macon and I are different from you and Daddy. We’re not black or white.”

  “Of course. But I wanted—”

  “You wanted too many things for me and yet not enough. You wanted me to always be strong. You were allowed the privilege of crying more than me. What did that tell me? Black women crying were weak? You had the privilege of crying. You had the privilege of saying fat was fine for me. Why didn’t you tell me I could be anything including thin? Why was that reserved for the white girls?”

  Years of swallowed words emerged. Alice pressed on through her mother’s obvious pain.

  “I know you wanted the best for me. I never doubted that for one instant. Nor your love. Nor your commitment to making this world a better place for Macon and for me. You love us so deeply you want to hammer our experiences into your own. You thought your caring inoculated us against the world.”

  Now they both cried. Alice backed up against the kitchen door so nobody could disturb them. “I love you, Mom. So much it hurts to speak even one word that pains you. And I don’t think any mother loved her children more than you love me and Macon.

  “I know you want to be with me every step of the way. But that’s impossible. You can’t be black. Daddy can’t be white. Neither of you can be mixed race. Macon and I will always be different than both of you.”

  “Did we make a mistake? Getting married? Having you? Our family has been the total joy of our lives.”

  “There’s no mistake, Mom. For God’s sake, the entire world would be better off being like us. You know I know that, right? But sometimes you got to lighten up. The sum of my existence can’t be understood by your reading Toni Morrison or racializing every second of my existence.”

  • • •

  Once home, once Libby was tucked in with stories and kisses, once she removed her makeup, brushed her teeth, and massaged oils and creams into her skin, Alice faced Clancy.

  Since coming home, they made love often enough to sate her, to chase back the deprivation that had turned Alice into a raging machine of want and scorekeeping. Desire and admiration had returned to Clancy’s eyes.

  The power dynamic shifted. Need for Clancy’s appreciation receded from being in the forefront of Alice’s life. Righting herself became centermost, along with figuring out where to put what she’d learned at the mansion—and where to put her wrath. She needed revenge against Jeremiah and everyone else associated with Acrobat Films.

  A November chill permeated the apartment. Even the hand lotion she applied felt cold. Hip concrete, wood, and steel didn’t warm up well. She longed for the lush comfort of wall-to-wall carpeting.

  Her husband believed he wrote the sole book on artistic taste and sensibility. Minimalism, Clancy’s god, marked the apartment everywhere but Libby’s room. No way was her daughter living in a monk’s cell. Clancy filled their home with furniture so sleek that slipping off the edge was a constant danger.

  Even here, in their bedroom, a supposed place of comfort and joy, she was surrounded by wood that resembled glass. Their bed rested on an aluminum platform that reflected any defect in the room.

  Clancy held up a hand in warning when he saw her applying lotion. “Don’t get grease on the sheets.” His black robe fell in perfect folds.

  “This isn’t grease. It is, in fact, extremely expensive skin cream.” She pumped another dollop from the white bottle and spread the almond-scented lotion over her arms, rubbing it in with slow, sweeping motions.

  “Expensive or not, we don’t want to stain the sheets.”

  “Sheets wash very nicely.”

  “Not if it’s an oily spot.”

  “Have I been inadvertently messing up the sheets and not noticing? Perhaps my time away gave you a welcome vacation from chaos and oily puddles.” Alice pressed down for more lotion and began on her legs.

  “What are you going on about?” Clancy lifted the down coverlet and climbed into bed. “I sense a subtext.”

  Ah, her husband the genius. She flexed her toes toward her and carefully massaged each one.

  “Don’t disappear again,” he said. “Here. Let me.”

  He reached over and took her arm, and then used his considerable strength to push against every tight spot in her forearm. “Lay back. I’ll help you relax.”

  Touch was her weakness. He knew.

  She slid down and rolled onto her stomach. Clancy pulled her nightgown straps from her shoulders and down until her back was bare. He straddled her and pressed his strong thumbs into every indentation of her spine.

  First, he unlocked her stiff muscles and then began caressing her with hands well-educated in the book of Alice.

  Alice divided in two. The Alice rising to meet him, feeling the love and sensuality of this man with whom she’d made a child, a home; a man who cared about righting wrongs in the world. A man of principal, a quality she found sexy—even more so after the debacle of the musician boyfriend.

  Her other half, the fat girl, the Alice that Clancy had rejected, watched from above. When Alice’s passion peaked, she laughed at her other half. The eyes-wide-open wife whispered to the panting woman.

  Bought off easy, eh? What about Harper? How much time did he spend with her while you were away?

  CHAPTER 23

  * * *

  ALICE

  Alice shook and then straightened the post-lovemaking rumpled blanket and then climbed back into bed. “What are we going to do about Waisted?”

  “Dear Lord, aren’t you sleepy?” He ran his thumb over Alice’s palm.

  She rose to a sitting position, took back her hand, and resisted turning on the bedside lamp. “You asked me to hold off doing anything until you thought about it. Right? So? Have you thought?” Bebe’s Jewish inflection seeped into Alice’s voice. “I’m seeing Daphne and Ha
nia in a few days.”

  Alice laced her fingers so tight they began to ache. Releasing perseverating thoughts about the mansion was impossible. She’d go a few hours managing to forget—lost in work, in caring for Libby, and just now, making love, but then memories followed by rage crashed back.

  She missed talking to Daphne late into the night, spinning out their lives for each other, whispering so as not to wake Hania, their mansion daughter.

  Maybe if she were with Daphne now, she could wash away her anger with words. Or with a plan. Like the one they’d set up for their escape. How had they woven that strategy so quickly? The strength of their bond—a trust like that forged by soldiers in war—must have allowed the rapid-fire moves.

  The attraction and strength of friends was as mysterious as any love—maybe a superior attraction. Love without sex kept you happy and even. Love with lust bounced with untrustworthy pheromones.

  Clancy sighed and placed an arm behind his head. “What are you thinking?”

  “For one thing, we need to see if we can put a stop order on the film being distributed. Even made.”

  “You want to be an agent of censorship?”

  “We talked about this.” Alice pulled the blanket tighter over her lap.

  “You were so over-the-top upset; I needed to keep you calm.”

  “So you pretended to care? They used us. Lied to us. You said they went against every tenet of documentary filmmaking. You swore their ethics were off-the-chart awful.”

  “Ethics and legality may not be the same, Al.”

  She climbed out of bed and grabbed her robe. The spotlight-red, bright-as-fuck fabric jumped out in the cool grayness of the bedroom.

  “This is about me. Imagine a camera trained on you in your worst moments, from the worst angles. Appearing hideous. Acting hideous—”