Waisted

by Randy Susan Meyers

  “You signed a release. We’re lucky they haven’t come after you yet.”

  “Lucky? No. They’re frightened. Look how fast they returned our phones and—”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. This is me. Your wife. You want me shown to the world like that?”

  “Like what? You won’t let me see any of it.”

  She crumpled onto the upright chair in the corner. Show Clancy? Her carrying Coleen on her back, like a horse being ridden by a jockey?

  Her naked and being weighed as though she were a slave?

  Jesus. What if they did some arty shit interspersing pictures of a slave on a block, her mouth held wide open to inspect her teeth, and then back to Alice?

  How could she allow him to see her running, fleshy, bouncing, sweat dripping, and then collapsing as Valentina called her a pig? A slob? A bowl of suet?

  Let him look? See the secret shots from their bedroom, stuffed into jumpsuits and whining about what food they missed the most?

  Let him look? The day they drove her to exercise so long and hard that she wet herself?

  Her father. Her mother. Her brother. Her coworkers. Let them see?

  Alice pushed away the images. “I didn’t sign up for all that mess.”

  “When you read all the fine print, you’ll be mighty surprised what you signed up for.”

  Alice blinked against threatening tears. “Be my husband. Okay? The one who loves me. Can you forget everything else for a moment?”

  Clancy appeared stricken. He shook his head as though clearing away something and then knelt before the chair where she sat. He took her hands. “Honestly? Speaking as your husband? The one who does love you. Very much. If you want to stop them, you better move fast. No doubt, they are very suspicious. They know you pulled a fast one. If you want to strike before the film is out there, you need to hurry. I’ll bet they’re fast-tracking it right now.”

  • • •

  Alice met Hania and Daphne at Stellina’s restaurant. Easy parking and being as equidistant as possible in the triangle formed by their workplaces in Mission Hill, Newbury Street, and Kendall Square, had been the goal, but she’d let herself forget the astonishing food. Temptation permeated the air. Inhaling exquisite scents of tomato and garlic equaled culinary martyrdom. She should at least have ordered soup.

  French onion soup. With melted Gruyère. Toasted croutons ready to be unearthed like treasure. Instead, three bowls of dry salad testified to three women cowed by food.

  “I just keep getting angrier,” Alice said. “I can’t sleep. My chest burns with hate. We need to do something soon. To stop them. To punish them. I’ve been considering an idea. It’s a bit edgy. Hell, maybe even illegal. Or libelous.”

  “What does Clancy think?” Daphne asked.

  “He thinks we better act soon. That they’ll be rushing to get it out.”

  Hania lifted a tomato and frowned. “I never want to put another vegetable in my mouth. And yes, I know that a tomato is a fruit. Anyway, I agree with you, Alice. Do you think we could pull off your criminal idea?”

  “And is the effort worth it?” Daphne asked. “Are we screwed by our own weight loss? Maybe having lost so much weight, we have no reason to complain?”

  Alice nodded. “I’ve found myself thinking about that constantly: the damage done to us versus how many pounds we lost. Were the humiliations and outright traumas—being fed speed without our consent—mitigated by having left the mansion thinner by so many pounds? I mean, that’s what we went there for, right?”

  “We went there to heal, not to be abused and lied to,” Daphne said.

  “Right. And yet, I needed to parse it out. See what part of my need to confront them was based on a righteous need for confrontation, what part was for public education, and what represented pure revenge.” Alice pulled out three sheets of paper. “Here. I wrote up my thoughts on it.”

  Hania smiled. “Boston Latin School trained you well.”

  Alice scanned her almost memorized words while the others read.

  ACROBAT FILMMAKERS PROJECT: REALITY VS. FICTION

  from Alice Thompson

  1. Information Provided to Participants Before They Came

  a/ The documentary Waisted would examine if a woman could lose weight not for “society” but for health and for her own personal aesthetic, without losing her dignity and without suffering if she were in a supportive healing environment.

  b/ An atmosphere of respect, health, and mindfulness would be provided. Their words.

  c/ Medical needs would always come first. Their words.

  2. The Actual Premises/Suppositions Enacted at the Waisted Mansion

  a/ Food was severely controlled. Caloric intakes were below any recommended standards or practices for weight loss.

  b/ Exercise was forced, constant, and used as punishment.

  c/ Medical oversight was close to nil.

  d/ Women were consistently forced to confront themselves in the worst of circumstances.

  e/ Weight loss resulted from the unavailability of food, overexercise by coercion, and the use of humiliation tactics.

  3. Suppositions/Theories of Alice Thompson

  a/ The weight loss from Waisted was unsustainable.

  b/ The imposed “control through unavailability” method was experimental bullshit. The women hadn’t learned control—they’d been controlled. They’d been used to see how far they would allow Jeremiah, Coleen, and Valentina to bully them.

  c/ The women were terrorized into thinness. This was an unsustainable methodology, unless one wanted to build the equivalent of weight loss concentration camps.

  d/ They’d been fooled into joining Waisted. Nothing in the brochures mentioned the harsh tactics. Quite the opposite. Acrobat presented the mansion as though they were entering a healing retreat.

  e/ Acrobat wanted to prove that women would accept humiliation and shame in pursuit of weight loss. Up to their breaking point, it worked. But what did that mean? That the abuse heaped upon women for centuries had led to women accepting abuse? Thus, was Acrobat a dog chasing its own tail? More important, the actual takeaway was that Alice, Daphne, and Hania ultimately did not accept the terms Acrobat put forward.

  f/ There was no truth given to the participants in Waisted, only lies of omission—if not commission—by a filmmaker and a director willing to thread them through the needle of their belief system to prove their thesis: women would do anything to fit society’s norm.

  4. What I Think Acrobat Wants to Present in Its Documentary

  a/ Women would rely on others to provide control, but could not or would not find their own discipline.

  b/ Change sustained from women giving up their agency would be only temporary. Without outside chains, the women would all revert to type. Waisted meant to prove the second supposition with the filmed six-month reunion, which they’d relentlessly referenced while at the mansion (and made the women sign on to before they went to Vermont).

  c/ Women would go to outrageous lengths to fit into societal norms—even at the cost of their health, emotional well-being, and pride.

  5. Takeaway/Plan

  a/ The thesis we can present: that the filmmakers at Acrobat were cruel and ambitious enough to persecute women into thinness via a twenty-first-century version of foot binding while chasing their prize: fame and fortune. Acrobat chased Oscar gold and was willing to shape, rather than film, reality, to meet its goals.

  The waiter walked past with a pastry-filled tray. Alice pulled her salad close and hunted for a stray piece of cheese as she pushed aside the hard-boiled eggs, which, since the mansion, sickened her. Finding one lonely sliver of mozzarella, she savored the creamy bit while formulating her thoughts.

  “I have to say this: Clancy thinks we might be better off using a lawyer,” Alice said.

  Daphne held up the paper and shook it. “And lose this? Is he crazy?” Daphne put up her hands, palms out. “Sorry! I know he’s your husband—”

/>   “No worries. I am neither apologizing for nor acceding to my husband. I think Clancy and I are playing out all sorts of marriage issues. And in the end, his opposite message was whatever you’re going to do, do it now. Even as he counseled legal recourse.”

  “What kind of legal recourse did he mean?” Hania asked.

  “Finding a lawyer to see if we can cease and desist Marcus Rhyner, the head of Acrobat, who’s producing the film, and Jeremiah, who, as it turns out, is the director, not just the headmaster and bodybuilder of Waisted.”

  “You don’t agree?” Daphne poured first a dollop and then a larger serving of dressing on her salad from the pitcher of garlicky oil.

  “I don’t know if I don’t agree, or if I hate them so much I can’t imagine keeping a legal lid on my rage. Somehow Jeremiah and Marcus—who I do know, and he’s an ass—have become every awful man ever trying to push us into fuck-me heels and a size-two dress.”

  Hania stuck out her feet, clad in bright red stilettos. “Am I being a traitor?”

  Hania looked like ten million slender bucks. Not just unfat, as Alice would describe Daphne and herself now, but genuinely lean and sexy, wearing a sleek jersey dress that clung to her curves.

  “Honey, if you’re happy, and the shoes make you feel good, go for it,” Daphne said.

  “You can carry off anything,” Alice said. “But those things will ruin your feet.”

  “You sound like my mother!” Hania stabbed a piece of lettuce and stuck it in her mouth with no apparent delight. “So how do we turn the tables on Acrobat?”

  “I have some thoughts, but I don’t know how to make them happen.” Alice forced a slice of undressed cucumber into her mouth.

  “The three of us figured out how to escape a virtual prison. We can do anything.” Hania smirked. “Not to mention, I have a surprise. A secret weapon.”

  Underestimating Hania always proved wrong. Those gold bangles and needle-thin heels were accessories to, not distractions from, a sharp mind. “What is it?”

  “You say your idea first.”

  “Both of you! You’re making me crazy. Talk,” Daphne said. “Alice, you started this. Go.”

  Alice nodded and pointed her fork at the paper. “Right. My idea. Here goes: we make a film about their film. Fast. And we release ours first.”

  “And we use the footage?” Hania asked.

  “We use it to our advantage; to tell our story.”

  “Do any of us have a clue how to make a documentary?” Daphne switched the salt and pepper shakers and folded and unfolded her napkin. “A video? A movie? I don’t even know what to call it, damn it.”

  “We can learn, right? I’m not talking about making a major motion picture. There are a million ways to get a video out these days, right?” Alice looked at Hania.

  “There are. And, as I said, we have help.”

  “Say it. What kind of help?” Alice pushed away the greens. Salad had never been something she enjoyed. Mashing cold, raw vegetables in her mouth depressed her. At the very least, it was the opposite of soothing. Why did the world praise women for making the opposite of soothing their goal?

  Hania spread fingers topped with glossy red polish on the table. “Mike’s been calling me since he left the mansion.”

  Alice leaned forward.

  “Mike?” Daphne slapped a theatrical hand to her forehead.

  “Actually, more than just calling.” Hania lifted her shoulders in a too-cute gesture. “I guess our time together haunted him. He got my number from the Acrobat files. We’ve been hanging out.”

  “And he didn’t realize that your time together was you using him to pull off a robbery?” Alice shook her head, trying to understand and fit in this new puzzle piece.

  “Oh, he figured it out. He thought it was endearing. And brave. As though we were a new kind of Charlie’s Angels.”

  “Charlie’s Angels, the chubby edition.” Alice laughed, thinking about this poor schmuck falling in love with the girl who’d made a fool of him. “He really has it bad for you.”

  “And all that while seeing you at the fat mansion.” Daphne touched her midsection, poking as though testing for the truth of doneness. “Sam seems less than thrilled about the new me. I don’t understand.”

  “How about asking him?” Hania opened her eyes wide. “And yes, Mike’s extremely interested in me. Hard as that is to believe.”

  “Not hard at all.” Thin, fat, or in between, Hania’s exquisiteness drew both men and women. Marcus and Acrobat Films forgot to account for a Waisted employee falling for a cast member.

  When dry-mouth fear had startled Alice awake at three that morning, thinking of what she planned to propose at lunch, she’d ridden waves of bad memories. Deprivation might be forgotten, but the humiliation—she’d be fighting those feelings until death. Ferreting out why she’d allowed herself to be twisted into a pretzel of willingness, even as she was treated as worthless, that was the work facing her.

  “What did they believe the movie was about?” Alice asked. “Did Mike tell you? What was their message? Their point?”

  “Hold up a minute. Let’s see the dessert menu,” Daphne said. “Ninety-to-ten, right?”

  Alice had introduced them to her new philosophy of eating, but Daphne seemed to lack the ability for that math. On the other hand, who was Alice to be the hammer of righteousness?

  They ended up sharing one large ginger cookie, which equaled three pathetic pops of a sugary bite each.

  “So: Mike.” Hania drew a heart on the table, indenting the linen. The Valentine stayed for a moment. “Mike says he liked me from the start. And hated what Jeremiah and the others did to us.”

  “You’re seeing him? In person?” The lingering flavor of ginger blessedly rode over kale’s bitter aftertaste.

  “And he really, really knows that you used him?” Daphne asked.

  “Along with endearing, Mike thinks I was spunky.”

  “Spunky. This guy cracks me up,” Alice said. “I can’t believe you waited this long to tell us.”

  “I thought it was a dish best served in person.” Hania spun her bangles. “He hated this film. He’s worked for Acrobat for quite a few films. He knew they were sleazy, but none of their work made him this upset before.”

  “How about the first Waisted?” Alice asked. Despite Clancy’s urging, she still hadn’t seen the documentary.

  “Not that bad, Mike said. Not like this. That one was all about the ways we’re pressured. It was about the industry—investigating tactics used in places like Weight Watchers. They examined the business of fat, as they called it.

  “When they got deep into the planning of the part two film, Mike thinks they fell over the edge. Originally they planned to take it from the point of view of the women ensnared by the business of weight loss, from Jenny Craig to The Biggest Loser. But besides not being able to get access to the television shows—which are vaults of secrecy—Jeremiah and Marcus wanted to worm into darker places. They decided to start from scratch for his quest.”

  “His quest?”

  “His quest,” Hania repeated. “Finding out which way women would go, faced with both reward—in this case weight loss—versus public shame. According to Mike, the Acrobat team got the idea from Pounded, but wanted to see what the results would be with no veneer of help and sympathy. Would the hunger to be thin overtake the desire for dignity?”

  “Damn them.” Alice tapped her breastbone dead center, which supposedly relieved anxiety. “They used us and are counting on using us repeatedly. Damn them. Here’s my quest—or hopefully, ours. Make them answer and pay for what they did to us.”

  Daphne pushed up her sweater sleeves. “Let’s make sure this never happens to any other women. Yes. Damn them. Never again. Cowboys, that’s what they think they are, right? Uncovering the Wild West of women and fat. In truth, they’re just misogynists.”

  Alice nodded. “Let the world look and decide. What’s the line between documenting and creating? Real
ity shows are bad enough— I mean, we all know they’re more scripted than not. But with crap like Waisted? They put the word documentary on the footage and make it gospel. Were they all counting on us staying quiet afterward? They probably thought we’d be too embarrassed to stand up and be seen.”

  “Exactly,” Hania said. “Mike said the same thing. And if not, and we spoke up in any way, Jeremiah figures we gave him more press. Win-win for him.”

  “Mike said that?” Daphne asked.

  “Yes. It made him sick.”

  “Let’s control the narrative,” Alice said. “We come out first, hard and fast. Let’s start with finding everyone else—the other women—and having a meeting.”

  “We can’t ask Mike to do it, though,” Hania said. “Too much at risk while he’s still working for them. How about Clancy?”

  “No way. I can’t get him involved. We’ll find a way.”

  “Do we have time?” Daphne seemed doubtful.

  “We need to always have time for another battle in the war on women. With how much I hate those fuckers, if need be, I’ll invent hours,” Hania said. “We all will.”

  CHAPTER 24

  * * *

  DAPHNE

  Daphne raced from the restaurant to her sister’s office in Wellesley. Lenny Kravitz blasted through the car stereo as she swung off the Mass Pike and headed toward Route 16. After parking, she reapplied her lipstick, took a deep breath, and walked into the brick building.

  “Is Bianca in?”

  The receptionist, a woman of indeterminate age who’d been Botoxed into submission, half smiled at Daphne. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I’m her sister.”

  “Is she expecting you?”

  “No. But just let her know I’m here. I’ll wait.”

  Daphne had finished Vogue, InStyle, and Vanity Fair by the time the receptionist nodded her through the doors. Bianca’s outer offices and hallway, gleaming blond wood with imitation Kandinsky art, contrasted with the office where she spoke with patients. In the inner sanctum, ivory-pink walls and deep-rose tufted furniture whispered promises of clear, wrinkle-free complexions.