Ivory and the Horn (15 page)

She’d been up all night working on the preliminary sketches for an album cover that the Broken Hearts had commissioned from her, only to discover when she finally started on the canvas that she’d used up all her blues the last time she’d worked with her oils. So here she sat, watching the minute hand on the clock outside the delicatessen across the street slowly climb to twelve, dragging the slower hour hand up to the nine as it went.

Eventually Amos & Cook’s opened and she darted inside to buy her paints. It was while she was heading back up Yoors Street to her studio that she ran into Brenda coming the other way.

“You’re looking good,” she said when they came abreast of each other.

“Well, thanks a lot,” Brenda said sarcastically.

Jilly blinked in confusion. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You and Wendy are always telling me how I shouldn’t worry about being fat—”

“We never said you were—”

“—but now as soon as I find a diet that’s actually letting me lose some weight, I’m looking great.’ “

“Whoa,” Jilly said. “Time out. I have never said that you needed to lose weight.”

“No, but now that I have I look so much better, right?”

“I was just being—”

Friendly, Jilly had been about to say, but Brenda interrupted her.

“Honest for a change,” Brenda said. “Well, thanks for nothing.”

She stalked off before Jilly could reply.

“You have a nice day, too,” Jilly said as she watched Brenda go.

Wow, talk about getting up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, she thought. She’d never seen Brenda running on such a short fuse.

She was a little hurt from the confrontation until she realized that besides Brenda’s bad mood, there’d been something else different about her this morning: no cigarette in her hand, no smell of stale smoke on her clothes. Knowing that Brenda must have recently quit smoking made Jilly feel less hurt about the way Brenda had snapped at her. She’d quit herself years ago and knew just how hard it was—and how cranky it made you feel. Add that to yet another new diet… .

Quitting cigarettes was a good thing, but Jilly wasn’t so sure about the diet. Brenda didn’t need to lose weight. She had a full figure, but everything was in its proper proportion and place. Truth was, she often felt envious of Brenda’s fuller shape. It was so Italian Renaissance, all rounded and curved—and lovely to paint, though she had yet to get Brenda to sit for her. Perhaps if this latest diet helped raised Brenda’s self-esteem enough, Brenda would finally agree to pose for some quick studies at the very least.

She knew Brenda needed a boost in the self-esteem department, so she supposed a diet that worked couldn’t hurt. Just so long as she doesn’t get
too
carried away with it, Jilly thought as she continued on home.

13

Even I’m getting tired of my bitchiness. I can’t believe the way I jumped on Jilly this morning. Okay, I know why. I was not having a good morning. The ghosts kept me up all night, going through my head even when I wasn’t asleep. By the time I ran into Jilly, I was feeling irritable and running late, and I didn’t want to hear what she had to say.

Thinking it over, none of that seems like much of an excuse. It’s just that, even though I knew she was just trying to be nice, I couldn’t help feeling this rage toward her for being so two-faced. You’d think a friend would at least be honest right from the start.

Yes, Brenda, you are starting to seriously blimp on us. Do everybody a favor and lose some weight, would you?

Except nobody was going to say something like that to a friend. I wouldn’t even say it to an enemy. It’s bad enough when you’ve got to haul that fat body around with you, never mind having somebody rub your face in the fact of its existence.

I think the best thing I could do right now is just to avoid everybody I know so that I’ll have some friends to come back to if I ever make it through this period of my life.

I wonder how long I can put Jim off. He called me three times this past weekend. I played sick on Friday and Saturday. When he called on Sunday, I told him I was going out of town. Maybe I really should go out of town, except I can’t afford to travel. I don’t even have transit fare this week. Too bad the paper won’t pay my parking the way it does Rob’s. Of course, I’m not the editor.

When it comes right down to it, I don’t even know why I’m working at a newspaper—even a weekly entertainment rag like
In the City.
How did I get here?

I was going to be a serious writer like Christy, but somehow I got sidetracked into journalism—because it offered the safety of a regular paycheck, I suppose. I’m still not sure how I ended up as an advertising manager. I don’t even write anymore—except for memos.

The girl I was in college wouldn’t even recognize me now.

14

Jim looked up to find Scotty approaching his desk. Scotty sat down on a corner and started to play with Jim’s crystal ball paperweight, tossing it from hand to hand.

“So,” Scotty said. “How goes the romance?”

Jim grabbed the paperweight and replaced it on his desk. “One of these days you’re going to break that,” he said.

“Yeah, right. It wasn’t me that missed the pop fly at the last game.”

“Wasn’t me who struck out.”

“Ouch. I guess I deserved that.” Scotty started to reach for the paperweight again, then settled for a ballpoint pen instead. He flipped it into the air, caught it again. “But seriously,” he went on. “Was Brenda feeling better on Sunday?”

Jim nodded. “Except she said she’s going to be out of town for a few weeks. She had to pack, so we couldn’t get together.”

“Too bad. Hey, did Roger tell you about the party he’s throwing on Friday? He told me he’s invited some seriously good-looking,
single
women.”

“I think I’ll pass.”

Scotty raised his eyebrows. “How serious
is
this thing?” he asked. “She’s out of town, so that means you have to stay in?”

“It’s not like that.”

“When do I get to meet her, anyway?”

Jim shrugged. “When she gets back, I guess.”

Scotty gave him a long considering look, the pen still in his hands for a moment.

“I think you’ve got it bad, pal,” he said finally.

“I guess I do.”

“How does she feel about you?”

“I think she likes me,” Jim said.

Scotty set the pen back down on Jim’s desk.

“You’re a lucky stiff,” he said.

15

I’ve decided that the ghosts are simply hallucinations, brought on by my hunger. Never mind what Jilly or Christy would say. That’s all that makes sense. If anything makes sense anymore.

I’ve been on this diet for almost four weeks now. Popcorn and lettuce, lettuce and popcorn. A muffin on Wednesday, but I won’t let that happen again because I’m
really
losing weight and I don’t want to screw anything up. From a hundred and twenty-six to a hundred and four this morning.

Once I would have been delirious with joy to weigh only a hundred and four again, but when I look in the mirror I know it’s not enough. All I still see is fat. I can get rid of more. I don’t have to be a cow all my life.

I still haven’t had a cigarette either and it hasn’t added anything to my weight. It’s as bad as I thought it’d be—you never realize what a physical addiction it really is until you try to quit—but at least I’m not putting on the pounds, stuffing my face with food because I miss sticking a cigarette in my mouth.

I’m so cranky, though. I guess that’s to be expected. My whole body feels weird, like it doesn’t belong to me anymore. But I kind of like it. There’s a down side, like my clothes don’t fit right anymore, but I can deal with it. Since I can’t afford to buy new ones, I’ve been taking them in— skirts and jeans. My T-shirts and blouses are all getting really loose, but I don’t mind. I feel so good about the way I’m starting to look now I know that I can never let myself get fat again. I’m just going to lose a few more pounds and then I’m going to go on a bit of a more normal diet. I’m sick of popcorn and lettuce.

The diet’s probably making me cranky as well, but I know I’ll get past it, just like I’ll get past the constant need to have a cigarette. Already it’s easier. Now all I’ve got to do is deal with the financial mess I’m in. I don’t know
how
to handle it. I’m not spending any money at all—mine
or
the paper’s—but I’m in deep. My phone got cut off yesterday. I just didn’t have the money to pay the bill after covering my other expenses. I guess I should’ve told the bank manager about it when I went in for that loan, but I’d forgotten I was overdue and I don’t want to go back to his office.

What I really want to do is just go away for awhile—the way I’m pretending to Jim that I have. Before my phone got cut off, I was calling him from these “hotels” I’m supposed to be staying in and we’d have nice long talks. It’s the weirdest romance I’ve ever had. I can’t wait to see his face when he finally sees the new and improved me.

But I’m not ready yet. I want to trim the last of the fat away and put the no-smoking jitters aside first. I know I can do it. I’m feeling a lot more confident about everything now. I guess it really is possible to take charge of your life and make the necessary changes so that you’re happy with who you are. What I want now is some time to myself. Go away and come back as an entirely new person. Start my life over again.

Last night one of the ghosts gave me a really good idea.

16

Wendy slouched in the window seat of Jilly’s studio while Jilly stood at her easel, painting. She had her notebook open on her lap, but she hadn’t written a word in it. She alternated between watching Jilly work, which was fairly boring, and taking in the clutter of the studio. Paintings were piled up against one another along the walls. Everywhere she looked there were stacks of paper and reference books, jars and tins full of brushes, tubes of paint and messy palettes for all the different media Jilly worked in. The walls were hung with her own work and that of her friends.

One of the weirdest things in the room was a fabric mâché self-portrait that Jilly had done. The life-size sculpture stood in a corner, dressed in Jilly’s clothes, paint brush in hand and wearing a Walkman. No matter how often Wendy came over, it still made her start.

“You’re being awfully quiet,” Jilly said, stepping back from her canvass.

“I was thinking about Brenda.”

Jilly leaned forward to add a daub of paint, then stepped back again.

“I haven’t seen much of her myself,” she said. “Of course I’ve been spending twenty-six hours a day trying to get this art done for this album cover.”

“Do they still make albums?”

Jilly shrugged. “CD, then. Or whatever. Why are you thinking about Brenda?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I just haven’t seen her for ages. We used to go down to the Dutchman’s Bakery for strudels every Saturday morning, but she’s begged off for the last three weeks.”

“That’s because she’s on a diet,” Jilly said.

“How do you know?”

Jilly stuck her brush behind her ear and used the edge of her smock to rub at something oh the canvass.

“I ran into her on the way to the art store the other day,” she said as she fussed with the painting. “She looked so thin that she’s got to be on another diet—one that’s working, for a change.”

“I don’t know why she’s so fixated on her weight,” Wendy said. “She thinks she’s humongous, and she’s really not.”

Jilly shrugged. “I’ve given up trying to tell her. She’s like your friend Andy in some ways.”

“Andy’s a hypochondriac,” Wendy said.

“I know. He’s always talking about what’s wrong with him, right?”

“So?”

“So Brenda’s a little like that. Did you ever know her to not have a problem?”

“That’s not really being fair,” Wendy said.

. Jilly looked up from her painting and shook her head. “It might not be a nice thing to say,” she said, “but it is fair.”

“Things just don’t work out for her,” Wendy protested.

“And half of the reason is because she won’t let them,” Jilly said. “I think she lives for extremes.”

Putting her palette and brush down on the wooden orange crate that stood beside her easel for that purpose, she dragged another orange crate over to the window and sat down.

“Take the way she is with men,” Jilly said. “Either nobody’s interested in her, or she’s utterly convinced some guy’s crazy about her. She never gives a relationship a chance to grow. It’s got to be all or nothing, right off the bat.”

“Yeah, but—”

“And it’s not just guys. It’s everything. She either has to be able to buy the best quality new blouse or dress, or she won’t buy it at all. She either has to eat five desserts, or not have dinner at all.”

Wendy found herself reluctantly nodding in agreement. There were times when Brenda could just drive her crazy, too.

“So does it bug you?” she asked.

“Of course it bugs me,” Jilly said. “But you have to put up with your friends’ shortcomings—just like you hope they’ll put up with yours. Under all her anxieties and compulsive behavior has got to be one of the nicest, warmest people I know. What’s saddest, I suppose, is that
she
doesn’t know it.”

“So what should we do?”

“Just like we always do—be there for her when she needs us.”

“I suppose,” Wendy said. “You know, I hate to say this, but I think what she really needs is a man in her life—a good, solid, dependable man who cares about her. I think that’d straighten up half the problems in her life.”

“I think she’s got one,” Jilly said. “That is, unless she screws this one up by going to the other extreme and suddenly playing too hard to get.”

“What do you mean?”

Jilly leaned forward. “You know the guy she met at the bus stop?”

“Jim?”

“Uh-huh. Well, it turns out he works at the Newford School of Art.” “He’s an artist?”