Slim to None (4 page)

My gaze drifts to the banana cream pie in front of Mortie. I want so badly to just take the pie back. Or at least grab that damned spoon, Mortie-germs and all, and just go to town eating it in one sitting, right here, in front of my lard-averse artery-clogged boss. Show him what a real fat girl can do. He thinks I’m a Tubby McTubbster? Fine, lemme at him. He can see how us chicks with the feedbags do it. Although truthfully, I certainly would relish smashing it in his face, but could never waste such good food, what with the effort that went into preparing the thing. Let’s not forget the high quality ingredients. Thank goodness I made a second one, waiting patiently for me in the Sub-Zero at home.

"Effective immediately, for the next six months, Barry will take over the restaurant critic posting. You can come and go as you please, but I expect one column a week from you, and you’ve got complete latitude on your subject matter."

Whoop-tee-doo. I’ve been impeached. Well, that’s just peachy. Yummm, like those heirloom Elberta peaches from the farmer’s market on Block Island last summer. Juice that dripped down my arm with each bite I took. I made a fantastic peach tart, with black raspberry puree on a crispy bed of buttery phyllo dough. Served with a dollop of crème anglaise. Oh, if only I could transform myself back to that day. Then I wouldn’t be standing here out of a job. Well, out of my job, anyhow.

"So that’s it, then?" I ask, my shoulders slumped in dejection. "I have no recourse?"

Mortie shakes his head. "Not if you want to come back after your hiatus."

I turn and slink toward the door, all too many pounds of me, feeling about as small as a woman who’s pretty much outgrown the women’s department can feel. Only right now, feeling small couldn’t feel worse.

As I leave, Mortie softly calls my name. "Abbie?"

Tears threaten to spring from my eyes, but I refuse to blink, denying them access. No way will I let Mortie see how hurt I am. I’m too choked up to speak, so I just look at him and cock my eyebrow.

"Abbie, this is nothing personal. You know that? I’m doing my job—what’s best for the paper."

Nothing personal. Yeah, right. When you’re pretty much fired for being fat, that’s personal, no matter what anyone says. "Gotcha." I say, even though I’d like to say something harsher.

* * *

I return home, having gathered up my laptop and not much else and hastening myself out of the building; I couldn’t bear to deal with my colleagues and their questions. Thank God Mortie told me to take a week off to collect myself before starting the column. Now if only if I could actually collect myself, no doubt I’d be too heavy to carry off wherever it was I was supposed to take me.

The house is quiet; William is still finding himself in Jersey, apparently. I’m sure he’ll be gone all weekend, which leaves me on my own to wallow in my new reality for at least three whole days. God, being alone in this brownstone is not what I need right now. Instead of distractions, I’m left to fester in my shame. The shame of knowing that ghastly picture of me gorging my corpulent face is blanketing Manhattan. Meanwhile, I sit here thinking how much I’d love to eat something warm and comforting just to shut it all out. Something that would simply cancel out the events of the past twenty-four hours. Except I know deep down that what’s done is done: the fat cat is out of the bag.

I know, I know, it’s not like I didn’t realize I’d physically expanded beyond acceptable societal standards. I’m the first to admit nothing I own fits me without a serious amount of physical exertion to tug it onto my body. Which then leaves me huffing and puffing, I’m so out of shape. But it’s always been my private thing. Even William has never faulted me for it. Sure, other people have probably noticed it. I see their looks when I pass them on the street. The handsome men whose gazes catch my eye for a split second, before they turn away, repulsed at what they see. Or when someone bounces off of me on a busy Manhattan sidewalk because even though they turn sideways, they can’t help but ricochet off of my generous flesh. Human pinballs, they are, and yours truly is the rubber bouncer. Step right up, folks! A hundred points if you boing off the Lard-o Lady! Don’t think for a minute I don’t notice their glares.

I guess I always just figured I was more than the sum of my parts. Sure, I’m overweight. But I’m so much more than a bunch of blubber. I’m a smart woman with skills and intelligence and I’m friendly and nice and—I have really good qualities. Can someone tell me why all of these characteristics seem to be cancelled out just because I’m fat? Fat equals invisible at best, repugnant at worst. And in reality, I could be thin and beautiful and be a hateful person—maybe a supermodel who throws phones at people and beats staffers who covet her jeans—yet that seems to be more valued than all that I have to offer. Simply because of my physical appearance.

I heave a sigh of resignation. To quote an old sage, Popeye, "I yam what I yam." Although maybe if I’d have laid off the hollandaise sauce in favor of the steamed spinach, I’d be a little less of me.

With little else to do for the indefinite future, I retreat to my kitchen and do what comes naturally when I’m feeling blue—I cook my favorite comfort food: lasagna. I bypass three recipes in favor of the quick-version, because I just cannot wait to sink my teeth into something that will help me to forget how miserable I’m feeling.

Classic Lasagne

for the sauce

1 clove garlic

1/2 minced onion

olive oil (couple of tbls.)

1-1/2 lb. ground beef

2 tbl. parmesan cheese

2 small cans tomato sauce

2 small cans tomato paste

1 tsp. each: oregano, salt, pepper, basil

Lightly brown onions, adding garlic (be sure not to burn garlic, allow to turn golden), add beef, brown, drain. Put back in stock pot with tomato sauce, paste, spices. Fill sauce cans with water and add to sauce. Stir well, bring to boil, reduce heat to simmer for one hour.

for the filling

1/2 lb. grated mozzarella cheese

1 small container cottage cheese

1 small container ricotta cheese

1 egg

dash nutmeg

1 tbl. parsley, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1 package lasagna noodles, cooked, drained

Grease 13 x 9 baking dish. Put layer of sauce, 4 overlapping noodles, layer 1/2 the cheese mixture, layer 1/2 the sauce, then layer of noodles, cheese, sauce. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Cover with aluminum foil for all but last 10 minutes of cooking time.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

One Half-Cup Sour Grapes

I gaze into the mirror, stripped down to my sensible bra and flab-trapping panties, and all I see are waves. Undulating waves. Something that can be so calming under the right circumstances. Like nice, invisible sound waves conveying your favorite song. Or gentle ocean waves, viewed while sitting on the rooftop deck at the beach house, absorbing a sunset, Mai Tai in hand. Indulging in your favorite goat cheese and artichoke dip with some freshly-made crostini. And of course steamed shrimp, the tang of beer in which it was steamed, the gentle marriage of Old Bay and horseradish and ketchup (grandma’s recipe) feeling so decadent in its simplicity.

But I’m not feeling calm, because these waves I’m beholding are composed of something far more permanent than that which courses across the dark ocean’s surface with the regularity of a heartbeat. They’re waves of flesh, veritable breakers. Make that a tsunami. And as I tug and pull and coax my Flexee girdle over the mountainous terrain of my Paul Bunyan thighs, my generous behind, my stomach that overlaps like a layer cake on steroids, I can’t help but wonder: how the hell did I turn into such an ocean of a woman?

After donning all the necessary accoutrements of figure camouflage, including a jacket to cover my Jell-O arms and large, chunky jewelry to distract from everything below my neck, I take one more glance at myself in the mirror. Only to be drawn immediately to my telltale chinny chin chin. I still remember the first time I detected a hint of a double chin. Until that point, I didn’t think I looked all that bad. I mean, granted, I’m definitely lugging around enough of me to constitute at least another small person, which is a depressing thought. But it’s always seemed to be spread out in an agreeable enough manner across my body, like a nice homemade huckleberry jam slathered generously on a piece of rustic bread, rather than a harsh glob of shortening thwacked into a mixing bowl. So nothing stood out as grotesque.

But the shadow of a double chin did leave me feeling unsettled. I mean, who has a double chin but fat folks? Well, also people whose jaw lines are conducive to chin repetition, I guess. One look at my family photo album will tell you that no one carries the double chin gene, however. And I admit, while I
noticed
that little excess lumpage sort of flapping there like a wet nurse’s overused breast, I didn’t heed the signs. Like that little pea-sized growth one wants to pretend isn’t there, the one that can be a harbinger of much worse. Ignore it and it doesn’t exist, right?

You might expect someone who eats rich for a living to have at
least
a double chin (and perhaps double wide hips as well). But for a long time, that wasn’t the case. I was able to manage to eat out most of my meals and eat well without getting too fat. I suppose after I hit thirty, that became harder to do. That was the bellwether that ushered in not only a double chin, but obviously, now, its more lethal sister, the triple chin.

Oh, the triple chin. A secondary heart-shaped bracket of flesh at the base of the chin, the point of which functions like a giant arrow at a roadside strip joint advertising
Girls! Girls! Girls!
, pointing in lurid corporeal neon to the wobbling flap of facial flesh hanging like a slab of meat in a butcher shop. Three Chins. Sounds like a dish at Wing Chow’s, my favorite little dim sum spot in Chinatown. Even my vast levels of self-denial can’t spin this one into a positive attribute. Nothing good can come of one’s countenance taking on the appearance of Howdy Doody’s hinged mouth, the cruel after-effect of multiple-chin syndrome.

As I stare into the full-length mirror, the harsh light of my bathroom illuminates me as if I’m a suspect in some sort of interrogation.
Where were you on the night of your gluttonous binge?
It mocks me.
Did you really think you could live on pate and crème fraiche forever without suffering the consequences?

Honestly? Yes. I did. I never thought I’d see the day I’d become what I’ve become. It seemed impossible to fathom. And it’s so
unbecoming
. I’m a
gourmand
, not the fat girl.

Okay, to be fair. I’m not exactly the Creature from the Black Lagoon. I have beautiful, straight shoulder-length hair, with the shine and coloring of black lacquer. And my eyes are, oh, I’ve never thought to describe my eyes. I’d say they’re honest. Yep, I have honest eyes, the color of brandied mushroom sauce. Who wouldn’t want to have eyes like that? Though I know in our society, those attributes are vastly outweighed (there’s that word again) by my size.

So now what? Here I am, thirty-eight years old, the doyenne of dining in Manhattan, a woman whose entire
being
centers around food. And yet if I continue to eat, I won’t be able to
have
an entire being that centers around food. I’ll be that dog dropped off on the side of the highway, left to wander with no destination, no purpose, no kibble. Huh. No kibble. How ironic is that? I end up losing weight because I’m kibble-free, having consumed too much of the stuff throughout my eating career.

Weary of this assessment, I drag my feet into the bedroom. There, in the corner is what William and I jokingly call my fainting chair: an overstuffed crushed-velvet lounge chair, whose welcoming deep brown coloring reminds me of a beef reduction stock I make and freeze every autumn when the weather turns chilly. I could go for a hearty beef stew made with the stock right about now. It might fill up this sense of despair I’m feeling.

I ease my girth into the lounge chair, propping myself up on the egg yolk-yellow satin pillow (I fear if I actually fainted into the chair, I might well break off a leg or two of it in the process). I toy with a tassel as I weigh my options.
Weigh my options
. Good one. I’d laugh at my little play on words, if it weren’t so completely
not
funny.

I realize my choices are this: lose weight, keep my job. Not lose weight? Lose my job. Either way there’s dramatic loss. Okay, fine, and losing weight has an upside to it besides not giving up my beloved profession. I’d also be able to wear my Spanx. Maybe delve into the collection of smaller outfits gathering dust in my closet, arranged in an arpeggio of sizes from a relatively diminutive eight all the way up to a double-digited none-of-your-business.

And not losing weight? All I can see are downsides. Downsides to being up on the scale. Marvelous. But aside from the "me factor" in this equation, is the bigger picture. I have aspired to being a premier food critic since back during the lean days, when we lived in Europe, when I realized how very much food is an integral part of the human condition. Here I always thought it was just
me
who was all about food. But it was there that I realized in many countries, food is life. And life is food.

To celebrate when I finally landed my fantasy job, William surprised me by preparing—all by himself—a feast of my favorite French foods: escargots with garlic butter and a splash of cognac; langoustines (flown-in overnight from Brittany), sautéed in their shells with butter and garlic and a hint of malagache curry; potatoes daphinoise (a little overpowering with the langoustines, I know, but he was going after my favorites); and haricots verts sautéed in shallots, all paired with a vintage Dom Perignon. The meal couldn’t have been more perfect: conceived in love (sounds like a baby, doesn’t it?), dining by candlelight, Edith Piaf on the stereo. Cognac even got his own china plate to dine alongside of us.

This is what I know: food is the common thread of all humans. The quest to improve upon any existing type of food, to create something so beyond merely satisfying—this is a universal mission. I feel complete when I can be a part of this greater good. When my efforts poke and prod chefs to do better, when I can be the conduit to the public, to say "Hey, wait’ll you try this!" Conversely, to save them money and tell them, "Don’t bother. You’d be better off staying at home than eating the swill" if a restaurant falls grossly short. To have a hand in someone’s celebratory moment—that silver wedding anniversary dinner, a fortieth birthday celebration, well, you just can’t put a price tag on that privilege.

It’s as if all I’ve worked toward my whole life was to attain this one goal: My years of cooking with my grandmother; dabbling in foods throughout Europe, working in those shoebox kitchens in the French countryside, so hot I’d lose three pounds a night from sweating; all of those tiny little reviewing gigs I had in local weekly papers; freelancing for every magazine imaginable. And then: the Mount Everest of the food critic’s world. Mine to appreciate for the treasure it was.

Until now.

I suppose there are those who fall in the
eat-to-live
camp. Those sad souls who don’t even notice the taste of their meal; rather they view it as a linear progression to get from point A—hungry, to point B—fed. I’m probably proudest when I can lure one of that ilk over to the
live-to-eat
side: to convert someone who had been so preoccupied with the mundanities of life that they’re unable to relish in the simple joy of a meal, the conviviality involved in gathering family and friends and food and wine, really, the recipe for a happy life, if you ask me. When I’ve succeeded with this, I’ve accomplished my goal.

So, then, I’ve answered my own question. The choice is I have no choice. I must lose weight. And fast.
Six Months to Slim
. Ha! Take
that
for a headline, you smarmy
New York Post
.
Six Months to Less-Than-Morbidly Obese
is more like it. I always pictured "morbidly obese" as someone who needs a crane to get them out of their apartment, because they’re too large to fit through the doorway. I fit through my doorway quite well, thank you. But with the less-than-generous actuarial scales (scales! Those miserable bastard devices), if I’m really honest, I think it’s probably true that I would be considered morbidly obese.

Now it’s a question of
how
to diet. I know, I know, this is something about which there are vast reams of information. I’ve just never paid attention to any of it before. Someone in my position just doesn’t
do
that. Or doesn’t think she needs to, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Like Flexee failure and such. Dieters view food as the enemy. But guess what? There have been times in which food has been my very best friend. Food has been there for me when my life has been at its worst. How can I abandon it now, then? Food is not only a crutch for me, it’s a damned wheelchair. It’s a prosthesis, a replacement limb. And I don’t exactly know how to dismember it, frankly. Even if it’s become cumbersome and useless.

I get up out of the chair, knowing what I have to do. I walk to the kitchen desk as if headed to the gallows. I open my laptop and pull up the email from Jess with the phone number she sent to me after hearing about my meeting with Mortie yesterday. And with one brief phone call, I make my date with destiny.

* * *

Two hours later I find myself precisely where I’d totally not like to be.

"Mrs. Jennings! So glad the doctor was willing to squeeze you in this afternoon. It seemed...urgent," the receptionist greets me. "I’ll just have you fill out this paperwork before the doctor sees you."

She hands me a clipboard with a stack of forms on it, and I get to work. All of these medical questions are making me feel sick: numbness, fatigue, seizures, heart disease, kidney problems, trouble breathing. Sheesh, all of these
serious
conditions they’re asking about. Mine pales in comparison. So much so that maybe I should just go ahead and leave. Good ol’ Doc Crenshaw doesn’t need to be bothered with little ol’ me. Or not so
little
ol’ me.

Just as I ponder slipping out discreetly, a perky middle-aged nurse calls out, "Abigail Jennings?" and since I’m the only poor slob in the waiting room, she stares straight at me, curling her finger to beckon me to follow her. Which I do obligingly. A sheep being led to the slaughter.

I know what’s next. We both know it. Only I suspect she secretly relishes this, while I dread it with the same sort of anticipation one would if sending their only child off to war.

"Now, if you’ll just hop up on the scale." She points to the torture device and actually
smiles
as she says this. What I’m hearing, however, is this:
"Now, if you’ll open wide and just let me carve out your tongue, we’ll be done!"
And I don’t think hopping is an option, frankly. I picture the springs blowing on the thing, setting off alarms and all sorts of mayhem ensuing.

I feel like a dog about to be beaten with a newspaper for pooping on the carpet. My frowning eyebrows implore the nurse to change her mind. I swear I’m tempted to whimper.

"Is everything all right, Mrs. Jennings?" she asks.

Surely she jests. Is everything all right? Sweet God in Heaven, nothing could
be
more wrong at this moment in time, short of imminent mutual destruction by the world’s super powers.

I point to my shoes. "Can I take these off?" I choke out.

I wonder how much added weight my combined skirt, sweater, traveler’s jacket and Flexees will contribute to the overall poundage, and debate if it’s worth the humiliation of standing stark naked in the inner sanctum of the doctor’s office just to shave a few grams off the
grande totale
. I wipe my sweaty palms across my skirt as I debate my options.