Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist's Quest to Discover if Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer (21 page)

Session Twenty

Today’s my third training session in as many days because Barbie’s going out of town for the Fourth of July. The more I do, the better I get at this, and the last sixty minutes have been grueling. I pushed myself so hard this afternoon, there’s barely a dry spot on my T-shirt. Funny, but I used to base my self-esteem on nothing but designer labels and fancy handbags, yet now I’m positively beaming over a saturated gray T-shirt.

“Check me out!” I exclaim. “There’s even a big line of sweat where my fat roll is!”

“Don’t call it a fat roll,” Barbie scolds. “Let’s call it a two-pack. You only have four to go to make it a six pack! And you did so good today! You going to hit the treadmill now?”

“I am.”

“Way to go! Listen, I’m out of here—I’ll see you next week, all right?” She bounces off, hair swinging, and it makes me smile. How is it I ever contemplated cutting off her ponytail and stuffing it in her mouth so she wouldn’t be able to say, “Four more! Let’s go!”?

I hop on the treadmill, and as I move forward, my steps begin to feel lighter and lighter. I keep walking, but my usual 3.0 mph speed seems like a turtle crawl. I bump it up to 3.2, and that’s still really poky. I add another .4 and I’m up to 3.6, barely breaking my stride. Then I really dial it up, selecting 4.5. The conveyor belt springs to life under my feet, and I have to stand on the rails to keep from shooting off the back of it. OK,
that’s
fast enough.

Gingerly I step back on and begin to power walk in a most unbecoming fashion, so I jump on the rails again. I want to go this speed, but I can’t walk that fast.

What if I were to run?

No. I can’t
run.
I mean, I run to the store. I’ll run for the phone. I run out for ice cream. I run my mouth. When I accidentally kicked myself with my London shoes, I put a run in my trouser socks. But I can’t
run
run. I tried to run once with the dogs about f ive years ago, but I was too out of shape and they kept tripping me with their leashes.

I can’t run. I have bad knees. A weak back. And I’m totally fat. And I just can’t do it. I’m not a run-away person. I’m a stand-and-fight person.

But what if I were to try anyway?

I can’t run.

I am wearing running shoes.

No. I’m not a runner.

I bet running would burn a shitload of calories. Maybe if I ran, I could have a banana daiquiri over the holiday.

Running . . . ridiculous!

How will I know for sure I’m not a runner if I don’t try it, at least once?

But I’ll look like an ass.

Then again, since when has that stopped me from doing anything?

Running . . . that’s crazy talk!

You know what else is crazy? Standing here on the rails, the treadmill zipping away underneath me, having an argument with myself.

I take a deep breath. Do or do not.

Again, I choose do.

Every single bone in my body is jarred. My knees in particular are screaming and need to be iced, like, right this second. I don’t even want to think about how my back is going to feel tomorrow.

Yet I don’t care.

Because I
ran.

TO: angie_at_home

FROM: [email protected]

SUBJECT: Jen-Point Quiz

Imagine you’re in your basement sorting your work clothes so you can take them to the dry cleaner. While sorting, you run across your wife’s favorite bathing suit drying on a rack.

What do you do next?

a. You put it right back where you found it because your wife expressly instructed you to only grab your work clothes. And as this is plus-sized women’s swimwear, you’re pretty sure you’ve never worn this piece to the office. Also, she yelled at you the seventeen times you accidentally washed and dried it last year.

b. You put it right back where you found it because your wife expressly instructed you to stay the hell away from her laundry as she’s still pissed off you shrunk most of her polo shirts when you washed them in boiling water and dried them within an inch of their lives last week and thank fucking God she’s a little thinner and can fit into them because otherwise they’d be ruined.

c. You put it right back where you found it because your wife begged you to please, please,
please
ask her if you ever have any laundry-based questions. And, really? Since you work hard, maybe just leave everything for her because she promises you she doesn’t mind washing all the clothes, especially since nothing gets ruined that way.

d. You take the bathing suit directly to the dry cleaner.

Try to guess how Fletch answered this question.

Here’s a hint—it involves a sheet of clear plastic and a hanger.

Arrggh.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Et Tu, Valerie Bertinelli?

When I get back from the store, there’s a message on my voice mail. I drop my shopping bags and punch in the access code, and Angie’s voice comes across the speakerphone.
“Hey, it’s Ang. You’re not home, so possibly that means you found somewhere to wallow. Hope that improved your mood. Call me when you’re dry.”
I quickly stow the light rum and banana daiquiri mix and dash upstairs to return her call. She answers on the second ring.

“Yo, Happy Fourth of July!” I shout.

“Your spirits have improved considerably,” she replies. “Did your plotting work out? Did you get yourself invited to a pool party?”

I spent an hour last night complaining to her that this was the first Fourth of July in decades I wouldn’t spend submerged, as my parents sold their home with its in-ground pool last summer. I hate that they no longer have a body of water in their backyard.

Technically, they have a lake, but it’s a nonswimming lake, and please don’t even get me started on how you can have a lake and not be able to swim in it because it’s a freaking lake and that’s
madness
, I tell you.
¹⁴⁰

I’d have other stuff to do and wouldn’t be so f ixated on swimming if Fletch were home, but he’s in Texas. During our millionth we-should-move-to-the-suburbs argument, he brought up the idea of moving to a smaller city since we both can do our jobs anywhere.
¹⁴¹
We did a ton of research and decided Austin could be ideal for a variety of factors, not the least of which is how many people we know down there. Fletch is currently a guest at his best friend’s house, and he’s having a blast running recon missions. He’s already done the most important legwork—checking out the grocery stores. Two thumbs up for Central Market!

When he gets back, I’m sure we’ll go to Oak Street beach. For now, I’m fixated on my old pool. It’s not just the loss of a place to swim that had me so wound up when I talked to Angie last night. There was always something magical about this time of year at my parents’ house. Somehow the Fourth was the one time my brother and I could declare a détente. Regardless of how much we fought the rest of the year,
¹⁴²
we always put our differences aside enough to have fun for a couple of steamy midsummer days.

Except for the addition of a wife, a husband, and three grandchildren over the years, our holiday was always exactly the same. We’d get out of bed and change directly from pajamas to swimsuits and have breakfast on the patio, finding common ground in ridiculing my mother’s terrible coffee and burnt toast. (Perhaps those days weren’t quite so magic for my mom? Regardless, after sixty-plus years you’d think she’d know not to put the bagels in the oven on high for thirty minutes.)

After breakfast we’d jump in the water, which had finally grown warm in the July sun, to rinse off the bits of bagel carbon, and we’d have our first Funnoodle battle of the day. Todd could hit much harder, but I was better at treading water, so we often ended in a draw. Then, working together, we’d take the metal table and umbrella off the patio and place it in the shallow end, complete with all the matching metal chairs, and we’d spend the rest of the day using it as a swim-up bar, never once leaving for biology breaks.
¹⁴³

During the course of the afternoon, we’d have daiquiri-making contests—mine were always the sweetest, and Dad’s tended to be so booze laden they’d tear all the skin off our lips. There’d be naps in the sun and trashy books read while sitting on the pool’s wide, smooth cement steps or balanced on one of the many air mattresses from the pool house. Later, there’d be another Funnoodle battle royale and grilled meats, and my mom would serve her red, white, and blue Jell-O flag cake that no one liked, except we’d always demand she make it because it was tradition. We’d cap off the evening with fireworks, and eventually we’d all pass out, still feeling the rippling of the water underneath the floats we’d lounged on during the day. Yet now some random family is enjoying my pool.
¹⁴⁴

Anyway, this year I figured I had two choices. Plan A, I could go down to my parents’ house with a backhoe, some cement, and a better attitude, or, Plan B, I wangle an invitation to someone else’s pool because I like wallowing and reading and drinking daiquiris a lot more than trying to dig a big hole. I made a concerted effort to charm everyone I know with access to water and . . . nothing. Either no one got the hint, or they assumed I’d go to their house and mock their bagels.

For the moment I’m happy because I came up with Plan C. I just picked up a copy of Will Smith’s
Independence Day
at Target, and I have banana daiquiri fixings.
¹⁴⁵

But if I don’t get access to a pool soon, something very bad is going to happen.

Fletch is back from Austin, and turns out what sounded great on paper didn’t match up to reality. He says it’s so hot down there, I’d spontaneously combust the second I stepped off the plane. Plus with humidity turning the air as thick as oatmeal, my hair would always be a disaster.

So Austin’s out.

Save for two daiquiris, this week I follow the Jenny Craig plan to the letter. I’m rewarded with a .2-pound weight loss. Which means if I hadn’t peed before I left the house, I’d be at scratch. After three training sessions, four additional cardio hours, including
running
, I’m down .2 pounds? What are those, ounces? Percentages of a pound? No one even knows because the sum is so negligible. We’d have to send it off to NASA for them to figure it out. And Gorbachev wrote the number down on my chart like I’d done something great.

This is
bullshit
.

I’m aware that muscle weighs more than fat, so I ask them to take my measurements. I want tangible proof of my efforts. I’m confident that what I’m doing is working because when I woke up today, I had only one chin, and my knees don’t have fat buttresses on either side of them anymore. Yet it would be nice to see some numbers side by side so I can have my
yay, me, three inches!
moment. But according to Betty Birthmark, they do the tape measure only once a month, and today’s not my day.

While I was waiting to go into my session and find out about my whopping .2 pounds, I browsed the celebrity magazines in the lobby. A
People
magazine was marked, and I opened it to read about Valerie Bertinelli’s success on Jenny Craig. Turns out she celebrated her son’s big day not with triple-layer fudge cake and thick mocha icing, but with a plate of Jenny mac ’n’ cheese, which only highlighted how rigid I find the eating plan. Why would I want to continue with a diet that doesn’t take real life into account? I understand birthday cake every day is a bad idea, but birthday cake
never
? That’s not a world I want to live in.

I am surly and withdrawn for the course of our post-weigh -in pep talk, and by the time I’m halfway home with my hateful groceries, I make my decision.

“Fletch . . . Fletch? Where are you?” I call, dropping my bags on the counter.

He pops into the kitchen. “I’m here. Do you need some help?”

“No, not with carrying stuff. I need an opinion. I look different, right? Thinner? I feel good on the inside, but can you see a difference from the outside?”

“Yes! Absolutely! You’re much more”—he makes a packing motion with his hands—“compact. Streamlined. Why do you ask?”

“I’m considering quitting Jenny and doing something else, like Weight Watchers’ online program.”

“How come?”

“Because I read an article where Valerie Bertinelli couldn’t eat a piece of cake at her son’s birthday party.”

“OK, then.” Sometimes he doesn’t even want the back-story.

“Yeah. I’m quitting. I’m not eating this stuff anymore.” I motion to the boxes splayed all over the table, slowly defrosting. “Again, I look good, right? You’d be honest with me?”

“You look great. But to confirm, you’re done? No more boxed food?”

“I am.” I take an orange out of the fruit bowl, wash it, and begin to peel.

He raises a lascivious eyebrow. “All right. Then there’s been something I’ve really wanted.”

What? There’s daylight! And we’re in the kitchen! And there’s no wine! But I am thinner, and I do look good. . . .

Fletch begins to reach. His arm encircles me . . . before he plunges it into one of my bags of food. He digs around and fishes out a box of silver dollar pancakes and veggie sausage.

"Mmm,” he says. "Breakfast!”
¹⁴⁶

“Wouldja look at these morose motherfuckers?
¹⁴⁷
Have they been like this all day?” Fletch gestures to the dogs, draped on either side of the couch, heads resting on paws, staring despondently out the window.

“Probably. They’re bored and they’ve been alone most of the day. I was at the gym early this afternoon and then I came back to shower before going out again to the nail salon. See? Look.” I waggle my fingers at Fletch, proudly displaying my fresh manicure in Lippman’s Dark Side of the Moon.

“Yikes. What to you call that color? Black? Muffy Goes Goth?” Fletch asks.

“They aren’t black; they’re a deep, deep wine, and this is a very stylish color.” I hold my foot up to the light coming in from the window and admire. Oh, so cute! If you ask me, this shade of near black is so much prettier than OPI’s Lincoln Park After Dark or Chanel’s Vamp.
¹⁴⁸

“Didn’t you just get your nails done last week?”

“Yeah,
dad
, but the place is supercheap, and it just opened so they’ve got brand-new equipment. They have massage chairs that punch you so hard you’re practically tossed out of them, and they totally work out all the knots. My back is really sore from running, so I figured I could either go the chiropractor and fork over a twenty-dollar copay, or I could go to the nail salon, pay ten dollars more to sit in the punch-y chairs,
and
save myself the time and effort of having to do my nails myself. Genius, right?”

“I guess, except now that the dogs were alone all day, they look about ready to commit suicide.” Big sad eyes look up at us. Loki sighs and blinks while Maisy gives her tail a wan little wag, thumping quietly against the leather of the couch. “Should we take them out for a
w-a-l-k
?”

“I don’t know—why don’t you ask them if they want one? Hey, dogs? Do you . . .
wanna go for a walkies
?” Suddenly the world’s most despondent creatures rocket off the couch. Loki spins around in circles, howling with joy, and Maisy tears up and down the hallway, banking off the ottoman every time she hits the living room.

“I’m going to take that as a yes.” Fletch attempts to leash the beasts while I go to the kitchen to collect small plastic grocery bags to scoop poop. We used to keep a cool little holder snapped to each of their leashes that came with its own special bags, but we finally figured out that the bags cost fifty cents apiece. Maisy always gets so excited during walks that she’ll go three or four times, and I told Fletch we may as well be wiping her ass with dollar bills.

Five minutes later, the dogs are finally corralled and double collared. We lock the front door and trot down the stairs. Fletch asks, “Where to?”

“Why don’t we walk by that little playground park? Other dog owners hang out there, and it might be nice for these two to socialize,” I suggest. We take off down the street, practically waterskiing behind our respective mutts. Loki stops to lift his leg on every pole, post, and tree for the next four blocks. Maisy won’t go until we get to a grassy area, so she chugs ahead like a stinky little steam engine.

We arrive at the park in a few minutes and it’s almost exactly like that Chicago song, except the man selling ice cream is actually hawking churros and
elotes
.
¹⁴⁹
It’s twilight, so the heat of the day is finally starting to dissipate and the whole neighborhood seems to be out here enjoying the evening. Kids climb the jungle gyms, and old men decked out in straw hats and guayaberas play chess on stone benches with transistor radios softly playing mariachi music beside them. And our dogs, being the social creatures they are, lose their minds at the site of so many people they’ve yet to lick. Seriously, who would want to live in the suburbs when there’s so much interesting stuff going on here?

We let the neighborhood children pet the dogs until one of them starts to yank on Loki’s ears and tail. Whereas Maisy would take this kind of abuse all day, Loki gives us a look that says, “You’ve got exactly five seconds to make this stop before I do.” We quickly say good-bye to the kids and hustle the dogs along.

When we reach the end of the playground, we walk past a giant public pool. I’ve known it was here for years but always assumed it was all squalid and awful. I wrote it off as being like Caddy Day at Bushwood, with floating Baby Ruth bars and stray scabby Band-Aids and grody kids leaking sewage out the sides of their rubber swim pants. No, thanks.

Right now this place doesn’t look at all like the fetid cesspool I’d always assumed it was; rather, it’s a big, sparkly, cerulean gem, its calm waters reflecting the halogen lights around it. I turn to Fletch and say, “I just found the solution to my pool lust.”

“Very nice,” he agrees. “I didn’t expect it to be so clean. I figured it would be all broken bottles and stray newspapers.”

“Let’s see if we can find a schedule,” I say, and we navigate the dogs around the large Tudor-style field house. We quickly locate a bulletin board with pool information on it, and it’s full of times to come and swim for free.

Jen’s Life Lesson #1287: Even if your parents move, it’s possible to get your wallow on.

Fletch and I are on one of our daily Target jaunts. We keep a permanent list of what’s running low on the fridge, yet we always seem to need something here. I suspect we’re not really out of stuff; rather, these constant errand runs are Fletch’s excuse to drive the new car. Even though we’ve had it a couple of months now, I’ll often catch him in the garage, gazing at it for no reason.
¹⁵⁰