Slim to None Read online

Over a putrid spirulina wheat grass smoothie that tastes like something that has been ruminated from the stomach of a cow munching on a not particularly flavorful patch of grass in the median strip of a polluted highway, Jane and I talk. Well, more like we dance around hard core matters and talk very superficially about things. Jobs. Work. Jobs. Turns out Jane is a buyer for several boutique clothing stores in Jersey and makes frequent trips to Seventh Avenue for work. She has a flair for fashion, and in fact is downright passionate about it. Funny how I’m so not passionate about it, but perhaps that’s because fashion has never suited me, or suited my form, as it is. Fashion is a huge afterthought in my life, in fact. It’s all about hiding, not emphasizing. From what I gather from Jane, who, by the way, looks fabulous in a jog bra and clingy Under Armour shorts (no t-shirt over everything to hide imperfections, either), emphasizing one’s attributes can work, if you’ve got something attributable. I’m thinking that might happen for me in my next life.

  Jane slurps down her smoothie so quickly she orders another one. I’d gladly offer mine but probably not a great idea to share germs outside of immediate family members. Oh, but we essentially would be pretty much that. Only not immediate; rather by default. But genetically, there you have it.

  "Hey, you want to start meeting here to work out together?" she blurts out.

  Yikes. That would be like a date. She seems like a nice enough person, though. But does that make me somehow complicit in being part of my father and his whole lie if I socialize with Jane? Maybe if we’re just working out at the same time that’s okay.

  "Are you sure? I mean it’s awfully far for you to go—"

  She waves her hand at me, swatting at the notion. "No big deal. I’m in the city a lot, between work and I come to visit my sister—"

  Sister. One of those girls I saw?

  "I don’t know—" I hem and haw.

  "Really. It’ll be good. Keep us both on task coming here if there’s peer pressure to show up."

  I weigh the options in my head but know there’s no way I can just reject her without being rude and hurtful, so I succumb to peer—or would it be sibling—pressure.

  "Okay, then. Sure. Let’s."

  We make plans to get together and after she finishes drinking her second green smoothie, we part ways. Although I don’t feel as if I know her well enough yet to point out the pieces of green stuck in her teeth.

  Coffee Cake for the Scale-Averse

  1 yellow cake mix (preferably Duncan Hines)

  4 eggs

  1/2 c. vegetable oil

  1 c. sour cream

  1 package instant vanilla pudding

  1/2 c. sugar

  1/2 c. chocolate chips

  1/2 c. chopped pecans

  1 tbl. cocoa

  1 tbl. cinnamon

  Combine first five ingredients, beat for five minutes at medium speed. In separate bowl, combine remaining five ingredients. Beginning with batter, alternate cocoa-cinnamon mixture (you should get four layers of batter with 3 layers of cocoa mixture) in well-greased bundt pan. Bake about 55 minutes at 350 degrees. [you may have to reduce cooking time and temperature if using bundt pan with dark, non-stick interior]

  The second day of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second day you’re off it.

  Jackie Gleason

  Mix Regrets with Elation, Strain Carefully, Serve over Ice

  Another day, another diet. This one actually seems to makes sense. It’s called the Chew and Chew Diet and the idea is simple: rather than racing through a meal, you chew each bite exactly thirty-two times. The idea springs from the braintrust of the Great Masticator himself, Horace Fletcher. Think of him as the Richard Simmons of the late 1800’s.

  "Nature will castigate those who don’t masticate!" Was his time-honored mantra. I think we can all be grateful he didn’t choose the word masturbate instead. The Victorian world might not have cozied up to that notion. Or was it the Edwardian? They’re all the same to me.

  He claimed his Fletcherizing would turn a "pitiable glutton into an intelligent epicurean." Hey, seems to be the perfect diet for a food critic—after all, a food critic relishes each bite of food, right? And no food critic worth his or her salt (or sugar) wants to be considered a glutton.

  In reading about Mr. Fletcher, I realized that the man seemed to have had his head on straight when it came to this dieting business. After all, he advised against eating before being "good and hungry," or while angry or sad. I certainly could’ve used that advice over the past, oh, lifetime.

  It seems that our man Fletch kicked some Yalie butt at the ripe old age of fifty-eight, going mano a mano against Yale’s best athletes and whooping them, thanks to his mastication-induced stamina.

  I don’t know if this diet’s going to increase my overall strength, as Fletcher insisted, but damn, I expect my jawpower to increase exponentially. If nothing else perhaps I can be hired on by a freak show to be the lady who suspends a two-ton truck from her mouth. Now that would keep me from eating for a while.

  Interesting that Fletch was a low-pro man. He must have valued his communion wafers too much to give them up. Though he did die of a heart attack, so who knows? And interestingly, a little further research reveals a letter to the editor of a famed New York paper suggesting that Mr. Fletcher’s physique was much the same prior to his becoming a powerhouse, so perhaps the diet had little to do with it after all. It all comes down to genetics, doesn’t it? And from whence spring my genes? A psycho skinny mother who barely tipped a hundred pounds on the scale, and a father whose size I couldn’t even begin to tell you, since I spent most of my life without him.

  Speaking of New York papers, after preparing my mastication meal, I settle down with the Sentinel to catch up on the day’s news. After all, now that my picture is certain not to be in there, I don’t feel quite so threatened by the paper.

  After leafing through the headlines, I happen upon a story about a woman who was carjacked and kidnapped from a shopping mall parking lot just after purchasing new clothes to fit her newly-thin frame. Seems she’d lost fifty glorious pounds and was reveling in buying smaller clothes finally. Except that in the ensuing police chase to capture her carjackers, the woman died in a fiery crash.

  Wow. I chew on that for a while.

  How unfair: this poor woman spent probably the final year of her life—unbeknownst to her—in a state of denial of gastronomic pleasure. Albeit in pursuit of an important goal. But nevertheless, not allowing herself what she probably had regularly indulged in before. If she had known her days were numbered, would she have instead lived in the moment and not worried about the future so much? Would she have maybe found happiness within, with how she was, regardless of her size?

  Or would she have been more content to know she’d accomplished a daunting goal? Enjoying the attention she was all of a sudden—finally—garnering. Loving looking at herself in the mirror. Maybe donning some figure-hugging Victoria’s Secret undies? Certainly spritzing on the perfume!

  The woman’s family said that she’d been such a happy person that she had no loose ends to resolve, and that everyone was at peace with their loss.

  Again, wow. Not that I want to envy a dead person, because I’m sure she’d rather be alive. And I sure don’t want to be her, even if she is thin. But what a gift she gave herself, being happy with whom she was, living each day to the fullest, leaving no loose ends...

  No regrets. If I died tomorrow, what would my regrets be? Well, first off, I’d regret that things weren’t resolved with William. Of course I’d regret that the most. I’d probably regret how I’ve handled my recent employment situation. Or lack thereof. And would I regret not having given my father—my ex-father, if you will—a chance to have his say? To give him the gift of leaving no loose ends, especially because he knows his days are numbered. It’s within my power to g
rant him this simple favor. Am I a big enough person (and I don’t mean that in the physical sense, this time) to give him that final gift?

  With William, I’m afraid the time is not right for me to try to rectify things. He’s not ready for me to come to him yet. He said as much. Yet where my father is concerned, I know, of course, that I can’t leave things till it’s too late. I’m carrying enough weight as it is without lugging around that additional burden.

  * * *

  Ah, Jersey. Who’d have known I’d be finding my way to the Garden State so soon after William’s last foray over the river. And to be headed to see my father, of all people. There was a time when about the only thing that would get me to Jersey was to review an especially spectacular restaurant. These fast-paced days just get ahead of you if you don’t watch yourself, I guess.

  As we cross the George Washington Bridge I stare back at the skyline of the city trying so hard to remember something, anything, good about my father. Somewhere in my retaliatory mind I managed to void any positive memories. I’m my own little dictatorship, censoring all information before releasing it to the public. Or to myself, for that matter.

  I start to recall one Christmas Eve, I think I was nine or ten years old. I’m dressed in a red and white candy cane-striped flannel nightgowns, the kind with the fringed cotton eyelet lace around the collar and hem. I have red fuzzy slippers with sparkly white pompoms made from fat strands of yarn shot with silver thread. I’m sitting on my father’s lap; he’s reading The Night Before Christmas to my rapt attention.

  "Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight," my father says, closing the book and lifting me off of his lap. "And now, you’d better get to bed, if you want Santa to come down the chimney and bring you Christmas gifts."

  I stand next to my father, cocoa-warm with delight: after all, here I am in my special holiday nightie my grandma had made for me. I hold the flannel in my hands and spread my arms out to admire myself and I spin in a circle of pleasure.

  "Daddy, can’t I stay up a little bit longer, please," I beg.

  He chuckles, swiping my bangs away from my eyes. "Sorry, Muffin, but you need to get to sleep right now. Santa’s rules!"

  "I have a present for you," I say to my father. I reach under the tree and pull out a small box wrapped in silver snowflake gift wrap, tied with a royal blue ribbon, and hand it to him, beaming.

  My father rips the package open and pulls out a pendant of a half of a heart. The jagged center-line obviously bears a mate, which I have already secured around my own neck and tucked beneath my cozy nightgown.

  "The key to your heart!" He gasps, as if he’s thrilled to be the recipient of my gift.

  I pull out my half of the necklace and smile. "Only yours and mine match to make it whole."

  "Muffin, this is something I will treasure for the rest of my life," my father assures me, bending down to kiss me on my forehead. And I believe him.

  How would I have known then that soon my father would forever take half of my heart away?

  * * *

  The nurse’s crepe-soled shoes whisper along the polished linoleum floor as she leads me to my father’s room. The wallpaper’s birds and butterflies mock the inhabitants of this place: not like they’re going to have a chance to be outside with real versions of such creatures much ever again. The hallway reminds me of one of those faux model homes you see in large housing developments that on the outside look like a cozy home, but on the inside it’s all business and set up for the sales staff to sell the rest of the houses in the complex. Sort of a reverse bait-and-switch for the old folks in here: they had their real home, now they’re in the one that’s made to replicate home, minus the warmth and all the vital components of one. No amount of decorative wallpaper in the world would make someone think this place was anything other than a place where people go to die.

  The smell of bland food wafts from the industrial kitchen and mingles with the aroma of antiseptics, industrial strength cleaners, and bodies slowing dying from the inside out.

  God, this place gives me the heebie jeebies. I’m afraid I’m going to turn a corner and see a guy garbed in a hooded cloak lugging a large scythe, crooking his finger my way.

  We pass a host of decrepit men and women in wheelchairs with blank looks in their eyes. They stare up at me as if they’re mute panhandlers begging for sustenance. Only there’s not much here that will sustain them for long, judging by my impression of the place. The background noise is a blended patter of dueling television programs coming from the community room—white wicker furniture with cheerful floral cushions and generic prints of mauve, baby blue and sage green irises hugging the walls—and the inmates’ rooms. I think it’s fair enough to call the residents herein inmates.

  Is this where people go to die when no one in the family chooses to deal with them any more? Is this where people like me who can never seem to find the time to expand my family end up, having no heirs to care for me? And is this just desserts for my father for his failures on my behalf?

  Gah! I have to believe that no one deserves to be piled into elder-pogroms like this. Of course at some point what do you do with aged relatives in failing health? I was lucky, if you call it that, that my Gigi passed so suddenly in her sleep that I never had to face these dilemmas. I only had to provide for her the proper funeral and burial.

  The day before Gigi passed away, I’d gone to her house so that we could make pies together, a tradition we’d established years ago to celebrate the harvest. She and I were big on rituals like that, honoring the passing of the seasons, celebrating quirky holidays and such. We even planted trees on Arbor Day.

  By then Gigi’s eyes were failing, clouded as they were with cataracts. But she could make a piecrust in the dark, her tactile skills as sharp as they were 20 years earlier. I never tired of watching my grandmother’s by-then gnarled fingers working the pastry dough till it was ready, blending and rolling and pinching the crust just so. A day earlier I’d cooked down two Musque de Provence pumpkins, elegant French heirlooms with a brilliant flesh with the intense coloring of a papaya. I took on the laborious task of peeling and quartering apples for the other pies we were making: all for Gigi to share with the ladies with whom she played poker every Wednesday night. Beer and pies, we laughed. What a combination!

  As the pies baked in her old gas oven that filled her kitchen with warmth, we sat down with a pot of tea at her authentic farm-style table.

  "This sure does remind me of old times," Gigi said.

  "I learned from the best." I smiled at her. "Thank you for that."

  "No need to thank me. I wanted to be sure I filled in where your mother left off—" She paused mid-sentence and covered her mouth with her hand to ward off the gaff. "Oh, baby, I didn’t mean it like that."

  "Don’t be silly. I know that. No worries," I said. "Besides, it was her fault she failed so miserably at being a mother."

  "Well, she tried."

  I barked out a jagged laugh. "Yeah, right." I began to pick at lint on my sweater. I hated talking about my parents.

  "Maybe it’s time you forgave your mother, Abbie," Gigi said, wrapping her hand around my lint-picking one. This was something we seldom discussed, and something I very much wanted to keep that way. Sort of like William and the baby thing.

  I held my fingers up to my ears and plugged them. "I can’t hear you!" I said really loudly.

  My grandmother wagged her coral-painted pointer fingernail at me. "You can go on ignoring me about this all you want. But I’m just looking after what’s best for you, honey. Always have, always will. And I think it would do your heart a world of good if you could forgive your mama for her failings." Funny we didn’t even bother to discuss forgiving my father. She was still boiling mad at him herself.

  "And then what? It’s all I know of her. Am I supposed to just forget it all?"

/>   My grandmother sighed and paused a long minute before continuing. "I’d like for you to remember the good in your life and let go of the bad. And I know you’ve had your share of bad, baby. Life’s not always been fair to you. But the truth of it is life’s not fair. Never has been, never will be. You’ve gotta take what you can out of it and just throw out the rest. The rest is just garbage that you don’t need to deal with."

  "Garbage is right." I frown. "I don’t know what would have come of me had you not saved me from them, Gigi."

  "Oh, Lordy, let’s not even worry about that. Fact is I did save you. I made sure my sweet Abbie had a home. That was the most important thing to me, you know."

  I nod. Of course it was. Weird, in a way, since my grandma wasn’t technically even a blood kin to me. But then again, two people who were genetically connected to me behaved as if they weren’t. So much for that "blood is thicker than water" theory.

  "And I know right down to the end your mother dropped the ball—"

  "That’s putting it mildly."

  "You know what I mean. But with everything that she did wrong, she did wrong for reasons we’ll never know. Though I betcha they actually had nothing to do with little Abbie and everything to do with her own set of demons."

  "And you’re defending her why?"

  "I’m not defending her, honey. I’m trying to get you to see that holding onto all of that negative energy is holding you back. It’s not letting you move forward and live your life the best that you can."

  "I’m the nation’s top food critic, you know? That’s not exactly small potatoes. And if that’s being held back, I wonder what I’m missing out on then."

  "What you’re missing out on is the ability to forgive. To forgive your mother for her failings. To forgive your father for his. And ultimately, to forgive yourself for taking the blame for them. If there’s one thing I need to do before I die—"

  "Don’t say that!" I hold my hands up against the thought.