Slim to None Read online

  I look at him, bedazzling man that he is, then glance down at me, overweight and busting out of a dingy hospital gown, and my spirits fall faster than an erection in a cold shower. Not that I’d be pursuing Dex-baby, anyhow. No! I’m happily married. Except I haven’t heard a thing from my husband since he disappeared on me at the zenith of my despair, so maybe I’m only half-happily married. My half. Haffily married, maybe. Although to be fair, William doesn’t even know about all that’s gone down in my life. I didn’t want to ruin his weekend with the details. So it’s not as if he’s deliberately avoiding me. Besides, I’ve got a man-god in front of me, and can’t a girl fantasize a little? Except when that moment of truth dope-slaps me into reality, like it or not. Abbie Jennings is not Dex Crenshaw material. I just wanted some old fellow named Doc Crenshaw, someone who wouldn’t snicker at my weight and embarrass me to no end.

  "Ms. Jennings?" he looks up at me over the chart, his eyebrow cocked up in inquisition. Which is what this feels like. The Inquisition. What’s it his business what I’m here for?

  I hem and haw over my words, not quite sure how to ‘fess up to the studly doc that I’m hear to discuss, er, um, uh, (diets! Shhhhhh!).

  "Says on your chart you wanted to discuss ways to ‘perhaps be less zaftig’," he reads in broken words verbatim from what I wrote on the registration forms. Right to the core of it, that’s me. Less zaftig. Who am I fooling?

  I squeak out a one-word reply. "Yeah."

  The doctor chuckles, shaking his head back and forth. "Less zaftig. Okay, then. First let’s talk about you."

  I don’t talk about me. I talk about food. It’s what I am known for. Me? Not so much. No one even knows about me. Well, they know about me, but they never knew who I was. Until now. Which reminds me of why I’m here.

  "I’m looking at your vital statistics," he says, leafing through some notes on my chart. Notes probably written in red. "To tell you the truth, Mrs. Jennings—"

  "Please, if I’m going to sit her in a state of virtual undress, we might as well be on familiar terms. I’m Abbie." I then finally reach out my hand to shake it. I notice he doesn’t offer up his first name back.

  "Anyhow, Abbie, your blood pressure is quite high. We’ll be testing your blood sugars. If you’re not careful you’re looking at a case of Type II diabetes, or even a heart attack. I’m glad you’re here to, uh, make yourself less zaftig. This is a good plan of action. You’re still so young, and you have such a pretty face."

  Such a pretty face. Such a pretty face. If I weren’t a lady and if I weren’t in a state of disrobement and feeling vulnerable I think I’d like to wind up and punch this guy in the nose. I hate that phrase. Such a pretty face. Pretty face, my ass. As if how one looks is more important than what one is like. Who gives a care about faces or not? Why can’t I be special, looks be damned?

  I smile a grimace of a smile. "I’m not sure whether I should be flattered or insulted. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and pick the former."

  Doctor Crenshaw only looks confused and continues his stream of thought. "Have you given any thoughts to a plan of action? I’m happy to sit down with you and discuss suggestions for how to get this going. Perhaps you’d like to see a nutritionist. Do you watch your intake of calories? Do you exercise? Are you mindful of your cholesterol?"

  I am being machine gun-pelted with questions for which I have no answer, so I shake my head no to each one as he looks quasi-dismayed at me for my lack of restraint and self-maintenance or excess of gluttony, take your pick.

  "The bottom line, Abbie, is this mathematical equation: calories in, calories out. You eat ’em, you gotta burn ’em, it’s as simple as that."

  Simple schmimple. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t be the fattest nation in the world. Though I don’t think it’s particularly fair that I got fat in this country, because it’s not like I’m eating fast food, which is how everyone else has apparently porked up.

  "I’m looking on your chart here and it says Jess Jamison referred you to me?" I notice his eyes light up significantly at the mention of her name.

  "Yes, Jess. She’s a good friend of mine."

  "Oh. I see. Well, she’s a patient of mine and all."

  For a minute I think I see him blush. Nah, can’t be.

  "She’s a great gal," I say.

  "And then some," he says under his breath. Whatever that means.

  I perk my eyebrow up, waiting for him to elaborate, but instead he takes my folder with my chart and bangs the bottom edge of it against the surface of the desk, as if he’s straightening out a deck of cards. Okay, then.

  He and I talk for a while, he recommends that I join a gym, start out slowly, start cutting back portions, and it will be healthy for me to lose a pound a week, tops. So to calculate the loss, that would be a pound a week for six months, four pounds a month that would be, four times six is twenty-four. Uh, twenty-four pounds? That’s not gonna get me my job back, that’s for sure. Maybe if I reverse those numbers I’d start inching toward the ballpark figure. Ballpark. Makes me think of Sabrett’s. After this appointment, I could stop and get a Sabrett’s hot dog from Joey Fabrizio, a vendor I love to visit when I’m near Times Square. That would make all of this stress go away, at least for a little while.

  "And I think you might want to start giving some real thought to what’s at the root of your overeating," the doctor is saying to me now.

  "I don’t overeat!" I insist, all evidence to the contrary.

  "Clearly you have some need to feed, Mrs. Jennings. The sooner you figure out why, the better."

  "I’m a food critic, Doctor Crenshaw. I eat for a living. I have no choice in the matter!" I’m feeling a tad bit hysterical. Can’t he see that I’m not some sort of overeater or whatever he thinks I am (that I’m obviously not)?

  "Oh, sure!" He says, snapping his fingers in recollection and then pointing at me. "That’s where I recognize you!" He rifles around in his trash bin and pulls out the now infamous headline. It’s at least reassuring that yesterday’s news becomes today’s trash, so maybe hardly anybody even noticed it. "That’s you, isn’t it?" He smacks the picture, just like Mortie did yesterday. As if I needed a damned reminder.

  There I am, in living, grainy color: my lips, half-wrapped around a cigar-shaped piece of baklava, looking as if I’m making love to my pastry. A veritable baklava blow-job, I realize now. Jesus, thank god the headline didn’t read: THERE SHE BLOWS. I should be grateful for small favors. Besides which, that pastry was good, but it certainly wasn’t orgasmic. If I could remember what that feeling even is at this point, it’s been so long since William and I, er, since I had a baklava-like experience, I’ll say.

  "I think I’d better go now," I say. "Thanks for your great suggestions. I’ll be sure to do them. All. Every last one of them." I flick my hand at him as if shooing away a particularly annoying insect. Thank goodness for high medical costs, insurance issues and malpractice, because no doctor can afford to stick around for longer than a few minutes anyhow, so the doctor, handsome or not, gets up, shakes my hand yet again, and skedaddles out of the room.

  And I am left to shovel myself back into my Flexees and the rest of my ensemble and go forth and figure out how to diet, now that I have official confirmation of the need for such dramatic measures. And maybe I’ll not get that Sabrett, after all.

  My wife is a light eater. As soon as it’s light, she starts to eat.

  Henny Youngman

  Add Salt Water and Whip into a Frenzy

  You’re back?"

  I’m startled to see that William has arrived home without advance notice. Cognac barrels over to me and jumps up against my chest. It’s probably a testament to my size that I can withstand a full-fledged pounce by a 100-pound Bernese mountain dog. But I also like to see this as an advantage to being a little bit larger: I’ve got staying power—noth
ing knocks me down easily. Cognac’s tongue swipes a trail of beef-scented slobber across my cheek.

  I’m loaded with grocery bags, a sure sign that something is up with me.

  "Yeah. Weather was bad, so we decided to come back early," he says. "You stressed out about something?" He points at my bags, knowing as he does that this means cooking is on the horizon and that stress and cooking go hand-in-hand for me. He leans over and gives me a cursory peck on the saliva-free cheek. Not that I’d notice the cursory part of that, but I’d like to think that after being gone for a couple of days there might be an elevated level of enthusiasm with one’s spouse. And I’d also like to think that the absentee spouse would be the one inclined to offer up said zeal. Just like Cognac has done. At least my pooch missed me. But I guess I’ll need to be satisfied with a mere peck from my husband.

  Hmmm...Maybe I’m feeling a little vulnerable, what with this huge life-rejection I’ve just suffered? Surely William is nothing but my ally. Right?

  "What’s new, babe?" He grabs a carrot from the fridge and rinses it before taking a large chomp out of it.

  I study his face for a minute to see if it betrays any knowledge of what is new with this babe (not to be confused with the squiggly-tailed Babe of oinker fame). But it’s a blank slate, as far as I can tell. It appears that William is ignorant to my news. I wonder if I can just pretend nothing’s new. I mean, after all, it’s not like he follows me around and knows what I do all day, right? And heck, that newspaper article? Lining bird cages and wrapping dead fish all over the city by now. Yesterday’s news, my friend!

  I begin to unpack my groceries, putting the heavy cream in the refrigerator, the whole chicken onto the cutting board, the basil in some water, and set aside the sun-dried tomatoes and thyme. I reach into the fridge for the eggs, and pull the flour out of the food pantry.

  I rinse the bird, dry her off well, season the skin with my special blend of secret herbs and spices, wedge several large dollops of butter beneath her tender flesh, and pop her into a dutch oven pan then into the convection oven to roast.

  "What’s new?" I ponder, drumming my fingers across the cutting board. "Well? Let me see. I’ve become a cover model, it seems. An unwilling one, in fact. And I’ve learned that everyone is replaceable in their job, even if you’re really, really good at it."

  Then I set about making the pasta: mounding the flour, forming a small well, adding the eggs and massaging the ingredients with my fingers, gently marrying the two together bit by bit, eventually kneading the mass into one. As I press the heel of my hand into the ball of dough, I put a little extra oomph into each thrust: Take that! Mortie. Take that! Dr. Crenshaw. Take that! Crappy metabolism. Take that, Abbie, for letting yourself get so out of control and now having no damneding clue about how to get it together. Take that, stupid Abbie.

  "I’ve met a new and extremely handsome doctor, like it or not, and amazingly enough, I’ve learned that I have a pretty face. Which apparently conflicts radically with the rest of me."

  With that the waterworks are switched on, and a stream of tears descends from my eyes directly onto my ball of pasta dough, which can’t be a good thing. I don’t want to run the risk of imparting a bitter flavor into my fresh tagliatelle, so I tilt my head up and back, avoiding the food, but then the tears well up into my eyes, so instead I stand upright with firm posture, and they flow down either cheek and meet in a confluence at my chin(s), then trickle down my neck.

  William looks a little confused, but nevertheless he walks over and puts his arms around me, collecting flour and tears on his pressed white button-down as he pulls my head against his chest.

  "Why don’t you take it from the top and tell me what this is all about, Abs, okay?" He strokes my hair gingerly with his fingers, which feels divine.

  "I’m going to die—" I begin.

  "You’re dying?" he interrupts, shock in his voice.

  "Oh, God no. I mean not now. Some day. But hopefully not till I’m old. No, I’m going to diet." And I begin to bawl again.

  And then I deluge him in a hurricane of details: the restaurant and the food and the pies and the job and the no job and the doctor and the diets and by the way, how does roast chicken and fresh pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and basil in a cream sauce sound for an early dinner?

  At which point he sort of pushes me back off of his chest, then, extending his arms, he presses his hands on either of my shoulders and looks me straight in the eyes. He repeatedly dabs away the tears with his thumb, which he keeps wiping across my apron. I sob a few times, interspersed with great heaving gasps for good measure.

  "Honey, I thought you just said you were going to diet?"

  "Well, yeah," I say.

  "Homemade pasta? Heavy cream sauce? That sounds like a diet for a starving refugee who needs to beef up suddenly in order to be able to swim the Olympic 100-meter butterfly time trials in the morning."

  I peer up at him like a student might look at a professor after having been caught cheating on an exam. My lower lip trembles, the floodgates poised to re-open.

  "Well," I say, with no other ammunition in my artillery.

  "Well?"

  "Well, I was planning on having a smaller portion. And no seconds."

  "No seconds. No doubt," he says as his face breaks out into a grin. He grabs the tip of my nose between his pointer and middle finger and tweaks with his thumb. "Silly Abbie, are you sure you want to do this diet? I think you’re looking at this all wrong, honey. Let’s flip this ‘death sentence’ on its head. This is a fabulous chance for you to re-think your life a little bit! Maybe now is the time for you to take a step back, enjoy a little down time. You and I could even take some time off to travel. Or make that baby we’ve talked about..."

  He’s bringing up the baby thing at a time like this? We haven’t talked about that baby! He’s talked about that baby. While I’ve busied myself with food prep or scrubbing the toilet or something equally escapist. It’s not that I don’t want a baby, but my God, I’m a busy woman! Although at the moment, nothing could be further from the truth. I’m practically a retiree. If I didn’t yearn to keep my job so badly, and if I was a manageable size, now would be about the primest of times to pursue that biological mandate. Although what on earth would I do with a baby? That seems like quite an undertaking, if you ask me. And I don’t mean undertaking like committing to making risotto, and trust me, once you get going with that, you’re stuck with it—you can’t leave the stove till it’s done. No! A baby means you’re tied up for the next, oh, eternity! How could I do my job that way? You think I’m recognizable now, showing up to a restaurant to review it in all of my fluffified glory? Well picture that, plus the baby weight I’d never shed, plus the baby! It stretches my imagination past the realm of possibility.

  "William, I thought we’d agreed to not talk about any babies," I whisper, thinking my solemnity will lend an air of hush to the conversation. As in hush up!!!

  "We’re not getting any younger," he says. He’s now got my head clasped between his hands and it’s like his eureka moment, only there are no gold nuggets involved. I can’t help but notice how well William has aged. He only has a slight sprinkling of salt in his hair, the color of which reminds me of fried rice. His face is wrinkle-free, but for laugh lines that only enhance his visage. And his physique, well, what can I say but that he’s a hell of a lot better at keeping up with himself than I am, that’s for sure. "Think about it! We don’t need your income. Our savings will keep us living comfortably forever, sweetie. You know that! What are we doing here anyhow? In this crazy city, with too many people and too much traffic and too many things to keep us away from, from, from us. Maybe we go off and live in Italy, just like we used to dream about." He scruffs my head in that friendly I-got-your-back kind of way.

  If this were a sitcom or TV drama, right now I’d be cuing the harp music, throwing
us back to umpteen earlier conversations in the same vein. The ones where William wants to blow this Popsicle stand and I just can’t seem to commit. I know it’s not necessarily fair of me to avoid this topic forever but this is my career, and you only get one shot at the big leagues.

  I remember when William started grumbling about city life. It took me by surprise, because we both loved living in Manhattan. It’s the city that doesn’t sleep—how could you not love it here?

  "Abbie, I have to tell you, my days are numbered with this type of living," he’d said. "I’m tired of the grind. I’m tired of having to navigate through hordes of people just to get from point A to point B. I’m tired of having to walk five blocks before being able to successfully hail a cab. I’m tired of going to a restaurant and being charged the price of tenderloin for a pimped-up hamburger."

  "But sweetie, I have to be here. This is the food capital of the entire nation. New York is the chicken part of the turducken. Smack dab in the center of it all. Without the chicken, you wouldn’t have turducken. Without New York, you wouldn’t have food!"

  Okay, so that might be a little histrionic. Of course there is food with or without New York. But maybe mere peasant food. Nothing trendy, experimental, downright heady in nature.

  "What happened to that family we were going to have? What happened to ‘Oh, William, I was so lonely as a child, I hated being stuck in the middle of my warring parents. I want to have lots of kids, a loud, happy household!’ What happened to that?"

  I hated to have my words thrown back in my face. But those words were spoken long before I had gained such traction as a professional foodie. Back then, William and I both loved food for food’s sake. It was about simple goals. Simplistic goals. Goals that got surpassed by bigger goals. I can’t understand why William didn’t get that. Kids? That can wait. But the pinnacle of my career only comes around once. How could he begrudge me that?