Slim to None Page 9

  "I just wish someone had warned me when I took the job that I was being employed by Judas Iscariot. At least now I know who I can trust around here." I storm out of his office, a tempest in stretch nylon I am.

  I navigate my way through a cluster of colleagues, all exchanging niceties with one another, discussing their exciting weekends. A couple of people say hello to me but I dodge them for the most part, wend my way to the far corner of the office and find my new office: a cubicle between the gal who writes movie reviews and one who writes obituaries.

  I sit down to my new (old) desk, and sift through the stack of mail that has gathered since last week. There is a noticeable absence of invitations, announcements of restaurant openings, and any other hint of my former stature. Obviously Barry has pillaged my inbox along with every other aspect of my professional life. All this time he fed me like a fatted calf. While I stood there with mouth wide opened. Why I oughtta...

  My gaze is drawn to an envelope with familiar looking handwriting on it. The scrawl looks like something they teach you in med school, it’s that illegible. But I do recognize the name on the front: Abigail Louise Cartwright Jennings. Jennings in parentheses, oddly.

  I open the letter to find this:

  Dear Abbie,

  Get it? Dear Abbie. Like the famous newspaper column?

  I know, you’re not laughing right now. I know you’re not, because even after all these years, I know my Muffin. You probably don’t believe it, but I do. After everything that’s come between us, even.

  Muffin. I flinch at that reference.

  I saw you in the Post the other day. Usually I go straight to the sports, then Page Six. But when I saw that face smack on the cover, hot damn, I knew it was you. It was a no-brainer. I didn’t even know your last name—you got married?—but I could tell. I saw your mother and me in your face.

  I guess life’s gotten ahead of us, hasn’t it? I had a stroke a few years back and can’t move like I could. Now they tell me my ticker’s ticking down. Nothing much for me to do each day other than read the obituaries in the local paper and maybe watch a few ball games on TV. I know it’s too late to make amends. I don’t even want your forgiveness—I don’t deserve it. But I do owe you some explanations. I’ve got some things to say that I think you should hear. I beg of you, please indulge an old man his dying request.

  He proceeds to give me a phone number at the nursing home he’s at in Jersey. As if I’m going to go visit him. Give a dying man a chance to alleviate his guilt. As if. My father, the commodian. He should be flushed. I forgot that he had a really corny sense of humor at times. He didn’t know I was married? So what. Would he have even cared? Historically his track record would prove that not to be the case. He says we haven’t seen each other in too many years to even recall? Well, I can recall, to the precise hour.

  I was eleven years old. It was 9:31 p.m. My chocolate pound cake, which I was baking from scratch, was due to come out of the oven in eleven minutes. The perfume of warm chocolate was at that point wafting throughout the kitchen, where I sat at the pink speckled formica tabletop working on my history homework. I got up to start fixing the penuche frosting, had the butter melting on the stove in one pan, the milk heating up in another. I added the brown sugar to the butter, stirring till it boiled, then let it thicken for a minute.

  Upstairs the arguing had commenced. Tonight was worse than previous nights—I could tell that things were being thrown. The sound of heavy objects hitting the walls reverberated downstairs to the kitchen. I began to hum to myself. When that didn’t work, I started to read aloud my recipe, over and over again, louder and louder to block out the sounds from above.

  Something shattered, I don’t know what. I heard heavy footsteps on the staircase. My father pushed open the kitchen door—it was the type of door that swung open on a hinge and closed behind itself, like at a wild west saloon. Which was probably fitting, because this sounded like the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. My father didn’t say a word, but he was breathing heavily, as if he’d just run a couple of miles. His hand was bleeding in about five different places. He walked over to the kitchen sink, turned on the water, and ran it over his the wounds. I could see the overhead light refracting in the shards of glass sticking out of his palm.

  "You making a cake, Muffin?"

  My dad called me this affectionate nickname, Muffin, just like that really sweet dad on Father Knows Best used to call his daughter Kitten. It always made me feel special. About the only thing that did, though.

  The irony does not escape me that his nickname for me was food-related. Christ, my parents should’ve just named me Betty Crocker, or Little Debby, and cemented my fate early on.

  I couldn’t bring myself to say anything, so I just nodded my head up and down. A mute bobble-head doll.

  "Smells great. Mind if I try a swipe of this?"

  With that he scooped his finger, blood dripping from his hand, into the mixture I had on the stove, his blood blending with the caramelizing brown sugar.

  "You sure can cook, Muffin. Just like your Gigi."

  He leaned over me from behind and planted a short kiss on the top of my head. He grabbed the dishtowel out of my hands, pressing it up against his bleeding palm.

  "Look, Muffin—" he started to say. But then he didn’t say anything more. He just turned me around and stared at me for a long couple of seconds.

  "I’ve gotta go. You’ll be okay, won’t ya?"

  I didn’t have a chance to answer. He was gone, lickety split.

  I took the cake out of the oven and let it cool to the backdrop of my mother’s loud sobs upstairs. When she finally came down I was spreading the penuche frosting across the top of the cake in delicate swirls. I could tell by the disapproving look on her puffy face that my cake would not last long intact in her kitchen. So I took the heavy glass lid of the cake pedestal and covered the cake with it. Then I walked out the front door and took my masterpiece to my grandma.

  She came to the door in her housecoat and curlers, her short gray hair barely wrapping around the rods.

  "That’s a beautiful cake you made there, Abbie. You should be proud of it."

  I set the cake down, hugged my grandmother, and finally allowed myself to cry.

  Éclair Dessert

  To this day, I’ve never made another chocolate pound cake, so I haven’t got a recipe to share with you. I do, however, have a yummy dessert that I think you’ll enjoy just as much.

  Line 13"x9" pan with graham crackers.

  mix filling

  3 c. milk (whole, of course, no skim here, thank you)

  2 boxes of French vanilla instant pudding

  Beat those together, let set for 5 minutes, then fold in one 9-oz. container Cool Whip

  Pour mix on top of crackers.

  Top with another layer of graham crackers.

  mix topping

  Melt together:

  3 squares (3 oz.) of semi-sweet chocolate

  1-1/2 c. powdered sugar

  3 tbl. milk

  3 tbl. butter

  Pour on top of graham cracker crust and chill.

  I’ve been on a diet for two weeks and all I’ve lost is two weeks.

  Totie Fields

  Sear Ego in Reality, Simmer until Tender

  God, I need to get off the maudlin-mobile here and get cracking on my column or I’ll never get out of this place, and right now, I need to get away from all reminders of my life upheaval.

  I’ve been wrestling with how to handle this "food" column. I mean, I already wrote about food in my first incarnation at the Sentinel. Maybe I should take readers along on my current journey since they followed me on my food journey as well. Do people want to read about my chubetto woes? Will this merely reinforce my standing as now a fat person rather than a highly-respected food writer? Do I want to put my
raw emotions out there for public consumption? And why can they consume yet now I’m not allowed to consume (unless I want to stay underemployed).

  The more I think about it, the more I think my readers deserve to understand not only me, fat or not, but anyone like me. To know that we’re far more than the superficial exterior they see and then stop at. Surprisingly, the words flow like marinara from a gravy boat once I start typing.

  Are You An "Eat to Live", or a "Live to Eat"?

  Or: Can You Just Be an "Eat to Eat"?

  To many people food is just a functional part of daily living. Something they need, but don’t give much credit to. Like toilet paper. Although I guess technically you don’t need toilet paper, but you know what I mean. These people are known as ectomorphs: by definition, tall with long lean limbs. My slender friend Jess is an ectomorph.

  But then to others—me included—food is Food, with a capital "F." It’s so much more than sustenance; it’s a lifestyle. It’s indulgence. It’s soul-nurturing. It’s gratifying. It’s life.

  We’re called endomorphs. I can remember that because the prefix "end," reminds me that endomorphs tend to have big rear-ends.

  Do you know the official definition of an endomorph? Somebody whose body has a stocky build and a prominent abdomen. God, that sucks.

  I started a diet recently, and so food has weighed heavily (excuse the pun) on my mind lately. I’ve been pondering how different people view food and how that affects how they look.

  Not long ago, I offered to send some pumpkin muffins home with a co-worker. Cindy, his beautiful and slender ectomorph-of-a-wife hadn’t been feeling well, so I thought maybe the treat would cheer her up.

  "Are you kidding me?" he asked, eyes wide with incredulity.

  "Do you know what Cindy sees when she sees a pumpkin muffin?" he pointed accusingly at the perpetrators, the warm umber-colored delectable little breakfast treats sitting innocently on the plate under a light dusting of powdered sugar.

  "She sees four hundred and forty calories, fifty carbs, fifteen grams of fat, arteries hardening, a bloated stomach, and basic all-around misery," he joked.

  Whoa. All that wretched desolation in a sweet little innocent food offering?

  Now I will grant you this: Cindy looks damn good in clothes. She’s got a body fat index of about minus fifty. She’s probably never in her life wrestled with what to wear before going out, searching for the outfit that will best hide her figure and that she can successfully zipper up. But then again, maybe Cindy’s missing out when it comes to the joys of food.

  When I look at a pumpkin muffin, I see the brilliant orange glow of a sugar maple in its full autumnal glory. I see the crisp blue sky of October, so clear and restorative and reassuring. I see hayrides, and I feel Halloween just around the corner, kids dressed up in homemade costumes, bobbing for apples and awaiting trick or treat. I think of children dressed as Pilgrims in a pre-school parade, or a Thanksgiving feast, the bounty of harvest foods burdening a table with its goodness. I picture pumpkins at a farmer’s market, piled happy and high, awaiting a new home where children will carve them into scary faces or mothers will bake them into a pie or stew.

  Yeah, somewhere in my guilt-ridden soul, I know that the pumpkin muffin is The Enemy, that for a grown-up it’s off-limits to see joy in it. But it saddens me that I even have to view it that way.

  Perhaps this is how we view food in a society that has too much. Food becomes wretched excess. Because in another society—say, in sub-Saharan Africa, where food is often a luxury—a pumpkin muffin would be treasured. Maybe we are a society of spoiled, overindulged, overfed hedonists-gone-awry. And isn’t that just a little bit sad?

  Now that I have started this diet, I suppose I, too, will have to view those pumpkin muffins with a level of hostility. For now, they are Enemy Number One. But I will miss the sensory pleasure of such calorie-laden luxuries, and will be counting the minutes until I can again contemplate indulging in these simple joys without remorse.

  I sit back at my desk and read over my words. Wow. A week ago I’d not have imagined what I could write about in this column that would do justice to my readers, but now it all comes pouring out of me in a pique of fat-girl angst. I read and re-read the thing, wondering if I am bold—or crazy—enough to splay myself out there on the slaughtering block of public opinion when it comes to food. I mean, girls like me aren’t so inclined to publicize much about ourselves that relates to body size and caloric consumption. True as it is that while I might only eat the same amount of food that Jess does, I retain it while she burns it, and there’s just no sense in making this argument public.

  Plus, I won’t deny that I’m dueling with a tricky carving knife, one side of whose blade is a lack of willpower, and the other an overwhelming appreciation of food. That combined with poor metabolism and a possible connection with abandonment issues and food filling a void in my life have helped me to land in this swamp of excess in which I’m mired.

  Normally I find—at least on a face-to-face basis—that I instinctually try to deflect any potential fatso insults by being too up front about it voluntarily. I tend to readily offer up the notion that I’m oversized to most anyone willing to listen. Mind you, I’m not fishing for a complement, not looking for someone to say, "Oh, no, Abbie, you’re not fat." Instead, I am trying to head off the potential insult before it can be used as a tool against me. I mean, if I come right out and say, "hey, I know I’m fat," it certainly defuses the artillery of cruel words before they’re launched at me.

  But saying this to an intimate audience of a few is one thing. Admitting this to a potential readership of tens of thousands is another. I won’t be merely admitting I’m in need of a serious diet; I’ll be officially branding myself as fat. Making myself the poster child of chubby. Dangerous territory, I will say.

  I ponder whether to just hit the send button and forward this onto my editor, or instead hit delete, and start anew, maybe write about something universal like the seasonal quest for the finest asparagus. But then, with the timing of divine intervention, my eyeglasses fall off my face, landing hard enough on the return key to jettison my column and its inherent acknowledgment of my own shortcomings through cyberspace, before I have a chance to make up my own mind.

  Abbie’s Favorite(Low-diet!)Pumpkin Bread

  4 c. flour

  2/3 tsp. baking powder

  2-1/4 tsp. baking soda

  1-1/2 tsp. salt

  1 tsp. cinnamon

  1 tsp. cloves

  1/2 tsp. ginger

  1/2 tsp. allspice

  3/4 c. cold water

  5 eggs

  3-1/2 c. sugar

  3 c. pumpkin

  1-1/3 c. oil

  Grease three loaf pans with plain Crisco shortening.

  Sift dry ingredients together.

  In separate bowl, beat eggs well. Add sugar, beat well. Add pumpkin, oil, water, beat well on low speed to incorporate. Add dry ingredients, mix well.

  Fill pans 2/3 full.

  Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour, until golden brown and toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

  Freezes well.

  Please God, if you can’t make me thin...make my friends fat."

  Confucius (just joking!)

  Dredge the Past, Marinate with Memories, and Sprinkle with Regret

  Your father contacted you? Your deadbeat dad?" Jess is incredulous as I describe the letter my dad sent to me. "He’s got some damned nerve!"

  God, I hate to dredge up my childhood. It is really just unpleasant. And it makes me crave some sort of comfort food, maybe a roasted porc et choucroute, something warm and filling and loaded with fat. I ask the waitress if the chef can fix up something like that and she looks at me like I’m mad.

  "I’m sorry, ma’am. La Lettuce only serves salads. But you can add shrim
p or chicken to the salad if that helps." The restaurant choice was Jess’ idea of helping out.

  Lucky me. This promises to be a memorable meal. Jess and I order our respective rabbit food, and continue on.

  "I don’t know. He’s dying or something. Wants to explain things."

  "So like his type. Goes off and does whatever he damn well pleases and then comes gallivanting back into your life just in time to keel over, expecting you to absolve him of his behavior? That way you get to cry all over again because now you’ve found him and he’s leaving you yet again? What does he think—he’s directing a Lifetime movie? Bastard."

  Jess is one of my staunchest defenders, an ally you want to have when you go into battle. My father is assuredly not going to have Jess on his side on this one, and may want to consider donning chain mail as protective gear. Jess can be a human lawn mower when she wants to be.

  "Meh. I don’t see what good it’ll do to go see him. I’m over him. He was over me long ago. He showed me that by walking out that door. What do I owe him? A big fat nothing. Speaking of big and fat and me, I saw your doctor fellow the other day." I reach for a sugar packet, reconsider, and instead open a packet of Sweet ‘N Low, stirring it into my iced tea. I take a sip and spit it back into the glass. Gah! People use this stuff on a regular basis?

  "You saw Dex?" Jess’ eyes light up. "What’d ya think—he’s pretty hot, isn’t he?"

  The eye-lighting thing gives me pause and I set my drink down.

  Jess backpedals a little bit. "I meant Dr. Crenshaw." She’s positively glowing, like a pregnant woman.

  "Yes, Dr. Crenshaw is heavenly," I say. "Not that it made the event any easier. Packed like a sausage into that hospital gown and having all of those embarrassing things forced upon me."