picture her walking up the creaking steps toward her blood-colored childhood bedroom, surrounded by walls of obscure fantasy novels and towers of even more obscure dark wave CDs whose precise configuration I used to know by heart. With a hand on my stomach, I imagine her lying on her back in the too-small bed, a bed we slept on together so many nights in my teens, the twin mattress sagging beneath her, a moon through the window silhouetting her, the gentle rise and fall of her immense stomach, her slight snore, until my eyes close.
In the morning, when I step on the scale, I steel myself for the sight of the needle going up (that chocolate), but to my astonishment, itâs tipped down.
At the office, itâs the usual midmorning drudgery. Iâm doing the seven steps it takes to open the mail while drinking black coffee. Itsy Bitsy is scheduling, while secret-eating a kardemummabullar, a cardamom bun, at her desk. Sheâs pretending to secret-eat for my sake, to make me laugh, like look what a pig she is, she canât even wait until lunch. She over-crackles the paper bag, does shifty eyes before each superbite. Sheâs wearing this sixties minidress with matching white go-go boots like something stitched out of my nightmares. Seeing me watch her, she waves, her cheeks plump withkardemummabullar. I wave back, and the hate I feel is bottomless. The hate could drown us both. She swallows and mouths, Lunch, at me like itâs a question and I nod in spite of myself.
In that photo of my father and me, the one where Iâm as small as the girl I hate, the one where he is gazing down at me with such love and incomprehension, the one taken before he left and before I grew up heavy like my mother, Iâm looking right into the camera. It might have been the last time I looked right into a lens and smiled with no reservations, with no shame. He showed me this photo recently, when we met for a strained lunch on my last birthday, when I was at my biggest, before I met Tom, before I started losing. He included it in an album of photos that he gave me as part of my birthday gift, one that was presumably meant to show me that I hadnât always been fat. Look. See? Where did I get this idea? Maybe from my mother, he said. Probably it was all from my mother.
She
always struggled. But you? Look. But all I could see was the caption sticker above the photo that read, âGreat Time Every Time,â which I could never picture my father purchasing, let alone pasting decoratively into an album. Which is how I knew he hadnât put the album together himself. Probably heâd had one of his secretary-mistresses do it, or maybe it was a temp like me and the girl I hate.
My phone buzzes. Sheâs just texted me: âPineapple orgy at Kilimanjaro! Om-nom-nom-nom!!!! }8D.â
Iâve eaten there with her before. Itâs this sandwich and cake shop that has nothing to do with Africa, despite its name and decor. Under a black-and-white still of Serengeti cranes, Iâll watch her eat a monster-size ham and Gruyère panini with pineapple chutney, slurp down a mango, strawberry, and pineapple smoothie,then scarf a slice of pineapple upside-down cake. By the time the waitress sets that slice in front of her, Iâll have finished eating half of my veggie delite wrap, even though I will eat as slowly as possible. By the time she cuts into her cake, my hands will be empty. And with her mouth full of cake, sheâll say something about how Iâve only eaten half the wrap. She might even point. She might even reach across the table and point at it, my sad, uneaten other half. And Iâll have to say something awkward about wanting to save this other half for later, which weâll both know is a lie. I might even ask the waitress for a to-go bag, but she wonât be fooled. Sheâll look at me like, Huh, and take another bite of pineapple cake. I text back, ;D, and as I do this, the hate shifts,
In the morning, when I step on the scale, I steel myself for the sight of the needle going up (that chocolate), but to my astonishment, itâs tipped down.
At the office, itâs the usual midmorning drudgery. Iâm doing the seven steps it takes to open the mail while drinking black coffee. Itsy Bitsy is scheduling, while secret-eating a kardemummabullar, a cardamom bun, at her desk. Sheâs pretending to secret-eat for my sake, to make me laugh, like look what a pig she is, she canât even wait until lunch. She over-crackles the paper bag, does shifty eyes before each superbite. Sheâs wearing this sixties minidress with matching white go-go boots like something stitched out of my nightmares. Seeing me watch her, she waves, her cheeks plump withkardemummabullar. I wave back, and the hate I feel is bottomless. The hate could drown us both. She swallows and mouths, Lunch, at me like itâs a question and I nod in spite of myself.
In that photo of my father and me, the one where Iâm as small as the girl I hate, the one where he is gazing down at me with such love and incomprehension, the one taken before he left and before I grew up heavy like my mother, Iâm looking right into the camera. It might have been the last time I looked right into a lens and smiled with no reservations, with no shame. He showed me this photo recently, when we met for a strained lunch on my last birthday, when I was at my biggest, before I met Tom, before I started losing. He included it in an album of photos that he gave me as part of my birthday gift, one that was presumably meant to show me that I hadnât always been fat. Look. See? Where did I get this idea? Maybe from my mother, he said. Probably it was all from my mother.
She
always struggled. But you? Look. But all I could see was the caption sticker above the photo that read, âGreat Time Every Time,â which I could never picture my father purchasing, let alone pasting decoratively into an album. Which is how I knew he hadnât put the album together himself. Probably heâd had one of his secretary-mistresses do it, or maybe it was a temp like me and the girl I hate.
My phone buzzes. Sheâs just texted me: âPineapple orgy at Kilimanjaro! Om-nom-nom-nom!!!! }8D.â
Iâve eaten there with her before. Itâs this sandwich and cake shop that has nothing to do with Africa, despite its name and decor. Under a black-and-white still of Serengeti cranes, Iâll watch her eat a monster-size ham and Gruyère panini with pineapple chutney, slurp down a mango, strawberry, and pineapple smoothie,then scarf a slice of pineapple upside-down cake. By the time the waitress sets that slice in front of her, Iâll have finished eating half of my veggie delite wrap, even though I will eat as slowly as possible. By the time she cuts into her cake, my hands will be empty. And with her mouth full of cake, sheâll say something about how Iâve only eaten half the wrap. She might even point. She might even reach across the table and point at it, my sad, uneaten other half. And Iâll have to say something awkward about wanting to save this other half for later, which weâll both know is a lie. I might even ask the waitress for a to-go bag, but she wonât be fooled. Sheâll look at me like, Huh, and take another bite of pineapple cake. I text back, ;D, and as I do this, the hate shifts,
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