Fat Chance by Deborah Blumenthal Page A

She rounded up all of that stud’s friends, and started a house-cleaning service. Now she’s making half a million a year, and has her pick of the stable.”
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    Tamara sits in the softly lit waiting room with the husbands of other patients, waiting for me to emerge. When I come up, she’s deep into an article called “Facial Sculpting,” pinching the sides of her face and the slack under her chin. It’s contagious, I think. It occurs to me that maybe the good doctor gives a bulk discount. Tamara tries not to look startled, but fails miserably. That’s why I love her.
    I know I look like the Pillsbury dough girl. The thickly wound compression bandage snugly puffs out my face. She runs over and hugs me.
    â€œYou poor pathetic creature,” she says, and her voice gives away the fact that tears are forming in her eyes.
    â€œDon’t get soft on me, Tamara. It’s just like analysis, except the knife makes you feel better faster.”
    I drape a knockoff Hermès scarf flecked with horse bits and saddles around my head, ’50s Italian-film-star-style and strut out of the office behind wraparound sunglasses. But nobody is fooled. Not one person comes running up to me yelling “Sophia Loren, cara. ”
    We cab it to my apartment, past the silent stares of the doorman. I make Tamara leave. I can’t stand to see her pathetically sad puss, and I go to bed with a Tylenol with codeine and the cold comfort offered by a body-bag-size sack of ice. The old me is disappearing, a little more every day.
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    â€œSo Larry comes by and says, ‘Where’s Maggie hiding out these days? Haven’t seen much of her lately,’” Tamara says, in her daily phone report. “He pointedly left it unclear whether he was referring to your presence or your weight.”
    â€œWhat did you tell him?”
    â€œLectures, guest appearances, Maggie is everywhere. Want her cell number?
    â€œâ€˜Cell?’ he says. ‘Where is she, in solitary at Rikers Island?’
    â€œI yawn and tell him to go get someone indicted and then strut away in my Manolos. And you know what he says?”
    â€œI give up.”
    â€œâ€˜ Mama mia. What have you got on your feet?’
    â€œâ€˜Just shoes,’ I say. ‘Shoes that show toe cleavage.’
    â€œâ€˜What? Show what?’
    â€œâ€˜Toe cleavage.’
    â€œâ€˜And I thought I heard of everything,’ he says.
    â€œThey work! THEY’RE BAD!” Tamara says.
    I hang up. I can’t laugh anymore, my face is too sore.
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    Minus a chin, and plus a new palette of earth-toned makeup applied with techniques I’ve culled from a Vogue beauty book, I make my grand entrance into the office.
    â€œMaggie,” the receptionist shrieks. “You are sumpt’n else.”
    I blow her a kiss. After intentionally threading my way through the newsroom and generating a buzz of whispering, I sidle into my office. “Buon giorno.”
    Tamara looks. Her look alone is worth it all. “Lord have mercy. Bless that surgeon.”
    I pat the underside of my chin, and smile. “What surgeon?”
    Justine eyes me strutting through the newsroom and freezes. She comes running.
    â€œHow did you do it? How? How?” she says before she’s crossed the threshold. She crosses herself. “What diet did you go on, tell me.”
    The health-food gestapo asking moi about my diet. This is great.
    â€œI guess we all just have our natural set points,” I say, tossing a green and then a yellow M&M up into the air and catching them in my mouth. “The weight at which our bodies feel most comfy. So I just let nature take its course. I grazed—had a little of this, a little of that, some German potato salad, teeny slivers of brat, a pinch or two of terra chips, and it just happened. Just like that.” I hold out my hands, as if in wonder. “You know me. I don’t believe in