The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance: A Memoir by Elna Baker Page B

considered my position in relation to them. We are the same , I thought. We’re the big girls.
    And yet, I’d always made it a point not to hang out with other fat people. Not because I have a prejudice against them per se. I guess I was just secretly worried that if someone were to see me with another overweight person, then it’d suddenly occur to them that I was fat, too. Guilty by association.
    But I am like them, I thought.
    “You need to record everything that you eat in this Food Journal,” the nurse continued. “Don’t hide what you eat,” she said. “Admit everything.” Everyone nodded.
    You hide it, too? As far back as I can remember I’d sneak chocolate chips from my mother’s pantry. I’d fill my pockets with them, and then go to the bathroom and eat them, a handful at a time. Inevitably, I’d forget a chip or two, and end up with dark brown stains in the pockets of my clothing—something that was hard to explain.
    “It’s time to love your bodies,” the dainty nurse emphasized. I felt us all collectively roll our eyes. It was church all over again: God sent you to earth, and God gave you the greatest gift, your body .
    I looked down at my body, surveying the outfit I’d set out on the floor the night before. It did not look big on me. It fit. I hide behind my clothes , it occurred to me. But what do I look like naked? I searched my brain for an image of my body—not the one I saw in pictures, my real body. Nothing. My mind was blank.
    Oh, come on, Elna. You must remember something. Nope, nothing. Oh, wait. I vaguely remembered a bath I took once, after I got really heavy. I immersed myself in the water, but the tub wasn’t deep enough. That’s when I realized that no matter how high I filled it, I wouldn’t be able to completely cover myself. I tried to compensate by pushing my back against the ceramic bottom of the tub. It almost worked; the soapy water hid most of me, but there was a portion of my stomach that was still visible. It floated above the water like a soft white hill. I looked at it and decided it was not part of me.
    I called it an island.
     
    After orientation I met with Dr. Levin, a kind man with glasses and white hair who reminded me of someone else’s favorite grandpa.
    “What’s your goal weight?” he began.
    “Eighty pounds.”
    He looked up, startled.
    “I want to lose eighty pounds,” I rephrased “not weigh eighty pounds, although that’d be nice.”
    Apparently anorexia jokes aren’t big at weight-loss facilities; he didn’t even laugh. Instead, he reached into his desk and began removing different bottles of pills.
    “Your diet will be aided by medicine,” he advised. “Potassium, serotonin, dopamine, a multivitamin, and phentermine, which will help suppress your appetite.”
    I looked down at the little circles of color. Skittles , I thought, only the opposite.
    “Sometimes patients react negatively to the medication,” he continued. “If I do take you on, I need you to come in once a week so that I can monitor your heart.”
    “Absolutely . . .”
    “And like I told you before, I don’t normally have patients who live out-of-state.”
    “I understand.” I was about to make a case for myself, when he continued.
    “But you have a certain look about you. Determination. So I will make an exception if you agree to do one thing for me—”
    “Anything.”
    “Do everything I ask you to do, word for word, and this diet will be a success.”
    I sat there for a moment and pondered his request. It was the same thing I’d always struggled with, only at church: How do you do everything someone else asks you to do word for word? I mean, can you ever really trust that someone besides you has your best interests at heart? (Especially if their guidance could result in coronary thrombosis.) Or can you only ever trust yourself? But then again, I’ve trusted myself and screwed up over and over again and where has that gotten me? To the bloodred section on