Nothing To Lose (A fat girl novel) (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

On May 7th at 8:00 a.m., two hours before they had to be at their desks, Don and April arrived on the roof of Burdie’s. The space was impressive, easily the size of half a city block. Natural light filtered in through huge arched windows softening the bright green indoor/outdoor carpeting. A quarter-mile jogging track was outlined on the perimeter of the room with thick white lines to separate two lanes.

In the center of the room was a Universal exercise machine – the Rolls Royce of the muscle builders, according to Don. Clint Eastwood had one in his luxe home gym. It looked like a square metal doughnut. Each side had graduated slots where you increased resistance by inserting metal wedges. There were benches, trapeze bars, rings, handles to push or pull with your feet and hands. Terry Bleicher, assistant buyer for house wares, was lying on his stomach on a skinny leatherette bench pushing a bar with his heels.

“What does that do?” asked Don.

“It strengthens these muscles.” Terry pointed to the back of his thighs, under his buttocks. It already looked perfect and, in any case, was not a major part of his body. Yet Terry appeared gratified that he was doing something of value.

Beyond the jogging track, there were Jacuzzis and showers and a multi-tiered sauna. In a far corner, there were two less serious machines, a rotating cylinder made of spaced wooden rollers that rolled bulges away and a wide fabric belt that vibrated wildly against parts of your body. It was now vibrating against Mary Fiduccia’s left thigh (she was a cashier in the executive dining room) while she read Princess Daisy.

Burdie’s management had been one of the first to provide a health break facility for employees. Yellowing clippings were tacked to a bulletin board. Burdie’s Built-in Health Break Brings a Bonanza of Benefits, said the Nation’s Retailer.

April felt self-conscious, stupid and headed down a wrong road where no good thing awaited her. She hadn’t been able to find large enough jogging shorts – Don insisted she wear shorts for shock value and had finally sewn a pair out of a huge bath towel on a machine he kept at home. She looked awful and felt awful. The terry rubbed painfully between her legs. The tank top outlined the bulk of her arms, shoulders and back. She had pinned her hair back in a sloppy ponytail and it made her face look hard and aggressive. She was a solid block of flesh. A Sherman tank. The only thing that looked nice were her feet in brand new, baby blue jogging shoes and white socks with ridiculous pom-poms bouncing at her heels.

If she had seen someone like herself in a like outfit, she would have considered it hopeless. She looked at Don who was trim and fastidious in a beige Head jogging suit with matching Adidas running shoes and…yes! terrycloth head and wristbands to contain his perspiration. “What now?” she asked.

He opened a soft-sided briefcase and took out Miss Craig’s 21-Day Shape-Up Program. “If it’s good enough for Elizabeth Arden, it’s good enough for us.” April looked at the title page: A Plan of Natural Movement Exercises for Anyone in Search of a Trim and Healthy Body. It sounded so innocent for what they had in mind.

They both lay down on green mats and began. They did the right, left and center neck roll, five times each. The full body stretch, five times. April couldn’t complete the fifth exercise, called the Figure Eight. It called for bringing your knees together over your chest and then rolling them to each side, ending with a smart smack on the floor while keeping your shoulders and waist pinned to the mat. Don told her to do as much as she could. She got her knees over her buttocks and rotated them two or three inches to each side.

When he was satisfied that she was stretched and limber, he led her in a fast walk twice around the track. It was a very precise walk with a deliberate roll of the foot, an energetic swing to bent arms and an exaggerated thrust of the hips from side to side. “What is this?” She thought he had to be kidding but there was no air of mirth within ten miles of the room.

“It’s called wogging.”

“Did you make it up?”

“I didn’t, but what if I did?” he asked indignantly. “You’d trust some mediocre quack who’s getting paid off by The Heart Fund to pass off all kinds of crapola about cholesterol before you’d trust me?”

“No.” She wogged vigorously for twenty seconds. Four times she had to stop wogging and hold on to the wall. Her heart was beating maniacally and she couldn’t get a breath of air that satisfied her. Her lungs burned. “Maybe we’re doing too much,” she gasped.

“Keep going,” he called back, passing her on the track. “Crawl if you have to.” When she finished the half mile, the perspiration rolled off her head onto her cheeks, off her nose onto her lips, off her back down into her underpants, between her legs, down the back of her legs into her socks. Sweat was everywhere. Don insisted on a four-minute sauna followed by a cold shower. Even after the cold shower, April continued to perspire. It was as if her body had been perforated like one of those garden hoses they lay between rows in a vegetable garden. She needed to drink.

They headed for a lunch counter that was just opening on the third floor and he ordered three glasses of water and a lemon. He proceeded to squeeze the lemon evenly into the three glasses. “Drink these.”

“I can’t drink water. I’ve never been able to drink just water.”

“Drink it anyway.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll clean out your liver.”

“From what? I haven’t eaten anything.”

“From twenty-five years of overeating. You’re filled with toxins. Everybody is. Water and lemon helps to clean you out. I heard it from a dentist on the radio.”

“A dentist?”

“A holistic dentist. He said if people had bad teeth, you could be sure they had bad bodies, too. Now, drink the water. You have to drink at least eight glasses a day. These are just a start. Come on, you can take as long as you like, but I don’t have all day. Sip, sip, sip.” While she sipped, he opened his briefcase and took out a super sized grapefruit. “You owe me thirty-five cents,” he said, “unless you want to take turns bringing in the grapefruit. Be sure to pick one with mottled skin…see,” he turned the fruit to show her. “The skin’s very thin which means it’s juicier.”

She was too exhausted to respond and too busy dabbing at her upper lip and temples to blot the continuing perspiration. She ate her half of the grapefruit slowly and thoughtfully, savoring the wetness. She took her cue from Don who chewed carefully and didn’t place another segment into his mouth until he had thoroughly disposed of the previous one. When they were finished, he took out two hard-boiled eggs and handed one to her. “Here’s your protein. That’s it until 12:45, so eat it slowly.”

She made four trips to the bathroom before ten o’clock and peed torrents. It was a satisfying feeling, as if all that lemon water had sought out every crevice inside her body and nudged out the impurities. Each time she came out of the bathroom, she drank three small paper cups of water. She felt smug until eleven o’clock when a blinding headache came on. She walked by the vending machines three times, eyeing a display window with an individual pack of potato chips. She knew the size and plumpness was a come-on. It held 1.3 ounces, a mouthful. She’d have to eat five or six packs. The thought of all that salt mixing with all that water inside her made her turn resolutely back to her desk.

She dialed Don’s extension. “I can’t take it.”

“Can’t take what?”

“It. IT! You know what I mean. I’m starving. My head hurts. I can’t do my work.”

“Oh, that. This is only the first day. Wait until you starve yourself for a week and find you’ve gained a pound. Then, talk to me about not being able to take it.” He hung up.

Lunch didn’t go well. Don insisted the waitress bring them whole lettuce leaves, a whole tomato and half a portion of cottage cheese.

“The lettuce is cut up for salads,” said the waitress.

“What about the lettuce you put under the tuna and egg plate?”

“That’s Boston lettuce. We don’t use that for salad.”

“Good because I don’t want a salad. So bring me about ten or twelve leaves of Boston lettuce,” The waitress stared across the room and pursed her lips. “Just hold the tuna and egg and we’ll pay for the whole plate.” She still didn’t respond. “You’ll make money on the deal. Tuna is seven-nine cents a can, what can the lettuce cost?”

April didn’t want to pay for the whole plate if she was just going to eat lettuce, but said nothing.

“All right,” said the waitress, “if I can get you the lettuce - and I mean if – what do you want with it?”

“A whole tomato and half a scoop of cottage cheese.”

“The tomatoes come sliced.”

“Well bring me one before they slice it. I’ll save you the trouble.” He let her finish writing.

Now for myself, I’ll have the king crab salad on whole wheat.”

When the waitress left, April waited for an explanation but none was offered. “All right” she said. “Why the big fuss over the lettuce?”

There was that familiar look of indignation. “Lettuce for salads is cut up in that big salad bar in the sky and shipped all over the country in Baggies. They must put embalming fluid on it to keep it from turning brown.” She must have looked skeptical because his tone turned scornful. “You think all those luncheonettes that advertise bottomless salad bowls sit around cutting lettuce and washing lettuce from scratch? Not on your life. It’s cut up by machines in some godforsaken place. It could even come from Chile. You’d be surprised how much food we get from Chile. Ask Pierre?”

For dinner, he took her home and Pierre, in celebration of her first day, steamed large portions of broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. He added strips of steamed chicken breast and stir-fried it quickly in a lemony soy sauce.

Don removed all but three slivers of the carrots. “Carrots are a trick. The worst diet fallacy. They’re loaded with sugar.”

It was a large plate of food, very crunchy. It took a long time to chew. The color was spectacular – rich orange, deep green against the snowy whiteness of the cauliflower. Dessert was one giant strawberry – the size of a small orange.

“They cost fifty cents each at the robber on Third Avenue,” said Don. Pierre winced.

After dinner, they measured every part of her body. Bosom, 44, waist, 40, hips 44; each upper thigh, 26; each upper arm 15. After each measurement came, Don whistled in disbelief. When the next measurement came, April clamped her hand over his mouth. “You don’t have to whistle anymore,” she said sarcastically. “We all understand that you’re flabbergasted.”

He shrugged and looked at his watch. “It’s nine. By the time you walk home and brush your teeth, it’ll be 9:45. That leaves you two hours to resist temptation.” She drank two glasses of water when she reached her apartment and was in bed by 10:30. She was asleep in moments. Don called at eleven to warn her of all the terrible things that would happen if she put anything into her mouth before he saw her again. She dreamt of Harald and Sylvie. They were making love on a slim, narrow table but didn’t have any trouble staying on and appeared perfectly comfortable.

The first three days passed quickly and were exhilarating. She had an image – silly but satisfying – of all the water washing away terrible moments of humiliation that had got stuck inside her. Her anxiety lessened.

“Don’t you dare weigh yourself,” Don cautioned. “The minute you see a big loss, you’ll head straight for the refrigerator.”

“How are you so sure? Don’t you think I have a stake in all of this?”

“Not just you. Anybody. A big loss equals permission to eat. Or even worse, that little voice that hates you will say ‘you deserve to eat because you’ve been so good.’ Well, you haven’t been that good. Don’t go near a scale.”

On the fifth day, the euphoria left. It was then that she realized what an enormous commitment she had made and the fear of failure loomed high. Besides the hunger pangs, now she was dizzy and felt light-headed from time to time. When she was alone, she despaired. How could she ever melt away those hundreds of inches that separated her from her bones? Perversely, the weight she’d lost left her feeling so empty and small, she was afraid of losing all of her substance. Could she live with herself sixty pounds lighter? Her identity was closely tied to the solidity of her flesh, the strong pull of her arms and chest. Many nights, she was sure she was meant to be fat. The feelings of despair settled in her chest, making her feel bound and hollow at the same time.

Each morning, however, the telephone rang. “And how is Raquel today?” Don would ask.

Within a week, she was doing ten neck rolls, ten full body stretches, ten opposite arm and leg touches and ten side stretches. She could complete the first movement of the Figure Eight and do three of Number Six, biking side by side, done half reclining on your side, biking with your legs as the thigh was massaged by the floor. Number Seven, the leg crossover, was a loss. She couldn’t touch her leg to her opposite outstretched arm. Don told her to skip to the “Hip walk” which she did very well. The hip walk was like wogging with your buttocks on the floor. Upright, she had increased her wogging by another quarter mile and some of that time, she shuffled along in a near jog

The morning menu remained the same: half a grapefruit, pulp and all, one hard-boiled egg and as much lemon water as she desired beyond the mandatory three glasses. She could also have tea and diet ginger ale. He let her have as much lettuce, tomatoes, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, green beans, peppers, cabbage and parsley as she liked, but weighed and measured portions of salmon, cottage cheese and chicken breast on a small yellow kitchen scale that he made her carry in her pocketbook.