Slim to None (15 page)

Truss Feelings with Butcher’s Twine, Steep in Juices

Well, that didn’t go too terrifically, did it?
Get off your high horse
? I’m not on any high horse. In fact I’d hardly
fit
on a horse. It would be like a horse hauling a cow. Unwieldy, that’s for sure. I’d never force that sort of torture on any animal. Hell, I won’t even do that to my hot pink Vespa.

Besides which, I’m perfectly happy, thank you very much. Sure, I might be feeling a little uptight, but who wouldn’t be under the circumstances? I mean, in one of those Glamour Magazine stress test, I’d be off the charts right about now. First I lose my coveted job, then my absentee father shows up out of the blue—in the midst of dying, no less. Then my husband decides to tighten the screws by forcing the breeding issue. My former colleague—with whom I thought I was on good terms—is waging an all-out campaign against me and I know not why. I have an argument with my best friend, who is having a very public affair with my doctor, and if nothing else I could never double-date with them! I mean, my God! He knows my weight! He’s seen me in a hospital gown! If anyone knows my Achilles’ heel, it’s that man. Seems the only really uplifting thing in my life right now is my dog. And I can only walk him so much before he’ll start refusing to cross the threshold of the door, his legs will be so tired out.

Right now I’m still reeling from that phone call with Jess. The more I think about Jess and her marriage-busting behavior, the more I think about my father and
his
marriage-busting. And maybe that’s why I can’t seem to let go of my anger toward her right now.

It was hard enough that my father left us the way he did. But then when I found out he’d had another family—his
good
family—all along, well, that was more than I could bear.

I don’t like to talk about that day. I’ve never even told William about it, it’s so raw to me, even still. My father had been gone a few months at that point. My mother whiled away her days submerged in gloom beneath her down comforter in the shade-blackened living room. Grandma Gigi tried to keep me from the house as much as possible, so she’d decided to take me to the shopping mall. We’d gone there because her rubbers had sprung a leak. No, not
those
sort of rubbers. The kind little old ladies and dentist-types used to wear, the ones you’d pull over your shoes to protect them in wet weather. Her rubbers were letting in water and the forecast was for continued rain, so when I got home from school that day, Grandma Gigi and I hopped the 22B bus and rode it to the mall.

We’d just come from Sears Roebuck, the store’s usual odor of new tools, lubricants and hard work still lingering on my nose. I was carrying Grandma’s bag with the new rubbers. We were talking about my schoolwork, and Grandma Gigi was asking if I had any new friends at school. I hated that it even mattered to anyone whether I had any friends. At that age, I just wasn’t the kind of kid that the other kids really wanted to be friends with. I wore thick glasses back then, and I wasn’t very pretty. I never seemed to wear the right style of clothes and I don’t think I really cared that much, to tell the truth. But it mattered to others that I was a loner. I guess that comes of being alone in a family like I was.

I heard a commotion up ahead and saw a man who was pushing a stroller with a bitty baby inside swoop down and scoop up a girl of about five from his side who had been crying. Next to him was a tall, thin woman with elegant legs and smiling eyes. She could’ve been a model. He leaned over and kissed her, then turned his face so I could see more clearly. It was my father. And in that instant I knew. I just knew. It was too obvious to pretend anything other than that he’d had another family long before he’d left us forever.

I watched, my eyes unblinking, as my father sat down on a bench with his good family, and interacted with them like a father should do. He bounced the baby on his knee. He reached over to an older girl who had been helping to push the stroller and started playing slapsies with her. She looked so much like me, who mostly favored my dad’s looks, that I thought for a second someone was playing a trick on me. Then he took a playful lick of the middle girl’s ice cream and they both giggled. This man was everything a girl would want in a dad in a shopping mall.

My grandmother looked over when I stopped walking and saw where I was staring. All of a sudden she pointed in the opposite direction of my father.

"Lookie there, baby. There’s an Orange Julius! Your favorite! Why don’t we go take a look over there and see if we can get you an Orange Julius for helping your dear old Grandma today? Okay, honey?"

She grabbed my hand and tried to pull me away, but my feet remained planted in place. I watched as once again he leaned over and kissed the pretty long-haired woman, the woman who looked so in love. The woman who let her daughter eat ice cream without spanking her. And I tried to imagine that was me playing slapsies with my father instead of my anonymous twin. But I knew I didn’t get to play slapsies ever with my dad. He must’ve been too busy playing it with his favorite family all along to bother with me.

I wish I could say I was too strong to cry. I wish I could say I went with Gigi and drank an extra-large Orange Julius and we smiled and laughed about it, and she reassured me that I was imagining things, that it wasn’t my father at all, and then I helped Grandma Gigi pull on her new rubbers for the trip home in the rain.

But I’d be lying if I said that. Because instead, I ran to my father and tried to jump into his arms. The pretty woman, the one who smiled and laughed and looked so in love, stared, aghast, at me. And my father, instead of reaching out for me, pushed me off with an extended arm, like a policeman stopping traffic, and then reached for the middle girl, the ice cream girl, who’d started crying again. He picked her up and stroked her hair and soothed her with his calm voice. And the woman looked at him and asked him what was going on. While I stood there, my eyes pooling up with tears so full I felt like my eyeballs would float away. And I gasped and cried out "Daddy!" again and again and my grandmother tugged on my arm while she reprimanded my father, saying "Richard, how could you?" and the pretty woman kept yelling "What is going on?" and my father was silent while he fathered his three girls, his three happy girls who didn’t know what was happening but were secure with their soothing father who loved them so.

After a while I was so tired from crying and tugging away from my grandmother and shrieking at my father that I just about went limp, and then my grandmother, my strong oxen of a grandmother, was able to scoop me up and carry me away and I watched over her shoulder as my father and his good family grew smaller and smaller and smaller right before my very eyes.

That night, we went home and made chicken and dumplings and she fixed me a large chocolate marshmallow milkshake and she taught me how to make homemade fudge. And for a little while I felt full again.

* * *

Cognac loves to chase bicyclists. Which can be a real hazard on the streets of Manhattan. Take today. I was walking down Fifth Avenue when a delivery biker came screaming past us, and Cognac took off in the opposite direction, his powerful body motoring me along enough that I am sure I burned off that grande mocha (it’s still "M" day) I’d just about finished before spilling the remains while in hot pursuit of the biker. I managed to get Cognac under control just before a taxi nearly careened into him. The episode left me shaken, which is why I’m now in search of a large bag of peanut M&Ms because, honestly, what stress-ridden woman wouldn’t seek solace in them after everything that’s gone on? If it was a "B" day I’d have a Baby Ruth. Even though I’d far rather have European chocolate but it’s definitely not "E" day.

I tuck into a lovely little park on East 53rd, one of those hidden gems in Manhattan, complete with a waterfall, where you don’t even have to buy anything to sit down. I pull up a chair, securing the leg over the handle of Cognac’s leash handle, and plunk down to catch my breath. At least the dog won’t be going anywhere for a while, anchored as he is by my ample weight. The soothing waterfall drowns out all the city noises. It’s a lovely place to contemplate everything, and nothing. I close my eyes and try to tune out all of the stresses of my life and be one with the water. I know, it sounds a little Zen, but what can I say? I’m nearly asleep when I hear a familiar voice behind me.

"’Scuse me, miss—that seat taken?" I look around to see George, of all people, pointing at a nearby chair. "You look lost in thought."

I extend an arm out for him to sit down. Cognac gets up and gives him a lick. "Actually I’m trying
not
to think at all. Thinking is too much work."

"Something wrong?"

"Better question would be ‘is anything right?’ If so, I’d love for someone to tell me."

"I got nowhere to go and I’m all ears," George says.

"Gee, George, that’s awfully sweet of you to offer, but you’ve got your own troubles."

"Troubles? What troubles? I’m a free man. I do as I want, when I want. Don’t pity me. I’ve made my choices and I’m happy with them. Can
you
say the same thing?"

I pause, not really knowing if I have the correct answer for him. For that matter,
is
there a correct answer?

"I don’t know, George. I just don’t know any more. A few weeks ago if someone asked me if I was happy I’d have said ‘the happiest!’ But today, it seems like everything has tumbled over pell-mell on top of me. Like I’m having a life-earthquake or something and a huge fissure has opened up on me. I’m not sure what I want or even what I
should
want."

I reach into my half-pound bag of M&Ms and grab a handful. I offer them to George.

"Nah, that stuff’ll kill ya," he says as he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out a pack of smokes.

"Oh, and
that’ll
add years onto your life?" I laugh at him.

He shrugs. "Filthy habit. You wanna know a secret?"

I nod my head vigorously. I love secrets.

"I figured one of the side benefits of moving to the city like I did was that I’d give up smoking. It’s the damndest thing, though. Everyone’s always willing to share a smoke around here. And the great outdoors," he gestures around him, "it’s the last bastion of free-smoking that exists."

He extracts a cigarette and taps it against the table, packing in the tobacco, then lights it. He takes a long drag on the cigarette, and holds in the smoke. I don’t dare tell him now how much I detest second-hand smoke.

"Yep, one of the simple joys of life to me." The smoke snakes out of his nostrils. "But it got to the point I could never smoke anywhere. Sally banned it from the houses and the cars. My kids banned it from their places. My secretary wouldn’t even let me sneak them in my own private office, for cripes sake.
Smoke-free building,
she’d say. After a while you just give up. I figured living on the streets, the last thing I’d even think about was smoking. But I’ve found that some days there’s not much else
to do
but smoke."

"Food’s too important to me to ruin it with nicotine."

"What are you talking about? The perfect way to end a good meal. Better yet, kicking back with a Cohiba."

"Says you. But all that smoking kills your taste buds, George. I know plenty of women who smoke so they don’t eat. I could never sacrifice the joy of eating just to be thin."

I don’t know if he feels guilty or what, but he stubs out his cigarette after the next drag.

"So what’s weighing so heavily on your mind that you had to escape the city to ponder it all?"

"Everything. Just about everything has gone wrong. And I don’t know what to do. I’m starting to wonder if my priorities have been screwed up all along." And then I just let go in a torrent of pent-up angst. I tell him about William and about my father contacting me and Jess and Barry and my dieting. I don’t mention Sally’s visit, figuring that’s an ace in the hole I need to save for another time.

"That’s a lot on your plate."

"Excuse the pun." He laughs at my comment. "Of course everything I really want on my plate, I can’t have."

"You mean like the really decadent, fattening stuff?"

I nod my head. "Exactly."

"But can’t you have it? Just maybe not as much?"

"Not if I want my job back. Which I might not get anyhow, since it seems that Barry has become the toast of the town. And all I seem to be is toast. Burnt toast."

"Are you sure you even
want
to be the toast of the town? Have you thought about why you want the job so badly? Especially if they’re going to put you through such misery to get it back?"

I don’t have an answer to that. I mean, I love my job, but why? Because I love food. Because I love to write about food. I love to bring people into the fold, into my figurative home and feed them, nurture them, give them a little bit of what Grandma Gigi gave me. I love the experience of food. I love that food can take the place of
things
.

"I love that food can take the place of things," I repeat quietly, not realizing that this time I actually say aloud what I’m thinking.

"What things?"

"Huh?"