Slim to None (22 page)

"I don’t know how to thank you for being a big enough woman to do this for Daddy," she whispers to me. Um—big enough woman? I hope she didn’t mean that the way it came out!

I hold my hands up to indicate it’s nothing. Of course I know better. It’s something. Something really big. A paradigm shift in how I’m thinking, how I’m feeling.

We all talk a little longer, but I realize I have to be heading back to the city. We make plans to get together again soon; maybe if and when William comes back I can bring him along. As I’m picking up my coat and purse to leave, my father grabs my hand.

"You’ve given me the greatest gift a man could get," he chokes out. "You’ll never know how much this means to me. I love you, Muffin. Always have, always will."

I wish I could eek out the words ‘I love you’ but I’m not there yet, if ever. Instead I just envelope his hands with mine and squeeze. "Take care, Daddy." I figure calling him that is enough for now.

Blend Tragedy with Heartache, Simmer on Low

I admit, my husband once dubbed me "our lady of immediate gratification" for a good reason. After what I’ve just been through, though, you can hardly blame me for a little binge-eating. I couldn’t resist the temptation. Call me spineless, it’s okay. I’ve heard worse. And it wasn’t anything too much—-just a little cookie. Or two. Full of healthful things like nuts (proteins) and chocolate (some studies purport its health benefits, right?). I mean, why not. It’s a teeny weeny (well, maybe not quite teeny weeny, but not as big as Mrs. Fields’ or anything) cookie. Or two. How bad can it be?

Just for good measure I chewed each bite thirty-two (or is it thirty-six?) times. Which took away some of the charm of the cookie, since once it’s been masticated to within an inch of its life like that, it’s not exactly the little chunk of baked heaven it was when it first went into my mouth. What can I say? My willpower won’t. I will admit I’ve noticed a disturbing food trend with me: what I eat never involves what I
should
eat, but rather what I
want to
eat. I have to figure out how to want to eat what I should eat. Good luck with that one. The fact that I struggle to stick with one simple diet is the theme of my column this week, so I suppose for the contraband cookie I should be thankful for the inspiration it provided me.

A.D.D. DIETER

I’ve done a little research and I’ve finally hit upon the reason I cannot stick to a diet. And I realize that like any other physiological problem, I can’t really help it. You see, I’m ADD when it comes to dieting. Attention Deficit Disorder. Dieting just simply cannot hold my attention for long.

Well, it’s no wonder! And here I thought it was lack of self-control or something pathetic like that. I’m so relieved to know my hands are tied in this situation. But in truth it doesn’t help when I’m surrounded by friends who must not be ADD in the diet department. In fact, now that I think about it, perhaps they’re actually ADD eaters. They must lose interest in eating as readily as I lose interest in dieting! Of course that’s starting to tick me off over the years as I’ve watched them transforming into sylph-like shadows of their former selves.

A colleague of mine has been counting carbs and now she’s so skinny that when I saw her a few weeks ago in this cute little June Cleaver-type dress, I complemented her on how slender she looked. She blushed as she told me her dress was from her trousseau. Now at first I wondered, what does a former Canadian prime minister have to do with her dress. But then I realized that she didn’t say Trudeau, but trousseau, which is a quaint antiquated term referring to things you wear on your honeymoon or something like that. So here’s this woman, old enough to be referring to her dress as having come from a trousseau, and she’s been able to whittle herself down to the cinched waist of a Barbie doll, the size she was when she was first married, long ago. And part of me hates her for that.

Why can she do it and I can’t? And then I remember my own smug little self the last time I got thin. My friends were still toting around excess flubber while I glowed with the newfound willowy shape with which I’d found myself. While humble to others, I secretly gloated because I knew I looked good. Little did I know that my standing in the slender department was only to be temporary.

But life has been teaching me some large lessons lately. Some of these lessons have to do with accepting who you are, large, medium or small. And others have to do with letting go of the past, regardless of what happened. And I’m starting to realize that something about letting go of that past lends itself to no longer caring so much about what size you are, rather what begins to come into focus is what’s really important: what kind of person you are, deep down inside.

I know these sound like obvious lessons, but I suppose some of us are a little more dense than are others. Sometimes lessons don’t come as readily. Or perhaps until we’re ready for them.

So as I let those new notions sink in, maybe it’s time to reconsider the ADD angle to dieting and instead follow my friends’ approach and become an ADD eater, see where it leads me. I’ll keep you posted.

* * *

Well, sometimes a diet finds me whether I’ve planned it or not. Since I saw my father three days ago I’ve been laid out in bed, so sick I could barely get up to walk the dog. I’ve eaten nothing more than a few saltine cracks and several bottles of Lucozade I keep on hand for stomach bugs. It’s a British version of Gatorade but I think it has unique curative properties so I make sure to have it in stock for just such occasions. If you can call a stomach bug an
occasion
.

Poor Cognac has been going absolutely stir-crazy. He’s become so acclimated to our long walks that he’s like a junkie needing a fix; he’s been pacing by the front door all day long, his claws clicking so loudly I hear it in my bedroom. Today I’m so tired of being bedridden that I’ve decided to force myself out and into the real world, even if I do feel weak and woozy. Some fresh air should do me good. I take a quick shower to wash three days of sleep out of my hair, slip on a pair of sweat pants and an old Princeton sweatshirt of Williams, and head out with the dog.

After about twenty minutes of our usual circuit, we happen upon George and Sally.

"What great timing! Fresh back from therapy, and now we meet up with Abbie!" George says as he gives me a hug.

"Don’t get too close, I’m getting over being sick."

"You need some chicken noodle soup to get you better," Sally says.

I push my hands out as if I’m full. "Thanks but no thanks. Plenty enough of that on this stupid diet of mine. I’m chicken souped out, thank you. In fact I’m avoiding all things edible right now."

"Ack. I can relate. Can’t eat a thing!" Sally adds, rubbing her stomach.

George rolls his eyes. "She never eats anything. Afraid she’ll gain weight. Meanwhile, she could use some extra meat on her bones, don’t you think, Abbie?"

"Now
that’s
a loaded question I’ll steer entirely clear of. We all have our issues with food. Speaking of food, I have to get this one back home soon or he’ll eat
me
up for dinner." I point to Cognac.

As I’m walking away, Sally slips me her number on a calling card and motions with her pinky and thumb sticking out at her ear for me to call her. Don’t you love that she has a calling card? Guess we’re trying to keep this dinner gathering on the down-low to keep George from getting cold feet. Well, I’m determined to get him there one way or another so she has nothing to fear there.

The sidewalks are getting heavy with pedestrians as rush hour thickens. Up ahead, across the street, I see a street vendor with one of those fake airplane things that hover above your head. Before I can even give a secure tug on the leash, Cognac sees it too, and takes off. Weakened from being sick, I can’t keep my grip on the leash and he’s gone in a flash.

"Cognac!" I scream as he gallops off ahead of me. I try to wend my way through the mass of bodies but I’m no match for an agile dog who already got a head start on me. People are staring at me, wondering why I’m screaming out so desperately for an after-dinner drink at this hour, probably thinking this is par for the course in this crazy city.

I lose sight of him between everyone’s coats and briefcases and then I hear a sickening screech of tires up ahead. I push through the crowd, knocking down a couple of people in the process and hearing in the background a good handful of expletives aimed my way. And too soon I see what I feared: the limp and impossibly bent body of my baby, my beloved dog, knocked unconscious and looking for all the world to be dead. A trickle of blood drips from his nose and I lay down to protect him as I scream his name over and over again.

Tears obscure my vision as I lay there, my body wrapped protectively—too late for that—around him, afraid to move him, not knowing if doing so will further damage his already obviously damaged body. A cabby is standing nearby telling everyone who will listen that he didn’t do anything, the dog ran in front of him, he didn’t even see him till it was too late. A cop shows up and leans down to talk to me. He tells me someone is coming to help with the dog and tries to calm me down but he can’t understand, Cognac is my baby. Besides William, he’s all I’ve got. Well, until recently, anyhow. But I’ve invested all of my love and caring into this dog and, and, and I can’t lose him, I just can’t. I just can’t—

The next thing I know I know nothing. I lose all consciousness, right in the middle of a filthy Manhattan street (even though really, they’re much cleaner than they used to be). Or so I’m being told, fifteen minutes later in some anteroom of an emergency veterinarian’s office. It seems they have me laid out on a makeshift couch in the head vet’s private office.

"Cognac?"

"He’s in surgery right now," a vet tech tells me.

"Oh, God. Surgery?" I shoot her a terrified look that asks all of my unasked questions.

The large tech, who looks so cheerful in her pink cotton scrubs with wagging dogs all over it, scrunches her brows. "He’s suffered a lot of internal trauma. They’re doing whatever they can for him."

"You can’t let him die, you just can’t. He’s all I have—"

She reaches out and strokes my head. "They’re doing everything they can for him. Have faith. The police went through your cell phone and pulled up your emergency contact. They’ve called that number and someone should be here shortly for you. In the meantime, can I get you anything? You should stay laying down for now." She looks at me and must see the terror in my eyes. "It’ll be okay, dear."

A few minutes later I hear a familiar voice. "Abbie?"

I look up to see William standing in the doorway. "William?"

"I just talked to one of the vets assisting in the surgery," he says.

"Is he going to be okay?"

William looks grim. "They don’t know yet, Abbie. His body suffered a lot of damage. We aren’t going to know till they’re all done."

I begin to cry all over again. William walks over and sits down next to me, wrapping his arms around me and letting me cry. We don’t talk for a lot of minutes, and all I can hear are my muffled sobs and the clock ticking along the minutes of Cognac’s surgery. Finally William speaks.

"You want to tell me what happened?"

"It was an accident, I swear it was. I was sick and I hadn’t walked him and he had all this pent up energy and we’d been walking for a little while already but then when I headed back toward home he saw something and he ran after it and I couldn’t hold onto the leash and I was still feeling so weak from being sick and the next thing you know I heard the screech of tires and then I saw my baby bleeding on the ground. I didn’t mean for it to happen—"

"Of course you didn’t mean for it to happen, honey. I know that. Look, accidents happen." He scratches the back of my head in a soothing way.

"If something happens to Cognac I’ll—"

"Let’s not go there. Let’s just hope that they can patch him up."

"Patch him up? He was bleeding from his
nose
! That’s not exactly Raggedy Ann material, you know."

"Take a deep breath, Abbie. Let’s just wait and see what we hear. No sense in jumping to conclusions, right?"

Except that is one thing I’m really good at. I come from the
"we’re all gonna die!"
school of thought. Why think things will turn out right when I can imagine all of the horrible alternatives to that sunny scenario?

For the next two hours we just sit there, me weeping intermittently, and William leafing through very old issues of Cat Fancy Magazine. You know things are dire when a middle-aged man is fixated on reading about the mating habits of Maine coon and Javanese cats (and here I thought Javanese described a coffee bean).

"Did you know the Korat is an ancient Siamese breed?" He asks me.

"Huh?" I must’ve drifted off to sleep after a heavy bout of sobbing.

"Considered a good-luck cat. Given to brides on their wedding day."

I wish I had a korat cat right now in that case. I need some good luck.

"Mr. and Mrs. Jennings?" my very large, jovial-looking tech suddenly calls for us. "Follow me." We tail her as close as possible without being considered stalkers, hoping to get to see our dog. She shows us to a room and the vet, a Dr. Dawgley—no joke—comes in.

"First things first," he says, after introducing himself. "I think Cognac is going to be fine."

We heave a collaborative sigh of relief.

"He lost a lot of blood. Perforated his liver, and has a broken leg. You’re really lucky that car wasn’t going faster—HBCs don’t usually have much of a chance. He’s lucky it was rush hour and traffic wasn’t moving as fast."

"HBC’s?"

"Hit By Car. I think the combination of Cognac being big enough to take the hit and in excellent cardiovascular health really helped him weather the worst of it."

"You mean all that walking I’ve done has done him good?"

"The dog’s in great shape. Well, discounting the injuries he’s suffered from this accident. He’s going to have a very slow road to recovery. He’ll have to stay here for a while, to make sure he’s stabilized."

"But we’ll be able to bring him home once he’s all better?"