The Break-Up Diet: A Memoir (6 page)

Up and down like a pogo stick, I answered the calls for candy treats. After each round, I retreated to the mental void offered by the great and powerful Oz and the bowl of chocolates. I stared at the screen. The images danced light and dark in front of my eyes. Kevin's absence was tangible.

Dorothy promised there was no place like home.

For her maybe. Mine was a prison of loneliness.

Josh burst through the door, the bulging sack of treats over his padded shoulder. “Mom, check out how much I got already.” He dumped the pile onto the dining table. “I'm dropping this off, so I can go and get more.” He shook the last of the candy out of the pillowcase.

“Did you eat all that yourself?” Josh pointed to the cemetery of candy wrappers around me on the carpet.

I combed the wrappers into my hand, counting as I went. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen empty wrappers.

Well, it's only like eight regular size candy bars. Which only counts as 3.5 dairy servings according to Jenny Craig. Or maybe it was my Aunt Jenny who said that.

“Don't eat all my candy while I'm gone,” Josh said on his way out the door.

I guess that depends on whether there's anything good in the pile or not.

I sat at the table and began checking the wrappers, separating his candy into categories: Chocolate. Hard candy. Gum. Chocolate. Hard candy. Gum.

elementary, my dear watson

Thursday, November 1

After spending the morning helping Josh diagram sentences in his new grammar workbook, I finally sat down to go through the mail.

I pulled an envelope from the pile on my desk, slid my finger under the flap, and felt a biting slice. Damn, a paper cut. Sawing off my hand with a dull butter knife would hurt less than a paper cut puckering the skin on my knuckle. I pressed the curve of my finger to my lips and licked the reddening sliver.

I scanned the cell phone bill. I obviously needed a better minutes plan. The bill for last month's usage was higher than my car payment.

Note to self: Call to cancel family plan. We aren't a family anymore.

Kevin's portion of the bill was higher than normal. I'd have to call and let him know how much to send to cover it. My eyes flicked over the numbers: me, his Mom, work, his golfing buddies. One line jumped off the page.

Ninety-nine minutes.

He never talked on the phone that long—except to me. Who else would he talk to for ninety-nine minutes?

In New York?

Who the hell does he know in New York that he would talk to for ninety-nine minutes? My finger traced across the line to the date.

The night before he broke up with me.

Bile roiled in my stomach.

There was another call to the New York number just minutes before the call to me that morning. That morning when he said he couldn't be with me anymore. I felt flushed and dizzy. The numbers blurred like heat rising from summer asphalt.

Maybe it's just a coincidence.

I shuffled through the rest of the pages. There were calls to that number striping every page. I grabbed the phone, stopping with the handset halfway between my ear and the cradle.

I had to call the number.

But what if a woman answered?

That wouldn't prove anything.

My rational mind argued the case about as successfully as the prosecuting attorney in the OJ trial. I punched autodial number one.

Kevin answered just one ring short of voicemail. “What's up? I'm really busy. I'm in the middle of giving a lesson,” he said.

“I just got the cell phone bill. Who lives in New York?”

“I don't have time to go into this right now,” he half-whispered.

I stressed each word succinctly. “Who the fuck were you talking to in New York for ninety-nine minutes and again in the morning right before you broke up with me?”

“Geez, what are you doing? Sherlock Holmesing the phone bill?” he asked.

“Who is she?”

“Annette, don't do this. It's just a friend.” He sighed heavily. “I can't believe you're doing this. Did you call the number too?”

Hmmm…let's see, what would I say? Hi, I'm Kevin's completely devastated, psycho ex-girlfriend. Um, by any chance, did you have something to do with him dumping me, you fucking bitch?

“No,” I said quietly. “I didn't call the number.”

I've got far too much pride for that.

“Annette, do yourself a favor. Do me a favor. Don't make this into something it's not.”

It really isn't his nature—to be like that. Am I being foolish? Kevin would never cheat. And how could he cheat with a woman who lives three thousand miles away? My thoughts raced around the room mocking my angst.

“Look, I've got to get back to work, just send me the bill so I can pay it. I'll talk to you later, okay?” He hung up.

But none of it felt okay.

the chicken dance

Monday, November 5

“You'll never guess in a million years where I'm going. It's something I told you I'd never consider doing in this lifetime.” I juggled the cell phone and merged onto the freeway, flicking the blinker signal.

“Oh my gosh, you're going to a therapist, I'm so proud of you!” Bonita squealed through the phone.

Maybe now she would stop nagging about it. “You'll be happy to know that the head mechanic I'm going to has a PhD and says she does hypnotherapy, homeopathic healing, Reiki, and all that new age crap. As long as she doesn't get all mumbo-jumboey on me, I'll try it,” I said.

“You'll be so glad you did. Make sure you call me when it's over and tell me if my diagnosis was right.”

Bonita, the self-appointed armchair psychiatrist in our group of friends, took the liberty of researching all the various neuroses in the DSM IV that she thought applied to each of us and gave her diagnosis at Valerie's last dinner party. I regularly joked that Freud had been reincarnated as a petite Latina.

I figured Bonita would appreciate the irony of me going to a therapist. She knew I thought the most irritating and overused Orange Countyism was any sentence that began with: “My therapist says….”

But with the way things were going, maybe seeing a therapist wouldn't be such a bad idea.

I ranted non-stop for forty-five minutes, pouring out my feelings about Kevin.

The therapist's analysis: Kevin and I had a “teepee” relationship, both leaning against each other for support.

“And that's not healthy,” she informed me, wagging her finger, and sending her plump arm swaying. “If the relationship is to prosper, you both need to stand straight beside each other and pursue your own career goals while maintaining a loving and supportive association.”

It sounded simple enough. Too bad he dumped me before we got that far.

“Okay, Doc. What can I do to fix him so we can get back together?” I said.

“We need to work on you,” she replied.

So, she hypnotized me. Or at least, I think she did. Or at least, I think she thinks she did. I'm really not sure.

She started out by turning on a lilting, flute music CD. I thought it was a little goofy, but I was trying to go with it. She lit a scented candle and dimmed the lights. I reclined in a soft leather chair. An actual couch would've been just way too much to get over.

Voice low and monotone, she began walking me through a lush garden toward the temple of my mind. “Now, picture your temple,” she said in a soothing tone.

I had just started to relax, but that comment sent my brain into a tailspin. It was like rummaging in my closet to pick an outfit. I couldn't decide what my temple should look like.

She had already left the doorstep of my temple and was talking about something else, but I was busy creating and mentally erasing different structures.

A Spanish mission. That's not it.

A white church with a steeple. No, definitely not.

An English country cottage. Nope, don't like roses.

I finally decided on a palm-frond hut on the beach with a doorstep to the ocean. Then I ran to catch up with her in my mental pineapple garden.

Maybe I watch too much TV, but I thought a hypnotist could make you do the chicken dance and you wouldn't even know it. I heard everything she said—once I got past the temple thing. I heard her take a drink from her cup, and even shift positions in her chair. Maybe to fart, but I didn't smell anything, except that stupid candle. Which is good. Maybe that's what it was for. Camouflage.

“You are content, empowered, and motivated,” she said.

Then she did that count backward thing to wake me up. I felt like popping my eyes open and saying: “Okay, I'm back. You can stop counting now.” But I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I blinked a few times and stretched.

I thanked her, we hugged, and I mumbled something about calling her again. It was like the cliché of a bad date.

As I was driving down the freeway, I thought about the experience. It was the weirdest thing. I don't think I was hypnotized, but I can't explain the sense of peace I felt inside. I decided to test it out to see if it worked, so I called Kevin.

“Hi,” I said after a long pause.

“Uh, hi,” Kevin said, clearly not sure where the conversation was going.

“What's up?”

“Um…not much.” He sounded intentionally vague. “How are you doing?”

“I'm fine. What about you?”

He hesitated a minute. “I'm good.”

“Good. Well, I'll talk to you later,” I said.

“Okaay.” Kevin still sounded baffled.

I hung up and let out a deep breath. The hypnotism worked. I was okay talking to him.

It was the first time since we broke up that I could talk to him and not burst into tears. It felt like progress. It felt good. I wondered how many times I would have to go back to therapy to keep that feeling.

fear, the other white meat

Friday, November 9

The roller coaster car rocketed past us. Every seat held screaming riders. I followed it up the tracks with my eyes and shook my head. No way. Magic Mountain's “The Riddler” didn't look like anything I wanted to entrust with my life. With my luck, the seatbelt would break and I'd be shot head first into a hotdog stand.

“C'mon, Mom, don't chicken out now.”

“Where's the Dumbo ride?” I looked around. “That's more my speed.”

Josh made a sound like a leaky car tire. “That's Disneyland.” He waved his arms. “This is more fun.”

Yeah, getting the piss scared out of me and throwing up my nine dollar and seventy-five cent veggie burger sounds like a blast.

Josh wanted an amusement park day for our mother/son date. It was his choice this time around. Obviously, this was my punishment for the trip to the natural history museum.

We mugged for pictures in a photo booth. I planted a kiss on his cheek in one shot. In the rest of the photo strip, Josh either had his eyes crossed or his tongue sticking out. Typical.

He pulled on my arm, “Hurry Mom, we have to get to the next ride before the line gets longer.”

Somehow I made it through the day and didn't die.