by Ilyse Mimoun
“I also have iced green tea if you like,” you offer.
“Oh, sure, that sounds good. Antioxidants and whatnot, right?”
“Right!”
Somehow you’re shaky as you reach for a glass. You can’t remember the last time a man was in your apartment, let alone one who is swarthy and sweating. The sudden rush of masculine energy shifts the climate, like when a plane experiences a change in cabin pressure. The glass falls right out of your hand and shatters on the kitchen floor.
Pull your shit together, girl! Continue to page 129, section 36.
36
“Oh shit, I’m sorry!” You curse yourself as you kneel on the floor to scoop up the shards.
“No, no, you’re barefoot. Get outta here,” Anthony says. “Where’s a broom?”
It’s not like a broken glass is a ticking nuclear bomb, but somehow Anthony seems like an action-movie hero.
You pad out of the kitchen after handing him a broom. He sweeps up the mess and finds two glasses. They probably have spots on them! (Why can’t you be as immaculate as your friend Meg?) Now he’s pouring both of you iced sencha tea.
“Thanks so much,” you say, wishing you weren’t wearing a stained ribbed tank, circa 1992. There is no elastic left. For all Anthony knows, you are shapeless. “Have a seat.”
The two of you chit-chat for a bit—how long have you lived here, traffic is crazy, and so forth. Soon Anthony’s easy-going manner relaxes you.
“How’d you get into plumbing anyway?” you ask, for it’s one of the last jobs on earth you would ever consider.
“Well, I’m not squeamish,” Anthony says with a smile. It’s like he can tell that you are. “And it’s a job that has actual stability in this economy. It seemed like a smart thing to do.”
“Good point,” you say, not sure if these are good enough reasons to work with toilets and shimmy under houses.
“Yeah—money’s good. I was able to put a down payment on a place in Culver City,” he says.
You snob! You scribble haikus about cheese puffs for chump change; Anthony actually has a stable job and a house in a great area. You feel yourself blush.
Anthony rescues you with a surprising offer: “Maybe you want to see it sometime. There’s a funky little bar right near me. Only place in town with genuine New York–style pizza.”
“Oh!” you say, blushing again. (Weren’t you supposed to outgrow blushing in your teens?) “So you’re not married, I take it?”
“I was,” Anthony says. “We were high school sweethearts. It was a long time ago. She’s a terrific lady.”
Oooh, the positive report about an ex—always a good sign!
Your heart is beating in an undeniable attraction to Anthony (and his accent). But there is an unfamiliar feeling mingling with the excitement. It’s . . . it’s . . . it’s a quiet stillness. It’s a lack of desperation. You like your life right now. That gaping void has been filled with actual confidence and a bit of acceptance for whatever life brings. You’d really like to go to Anthony’s, but it’s not like you’ll die if you don’t.
And now that you realize how mature you’ve become, you attack Anthony like a frenzied Koala bear freed from captivity. You kiss his hot, beautiful mouth and squeeze those glistening hairy arms. You want to rip off your ugly tank top, but Anthony slows you down with a smoldering slowness that drives you crazy. He lets his fingers graze around your waist and your rib cage. He pulls you close to him and kisses you deeply. He won’t go too far. His masculinity pulses off him in thick, hot waves. You want to ride him like a Harley. He won’t let you, which is hotter than anything. And why? He wants to take you on a proper date. Is this guy for real?
“Okay,” you say with a smile. If the universe wants you to fall in love with your sexy New York plumber, who are you to disobey?
Turns out, that’s exactly what the universe wants. And it turns out, over time, that Anthony is not just some sexy Stanley Kowalski; he’s a real person. He reads Malcolm Gladwell. He cooks and cleans. He has restless leg syndrome.
And he’s still the best kisser you ever met. When Anthony kisses you with that full, hot mouth, you enter a dream state. It’s like he’s speaking to you with his lips. It’s like his lips are saying, “I love you, baby.”
“I love you, baby,” his lips actually say one day, and you pour your face onto his hairy chest and kiss it tenderly. Then you say it back. One must always wait for the guy to say it first!
He’s not the person you expected to fall for, but you’re noticing that the less you analyze stuff, the happier you are. In this way you’re different from what you expected. Or maybe it’s the same you, but a person is a like a planet spinning around the sun. Every new situation sheds sunlight on a different part of you, and it’s a different time and season in different parts of your world all at the same moment. This is the season of you and Anthony. You don’t believe in the idea of The One, but you believe in Anthony and he believes in you. Nothing has ever felt more right.
It happens like this, guys, you tell your friends, the married ones who are divorcing now. The ones you used to be so jealous of. You don’t feel triumphant; you honestly want them to be as happy as you are. It will get better, you tell them. Just don’t give up on giving up.
THE END
37
Slow down, sister! First, you’re ready to become America’s next heiress with Jun, then the Great White Hope in Haiti, and all of it for romantic love?! What is wrong with you?
Answer: You are too concerned with men. Period. You can’t uproot your whole life just to follow a swell guy. You tell Amad you’re not ready to take that leap. He understands, of course, because he is the best thing since sliced bread.
And speaking of bread . . . uhm, remember your career? Your life as a food critic? The term “slacking off” is putting your recent work life mildly. If it weren’t for rent control, you’d be in big trouble. And the truth is, food is your passion. Not just its lusciousness but also the way people relate to it, use it to express love and care, or hide themselves in it. Especially desserts. It seems each one performs a different emotional function. The soothing comfort of bread pudding. The heady intoxication of a dark chocolate brownie. The nostalgic innocence of a chocolate chip cookie.
“Then do something about it!” Meg Skypes you one night.
“What do you want me to do about cookies?” you ask. “I already critique them.”
“Something more,” she says. “Shit, the baby is screaming.”
This is the way most conversations with your parent friends end, always before you’re done talking. It’s one of the many reasons you need cookies. What desserts does a haggard parent need, though? Or, for that matter, an astronaut? Or a social worker?
Your curiosity leads you to a brainstorm. You will interview women about their relationship with desserts. You will make a book or documentary or web series—you don’t know yet, but it’s a project!
You throw yourself in with abandon. You stay up nights researching the history of the honey-cake. You talk to psychologists and neurologists about the chemicals released by eating sugar and butter. You interview women across the economic and cultural spectrum about their relationship with sweets. You make friends and learn a ton. You feel energized again. You feel alive and connected. Forget romance—you are participating in life! The space in your brain once occupied by men is now crammed with the psychology of Bundt cake and the creation of sweet jelabi in Iraq in 300 BC, which ancient Iraqis claimed had a mystical power.
You’d like to discuss this with an up-and-coming pastry chef named Jeremy, who has brought jelabi to the United States. You’re speaking with him in the kitchen of the new restaurant he cooks for. You’re a little heady from the smell of spun sugar but try to focus on your interview. “What made you connect with Indian desserts?” you ask him.
Jeremy hands you a bright orange swirl of jelabi, and you take a bite, immediately suffused by its sweetness. Jelabi, a deep-fried flour pretzel
covered in sugar syrup, is heavenly and instantly addictive.
“Whoa,” you say.
“You like it?” Jeremy asks. He has a gentle open face, a mound of baldness on his head, and a mound of pudge on his belly.
He hands you another creation, this one a double-chocolate cupcake with peanut butter filling.
“You’ve got frosting on your lip,” he points out.
“Fohfskj,” you say, your cheeks stuffed with peanut butter.
Then there’s an apple pie bar (and witty banter with Jeremy).
Then poppy seed cake with passion-fruit curd (Jeremy is a widower with a son who means the world to him).
Then a cherry square drizzled with Nutella (Jeremy loves Jane Eyre as much as you and totally gets that Moby Dick is a drag).
Then there’s a pumpkin chocolate-chip muffin and you shoving Jeremy down on the kitchen counter in a wild paroxysm of lust. You kiss him hungrily, bite his neck, claw your hands down his back. You sink your teeth into his love handles.
Whatever chemicals desserts unleash (oxytocin? serotonin?), they’ve combined to send a cupid’s arrow into your heart, revealing Jeremy to be as scrumptious as his strawberry rhubarb meringue tartlet.
In the years that follow, Jeremy will support you as you become a food documentarian, and he will challenge you to stay focused and thriving. In return you will generously sample all his pastries and help raise his sensitive and eccentric son.
It’s not perfect, of course. Jeremy definitely has a weight problem, his son has agoraphobia, and you may or may not have fibromyalgia.
But you once heard a saying that “perfect is the enemy of good.” And this new life is pretty darn good. In the mornings Jeremy kisses your face and calls you his little jelabi. It’s the best thing ever.
Who knew life as a fried pretzel could be so sweet?
THE END
38
Some people wake up at five in the morning so they can hit the gym before work. Others simply find time to lift weights or go to Pilates at some point during the week. They claim it improves their mood. All of these people are incomprehensible to you. How can people choose the gym when there is Candy Crush, talking on the phone, and snacks? Sure, you’d love to look like the gals on the billboards—mostly so you could never have to worry about it again. But without a DNA overhaul, that ain’t gonna happen, so why not enjoy life instead of spending it in a dungeon sweating?
That was your old philosophy anyway. After the underwear fiasco, things look different. You still hate exercise, but now you are on a mission. You join the Malibu Bikini Beach Body Competition for one reason only: to make Greg rue the day he left you.
Your first trainer is named Tiffany, and she works mostly with chunky members of the local Armenian community who rave about her on Yelp. They probably love her because she looks like an exotic alien. Spray-tanned, sinewy, and blonde is a trustworthy look for a personal trainer. Who cares that her blog, Tighten Up with Tiffany!, is riddled with spelling errors? In your free “consultation session” Tiffany tells you straight: “You’re not in the worst shape in the world, but bikini-beach-body ready is a whole other level.”
“What do you mean?” you mumble. People like Tiffany make you uncomfortable. You feel both superior and piteously inadequate at the same time.
“It means you’ll have to borderline starve yourself—eating only egg whites, steamed veggies, and water for eight weeks straight until the competition.”
Whoa whoa whoa—this can’t be the only way. “That seems a little dramatic,” you say.
“It is. Are you in?”
“I’d like to think about it,” you say, knowing you will never call Tiffany again. A part of you finds her fascist regime appealing, as it offers the promise of a Brand-New You. It’s also horrifying.
Many trainers are already booked up, so you settle for a fortysomething Frenchman named Claude, a chubby cherub whose protruding gut does not exactly scream fitness. Apparently he had been at the top of his game back in the day, so you decide to give it a whirl. You’re allowed to eat more than veggies with Claude, but he does start you on a grueling routine of crunches, weight lifting, and core strengtheners. Claude designs excellent sequences, even if he himself could not endure them, and while you lay huffing and puffing on your towel afterward, he chats with you.
“That ex-boyfriend of yours must be some kind of idiot,” he says on your first day in a kind way that does not creep you out. He has a beaming face and a wonderful French accent.
“I’m the idiot,” you say. “I’m not great at reading signs.”
“Maybe you’re just loyal,” Claude says.
“Well, yeah, but . . . well, yeah!” It’s nice not to feel judged for a minute. Or maybe you’re too tired to argue.
The next day you’re sore as hell, but Claude is merciless, which you appreciate.
“I want Greg to see that those airbrushed airheads have got nothing on me,” you say as you pull down on the weight machine.
“Does Greg like airbrushed airheads?”
You remember Oasis, who probably thinks Axelrod is the name of a new dildo instead of a political strategist. “Doesn’t everyone?” you laugh, with a drop of bitterness.
“Well, no,” Claude says. “Some men like someone they can actually talk to. And who was it that said a woman’s beauty is the light in her heart . . .”
“Hmmph,” you say, wanting to believe him. Most of your friends put considerable time and energy into looking their best. Part of you wants to do that too, but, as you tell Claude, “Part of me is still stuck on the old-fashioned notion that someone could love me for me.”
“I think that’s the point,” Claude says. As a widowed father of a young daughter, he doesn’t like the way you put yourself down. He says you could probably be a lot easier on yourself.
Claude starts bringing you his favorite comic books—collections of Calvin and Hobbes. He says you need to laugh more. It’s a funny coincidence because you used to love those books as a kid. Okay, so Claude doesn’t read Kafka like Greg did, but Hobbes is a damned profound stuffed tiger.
“Greg would go nuts if he saw my quads right now,” you say one day over butt squeezes. “The man was obsessed with thighs.”
“You still carry a torch, oui?”
You squirt water into your mouth for a moment of rest. “Not exactly. We were together for a few years. He was so smart and witty. I guess I always felt that if I could keep Greg’s attention, then I must really have something. But I never could. Greg could barely sit still with me for more than ten minutes.”
Claude just nods in his gentle way and instructs you to do some more calf raises. By week three he comments on how hungry and irritable you are. He says you’re making the bikini contest too important. You grunt, but his concern touches you.
In fact, you are so depleted that you don’t notice when Claude starts lightening the exercise load or sneaking full-fat yogurt and peanut butter into your protein shakes. Your talks grow longer, and one time you go out to lunch with Claude and his little daughter, Amy, and you two like each other instantly. When Amy creeps up to you for a good-bye hug, you almost burst into tears.
The next day Amy sends Claude with a bunch of fresh-baked chocolate chip cookies for you—the perfect gooey texture with hints of vanilla. You can’t resist eating all of them. And when Claude moves in to kiss the crumbs off your lips, you can’t resist that either. Your first kiss is just like a cookie: sweet, warm, and oddly nostalgic.
By week five, training has been replaced completely with fun walks on the beach (sometimes with Amy), cookie eating, and making out. You can’t remember the last time a guy made out with you without trying to get you naked. It could be insulting, but the long hours of kissing on the couch feel amazing. No, Claude doesn’t have a razor-sharp wit like Greg, but you’re beginning to forget why that felt important. Plus, he’s very rugged and adventurous, which makes you feel safe. He likes kayaking and windsurfing and hiking in dangero
us places. Not like you want to do any of that stuff, but you like the way Claude’s face lights up when he talks about things he’s passionate about. His face also lights up when he tells you how much he likes you.
By week eight and the day of the contest you are officially chubby, unqualified, and happy for the first time in months. You don’t even notice what day it is as you and Claude snuggle on the couch and watch movies in the middle of the afternoon while munching herb popcorn and mint-chip ice cream.
You learn later that your absence leaves witty Greg wandering the beach alone—scanning the parade of taut, glistening women for the only one he stood a chance with, the one he had taken miserably for granted just for being exactly who you are. He slumps home with a sunburn on his nose and an ache in his chest.
That evening he texts you at last: I made a big mistake. Please take me back. I love you so much.
If you know Greg has always been your true love, turn to page 111, section 33.
If you’ve evolved beyond Greg and want to try things with Claude, turn to page 55, section 17.
39
“Argh!” you scream this time while you push, a technique you’ve seen Amy use when she’s kicking a soccer ball. Now there is a little give, but not enough to help groaning Claude. You take a deep breath and wipe the sweat off your forehead. The pressure stings where the asphalt scraped you raw. You look down at Claude, whose eyes are wide.
“Don’t worry,” you say with the steady certainty of a Navy SEAL—or your mother.
And now you summon every bit of strength in your little body, every muscle straining and contracting, every cell joining in the effort. The tendons in your neck bulge. And you push the trunk with enough force that Claude can roll away and lie flat on his back. You put your hands on your knees and recover your breath. You’re amazing!
“I think I slipped a disc,” Claude says, though he doesn’t actually know what that means.
