“Do you want a coffee or anything? I’m buying,” I say awkwardly. Why did I say “I’m buying” as if a three-dollar latte is going to sway his opinion of me?
“No, I’m good.”
“I don’t want any coffee either.”
Silence hangs between us. I need to say it, but somehow my mouth remains closed.
“How is your new place?” Ben asks without making eye contact. An unbearable sadness takes over me. If I don’t tell him quickly, I may fall apart.
“It’s fine. Listen, I need to tell you something.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“I don’t look like the girls you normally date.”
“Anna, why are you doing this?”
“No, please let me finish. I knew from the beginning that you gave me a chance because your mother forced you to after Gela. I didn’t care. I loved you. Everywhere we went, women smiled at you and scratched their heads when they saw me, wondering how I got a man like you. And when they smiled at you, you smiled back.”
“Stop this, please.”
“No, you need to know, Ben. I was convinced I was going to lose you to someone more physically appropriate. This is me at my best— I had to work really hard to get here.”
“ Anna—”
“I only did it because I was afraid of losing you.”
Ben stares at me perplexed. “Did what?”
“I made you gain weight. I was the one who canceled your gym membership and pushed those awful flannels on you. The bald patches were from me putting Nair in your shampoo. I didn’t mean for it to get out of hand. I wanted to make you less perfect.”
“That explains the fake Nature’s Way bars.”
“They were Skor bars. How did you find out?”
“Someone gave me a Skor bar,” Ben says calmly.
Maybe this will be okay. Maybe he won’t hate me.
“Anna, this is a little hard for me to accept. I let you into my life and I loved you. You actively worked to destroy me.”
“I didn’t mean for—”
“Only a cruel and vicious person could do something like this.”
“I loved you, Ben. I love you still.”
He stands to leave, revolted by the sight of me. Maybe if he understood the kind of persecution I withstood as a child, maybe he could find an ounce of compassion.
“If you just let me explain what it was like for me growing up . . .”
Ben turns away from me without so much as a look or a wave good-bye. I am the most putrescent of all scum. The sensation of pain, guilt, and self-loathing is worse than anything I could have imagined. To watch his opinion of me sour is excruciating.
As unscrupulously nasty as people were in my youth, I had always been on the right side of the ethical equation. I was never in a position where I questioned how my behavior affected another person. But I don’t regret telling Ben the truth. He has the right to understand the metamorphosis I thrust upon him. And I deserve to feel exactly like I do— devastated.
Chapter Thirty-six
Are you okay?” Janice asks soothingly.
Her face is etched with concern as she prepares me a cup of tea at D&D. It takes a loyal friend to offer compassion to the guilty. She would care for me if I self-destructed again, refusing to brush my teeth or shower. For that, I am eternally grateful. Thankfully, I don’t think it will be necessary.
“Watching him lose respect for me was unbearable, but I feel okay.”
“Did you order delivery? Maybe some donuts. It’s okay if you did.”
“No. It’s shocking, but I didn’t even think about that. I can’t believe—”
“That it’s over?”
“That I haven’t fallen apart. It feels right; we’re supposed to be over. After what happened, it should be over. He deserves to move on . . . to let go.”
“Anna, you don’t sound like yourself. It’s kind of freaking me out. Why aren’t you crying and refusing to brush your teeth?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m okay that it’s over.”
“Do you still love him?” Janice asks, grappling to understand my calm façade.
“Of course. I’ll always love Ben. Always. That will never change, but I don’t want to spend my life feeling insecure that my boyfriend will leave me.”
“But you still love him.”
“I know this is right. We’re both going to be happy.”
“You’ve come along way, baby.”
“Nothing says friendship like stealing tag lines from cigarette companies.”
“Next time you meet someone, it will be different. You will be different.”
“Yeah,” I respond.
“On the bright side, you can start eating meat again!”
“You’re sweet, but I think being a vegetarian suits me.”
The next morning, I wake to a huge surprise at 7:20.
“Hello?” I grumble into the telephone.
“The Won has arrived!” Barney cries rapturously.
“What?”
“The Won Ton fell out of Ming’s . . . soup bowl.”
“Well, there’s a euphemism I haven’t heard before.”
I’m shocked by the news. I shouldn’t really be surprised, seeing as I’ve had nine months to get used to it, but I still somehow am. I am now the proud owner of an illegitimate half-sibling, Thomas Joseph Norton, weighing eight pounds three ounces. He is the lightest baby ever born to the Norton clan.
“The Won has some grip. He’s got my whole finger in his hand.”
“So you like him?”
“He’s pretty cool,” Barney says, trying to appear nonchalant.
“I thought you were waiting until he was two to make a decision.”
“I’m not saying he’s in my will or anything, but he has that certain Norton something. It’s kind of magical.”
“Poor kid. Have you talked to Mother?”
“Anna, you have no idea what you are in for.”
“What does that mean? Is she drunk? Crying? Lighting things on fire?”
“Call her.”
“Barney, tell me!” I shriek.
“Not on your life.” Click.
Barney shouldn’t withhold such pertinent information from me. This is our mother. She’s moderately old with the mind of a circus performer. God only knows what she’s done. I can barely dial Mother’s number, I’m so hysterical.
The phone rings. Please answer.
“Hello?” Mother says with food in her mouth.
“Mother? Are you okay?” I say frantically.
“Sorry, had an egg roll in my mouth.”
“Did you say egg roll?”
“Yes, and let me tell you, it’s not easy to find a Chinese place that delivers this early in the morning.”
“You’re eating Chinese food?”
“A little MSG never hurt anyone.”
“So the ban on Chinese food has been lifted?”
“Of course! Didn’t you hear? Ming and your father apologized.”
“What? They did? I had no idea,” I say with aston ishment.
“I didn’t give Ming enough credit. She may have terrible taste in men, but she’s pretty smart.”
“What happened? When did they call?”
“Oh, they didn’t call.”
“They wrote you a note? An e-mail?”
“No.”
“Flowers? A Mrs. Fields cookie cake? Balloons?”
“No, it was more of a subliminal apology.”
“I’m not following.”
“They named the baby after me.”
“Uh, Mother, I’m not sure what Barney told you, but they named him Thomas. Your name is Mary. They don’t even sound similar.”
“His middle name is Joseph, Mary’s husband in the Bible. Pretty damn smart. Honestly Anna, I almost didn’t get it.”
“I understand that. It certainly isn’t the most direct way to apologize.”
“Anna, I can move on. This is what I’ve been wai
ting for.”
“Mother, are you still in love with Dad?”
“In love?” Mother laughs. “Oh, Anna, I don’t want to upset you, but I haven’t been in love with your father in many decades.”
“Then why didn’t you move on?”
“I may not have been in love with him, but we had a life, and he left that life without so much as an apology. After thirty years, I deserved an apology. I deserved something— a gesture that made me understand that I meant something. And now I have it.”
Even though Mother’s delusional, I’m thrilled she can move on. Hopefully now she can focus on deprogramming her QVC addiction.
Mother’s newfound freedom ignites concern in me. I fret that Ben is consumed by anger over my betrayal. Was telling him the wrong thing to do? I can no longer tell if I did it for his sake or merely to appease my guilt. If only he had stayed and heard what I had to say, maybe it would have helped him. It’s too late. To call him now would be another interruption. And what if he’s fine; my call will only upset him again. But what if he’s not?
The only person I trust to decipher Ben’s state of mind is the woman who brought us together— his mother, Milly. I cringe, thinking how she must loathe me. I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if my face was pinned to a dartboard somewhere in her apartment. Maybe I should write her a letter cataloging the pain of my youth, explaining the misery I endured over my physical appearance. Or maybe I should simply send her Hello Fatty. The thought of someone, let alone Ben’s mother, reading my innermost secrets and criticisms makes me want to vomit. It is the emotional equivalent of a gynecological exam. My intense nervousness and nausea communicate one simple fact— there is no more powerful record of my past than this book.
On a plain white paper, I craft a note to Milly. I don’t ponder long and hard about the words. I force them onto the page. I cannot allow myself time to waver, so I write as fast as possible.
Milly,
As Ben’s mother, I suspect you must hate me. I understand. I only write to you today because I worry that my actions have had a lasting effect on Ben. I won’t contact him, for I don’t want to upset his life any more. I send this to you, on the off chance that you think he needs it to let go of the anger. If he’s okay, please just throw this away. It doesn’t mean much, but I’m sorry.
—Anna
P.S. I’m still a vegetarian and I voted for a Democrat in the last election.
In mailing Hello Fatty to Milly, I am finally free of the past; everything from Weird Fat Bear to FG to Ben to The Makedown is behind me now. I have my whole life ahead of me, and for once, I’m ready to embrace it. I open a blank page in a journal and address it “Hello Anna.”
Epilogue
Two Years Later . . .
Seated in a café a couple blocks from Union Square, I sip my latte patiently, occasionally looking at my watch or rubbing my diamond against my sweater. The jeweler mentioned I could damage the rock through improper cleaning, but somehow I doubt that. I pull the seating chart out of my bag and again count how many tables will act as a buffer between Dad and Ming and Mother.
“Anna?” a familiar voice beckons. I slowly raise my eyes, trying to place the voice.
“Ben.”
I am speechless. In two years, I have never run into him or even heard so much as his name mentioned in passing. On the rare occasion when I think of him, he feels distant and fuzzy, as if from a dream.
“You look great,” Ben says kindly.
“Oh, thank you. So do you.” And I mean it. He’s lost the weight, and he looks like the Ben I first knew. But . . . kinder somehow.
We both continue to stare at each other, mirroring each other’s shock. Ben looks down at the seating chart, then up to me.
“Are you getting married?” he asks, devoid of any identifiable emotion. I look at the seating chart, then back to him.
“Oh . . . this is for Barney’s wedding.”
A man comes up behind me and kisses me on the cheek.
“Hi, sorry I’m late,” Anthony says in his friendly way before extending his hand to Ben. “Hi, I’m Anthony, Anna’s fiancé.”
Ben shakes Anthony’s hand. “Nice to meet you. Congratulations to both of you— and to Barney, of course.”
A young blonde girl grabs Ben’s hand, pulling him away with only a quick smile toward Anthony and myself. Clearly, she has no interest in an introduction.
“Thank you,” I say graciously as I try to place the blonde girl’s familiar face.
“See you around, bastard,” Ben says with a wink.
I return the wink as Anthony whispers in my ear, “Did he just call you a bastard?”
“Yeah,” I say, wistful about the past— a time before I eschewed fairy tale ambition for the more practical fairy tale-in-progress.
Then it hits me. Coffee Slut #1!
And to think he denied he was flirting with her!
About the Author
I was born in Los Angeles to an Iranian father and an American mother. As a child I talked incessantly, feeling the need to comment on everything around me. While at first charmed by my verbose nature, my family soon tired of the constant chatter. This is how I found writing— it was like talking only I didn’t need anyone else to participate.
After graduating from high school, I moved to Paris to study French, but left a year later fearing I was missing out on my Felicity era. After returning to the United States and enrolling at UC Davis, I quickly realized that dorm life and frat parties weren’t what the WB (now the CW) cracked them up to be. Depressed by the view of the freeway from my dorm window, I transferred to UC Santa Cruz. It was an odd choice for someone who didn’t smoke pot, loathed incense, and openly shopped at the Gap, but somehow it worked.
Upon graduation in 2000, I moved back to Los Angeles and began working in the film industry. I went from intern to assistant to assistant to assistant to creative executive to director of development before I finally decided to write full time. In addition to The Makedown, I have a four-part young adult adventure series, School of Fear, debuting from Little, Brown for Young Readers in fall 2009. The film rights to my neuroses-inspired series were optioned by Warner Brothers and GK Films.
I currently live in Los Angeles. And, yes, I still talk too much.
5 Signs That You need an FG Intervention:
1. You still use your SAT score as a conversation piece . . . twenty years after taking it.
2. Brushing your hair is reserved for special occasions.
3. The invitation list for your birthday party doubles as a family tree.
4. You consider watching television and the pursuit of happiness as one and the same.
5. The last time you had a boyfriend “going all the way” meant holding hands.
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The Makedown Page 25
